5 Reasons NOT to 3D Print your Design
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 15 มี.ค. 2018
- 3D Printing is an incredible technology, but it's not magic. In this video we'll discuss 5 reasons why you might not want to use 3D Printing for the manufacturing of your design or invention.
This video is more aimed at industry and those who don't already have a 3D Printer and are considering using the technology, rather than those who have 3D Printing available at home.
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I am so glad to hear somebody explain this out IN DETAIL why 3D printing, while a great thing, is not necessarily the greatest thing ever for making things. The block of wood was a perfect analogy. I had somebody ask me to quote them on what they described as a pan for holding cheese in a pizza line cooking environment, I was all, how about I GET you a pan that matches the exact dimensions? No need for 3D printing, it's a plastic pan. I hold to the idea if you do NOT have it, can't get it otherwise, then 3D print it. Oddly shaped plastic fittings, great; roller bearings for a replacement part that is already available? Not so great.
Another thing 3D printing is great for is supplementing other processes-- such as that buck for vacuforming. Perfect! Print one, then vacuform that one several times, or for a mold say, made from ABS being high temp, for a plastic that is low temp, like HDPE, again, very suitable! I have done these things specifically!
Great show, love watching, have a good one!
Thanks Nathan! Your example is something I heard many times working in the industry. The media was partly to blame, selling 3DPrinting as some kind of magical industrial revolution. It's an amazing technology but just one of many to be considered when producing products and parts.
'You can't 3D print everything'
That's quitter talk my friend LOL
You could line up 100 3d printers working at the same time. That'd be "scaling". lol
@@metatechnologist I mean that is what Prusa does for their own 3D printer. They have a couple of hundred 3d printer printing the parts for more 3D Printers(not all parts ofc).
@@Utoko Which is probably part of the reason why their kits cost $750 lol
@@thebrunoserge Sure it is probably a bit cheaper to produce the parts in China without 3d printers but it has also upsides. There have very good documentations on all errors that can happen and they also update parts quite often. (so you can just print them and update your model as well)
If you use your own printers a LOT than you really want them to work reliable and good.
I had 2 other printers and use only Prusa atm. The same with the filament. You know the filament they produce is good quality because they use it themselves.
(Not saying is good for anyone else to scale the production with 3D Printers)
@@Utoko Yeah you can update it but... it's still limited by the fact that it's a bed-jerker design :/ No amount of plastic part redesigns will solve that structural problem. That's why I built myself a CoreXY instead
I don't think this video is negative in any way, it's just realistic. I'm glad that you're introducing some common sense and extra knowledge to the 3D printing community. Thank you!
I like your videos for not beeing overedited (and cut after every sentence!). This really shows the amount of work you're putting into preparing what you want to say and producing easy to listen, naturally spoken, yet very informative and condensed content.
Thanks, I really appreciate the comment! I am crazy passionate about this field and could talk all day about it :)
OMG I'm glad this came up in my feed. I MUST share with the engineer at work that wants me to 3D print between 7 and 20 cable reels at work. Even after I told him my prototype took a total of about 120 hours to print all the pieces. Another winning video Angus.
It's for prototyping, small scale operations such as drone parts and art pieces, and the biggest one FUN!
if anyone knows where my intro went please let me know. :P
Maker's Muse maybe bad first video layer?
Sorry i ate it
what do you mean "where did it go"?
Have you seen Speed3d's printer?
Actually I skip pat intros any way...they are fluff for video production, but in this day and age, i don't' have time for them.
I loved how you jumped right to the MEAT, and left out that intro stuff.
I hate how some people shamelessly plug themselves, make T-shirts of themselves, make coffee mugs with their images on them, and use stupid After Effects compter graphics to make explosions and loud, jarring intros....
Again, the right tools for the right use.
There is no perfect tools in this world, we just need to understand when suitable to use it and combine with other tools and materials.
