Posted on 09/20/2007 9:36:25 AM PDT by cool2007
FSB Magazine) -- After midnight, it's dark and nearly silent in the Klock Werks Kustom Cycles shop (kustomcycles.com) in Mitchell, S.D. The only sound is the low hum emanating from a box that looks like a cross between a dormitory fridge and a Xerox machine. Behind a compartment of clear glass, the device - a Stratasys Prodigy 3-D printer - is constructing a complex shape, all curves and spaces, out of plastic.
When he arrives at his shop in the morning, Brian Klock strolls over to the printer and pops open the glass compartment. Carefully breaking away the supports, he pulls out a perfectly turned machine part - a plastic housing that slides neatly into place between the metal handlebars of the custom-built motorcycle he's been working on, covering the fuel gauge, speedometer, and other dials. All that's left to do is to paint it.
(Excerpt) Read more at money.cnn.com ...
BTTT
I have a buddy whose firm is making machines to do this to make repair parts for Army vehicles in the Middle East. They use lasers to sinter powdered metal.
I was wondering how a custom cycle shop in Mitchell SD could afford to pay the rent on one of these. Most of the custom cycle shops I see don't have any more capital equipment than a buzz box welder and a drill press.
Stereo-lithography used a ultraviolet laser beam to polymerize a suitable liquid plastic. This is just the first of many "instant prototyping" processes.
I used a small model shop to produce core boxes for iron castings more then ten years ago. The process they used involved rolling a adhesive backed sheet of paper on to a platen and then scanning the paper with a laser with the cross section of the desired part at that station depth. Every thing that was not "part" was diced up into small squares. The platen would drop 0.005", another lamination of paper would be rolled on and the process repeated. What resulted was a solid cube which contained your prototype. The little squares had become cubes and could be detached by rubbing with your fingers and you were left with the finished part, as dense and as hard as hardwood. After all, paper is made from wood so it seems that wood can be made from paper. The wood (paper) parts produced with this process could be used for patterns to make cast parts. A simple command during file generation enabled the process to generate an empty space representing the part,thereby producing a core box.
The laser was driven by a file produced by our Pro E CAD system. In other instances aluminum match plate patterns were machined directly from billet stock using a five axis CNC mill. The control file was generated by Pro E directly from the part geometry file making allowances for required draft angles and shrinkage. Turn around time was overnight to produce limited production tooling.
Regards,
GtG
Toys!!!!
You are right. They have been around for a while. The one in our lab is great for making models, but the parts are very weak. It is a great tool, but you still have to make the REAL part out of steel, aluminum, titanium, cast iron,plastics, ceramic, or other material.
As I said in an earlier post I saw a few models at IMTS last year that did metal parts, but I’m not sure what kind of metal it was. They laid it down as a powder with a binding agent, and the parts had to get baked afterwards to cook out the binding agent and sinter the powder together. Another poster on this thread said there are machines that sinter the metal with a laser in-process so the baking isn’t required. I suspect you will see great leaps in this technology over the course of the next decade.
I believe this is sintered metal...they form the parts out of powdered metal and then “cook” it. It’s also been around a few years, but I haven’t seen it get real big.
My grandmother would tell me to “blow out the lights” right up until her last one went black.
I’m curious. What if the part that you want isn’t a metal part? Like a part for a toy where plastic is good. Is the plastic strong/durable enough to be used for that purpose?
They use several different materials with this kind of technology. I even saw a machine that used paper.
Boy, this can have HUGE ramifications in the next 10 years when it gets to the masses at an affordable price. Even if just the plastics/paper markets.
Gonna have to cogitate on this one some.
Theres aplace in Downtown Cincy that replicats knurled 13 century wood carvings with the same kind of machine the stuff they make would take months to carve by hand it takes a few hours to make them with the machines ...
The interesting thing is when you think about just how many machine parts could be manufactured off these desktop platforms. Need a custom small piece of metal? Build it in one of these.
It's staggering to think what could come out of them and fit into current machinery.
Doctors have used these to make 3-D models of complex tumors that invade nearby organ systems, and for conjoined twins. They use the 3-D model from a CAT Scan and transfer make a 3-D wax or plastic model.
I believe Ruger pioneered the use of the sintering process in firearms manufacturing years ago (not that they were the first to sinter, just to use the process in firearms).
This technology will never replace standard mass production techniques for most parts and products—it just takes too long, and always will.
It is definitely superior for certain kinds of parts....especially things with internal voids, things that can’t be manufactured any other way with other methods. It will (and already is) making a huge impact on product research and development.
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