3D printing - a home production revolution?

[Frank Skilbeck]

I was at the Gadget Show today and there were a couple of stands showing 3D printing machines, would be great for making prototype bits or even one off parts for scale models, shown here

Edited By David Ashby on 13/04/2012 09:49:51

[David Ashby - Moderator]

That's interesting Frank, I'd heard the term 3D printer and seen a helicopter canopy the owner said he'd made using one. I assume they're expensive?

 

 

Edited By David Ashby on 13/04/2012 07:20:52

Edited By David Ashby on 13/04/2012 09:50:09

[FunnyFlyer]

Posted by David Ashby on 13/04/2012 06:48:34:

That's interesting Frank, I'd heard the term 3D printer and seen a helicopter canopy the owner said he'd made using one. I assume they're expensive?

 

 

Edited By David Ashby on 13/04/2012 07:20:52

Looks like you can pick one up from around £1,600. This puts it in "something a club could buy" territory. Interesting...

Edited By David Ashby on 13/04/2012 09:50:22

[Danny Fenton]

A bit off topic but I have a Brian Taylor Spifire kit that is produced by Chad Veich, it contains several 3D printed components (as well as loads of laser cut parts). It gives a very nice product but the quality can vary as the resolution of the printers differ greatly.

This is how it should look, everything you see is included in Chad veich's kit. But don't go weak at the knees when you ask the price, quality like this costs........

Cheers

Danny

Edited By Danny Fenton on 13/04/2012 09:14:58

Edited By David Ashby on 13/04/2012 09:50:37

[Frank Skilbeck]

Just think how much inkjet printers now cost. Maybe one day when the printers come down in price, the free plan from RCME will include a code to downlink the CAD/CAM files so you can print off all your own 3D parts.

I don't think the day of home 3D printing is far off.

 

Edited By David Ashby on 13/04/2012 09:57:00

[David Ashby - Moderator]

Paul Heckles flying a 3D printed model. Interesting eh?

 

 

Edited By David Ashby on 13/04/2012 09:56:30

[Simon Chambers]

Posted by FunnyFlyer on 13/04/2012 08:59:46:

Posted by David Ashby on 13/04/2012 06:48:34:

That's interesting Frank, I'd heard the term 3D printer and seen a helicopter canopy the owner said he'd made using one. I assume they're expensive?

 

 

Edited By David Ashby on 13/04/2012 07:20:52

Looks like you can pick one up from around £1,600. This puts it in "something a club could buy" territory. Interesting...

Edited By David Ashby on 13/04/2012 09:50:22

 

At the moment, the cheap 3D printers around the £1k-2k mark are very low resolution and the parts they make are brittle. Ideal toy for the experiementer, but not something you could seriously use - unless your prepared to do a lot of sanding and filing after work.

 

For professional use, the main technologies used are:

SLA - Stereolithography - Used for first inital prototype to check diamensions, etc.

SLS - Selective laser sintering - Different material and technique than SLA. Some respects better quality and stronger

Fused deposition modeling - The type of technology that most of the cheap 3D printers use.

 

Professional equipment starts at the bottom end of £50k, and the better ones work their way around the £150k-250k mark. So often, small + medium sized companies outsource this work to a manufacturing company. For a SLA, your looking at around £30-100 per design made - depending on the supplier location, equipment resolution, etc. For SLS, around £200-300. The big cost involved here, apart from the machines capital expense, is the specalist materials used to produce the models.

 

The low cost 3D printing idea and drive was started off by the RepRap project, which is based in Bath University. A lot of the key work used on the cheap low cost 3D printers, like the nozzle head design was based off the work done by the RepRap project.

 

Wikipedia has a lot of information on the subject too.

 

Certainly could be the next big thing in the coming 10 years or so. No longer would you need to throw away appliances or devices because something on their enclosure or operation broke - you'd go online to find someone whos made a 3D design of the part and print it on your own machine! Exciting times.

 

Si.

 

Edited By Simon Chambers on 13/04/2012 09:58:22

[Biggles' Elder Brother - Moderator]

We have a number of 3D printers available - and Simon is right, quality, size and resolution costs - serious money. I think the latest system we purchased cost just over £35k. Add to that the fact that yopu need some professional standard 3D design software - something like SolidWorks - and the costs keeps going up. Using them isn't exactly a 5 minute manual read either!

Of course its a lot cheaper if you limit yourself to relatively small items - the sort of thing Danny was showing.

I think they will get cheaper - and easier to use. The interesting time will come when they are partnered up with 3D optical scanning technology - they you will be able to scan a real object, scale it in software and then 3D print replicas. To a very limited extent this is possible now - but you have to do a lot of "hand-holding" for the software, manually reworking scans etc, and as stated its very expensive. But one day I believe it will revolutionise scale modelling. Imagine a scale Spitfire that could claim to be a digitally scanned scale copy of the original down to the last rivet!

BEB

[Simon Chambers]

What could be of interest to clubs or a good home workshop currently is a Laser Cutter to cut wood designs. Their costs have been steadily going down and quality going up. Currently you can buy a small one (around 300mm by 400mm bed - plenty enough for balsa and ply) for around the £1.5k to £2.5k mark.

One thing I would say is before you get one, make sure you get a demo from the importer/manufacturer as quality can vary. This is where buying from a UK supplier could be a very wise move. Also like any moving machine, they need maintenance (the laser tubes only have a finite number of hours life) and having a UK supplier should make it easier to get parts.

