On-ship Metal Printer

Earlier this month, a Navy ship called the USS Essex received an enormous printer. The printer and the large gray box it is housed in—together weighing some 15,000 pounds—were hoisted onto the ship, via crane, in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. The printer doesn’t print in ink. It prints using hot liquid metal, making it a small aluminum fabrication facility in a box.

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I need to see if my buddy stationed at Pearl Harbor can access this printer. His final mechanical engineering project in college was building a filament recycler. I wonder if he got stationed at PH after Boot camp because of that.

Are you saying we need a robot arm in the metal shop?

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