Hey Angus, keep up the good work. You are my favourite TH-camr when it comes to 3D printing. However, as someone who moved from consumer into industrial 3D printing I have to admit that a lot of your comments in this video and also a lot of viewer comments are bothering me. Mostly because you generalize CURRENT limitations that you most likely experienced on rather LOWER-END 3D printing technologies onto the whole technology itself. If I could rename the video title I would call it:
“5 reasons to not print your design now with a certain technology”
Here are my comments...looooooong :)
1. 3D printing does not scale
Summary: Printing an object takes the same amount of time/piece no matter if I print 1 or a million pieces. That’s correct but the real beauty of this limitation lies within the fact that the costs/piece are flat no matter if I print 1 or a million pieces because there are no tooling costs. This benefit decreases the costs in a product test or ramp-up phase significantly and therefore can trigger more innovation. Sure, as it is a layer based process, it will always have its economic limitations the higher the quantity gets, but the limits are being pushed higher and higher (today in some cases a couple of 100k pieces) which makes it suitable for more and more applications. So, while the speed doesn’t scale, the costs neither scale independent from a part’s complexity which is the main reasons why industry is into 3D printing.
2. Part strength and quality
“3D printing will not produce parts as aesthetically clean and accurate as other processes nor it will produce parts as strong as other processes”. Partially correct for some printing technologies but in general I wouldn’t sign that statement (excluding accuracy for now). Resin based technologies create excellent surface quality, great tolerances (up to 10 microns) and with the latest generation of engineering grade materials, also the strength and lifetime is acceptable for end-usage (Carbon).
“Metal printing processes cannot achieve the same amount of strength but they are getting close” I know what you meant to say but I cannot support the statement as it is.
Strength is relative, so it always depends on what process you compare it with.
Currently Selective Laser Melting or Binder Jetting creates stronger parts than casting and is very close to milling. The beauty of 3D printing is that the microstructure of the material itself is created together with the geometry. Already now we can modify the material voxel by voxel by changing the printing parameters so we can basically engineer the material characteristics as we like. This possibility, combined with multi-material printing and the design freedom of AM, will ultimately lead to printed structures which will significantly outperform their traditional counter parts in regards to strength and overall performance.
3. Certification
You are correct when saying that the certification of 3D printed parts is very messy as barely any certification bureau really knows how to do it. However, you get a big NO from me when saying “3D printing isn’t really able to be certified”- Try telling this the medical and aerospace industry which wouldn’t even invest a single dime in 3D printing if it couldn’t be certified. These two industries are by far the front runners. The design of a part isn’t relevant for the certification of a 3D printed part. It is the base material and the process (material storage, material handling, printing process, post-processing, packaging) which needs to be certified. The most difficult part of this value chain is the certification of the printing process as it depends on location, climate and print settings. Typically, in metal or plastic powder bed fusion processes a machine at a certain location is certified with a certain material when using certain printing parameters. Meaning, if you move the printer by just an inch in the same room, you have to re-certify the process e.g the printer. So yes, it is a messy process and currently the biggest hurdle for the industrialization of AM but that is also why so much effort is put into it. When I look at the current development of for example melt pool scanning, I foresee that we will soon be able to receive fully certified parts straight out of a certified machine without further quality control required even for critical components.
4. Is it the right process?
Fully agree with what you are saying and for me this point mostly addresses the maker community which often “over-uses” 3D printers beyond economic reason. For industry it is just another great tool to add value to their products.
5. 3D printing isn’t magic
Correct, and this point is already covered in #4. It is simply another tool in the tool box and not the magic microwave from Star Trek which can do everything. Just use it where it makes sense.
Just my 2 cents but I felt the urge to give a bit wider perspective onto this topic.
Nevertheless, as mentioned in the beginning: Keep up the good work Angus!
But you can 3d print the molds for a plastic injection mold, or for using liquid tooling. In addition you can print molds for an investment cast for metal mold.
True! These limitations are mostly for the more basic 3D Printing technologies - FDM, SLS, SLA.
@@MakersMuse You can print molds in FDM say using carbon fiber and use liquid tooling like polyurethanes and silicones, and or you can print using abs a positive and use water glass instead of sand casting and or Sol gel for investment casting. The Sol Gel process can make SS parts with minimal or no machining. Thus it brings down the costs of molds, which speeds the way from one off prototyping to mass manufacturing. Obviously tight tolerances which are very detailed and large may also need some machining afterwards, but its progress.