[Olly P]

I have used 3d printers at work for jigs, fixtures and prototypes. They can be very useful, and I would love to get one for home.

They would have some modelling applications, but depending on resolution the application may be limited or have to be applied carefully.

I can certainly think of occaisions I've wished to have the capability to produce parts by this method.

[Steve W-O]

I will be interested when they perfect atomic reconstruction. Feed in a kilo of mouldy cheddar and a couple of loaves of stale bread, and out comes a balsa and solafilm model the other end.

I don't see 3D printing becoming economic for practical home use in my modelling lifetime, the cost of suitable raw materials in small and cheap quantities will be difficult.

Looking back at HDTV, colour LCD screens, DVDs, high speed laser and bubble jet printing, it has all taken about 20 years from the time it was shown to be economically possible to the time it is cheaply available.

What happened to the 3D holographic "TV"? With the generator that would recreate smells af what you were looking at? That was first spoken about as the possible future in about 1980.

If I had anything, I would like a decent CNC machine and easy to use software, would make some nice planes. Plenty of designs for DIY ones around.

[Olly P]

Having done a bit of hunting round just now, you can do a 'build your own' 3d printer for about £800, with a resolution of 0.125mm. That is actually pretty good - most of our machine tolerances are twice that. OK, size is limited on this machine, but it just shows what is becoming possible.

I wish I had a thousand pounds to spare, and I'd be investing in one!

[Lima Hotel Foxtrot]

Posted by Steve W-O on 13/04/2012 10:54:21:

I don't see 3D printing becoming economic for practical home use in my modelling lifetime, the cost of suitable raw materials in small and cheap quantities will be difficult.

Not necessarily (sp?): these chaps have a home-made 3D sintering machine which uses... SUGAR!

[url]http://www.evilmadscientist.com/article.php/candyfab[\url]

Edited By Lima Hotel Foxtrot on 13/04/2012 13:07:46

[Danny Fenton]

Fantastic! not quite the resolution needed for cockpit details, but i am sure it will get there.

Cheers

Danny

[Olly P]

Brilliant little project. easilly adapted to other mediums....

[andy watson]

Apparantly I have one, and never knew about it!

I will have to go have a play

[Martyn Johnston]

These people at RepRap (here and here) say you can build your own 3D printer.

Clever bit is that since many parts of RepRap are made from plastic and RepRap prints those parts, RepRap self-replicates by making a kit of itself.

Sounds fun.

[Olly P]

OK, resurrecting an old thread, but this place reckons they can make them for $297 US.

I know they are only at kickstarter at the moment, but very, very tempting, resolution of 0.2mm, that is pretty good - how easy would it be to print a detailed scale pilot??

Maybe once they are into production 'properly' I will invest.....

LINK to kickstarter page

Edited By Olly P on 18/06/2013 09:43:36

[Andy48]

Posted by Martyn Johnston on 19/07/2012 10:55:12:

These people at RepRap (here and here) say you can build your own 3D printer.

Clever bit is that since many parts of RepRap are made from plastic and RepRap prints those parts, RepRap self-replicates by making a kit of itself.

Sounds fun.

That's a different slant on the chicken and egg problem.

[Olly P]

Martin - Egg - whatever laid the egg was not a 'chicken'

[Andy48]

Yes True.

Smartipants.

[Olly P]

Hobbyking have a 3D printer available in the UK warehouse with free shipping, only ~ £200. I wish I had the cash to spare.

[Cuban8]

Home 3D printing seems to me to be a bit of a gimmick and only of interest to the techies and gadget junkies. Don't get me wrong, a friend has his own very high tech engineering business and I can see that the technology is very useful there, but printing plastic widgets at home?

If you can justify the cost of a decent home machine for hobby use, then that's great, but I can't think where I'd need one.

[Andy Meade]

Mine has nearly paid for itself now - in 5 months of ownership. I sell parts to friends and family and other modellers, and also sell parts on eBay as well as through 3DHubs.

Here is something I designed and made yesterday - 1/12th scale radial for my PSS B24. Just 3 more to print this weekend - accurate, high quality, very strong, very cheap to manufacture

Olly - I'm thinking of buying the mini one from HK recently advertised, so I can do runs of small parts whilst the bigger printer is busy.

[Foxfan]

Resolution of any usable level still costs big time, but because it's the new sliced bread, many people are accepting stuff which is frankly appalling. I have lost 3 customers to the process already and what they are accepting looks like the box my "proper" masters come in, but if they'll spend hours trying to clean up the rubbish churned out by their printers, what can I do? I'm retiring anyway!

If you're prepared to pay the money, you can get astonishing results, but as Paul Fisher described just one Hi-Res cylinder for a 1/32nd scale Ryan Kinner engine...."it was ruinously expensive, Martin".

The laser hardened resin machines like the B9 creator are much better quality and almost affordable for a small business. In fact a colleague brought one back from the States and is already running a 3D scanning, Design and production company. His personal scans of real people dressed in period clothes and adopting a particular posture are already resulting in some very natural and step-free 7mm scale people models.

It will come, no doubt. Maybe 5 years down the line? By which time I won't give a toss!

Don't forget, unless you're a dab hand (maybe because of your day job) at CAD you will have to pay someone £25-40 an hour to draw the file first. I wish I could ever get that for being a real modelmaker!

Cheers,

MrTin