pic: Bad Brad with a 3D Print

[johnr]

what if i wanted a toy like copy of our robot. something to give out ,like an award. not alot of detail. maybe student could paint it. our bot has an arm. would model be to delicate to be holding a tube? could you work off pictures, or would you need cad? or do you think this would cost to much for a poor little first team?

[team222badbrad]

johnr I sent you a private message about the robot model.

Wayne congrats on getting to 3D print your project! I would love to see a picture of it!

Andy thanks for those nice comments. I greatly appreciate when customers give me feedback good or bad!

[Greg Marra]

What is the ballpark price range on a rapid prototyped part? I'm completely unfamiliar with how much this actually costs, but I always come up with things I'd love to get printed. How much would something roughly the size of a softball cost?

[Rich Kressly]

Originally Posted by John Gutmann

Maybe it's just me but I don't see the man.........

Also isn't stereolithography with a laser in a vat of liquid. This is 3d printing.

-John

correct ... processes are different ... not entirely synonomous, but close cousins

[Greg Needel]

Originally Posted by Greg Marra

What is the ballpark price range on a rapid prototyped part? I'm completely unfamiliar with how much this actually costs, but I always come up with things I'd love to get printed. How much would something roughly the size of a softball cost?

[THIS IS NOT AN AD, as we do not do commercial parts]

I can't speak for brad but I work with the rapid prototype machines at RIT(we have the same one as brad, plus a few others) Typically we don't work with outside companies, but have been known to throw a few parts in as favors from time to time. When we bill inter-departmentally we charge $15 per hour the machine is running and about $20 per square inch of material. So for example that sculpture that brad made would have cost $509.35 (24.25 hours to print and contains 7.78 cubic inches of material)

now obviously in a university environment we have some flexibility with the billing, and take into account past parts and departmental relationships.

[team222badbrad]

Thanks for answering Greg.

My typical charge is $20/hour. This however is not a straight charge. Larger parts cost less per hour to print and smaller parts cost more to print an hour.

This is simply because the price would be very steep for long prints if it was a straight charge.

On top of the hourly charge I add in $5 for each cubic inch of material.

Also I add in shipping costs, build tray costs, etc.

Greg, actually the statue used has 7.78 cubic inches of model material and 10.7 cubic inches of support material. My cost for the material alone is about $100.

Greg, I'm also not sure how you got your total because it does not match your material and hourly charge.

I just edited and uploaded this video on how the break away support technology works, so enjoy!

http://youtube.com/watch?v=fKToSeVkAAU

As always my prices are better than the competition and I may work out some great deals to FIRSTERS.

You will be surprised when you go to some of my competitors sites and see what they charge vs. what I charge.

cough cough www.redeyerpm.com or www.xpress3d.com

Trust me they charge an arm and a leg more than I do.

Please email printo3d@printo3d.com to discuss further pricing information.

[Erin Rapacki]

I sometimes cheat with making flexible parts by 3D printing a cast/mold model and then fill the cavities with a rubber or plastic. There are many places to 3D print parts (google), its a matter of how much one is willing to spend. Also, figure out just how much support material the method of 3D printing leaves behind, it can be very time consuming to remove.

[AdamHeard]

The college we machine at has one of these machines. It has been very useful over the year or so.... I even did my calculus project on it (modeling the revolution of the shaft made by a few equations); Most people had clay or posterboard things that were ugly and the 3d print was amazing.

Also, team 330 used the same machine last fall to prototype a transmission.



I've heard of a more advance version of this technology that can make more complex and thinner parts because the support material is water solluble so you don't have to go through the chipping away process.

[SgtMillhouse648]

We used one at a local university last year that used a real fine powder to print the part one fine layer at a time.

http://www.ems-usa.com/ZPrinter_310.html

Our school got a two week trial of a printer similar to the one you used. It worked excellent, and the school district just bought one for each of the high schools with project lead the way.
Great Job
Malhon

[team222badbrad]

I've heard of a more advance version of this technology that can make more complex and thinner parts because the support material is water solluble so you don't have to go through the chipping away process.

