Or is 3D printing massively over-hyped?
Don't get me wrong I think it's marvelous technology and I get parts 3D printed on a regular basis......but really?....
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/the
-roadblocks-ahead-for-the-3d-printed-car/?YM_MID=3283&YM_RID=CPG03000001603871
I think it's typical of most new technologies. It takes a while to really become useful. As prices fall etc
Konisegggggg seem to be doing alright with it printing turbos and exhaust parts.
Yes and no. Everyone is excited at the moment because of the huge potential for the system, however I think they may get tired of waiting for the actual technology to catch up with its potential.
I reckon it could be great, I want some bits making for my rc crawler!
I think it has the most potential where manufacturing is limited, and that's on other planets. Similar to what happened on the ISS recently,
instead of having to wait for someone to send them a tool, it was designed on earth, emailed and then 3d printed.
To ship everything that could be possible required in an other-world mission would require something massive. But on the other hand, the equivalent
amount of filament (for want of a better word) and the ability to print only what is needed makes things a lot more efficient. Even better, if the
filament can be extracted from local elements then it becomes a limitless manufacturing approach.
Back on Earth, certainly for larger things there are better techniques. As mentioned, koenigsegg are probably using it at it's most effective, I
don't believe their 3d printed turbo parts can be made any other way.
[Edited on 2/2/15 by Slimy38]
Let not forget whats its actually for and what it was called before "3D Printing" was coined......Rapid prototyping!!
quote:
Originally posted by liam.mccaffrey
Let not forget whats its actually for and what it was called before "3D Printing" was coined......Rapid prototyping!!
quote:
Originally posted by Slimy38
quote:
Originally posted by liam.mccaffrey
Let not forget whats its actually for and what it was called before "3D Printing" was coined......Rapid prototyping!!
Mmm, good point. Although in most cases it's moved beyond prototyping and into production.
Yes, sorry thats kind of what I mean. I see the move into production is a negative one, as you say there's the novelty of 'because we can', and an occasional 'because its the only way', but in the presence of more conventional means it faces a lot of competition.
quote:
Originally posted by Slimy38
Yes, sorry thats kind of what I mean. I see the move into production is a negative one, as you say there's the novelty of 'because we can', and an occasional 'because its the only way', but in the presence of more conventional means it faces a lot of competition.
I use 3d printing on a fairly regular basis
first no its not cheap , but when you consider a say £500 printed part you can then test or £30k for injection tooling only to find out that it
don't feel correct or don't fit or nobody like's the design " in the flesh" its a absolute no brainer
on a recent project I went through five major design rethinks due to
a) it feels totally different in the hand to what it looks like on a cad screen ( we had a lot of mechanical and electronic internal constraints )
b) product / component specification changes as it progressed
so on that basis I paid @ £2500 for 3d printing vs say £175k of tooling ( go figure no brainer )
also we were able to take publicity shots for product release and leaflets long before we had any production product.
it also helps the marketing side enormously before commitment to large sums of money
Also consider that you can now get metal printed parts and numerous types of plastic and other materials , some that just look pretty and some that
are almost totally functional , certainly for mechanical fit testing .
at the moment its only feasible for production in very limited conditions , but its getting there .
just thought id throw my hat in the ring gents ! and share my thoughts
PPS
I designing a 3d women for printing ( full scale , or half scale if your a real cheap ass )
it wont answer back
has know views on "your car"
cant read the bank statement
don't need to go out for dinner or " look at the squirrel days "
lets you watch , top gear , followed by dragons den , followed by guy martin ( on +1 ) without moaning this is S**T
don't need new clothes or in fact any clothes !
taking orders , any takers free File any format you like .
I recently bought myself a 3D printer kit (Prusa i3, for those that know). It's been an interesting learning experience, not least because
I've had to learn CAD - if you want to make original pieces then you just have to learn. The major problem is that top-quality CAD programs are
extremely expensive - I'm using a free open-source program called FreeCAD, but that has lots of rough edges as it's really still in
development. I also have Blender on my machine, which is an amazingly good free program for 3D design and artwork... but phenomenally hard to learn.
There are also a load of charlatans in the amateur 3D printing world - there is a certain Asian country that is dumping cheap tat onto newbies who
don't know what's good and what's bad - it's similar to what's happened in the radio-control world. Unfortunately this
results in newbies who struggle to achieve a decent result.
As an aside, there's an interesting video on Jay Leno's YouTube site where he introduces his 3D kit - he 3D scans broken parts off his
vintage cars, prints them off in a high-class machine, tries them for size and fit, then uses the plastic models as patterns for metal casting. It
helps to have tons of money...
[Edited on 3/2/15 by David Jenkins]
i like Barts idea 
I'll probably regret asking but what are'look at the squirrel' days?
Look at the squirrel days
You know your desperate to carry on with the car
But you feel obliged ( read guilt ) to take the other half out to some park for a "nice walk"
And whilst there its polite to say things like
"I'm glad I came" ( not )
And "ohhh look at the squirrel"
Followed by oh look
Another f% €€£_% squirrel
quote:
Originally posted by Alan B
quote:
Originally posted by Slimy38
quote:
Originally posted by liam.mccaffrey
Let not forget whats its actually for and what it was called before "3D Printing" was coined......Rapid prototyping!!
Mmm, good point. Although in most cases it's moved beyond prototyping and into production.
Got to disagree with you on that.
Sure there are some applications for finished usable parts, but I think you'll find that prototyping is still the biggest market. I say this mainly because it is so slow a process that unless you can't make something any other way you will definitely save time and money using conventional means. I see parts that could have been made on a conventional milling machine (more accurately, and with better materials) getting made in 5 to 10 times the time on a 3D printer, just because they could......crazy.
quote:
Originally posted by bart
Look at the squirrel days
You know your desperate to carry on with the car
But you feel obliged ( read guilt ) to take the other half out to some park for a "nice walk"
And whilst there its polite to say things like
"I'm glad I came" ( not )
And "ohhh look at the squirrel"
Followed by oh look
Another f% €€£_% squirrel
Really amazing given that with 3d printing the car could have looked like anything at all is that it is such a hideous looking thing
Personally I find 3D printing/RP to be something of a gimmick for sales folk. Any half-decent mechanical design eng can see from the CAD model exactly
what the problems are, where the fitment issues will be and how mechanisms work. They work well for folk who can't envisage things very well or
who need a toy to hold while talking. "proving" something with plastic 3D printed parts /almost/ never proves anything.
Where that changes is with SLS parts and SLM parts where 100% dense metal parts are manufacturable in completely un-machinable ways to optimise
specific strength or stiffness, but from what I hear from the machine manufacturers this is still only a scraping of the actual uses the hardware is
being put to.
It's also VERY expensive to make SLM parts - the half-decent spec machines run at £400K and an annual running cost of ~£30K for gases and
materials, for anyone building parts that can be machined other ways that is just mental. So it leaves niche production uses - one-offs with very high
value or very low FOS due to mass - space componentry, race cars etc.
It IS an awesome technology (in the true meaning), but it's generally put to bad use and the cheaper machines are nothing more than toys.