I battle with this as well... For instance, I had someone supply me with a piece of wood that they had cut and sanded into a very complex shape and they wanted me to 3D print a replica. I don't own a scanner, but even if I had, this was a mechanical part that needed to be exact. Modeling it in CAD would have been a nightmare. In the end, I made a silicone mold using a plastic cup and the original wood piece, and then used that mold to cast it in resin. Job done, and we can make multiples very fast if need be.
autodek recap or others let you take pictures and get 3d version easy
@@james42519 Only if the manufacturer of the printer he uses supports full printing features - then he can use his 3 - D printer.
Thank you for helping me decide if I should buy a 3d printer or buy one more CNC machine.
Hi... Just wondering why the auto-generated closed captions are in Korean instead of English for this video?
Automotive clear coat can be used to prevent UV aging of plastics ( yellowing, brittleness ), it's principal job is actually to block UV so the paint and primer does not have to worry about it at all.
I always ask myself before producing anything at work; can I cut this on the CNC router? No? Okay we can print it
What video editing software do you use? Your intro (while not here lol) is nice and so are the subtitles/text used in the video and very professional looking. Nice work!
Cheers! I used after effects to create the logo element, and the premier pro to edit, the latest version makes it really easy to create titles.
Angus, thank you for bringing educational content. Beyond learning about the strength and weaknesses of various manufacturing processes, once I picked a process, say injection molding, how do I find the reputable manufacturers?
I'm in the USA, do you or others reading this comment have experience working with USA and Chinese manufacturers? Pros and cons?
One thing that has changed is FDM VS SLA - In the caee of MSLA especilly...1 vs 50 small objects take the same time and only Z hight matters. Also use a UV protective clear coat on your objects like createx UVLS which comes in: gloss satin and matte varieties
I've seen a few gears in your videos but are screws usable/practical for printing?
Big thumbs up for this chat Angus. I was approached by a company to make a "test" model for them for a trial system test. The success was awesome but they need 1,400 parts now which could become needed at 10 locations per office or more, which means needing 14,000+ models. This quickly has become a headache as the part is about 1hr to print. What is really funny, is the fact that I just bought the printer in January and learned how to use Fusion 360 and now, thrust into this 3D game up to my neck. I am stumped how to produce a large quantity and even prices for such a large order or how to mass produce them. I would assume the model will have to be submitted to a shop that can produce that many. Since this "invention" model, they have ordered more to demo them at their corp head office and keep requesting more. Your video today is exactly why I'm now scratching my head and wondering how to deal with their request. I have quickly been asked by other companies locally to model other products too, so this "hobby" has turned into something else overnight. I purchased the printer for my own needs and since have not been given time to make my own personal needs. My printer has become booked for weeks in advanced for other orders. I did some math and would need to buy a LOT of printers at this rate.
In your position, i would try to get in contact with some companys in your area that work in injection molding. We only use 3D printing services for our initial prototyping and design iterations at our company (usually
Ditto what ExtraBase said. Unless the model is incapable of being made using more volume friendly methods (do some quick research on injection molding). In that case, you could justify buying a new printer.
Thanks ExtraBase, your right about contracting out, I'm going to work with finding a source that can supply the part using my model. I have another company now that is requesting custom parts with low numbers which I can handle, as they need small parts for custom fittings that number low in quantity and will be based on small orders for the future.
If you need to 3D print a large number of parts, I can help with additional capacity - I have a farm with many FDM printers, growing all the time, and running 24/7. Are there 1,400 unique parts? Happy to help/discuss, I am already way past neck deep in 3D printing, but I have SCUBA gear :)
Thanks Alex but injection molding would be the way to go for a production run which could reach over 14,000 units and 400 per year additional.
I love the fact that you have 3D printers and the keyboard. Same as me! And you inspire me more.
The one case where 3d printing can scale a bit better is with the new projection based SLA printers. You can print as many copies of an item as can be fit on the print bed, in the same amount of time due to the whole bed projection happening simultaneously. That said it's not as mentioned, useful for every type of print!
Informative as always.
Great video. I am seeing more and more new industrial equipment with 3d printed parts. These are mainly using SLS Nylon which as a process scales much better than FDM. With the new fast HP multi jet fusion machines it cam make sense for fairly large runs.
Ceramic shell casting with PLA/polycast investments is fast, easy, and you get great parts. I've done parts in 356 aluminum and C95200 (a high strength aluminum bronze, on par with low alloy steels). Seriously, for a small engineering shop its been a game changer- we can go from 3D model to a finished, solid metal part with less than 1 hour of labor (over 2 days).
