I happened across a post over on Core77 regarding Selective Laser Melting; a process for rapid-prototyping metal parts. SLM is different than other RP metal processes in that it uses no binder and fully melts the metal particles so that the resulting part is generally of higher quality.

It’s not a new process but apparently it’s now getting some additional attention. I’m not sure why, so I went looking.

I still don’t know why it’s suddenly getting attention (it might just be that particular machine which doesn’t require the use of proprietary metal powders), but I did find a nice MPEG video (Link – click on the “Selective Laser Melting – SLM” link below the images to access the page; also has Real Player video).

For additional information on the SLM process you can also check out some additional sites (Link 1, Link 2).

{Image source: MCP-HEK Tooling}