3D Printing

[RedFrame]

While at Shell Island recently a Ambilkate (Bill) quickweh (Mike) Terry (Terry) Carol (Ed) and a few others were interested in the 3D printed Stainless steel and Brass 'Klein' bottle opener that Chris had been presented with at a trade show (Printed by ExOne and Designed by Bathsheba Grossman in answer to your question Mike).

There was some subsequent discussion on whether any type of resin or "adhesive" was used in the process, I'm informed it's not, I've provided a link to a Direct Metal Laser Sintering (DMLS) video below. Note: there are several other methods of 3D printing.



Cheers
Chris, Red and Bannock.

 

[Steve and Denise]

Clever stuff

 

[Ridgeway]

Metal and Ceramic additive manufacturing is coming though, sintering is some how quite old already.

Inkjet AM is the way forwards.

 

[Carol]

RedFrame It looked like quite a talking piece seeing it for real
Your Moroccan Lamb Tagine was pretty good as well. ?

 

[PhilG]

Lots of great work going on in this field, but a lot of it is ' look what trinkets we can make for £100 , that you can get in a Xmas cracker for £1'

Great for low volume and development work , but the validation process for material on finished parts is very cost and labour intensive.

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[Ridgeway]

Lots of great work going on in this field, but a lot of it is ' look what trinkets we can make for £100 , that you can get in a Xmas cracker for £1'

Great for low volume and development work , but the validation process for material on finished parts is very cost and labour intensive.

Uhm, a BEP of 100,000pcs on HP's Jet Fusion (ok manufacturers claims) but of course it depends what we mean by low volume, it's all relative.

The Additive Manufacturing (AM) method takes these processes from the prototype World into real life production, HP will also release a Binder-jet based version next year called the Metal Jet, targeted at Stainless production (production and not prototyping).

When most people think about 3d printing then a MakerBot desktop unit springs to mind and not a 10tonne $1m industrial machine, most of which sit along side traditional manufacturing process es.

 

[PhilG]

I have ben involved with 3D printing since the turn of the Century, and most recently 3D R&D validation.. the latest thing is multi head 3D printing and 5 Axis machining in the same machine. Great to watch, but when you have to measure the stuff, its not accurate enough , shrinkage issues still plague a lot of processes , but it is getting better .

CT scanning needs to catch up with the printing development though , as that is the biggest problem , speedy validation.

 

[Vic. Parsons.]

I have ben involved with 3D printing since the turn of the Century, and most recently 3D R&D validation.. the latest thing is multi head 3D printing and 5 Axis machining in the same machine. Great to watch, but when you have to measure the stuff, its not accurate enough , shrinkage issues still plague a lot of processes , but it is getting better .

CT scanning needs to catch up with the printing development though , as that is the biggest problem , speedy validation.

If you have shrinkage in a printed item which can then be measured and therefore calculated, can this not be accommodated for or adjusted for in the item's print design stage?

 

[quickweh]

Thanks Steve, it was the beautiful design that impressed me first and then I wondered how it had been produced. I'd forgotten about sintering so 3D printing makes sense, thanks.
Mike

 

[PhilG]

If you have shrinkage in a printed item which can then be measured and therefore calculated, can this not be accommodated for or adjusted for in the item's print design stage?

If its a constant, yes, but it never is. And when you measure it on a baseplate, its not the same as when you cut it off. Issues with non consistent cross sections, which cause cracks on cooling, are also a problem. And the process is very difficult to control, additive powder control is a science in itself which is fraught with pitfalls. With normal machining, the thing you do know , is that the material is right before you start.

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[Vic. Parsons.]

If its a constant, yes, but it never is. And when you measure it on a baseplate, its not the same as when you cut it off. Issues with non consistent cross sections, which cause cracks on cooling, are also a problem. And the process is very difficult to control, additive powder control is a science in itself which is fraught with pitfalls. With normal machining, the thing you do know , is that the material is right before you start.

Thanks PhilG.
I just thought if for instance you were producing a cube and the faces became concave after cooling, that they could be made convex in the print design to compensate.
But apparently not.

 

[PhilG]

Thanks PhilG.
I just thought if for instance you were producing a cube and the faces became concave after cooling, that they could be made convex in the print design to compensate.
But apparently not.

Its a black art , and while its great for making stuff that looks like the thing you want , the work that goes into actually getting where you need to be. The layering , and orientation, is a load of work, because you cant print onto fresh air. For Instance, if you wanted to print a capital A , 10mm deep, all of the bottom of the horizontal part has to have a support structure under it so you can print the bit you need, that then needs removing. You have to fathom this out to get the best print, and while there are a mass of nesting softwares that will do it , all of these things affect the way it cools and distorts . I have measured stuff less than 100mm across that is distorted by over 1mm..

 

[PhilMary]

If you have shrinkage in a printed item which can then be measured and therefore calculated, can this not be accommodated for or adjusted for in the item's print design stage?

We certainly adjust for process shrinkage in a mature manufacturing process known as MIM or Metal Injection Moulding.
We often make prototypes using 3d printing and we print them 3x or 5x full size as we design some small parts. It helps our customers realize what they are asking us to do.