Talk:Laser engineered net shaping

Corrected the broken link (Sandia National Laboratory LENS article). Drajput (talk) 14:27, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

Merge proposal
I propose to update and merge this content with Laser metal deposition which is the presently accepted term for this process. pinchies (talk) 15:10, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

Either unclear or wrong
The article stated "The LENS process is unique since it can go from raw material directly to metal parts, in many cases, without any secondary operations." To me, this implies that LENS is the only 3d printing process that can actually produce a metal part (ie, not just make a pattern to put a mold around for a future casting). This is not true. It is possible to print metal parts using selective laser sintering although they will be buried in metal powder. It is possible that the original author of this comment did not consider this "direct," but I find it unclear and misleading. Also, the phrase "raw material" could imply that LENS can refine metal (see the Wiki entry for raw material). It is obvious to me from context and prior knowledge that this is not the case, but it may not be obvious to everybody.

I have removed this statement and replaced it with:

"The LENS process can go from metal and metal oxide powder to metal parts, in many cases without any secondary operations. LENS is similar to selective laser sintering, but the metal powder is applied only where material is being added to the part at that moment.  LENS is the only process where a metal part can be printed directly without being buried in powder."

It's not beautiful, but its more clear and I think that LENS is too similar to selective laser sintering not to mention that they are related. The powder deposition method is the only difference that I am aware of.

Also, I should mention that I'm not certain that the last sentence in my language is true, but I left it there because I think that may have been what the origional author was trying to say and it is true as far as I know. — Preceding unsigned comment added by AutoNoOpenMined (talk • contribs) 06:21, 8 August 2013 (UTC)

Powder sintering
This isn't the same process as the more common laser sintering processes. They work by selectively sintering within a bulk pool of powder. The LENS process injects a small quantity of powder into a laser-heated volume. Andy Dingley (talk) 19:36, 22 March 2016 (UTC)


 * If, as the article claims, equivalent processes are called by the proprietary names Laser Engineered Net Shaping (LENS), Direct Metal Deposition (DMD), and Laser consolidation (LC), then WP:COMMONNAME says that we need a common name that can refer to any of the proprietary names, and that we should not pick one of the proprietary names as the name of the article. I am open to any common name. Do you have a suggestion? --Guy Macon (talk) 21:30, 22 March 2016 (UTC)
 * I can find descriptions for both of those names so we could choose between them, but we shouldn't start inventing new names. We certainly shouldn't invent a new name that's unrelated to them and which has a name that more strongly suggests a connection to a different process (powder bed sintering). Also I can only find sources that describe Laser Metal Deposition and Direct Metal Deposition (unconfirmed) as being additive processes onto a substrate, i.e. repair or surfacing processes, not print from scratch.
 * If you want a different name that's clearer, then Direct Metal Deposition looks like the best candidate so far, but this isn't so obviously better that I'd move it. The only source here is specifically for the LENS process. Andy Dingley (talk) 22:36, 22 March 2016 (UTC)