That's competitive with CNC for some simpler parts and absolutely destroys CNC if it needs the 5 axis or multiple processes. Not to mention, we HAVE the machines. Upfront cost for CNC centers? 100k+. Total investment for print-to-cast? Less than five thousand dollars, and you could probably do it hobby scale for less than one.
You also could have mentioned how a combining 3D printing with other techniques could be used to cancel out some of the weaknesses. For example the weak, brittle 3D prints could be used for creating molds for casting with metal. Or how specialized filaments could be used as part of bigger prototypes (such as flexible or electrically conductive filaments).
That is what the first video was about.
Even for jobbing, it’s not always a good choice. Shapeways wanted over 600.oo to metal print a simple double-headed pulley in metal. Local (to me) 3D print houses wanted 200 to 300 for nylon, or carbon fibre infused nylon. My local machine shop charged me 150.oo to lathe the part from stainless steel, and quoted me a CNC price 50.oo a piece if I wanted 10 or more.
Good one ⭐️Will that work for showpieces, small toys?
Not for mass production but for small
Thanks Angus, great wrap up of the why nots. Cheers, JAYTEE
Finally. I have been saying this for years but the hobby "experts" ae adamant that 3D printing wins all.
This was a big help, thank you very much!!!
Couple of years and we may get Desktop versions of Formlabs Fuse 1 SLS printer.
Thanks for the content Angus🤗
Not sure if I agree with your first point. At a company I work for I was using a DLP printer to print one of the parts for our large batch assembly (1000+ units). I chose DLP printing because we were able to print 32 of these parts at once and for the same amount of time (1.5hrs) as one could be printed. Previously we were machining these parts which took roughly 40min per part. There was a huge time/cost savings by electing to 3d print the parts.
I can see your point if you only consider FDM or FFF processes.
Very well put. Also (minor OCD thing) could you print a wider book support so the one on the top shelf is not crooked ? Thanks.
You hit the nail on its head man. Some people think 3D printing can replace all manufacturing methods and it cannot do so as of today.
Working on getting into the business of 3D Printing, I was dreading this video, but as always, great advise, great points and great video!!!
At BlenderCon there was a surgeon who uses FDM printing to generate molds from CT data. He then casts the actual implant using medical cement. Also, 3D printed metal parts do survive autoclave.
Could you say which filaments survive the autoclave?
No filament, as far as i know. Metal 3D printing processes are normally based on powder.
That's an exception to the rule. You can charge $XX,XXX for a medical device. You can't charge $XX,XXX for most other products.
Just ordered the books can’t wait to read
They're actually really impressive. There's a sustainability one I've got on my shopping list too
01:20
Resin Printers: "That is where you're wrong boy"
Bad first video layer?
whoops :)
Outstanding work. Thank you.
Excellent tips! I'll be posting this video to a few of my more... persistent customers. ;)
Haha! Sounds good.
On a CR10 I noticed with it off; the fans spin if the hotend is moved around. Is this the case? If the fans are turned off in the slicer, do they still funtion mechanically based on movement? ABS on the cr10 was a big fail everytime, but I didnt watch to see if these fans are still working despite slicer settings. Mine is busy working or I would check it. Anyone have this answer?
Very nice video! I absolutely agree with you Angus! 3D printer is a fantastic tool, but it is only one of many other tools that we can use! Laser cutters, milling machines, lathe, casting, vacume forming... I'm so sad some times when i see people doing things with 3d printing and spending hours on that work instead of making it in different way. Your example of wooden block is perfect! Or another one that i have is 3d printing holders for spools of filament. 3D printer is perfetct for prototyping an object , but only as first prototypes. I'm a designer and in studio i work we are printing som,e prototypes on my 3d printers , only for understand the shape and dimensions of the real product. After this part of work we will do prototypes using other materials and other methods of production. Thank you for this video! I hope that a lot of people could understand things you said here!
P.S. Sorry for my english , need some improvement :D
Glad I watched this, thanks!
Another idea is that you can use 3D printing to make tools, molds and dies for lower volume production runs or to make stronger parts than you can easily/cheaply print. For example, you could 3D print your bucks for vacuum forming or molds for composite. You could use it to make patterns to make molds and even print molds directly. And being on the computer you could easily make adjustments and new prints that factor in things like shrinkage.
