You’ve got to admit, though, that it’s a pretty damned amazing (and transformational) technology. Consider, for example, the implications for catalyst or heat exchanger design; rocket injector plates, and so on. Amazing potential!
That it is. The main obstacles right now for the applications you speak of seem to be getting it to work with materials that are strong enough and can withstand extreme heat.
I forgot to mention the potential big advantages to products like this: Unlike machining parts from a solid, casting, or forging, there are no tooling costs, and parts can go from a solid model like an IGES file direct to the machine without toolpathing, post-processing, program editing, or proving out. That’s huge, since drawing the solid model is the easy part. Also, there are certain parts you just can’t machine, like a part that has a winding passage for fluid to pass through. And there’s far less wasted material.
Mass produced, low cost, flux capacitors?
The interesting thing is when you think about just how many machine parts could be manufactured off these desktop platforms. Need a custom small piece of metal? Build it in one of these.
It's staggering to think what could come out of them and fit into current machinery.