ran into a vid on you tube about a guy who used a 3D printer to make a chopper style bike. was wondering if anyone on here has had any experiance with them and how much it costs to have done, the possabilities are endless
almost everyday last year, but so much now as i have nothing to make at the moment. university gear is most wonderful! personally you want to go FDM Better vid New castle university will do it for you, they take orders from anyone, just give them a call for a quote, i used them a few time last year when my uni's machine was shut down during refurb work in the workshop area. http://www.ncl.ac.uk/iri/facilities/rp/index.php
There are many different technologies available, some produce usable parts while some only produce models. Some technologies are more developed than others too. Take a look at the RepRap project for low cost rapid prototyping. Final point, rapid prototyping is EXPENSIVE and generally not all that rapid, the machines cost thousands of pounds at the small/low end and millions at the high/large end. The different technologies also vary hugely in price. Moriquendi
got to disagree a little there, rapid prototyping is expensive depending on process used, however FDM has been coming down in price at the expensive of tolerences. Anyway i RP a load of stuff which cost ~£50 to do, where as machining we had a quote in for £450.
But is that the same price it would cost someone outside a university? As I understand it the materials are cheap (or can be) but machine time is very expensive. Also CAD time is expensive, having someone take a sketch or even an accurate and turn it into a model is pricey and even if you can provide a CAD model someone has to babysit it through the CAM/ toolpath software. I think 3D printing/ Rapid prototyping is great and some methods like selective laser sintering seem much more efficient than machining from billet but I think we're looking at another decade or so before it has any real applications outside R&D and a few other niches. Moriquendi
cad isnt an issue, im a 3ds max user and im pretty sure ill either be able to import my models direct into inventor or at the very least learn to use inventor pretty quickly. i was thinking of making an entire case using Rapid prototyping. surprised it hasnt be done before tbh the vid i saw was http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-4DL2njmVE&feature=player_embedded amazing stuff, though i have a strange feeling that it didnt really make the reving at the end itself lol` Burnout21, mind if i ask what the project that cost £50/£450 was? im trying to get my head around a basic idea of what price im looking at. im almost tempted to take out a small mortgage to buy one of the £40k printers
3ds Max isn't really CAD, its a 3d graphics package. There are limits on part size, the machine has an envelope that it works within, pieces larger than the envelope have to be split up. Larger machines cost more money and time on them is more expensive. Moriquendi
i know that auto cad files can be imported directly into 3DS max (i do it just about every day) although i must confess i havent ever done it tuther way around, but there has gotta be a way of doing it. ill see if i can find a cad monkey who can tell me how to do it .
Hahaha, you make me laugh, print a case! ATX is laughable but ITX would be with in the limits of most RP companies. Seriously, the bed on the two i have used is only 12 inch square and the machine costs £30K Plus its not a solid model, you provide the machines software with an .stl file, and the software builds the skins of the surfaces to the thickness of the extruded material ~0.33mm, then webs between the internal and outside skins. My parts were small, i cant disclose what they were as i am under NDA still from my last job. Its not all that expensive, and for new castle at least anyone student or not can have items made relatively cheap. Reason for this is Newcastle wised up and by offering it to the public allows for them to help pay towards another machine or to make some money back on there investment. You could export the 3ds model as an stl and import to solidworks or inventor. The main problem i have had with 3ds is the lack of scale and awareness towards dimensions during the modelling process. Which makes tweaking is size a nightmare when you send it to rapid prototype. I see that some sending out the file for a nice model of a coffee mug, only for 4 weeks later having a low loader turn up outside with a 40ft high model of a coffee mug that matches the wonderful render on there screen.
and what exactly is wrong with a 40ft coffee mug, that would keep me awake for the best part of an hour why do you say ATX is laughable? whats to say that it cant be constructed out of several parts??? something akin to the Thermltake VL3000 for example. thanks for the info on the importing btw, big help