Y'all reckon it's quicker to sculpt clay and mold it or would it be quicker to create a 3d model, print it, make it look better and then mold that?
I've been making molds of all sorts for better than a decade and I reckon'd one these machines might could save me sometime but now I'm not so sure. It'd take me about a week to sculpt an original 3 3/4 action figure what with the details and all. Y'all reckon I could get 3d model done, printed, and spiffed up in about a week?
Really good information, efficiently presented.
I was wondering since Print volumes are getting so huge, is it realistic to print say a Mass Effect helmet on a CR-10 in one piece as opposed to breaking it up? Are there advantages to doing it either way? Before I try out such a costly and long print.
There's some new CNC mills I saw in a video taking place at some big convention in Germany, don't remember any names, but they used additive manufacturing (I assume just welding aluminum filler to the aluminum block?) then machining it down to final spec. I believe it's an attempt to massively cut down on waste on large, oddly shaped jobs.
I've wanted to see this on desktop machines for awhile, print something then mill it down to final spec, just to reduce finishing time with layer ridges, and to accomplish a design that may not be fully printable.
How do I price 3D prints?
assuming I was comissioned with an order that has both 3D printed and handcrafted / machined parts, how much do I charge for the 3D printing parts? normal hourly salary for the whole printing time is obviously over the top. only material cost is too little. and thats not even considering the time it took to design the parts.
love your videos, can you make a video of 3d printing books about?
I can imagine, not all businesses have a cnc laser cutter in their basement.
In fact, you need quite a machining centre, if you want to do the things he
talked about. And most of these machines are rather expensive.
So you have to outsource the manufacturing of some prototype design
and wait for 3 weeks.
For many prototype designs, a 3d printer is cheaper, it is small enough to fit
next to the copier and you can allways find some practical application for it.
If the appearance of the design has no importance, you can also design the model
so that it can be 3D printed and there are a lot of different materials coming up,
that can meet with requirements.
I am using PETG, which is quite strong, so I printed a working 3D printer.
At least, parts of it, combined with v-slot profiles.
All in all, a 3D printer is allways a great tool to have, I think.
I have created a lot of usefull stuff with it, for myself and others.
Also for some companies: Scale models for presentation, logos and what not.
And it is fun.
I have a counter point video which addresses the things you say, why 3D Printing is good!
Wow , you have a lot of videos. Nice.
I subscribed, so I can take my time watching some of them
and maybe I learn something new.
Not impossible.
Filament got more expensive now,
so I just bought a new roll petg from China.
I wonder how that turns out.
Maybe you have a suggestion where to order good filament
for a good price ? I live in the Netherlands.
This is also applicable to homeCNC machining, I guess...
That really depends on whether or not your machine can produce parts to design tolerances. If your mill is accurate to 0.010 and you only need 0.1 accuracy then that's perfectly adequate. But it will probably be a lot slower than an industry grade machine, on account of having much weaker motors.
when you started to talk about scaling, i was actually not thinking about greater numbers but larger object sizes. how does the printing time scale with object size? i would assume that, since the volume scales with third power of the side-length, it means when i print an object of twice the size, it would take 2^3 times as long because the printer must deposit 2^3 as much material?
...i'm not so familiar with all this - i'm a programmer - and as such i'm used to think about scaling in terms of: how does the runtime of an algorithm scale with input length - and then you can have scaling functions like logarithmic (binary search), linear (linear search), quadratic (some naive sorting algorithms), etc.
I made some prototype parts by 3d printing. The parts took 60 hours to print. In my case we had the parts faster than the supplier could get the milled stainless steel parts. We were able to do a mock assembly and experiment with placement 2 weeks before the final part came in. I do realize that if I made my mock parts out of wood, it would be far faster than 60 hours, but would require more hours operating a variety of tools and shopping for wood.
Hi Angus, Is it possible to pour molten ABS or other plastics into a sand mold casts? Like the process they use for Aluminum casting? Or is molten plastic too viscous to work? I have a lot of defective parts I printed and I want to find a way to reuse the plastic. Love your content.
I think mainly the ABS will either cool down too quick and solidify before filling the mold, or you have to heat it up beyond what it can take. I'd love ideas for my own failed PLA parts too.
