[Brandon Holley]

Originally Posted by seg9585

$40k to print ABS? They probably purchased an Objet or similar that best uses FDM or Polyjet to much higher res and precision. You can probably get much cleaner tolerances with that printer compared to a Makerbot, Reprap, Cube, desktop printer but obviously at high cost.

...

The other issue is ABS and especially PLA tend to melt and warp if you attempted to drill a hole in them post-printing, so make sure the shaft size is correct the first time. Quick hint: on my Rep2 I increase the desired shaft bore diameter by 0.05in because the plastic tends to expand. Drilling out a larger bore will melt the plastic.

Objets are quite pricey. The one we have at work was well north of 200k. 40k sounds right about in the Fortus 250 or Dimension range as far as price goes.


I've had no problem drilling out ABS printed parts in the past. I actually drilled a bunch of holes out today. FDM printed parts (particularly ABS parts) are actually really good at secondary operations such as drilling, pressing in brass inserts, and sanding. They often hold up much better than Objet or SLA'd parts.

-Brando