[EricH]

Originally Posted by Cory

His point stands. There is zero practicality in looking at SLS, SLM, or EBM in FRC. You couldn't even afford the powder for one of those machines with the budget OP is looking at.

Sure, it's good for a prospective engineer to understand how those technologies work and the applications they're good for, but FRC isn't one of them.

I would argue that saying that "most 3D printing systems don't produce parts that are very strong at all" is what most folks would call a "hasty generalization". It's not the same as "most 3D printing systems that would work for FRC don't produce parts that are very strong at all", not by a long shot. It just happens that most, if not all, 3D printing systems that produce strong parts would be illegal for use in FRC--which is another matter entirely. Lumping all 3D printing systems together is like lumping all milling and lathing machines together--and then saying that they're all lousy because you happened to get a cheap mill/lathe combo that broke after the tenth use.



The other factor, as I briefly mentioned in an earlier post, is that there have been FRC teams who used 3D printed parts, of the FDM variety, in high-stress applications. See http://www.chiefdelphi.com/media/photos/38032, which has the machine in question listed in the comments, http://www.chiefdelphi.com/media/photos/38033, and http://www.chiefdelphi.com/media/photos/38034.


Basically, he's taking results from an older-model machine and applying the results to current technology and saying they're the same. I maintain that the results have gotten better, due to the continual development. (This is something that is pretty common across almost all new-ish technology.) Taking a 1st-run RepRap Mendel model and comparing it head-to-head with a 2011 Mendel or some of the spinoff companies' units is apples and oranges and bananas. The printers have improved multiple times. So have the control systems. And the price for something in that range hasn't gone up much if at all.