Jonah Myerberg, co-founder and CTO of Desktop Metal (desktopmetal.com), discusses the current state of technology in 3D printing and how it is revolutionizing engineering and manufacturing. Myerberg oversees the technical direction of Desktop Metal’s 3D printing solutions. He founded Boston Impact, an engineering consulting firm, in 2013, and has worked at the top level of many successful businesses focused on high-performance battery development, including Renovo Auto and A123Systems.

During his tenure with A123Systems, Myerberg helmed the motorsports business unit that focused primarily on the development of high-performance batteries that were later adopted by many leading Formula One teams such as McLaren, Force India, Mercedes Benz, and Red Bull. Additionally, he was a race engineer for Porsche on their 919 teams and also for Mahindra Racing on the Formula E team. Myerberg has a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from Lehigh University, as well as a master’s degree in mechanical engineering and manufacturing from the prestigious Johns Hopkins University.

Myerberg states that his primary goal is to make metal 3D printing more accessible to manufacturers and engineers. Myerberg’s company, Desktop Metal, specializes in bringing new capabilities to the world’s first office-friendly, metal 3D printing solution. They provide high-resolution printing that can be in-house and built to exact specifications and scale. Desktop Metal’s Studio System abandons the traditional lasers and loose powders typically associated with metal 3D printing, which allows for higher safety standards. And businesses appreciate that power and an internet connection can get them going, simply and efficiently, without third-party equipment.

Myerberg compares and contrasts plastics 3D printing and metal 3D printing and details the variables with both, outlining polymer printing techniques for plastics versus the solid-state techniques needed for metal printing. He explains how his company has taken advantage of polymer techniques to bring that technology to the office environment for metal 3D printing.

The 3D printing and engineering specialist expounds upon the technical manufacturing knowledge that is needed in the mechanical engineering world. He discusses the new tools that are being utilized specifically for 3D printing, such as Desktop Metal’s Live Parts, which is proprietary software they developed that allows engineers to input their specifications and constraints in order to allow the software to actually grow the part between the holding points, establishing the geometry via the software. This saves time and creates a very efficient process as engineers can spend more of their day on engineering tasks, and less time on solving parts problems.

Myerberg lists some of the many advantages of 3D metal printing, such as reduction of total number of parts by streamlining the geometry, and significant decreases in the weight of parts overall by utilizing layer construction and other methods. And Myerberg provides his insight into the future of 3D metal printing. He gives examples of some of the companies they work with who are helping to drive the technology forward as they collaborate.