Rapid Prototyping and 3D Printing

[MTUHusky]

Hey guys,

Just wondering what everyone is doing with regards to rapid prototyping and 3-D printing? My company has been experimenting with the technology and have recently made some fun breakthroughs that I am trying to get them to let me publish. So far we have been successful in making a mold cavity and running it through 700 shots. We have also been very successful making end of arm parts for robots and electrical testers using both filament and liquid acrylic. We are waiting for our new metal printer to start experimenting with heavier stuff (detailed mold cavities with slides and lifters, automation tooling, hand loads and just about anything else we want to try) .

I just wanted to see what others are doing and to gauge interest in publishing and sharing info.

Thanks,

Husky

[JayDub]

We have one we use for simple fixtures or fixture components. The black resin (Acrylic?) it uses isn't as nice as machined Delrin, but if I give a sketch to the drafters in the morning, they can have a CAD model by afternoon and let the printer run overnight. Rapid prototyping, as advertised.

[iautry1973]

Last place I worked we printed a lot of parts for fixtures and secondary equipment that would run overnight rather than waiting a week or two for it to get machined by our shop. It was pretty useful, hope we get one at the new place sometime.

[nikom]

We got around 1000 parts in ABS out of an SLS aluminum filled nylon insert. Cooling was an issue, the insert was about 1" thick and would retain heat pretty well. Had the mold base it was in set to 55 °F and still had to add a 15 second blast of compressed air onto the surface of the B-side to keep it cool enough. The end of flow for the part wasn't critical and we were worried about stuck parts damaging the mold so we ran short shots for the production with minimal pack pressure to fill the sprue.

[MTUHusky]

We had a lot of trouble cooling our mold as well. We ended up blasting both sides with air along with periodically spraying mold release. We are experimenting with heat sinks but so far no real gains. The gates are getting eaten away before the part detail so we are also moving towards an aluminum gate and possible runner.

The part fixtures for QA has been a huge help. We were able to eliminate a lot of heavy fixtures by printing them all out of ABS. We have some fixtures that were printed with ABS+ magnetic particles so we can set a part in the fixture and "clamp" it down with a magnet.

[nikom]

Is the magnetic ABS commercially available? I've done prints with internal voids for permanent magnets but haven't considered using a material that is inherently magnetic.

[chrisprocess]

We've got an extrusion 3d printer and a SLA laser-based 3d printer I believe it does some type of ABS-like material
Mostly used for EOAT, fixturing for Metrology, fixturing of component staging for product assembly.
For prototyping I know the toolroom has turned around mini single-cavity aluminum molds in a weekend if the customer is willing to pay for it..

That 3d metal printer sounds pretty awesome though. The possibilities sound endless! :D

Keep us posted how that thing turns out. Would be pretty awesome for injection molding prototyping.

[douginky]

I saw a printer in the Sodick booth at this years NPE printing H-13 cores and cavities with cooling passages printed in. Not cheap, but pretty cool

[JayDub]

I saw a printer in the Sodick booth at this years NPE printing H-13 cores and cavities with cooling passages printed in. Not cheap, but pretty cool

Definitely one of the most interesting things at the show. It has a high speed mill built in, so you can get fine detail by alternating between additive and subtractive. Just out of curiosity, did you get a quote on it? - I didn't get as far as asking what it cost.

[douginky]

No, we didn't get a quote, but I "think" I heard someone say it was around 600K.

[MTUHusky]

Is the magnetic ABS commercially available? I've done prints with internal voids for permanent magnets but haven't considered using a material that is inherently magnetic.

Yes, my 3-D printing guy orders all kinds of different filaments and liquid resins. He got the magnetic filament at some online shop. I will ask him tomorrow for specifics and get back to you.