I wonder if the sand mold would fall apart if heated before the pour?! Say put both the mold and the crucible in the oven at 250ºC. Then pour the contents of the crucible into the mold and let it cool down.
I wonder....
I would honestly think the issue with the plastics commonly used is they do not pour well they inject under pressure
Alternately I could see using resins instead
The aim is to reuse the 3D print leftover. What will using new resin accomplish?
I agree with what you are saying... but why do Prusa stick with 3d printing the parts of their printers... i get that it is open source and these files could still be supplied to users as STLs but for the mass production of their parts it doesn't make sense.
It's just their philosophy, they get the machines for parts value and also use the farm for one site r&d. Don't forget that even prusa research has used injection molding in kits before due to the high demand
In their case it allows them to get a huge amount of data on performance to allow them to optimise their products. Also means they don't need the big up-front investment in tooling, so they can grow slowly and self finance.
Their volumes now are probably high enough that it doesn't make much sense any more though.
I think a lot of 3D printers have 3D printed parts because that's what 3D printing people most often have on hand. In a weld shop you find a lot of custom tools made by welding, in a wood shop there are helper tools like jigs made of wood. The tool you have is usually better than a better tool that you don't have.
I agree with you that 3D printed objects have their limitations in terms of strength and functionality in certain manufacturing applications but not all 3D printing processes are the same. You can definitely print functional parts that are far more complex in geometry and functional than any other comparable machining processes. Yes, using a DIY 3d printer kit might not give the greatest surface finish or the strength required for the desired application but there are industrial 3D printers that are capable of producing superior accuracy and perfectly functional parts. I really enjoy your postings by the way!
Very informative!
Carbon seems to think this is not true for parts that need to be highly machined (or just can't be made in another way).
Also the hearing aids that are all 3d printed are certified for continuous human contact use.
My two cents on food grade and medical is that even if there is some degree of control over the purity of a certified food grade material you have to consider the contaminants in the air not to mention the necessity of a dedicated extruded nozzle and or machine for those applications.
I work in R&D in an engineering company, we use 3D printing for prototyping a lot. It reduces the turnaround time and cost, and allows us to decide if a concept works before we get something machined etc. But all the points made still stand
And that’s what it should be used for. It’s a tool perfect for designing parts and verifying designs, not really for heavy usage. If you want a multitude of parts over a design, you can either machine it or use a mold.
In the shop I work at, we use 3d printing to make test molds for the machine. Then we can take that and machine that mold to be used on our other machines.
I encounter debates like this constantly at my job in fabrication. Designers and engineers can fall into love affairs with certain processes and giving them educated pros/cons of options available in house and outsourced can be challenging. This was very well presented:D
The first time i bought a computer many many moon ago the salesman tell me you can do everything with this one !
But it never wash the dishes ?
When you see the pub on 3D printer they say you can do what you want with it !
But it never was the dishes ?
So when i see you saying that a 3D printer is not good for everything you want to do
I am very happy !
Now i know that i will be the one to wash the dishes
Wow, that's so random.. I love it!
Well, actually, you could just use the 3D printer to print new dishes so you never have to wash them...just throw them away and print new ones. Forks, spoons and knives, too! It might not be healthy, but no one ever claimed 3D printing is healthy.
maybe not, but you could use it to fix your dishwasher!
just buy a dish washing machine, dedicated machines are better
wibbledee you fix the dishwasher by slapping her
As a cosplayer, I feel many people in the community are using 3D printing as a bit of a crutch. 3D printing definitely has a massive use in cosplay production, but I find it most useful when it comes to the mechanics of the cosplay rather than the aesthetics. When you need to find a way to fit your cosplay armor together and you can't find the right brackets or whatever to do it in the hardware store, 3D printing is seriously amazing.
3D printing props can be great too if you're willing to spend the extra time finishing the print with filler and tons, and tons and TONS of sanding. However, for the average cosplayer, 3D printing a whole cosplay armor or significant chunks of it is not the best way to go about it because of the time it takes to print and finish it with sanding.
In that case, it's better to make a skeleton structure with 3D printing and cover it with EVA-foam or worbla since that eliminates the need for post-processing on the 3D printed parts. Just my opinion though, and I'm sure there are people out there proving me wrong right now.
