Powercore, a Kickstarter project, aims to bring the power of electrical discharge machining (EDM) to home DIYers, making it as easy and cheap to create aluminum parts as printing something out of plastic on a machine. FDM.
EDM works by using electrical arcs to abrade metal from a workpiece, allowing precision parts to be produced quickly. Compared to traditional subtractive fabrication, EDM is much cleaner than CNC cutting as there are no flying chips, making it an attractive option for the home lab.
Powercore is designed to replace a standard 3D printer’s extruder and consists almost entirely of parts printed on the machine itself, with an interesting approach to keeping costs down by creating power resistors from PCBs. The project has evolved from a project at Hackaday and is poised to make a difference in desktop manufacturing.
Feast your eyes on the Powercore in action in the video below. It looks good, right? I’d buy one, and they’re not sponsoring us to say that.
With an investment of less than $200, users can start making precise metal parts without flying chips and without spending a ton of cash on a desktop plasma cutter.
Overall, Powercore is an exciting development for the desktop manufacturing revolution and could be a game changer for DIY makers and builders. So throw that $200 CNC router joke you bought on AliExpress out the window and head over to the project’s Kickstarter page if you want to experience some low-cost EDM action.
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