Re: FRC Blogged - FIRST® Choice Adds Additives
 

Very true... Our team is lucky to get to use Ultem. Though we also have a printer made by the same company at our school that has very high quality prints made out of ABS.

I am also interning at ORNL along with two other Team 3824 members. We have been designing FIRST specific parts in CAD that will end up online for FIRST teams to use. On a day to day basis, we use all three of the printers available through FIRST choice, and they are all able to handle the parts we have been designing. Our team, along with ORNL, has helped get the 3D printers into FIRST Choice, so it would be a safe bet to say we are all for other teams getting a printer :rolleyes:

As for the performance of the parts I understand you may not want an important bracket made out of ABS or PLA supporting 30+ pounds on a competition robot, it is great to be able to print a bracket in a number of hours so a team can continue progressing its design.

Re: FRC Blogged - FIRST® Choice Adds Additives
 

Also don't forget that materials are constantly being expermented with and innovated on the printers available on FIRST Choice. There's ALOT of new materials coming that can be printed on these printers. Also, I know of some experimentation with rubber materials and those could be useful in robotics with shock absorbtion. Students who have access to this technology will be able to innovate and use these materials in ways no one has ever thought of before. There are some service bureaus that are donating parts to FIRST teams this year that have this capability. That is, in part, the reasoning behind why Oak Ridge National Laboratory mentors on FIRST team 3824 have been pushing for the printers in FIRST Choice. They want to see what young, educated, and almost free minds can come up with using this technology!

Re: FRC Blogged - FIRST® Choice Adds Additives
 

I think what Adam was getting at had little to do with the fact that the machine was printing in Ultem, but the fact that a machine that can print Ultem is a completely different beast than what's available in First Choice.

Don't get me wrong, the FIRST Choice Printers are more than capable of handling a lot of 'odd work' for most (if not all) FRC teams with very little expertise. It's reasonable to expect all of those printers to be able to handle Things like brackets, mounts, interfaces, etc - but implying that they'd be able to handle high stress or high precision components is a bit of a dangerous proposition.

A Fortus for example, whether is be running ABS, or Ultem 9085 is a $100,000 Machine that you don't just 'plug' into a wall outlet. Those machines are intended to be '3D production' Machines rather than a Rapid Prototyping Machine, or a '3D Printer'. Comparing the parts that come out of a Fortus, or even a Dimension Machine are misleading to say the least.

In any case, I don't mean to belittle the efforts of you and your team in getting more 3D printers out to as many teams as possible, it's really awesome. I'm just a bit concerned at some of the misinformation being thrown about regarding what each machine is actually capable of and would hate to see teams losing a bunch of time because they gambled on something they didn't fully understand.

Re: FRC Blogged - FIRST® Choice Adds Additives
 

And I'm not criticizing either (both 3824 and the FC machines), just clarifying that a CNC sherline will never be a Haas, in the same way that a makerbot will never be the machines 3824 has.

Re: FRC Blogged - FIRST® Choice Adds Additives
 

Makerbots can be just as helpful, though. We have a variety of consumer printers that we use for parts not meant for structure, such as camera mounts, motor couplings, and motor brackets. These printers can be used for several complex pieces on your robot, you just need a little experience. If anyone has any questions about how to use these printers, we have accumulated quite the experience after a couple of seasons of utilizing this technology.

Re: FRC Blogged - FIRST® Choice Adds Additives
 

It isn't reasonable to tell every team reading on chief that a makerbot will be "just as helpful" as the $100k machines you have access to.

The makerbot can do some useful things for FRC, but to hype them up as just as good as top level industry machines is unfair for the teams who might believe that statement, then dump all their FC credits into a makerbot.

Re: FRC Blogged - FIRST® Choice Adds Additives
 

I would like to see some initiative to get every team laser cutters capable of cutting wood/plastic (like the epilog zing) instead of the 3D printers. Right now, everything is all about 3D printers, mostly because they have the potential to evolve into amazing tools and the coolness factor. But in 2012 my team had equal access to a Zing laser cutter and a consumer 3D printer (not sure which brand). We utilized them both. And in 2013 we used the Zing a whole lot more, and never once touched the 3D printer. Everything that we could make with a 3D printer, we could make using a laser cutter, ABS sheets, and solvent bond. And the final products we much stronger than they would be if we 3D printed them (to put it in perspective, we used this method to make our drivetrain sprockets, and they never failed on us).

But, unfortunately, these laser cutters have been overshadowed by 3D printers, so they will probably never become popular in FRC.

Re: FRC Blogged - FIRST® Choice Adds Additives
 

Perhaps the cost is the main reason why. I would suspect it is possible to increase a laser cutter's popularity if there were an abundance of companies out there that sold an affordable one.
We have a 3D printer that cost us over $55,000. We still bought a Makerbot Replicator 2 afterwards because of the much lower cost. Our Makerbot wont make FRC structural parts for us, but there are a ton of things we can use it for, other than that.
You are referring to a laser engraver/cutter, right?

Re: FRC Blogged - FIRST® Choice Adds Additives
 

Okay I see your point that the MakerBots do not have the manufacturing capability of a Stratasys machine. I was just trying to say that with creative ideas and uses for complex parts, teams are able to utilize this technology maybe not at the same level, but with the same frequency of occurrence in their robot. When I said that these FIRST Choice printers can be just as helpful, I meant it. Engineering and innovation transcend monetary value. Anyone can be innovative with any materials, and I have seen many less-privileged teams surpass other veteran teams due to a creative idea and dedication to develop that idea. In any case, I feel that this technology will bring FIRST to a new level.

Re: FRC Blogged - FIRST® Choice Adds Additives
 

Yes, I am. For some reason, I remembered the price being cheaper than it really is. The Zings start at $8,000 (and honestly the $8,000 is more than good enough for FRC purposes). It's still not that far out of the range of possibility for many FRC teams, although maybe not as widespread as I once thought.