You are neither right nor wrong.
Some people, 3D printing, filling, sanding, and painting is better time spent. Others would be better off learning other design skills.
I've seen cosplayers that used 3d printing in their costumes. But the large majority of them do not.
I noticed few days back in my company that they are using a single use pinch valve for which the body is 3d printed. Its was an awesome realization that we certainly have come a long way. But as you correctly mentioned that some applications are better for conventional process.
Point number 4 is really relevant (as much as the others but WELL), I saw quantities of 3d printed stuff that were simple shapes, bulky stuff that used a lot of material and could just be made with another material/technique. Thinking of 3d printing only is easy and lazy, and I liked very much that you pointed that the design comes kinda first and the tools to be used come second.
Kinda depends on what you do with the print though. Lost PLA casting (f.e. with aluminum) is quite a nice way to 'enhance' your 3D printed part.
You can go and machine the casting afterward and you got a part to be taken rather seriously.
I have gone through the same process with CNC vs stamped sheet metal. I guess the reason for this is that the input specification for CNC machines (and 3d printing for this matter) is very close to the desired shape.
Other methods of manufacturing require much more thought to be given to a process of creating the desired shape with cutting, bending, drilling
Hold on a minute. You might be wrong about the Jobbing part, because once a 3D printer can print a flawless design from a 3D sketch, you can next create the batch production stage of the design by making a silicone mold which can be used to cast the plastic, further reducing the cost by enabling a person to manufacture the design in small batches. Then once you’ve earned tens of thousands of dollars, you could call up a manufacturing company to make steel molds that are reusable, and from there entrepreneurship comes to life.
I can't wait to 3d print pinewood derby designs on my computer when my son is of age. I might even do a few so I'm good an ready.
Print some for yourself and arrange a derby with some friends
Printing is good for creating prototypes and molds where such parts are fairly lengthy and expensive to produce such as CNC milled parts. Printing allows you to test certain elements of the design before committing to the demo part.
3D printing is the vice grips of prototyping. You can make it work, but there is usually a better way.
Totally agree with you regarding producing low volumes, strength, food safety etc on a 3D printer. My Prusa MK3 and Veleman K8200 are good for one-offs but no more than that. That said, Why does Josef use a print farm to make his printer parts - rather than using the more cost effective and possibly cheaper ABS injection?
I just wanted to say thank you.
Thank you for finally getting me to buy a 3d printer. I saw your 'Best 3d printers from $200 to $1000000' video and got myself a Creality3d CR-10. Just got it this week and finally got it somewhat fine tuned to start printing. :)
Couldn’t imagine using it for anything other than trinkets or to create a mold that then can be used as a casting mold for either injection or casting molding (which is how i use it on the farm to make metal or aluminum parts for tractors or high pressure fuel and hydraulic systems.
I want to produce parts for model cars . A few years ago an online collector redesigned the wheels for the scale 1/8 Aston Martin DB5 model car as the originals were basically incorrect. The 3D printed wheels were made with an industrial 3D printer.
There are some model cars I have where all the bonnet and boot hinges were designed wrong. However the original manufacturer do not have a good customer service or have parts available.
I am eager to purchase a printer and a scanner, but the machines at retailers are very basic and do not do what I require.
Angus, thanks for the videos! I watched your 1mm nozzle hack video and have a question/suggestion. Do you have a video (or consider making one) covering less aggressive ways to reduce print time? With a typical printer and .4 nozzle are we pretty much maxed out at print times? I am aware of in fill settings but as a noob, a video covering the most common element that have a major impact on print time. Hope this makes sense. Jim
Speed and layer height are your other two, I've done one on layer height here th-cam.com/video/eAEHHzUPChY/w-d-xo.html
thanks for the experience, but things will definitely come out for 3d printing to improve it.
Thanks for sharing 😀👍
I recommend using laser cutting for any object that can be assembled from planes. I just glue it all together. It needen't any surface processing also lets me prepare all planes with different properties as needed (shiny or sanded). If I need more elements I then make silicon mold and use fast curing polyurethane resin for casting.
This is one of the things I wondered about when I saw the video about Prusa Research's printer farm. They're operating a huge number of printers to mass produce plastic parts for their kits. I wonder how much benefit they get from the flexibility of 3d printing compared to committing to a single design if they were to go for injection molding or some other mass production method.
Once you have molds to use in large scale injection projects, you have to be able to sell large volumes. In a short time. Even simply warehousing the molds becomes a big deal. In the auto-industry this is particularly true. When the product is out of production, warehousing a mold for a run of parts that won't meet the profit case isn't favored. However, if you sell the molds (or just forget they are in the hands of your Chinese supplier) then you will have a proliferation of cheap parts to compete with.
3d printing is great for prototyping. But no id never think of using it for final productio
If it is small volume it can be worth it.
And in the industry some parts are cheaper to be produced that way - like drills with included liquid cooling.
I have seen them produced with traditional methods but the costs for those was way higher.
Pretty sure you not gonna print anything out of titanium carbide.
its but there are industries that are actively ditching large scale 3d print suites, virtual prototyping is the future.
Aren't some parts of Prusa's printers 3D printed?
@Robert Slackware yes i know about houses. But the video waa directed towards batch production for consumer products. Things like game controllers, cases and things like that.
I was quotes $17,000usd for 50 game controllers from one company, and $800 from another one. It is not affordable.
Angus, this is completely unrelated to the topic of the video, but what is that under your Prototyping and Low Volume Production book? The thing with the shiny bits.
That is a midifighter 3D
Thanks!
Maker's Muse Wait. You play that? I have a launchpad PRO
very well said Angus. keep up the good work..
In computer engineering I always asked “What problem am I trying to solve?”. If it was putting an IV in to a patients arm and controlling doses I’d work on the solution, quickly. If it was end of year billing, the urgency quite wasn’t there.
what is going to happen to plastic printing when the ban on plastic hits finalisation,is there going to be biodegradable material available to use or will all these machines become obsolete?
Very well put.
Interesting point of view. Tks for sharing
A good way to make 3d printing foodsafe would be to make a mould and go through processes like slipcasting (ceramics), mould blowing (glass), and making moulds best suited for different types of plastics, silicones, etc.
Do you have an ISBN number for Chris Hughes book? Thanks
SLS (and SLA, to a lesser degree) can do Batch manufacturing.
Though there's the behemoth sized SLS printers that could be used for Mass Production... but I'm sure the people using those have already done their research on what they plan to use them for.
some times we want mold some objects using an old method working a peace in lathe and milling so it takes time and precision so we print a processe it will be better to save time and money in stead
I'm a little late to the party, but...
I'm looking into 3D printers for some specific applications. Some aren't very structural in that it's just things I'm thinking about making. However, one of the things I want to make is a mount for two Gopro Session cameras for 3D video and is attached to an RC car. Instead of just using two regular mounts side-by-side, I want the mounts solid so the orientation doesn't change during the shoot. As you can imagine a mount has to be pretty sturdy to stay in place from being violently shaken on a fast moving RC car. I've been leaning towards an Ender 3, but the ANYCUBE Photon is coming way down in price. (I'm not worried about cleanup as having experience in processes like screenprinting and like, I'm used to it.) My biggest worry is toughness, then longevity. I'm sure painting a part with help with UV protection, but still...
If you were in my position, given the choice of the two, which would you choose.
But if I don’t print it, how am I going to make it? I don’t have access to things like injection moulding
2:40 where you talk about injection molding for mass production, with some objects you can design for this on a 3d printer. So i have for example made a candle mold from my 3d printer which is close to injection molding technique to mass produce a object. So to transfer this to more mass production people have printed a object then made a silicon mold from that then cast it in resin multiple times it does depend on the shape of the object there are limitations of course but its possible to use 3d printing to then create a batch or mass production of a object. You could also 3d print a object then make a inverse copy in clay to create a mold for metal casting.
Your analogy was good, but people need to consider making say a jig or a guide to make that block of wood or object. You probably wouldn't 3d print something for just making a simple block but you could for example make a bracket from 3d printing to hold the wood square to make a box.
A flowchart to help decide which fabrication technique to use (or the reverse, serving as a to guide design) would be extremely useful. A quick Google didn't turn up anything like that, alas, though there were a lot of spurious flowchart results so maybe some more digging will reveal it.
at work we use mostly our laser cutter to cut sheets of acryl glass and bolt them together. It is so much faster and cheaper, but you have to be carefull not to mistake this tool as the universal best.