Stratasys does have soluble support technology "SST". The support material is basically like the capsules of a pill. It simply dissolves when placed in a soapy like solution. These SST printers cost thousands more and probably worth the price if you pay someone to remove the supports from the kind of printer I have AKA Break-away Support Technology "BST".

As far as I know the cost of the support material is the same. The only thing that costs more is the printer, the extra expense of purchasing the solution and the solution tank.

Stratasys does also have a new printer out that uses stronger ABS plastic and prints in layers as fine as .007".

I'm glad to hear that these wonderful machines are being placed in schools! I wish I had one in my high school CAD class.

Here is a great video I found several months ago for educators that are trying to get 3D printers into schools.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=BOiAZgD5u60

[John Gutmann]

@Brad do you recycle the waste product? (the break away material)

I think something like this may be a little more say "useful" in highschools for courses such as pltw simply because it seems easier. The students can take home the part to take the break away support material off. And for the simple part that student would make it would be nowhere near 25 hours of print time. If other schools are like my high school was the teacher could just let it run all day because there was always someone in the room Although I bet this is much safer to leave alone then a CNC mill with a running spindle speed of a few thousand RPMs. It is also probably more space efficient too, along with CLEANER. No wax chips all over. Not much setup time. Oh and also you don't need 2 classes to learn it all (1 for CAD and 1 for CNC software)

-John

EDIT: I looks like the size of a vending machine. Put this in the lunch room instead vending machines with fatty foods!

[EricVanWyk]

We have a "few" rapid prototyping machines at work. They make all the difference in the world when you can simply email a .stl to the machine shop and get your part back in a few hours (if it is short). Even better, as an EE I can hand a model of my circuit board to an ME and get a box back the next day

You really have to see what the higher end models can do. There is a demo piece in the machine shop - a bicycle 3 inches long. The wheels have treads, the handle bar turns the front wheel, and the back wheel spins. Gorgeous. I _think_ that that one has sub thou tolerances.

If you can't get access to a 3D, a 2D can do some cool things to (they just need a little love). Try castleating some polycarb. Looks great.

In any case, I hope this type of stuff becomes accessible to more FIRST teams. Thanks Brad for the cool pictures.

[team222badbrad]

@Brad do you recycle the waste product? (the break away material)

Yes the waste product is ABS and can be recycled. For now I just keep the scrap in containers.

I cannot recycle the scrap into usable product again though.

The machine takes two cartridges of material, one is support and the other is model material. Each cartridge contains over 50 cubic inches of material in .07" diameter wire and costs nearly $300. I do not know why, but Stratasys does not recycle these cartridges. Also each cartridge is regulated to by a microchip so that you can only use the alloted amount of material before it is "spent".

In other words each cartridge has a lot more material in it than what you can get out of it. This microchip basically keeps other suppliers from making usable material for the their printers. It would sort of be like buying a "knock off" a HP printer ink cartridge.

The machine is about the size of a refridgerator, weighs 300+ pounds and about 1/3 of the height of the machine is a storage/stand.

The machine does not have to have an operator while printing and is made to left unattended. It does have is problems though. If the power goes out in the middle of a 25 hour build you lose the entire model. Also if something breaks off of the model while printing it will just print a mound of plastic, unless you cancel the build.

You can see an example of this here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pnANG53o9SM

The resolution, accuracy, strength and finish you want comes with a price. The higher end machines are much more expensive than the machine I have.

This first picture is a "spent" cartridge according to the regulating microchip, but still has lots of usable material.
http://app.onlinephotofiler.com/imag...761.JPG?v=6fb4

This second picture is the backend controller! 40GB hard drive
http://app.onlinephotofiler.com/imag...491.JPG?v=56ca

[Qbranch]

1024 has been using FDM for quite a while too. Over the years we've found theres places to use it and places to not use it.... but really it depends on an application by application basis....

Some of the best places we've found it useful are applications where items need to be feeded, such as poof balls for the aim high competition. If you'll remember, FDM could be found in the shooter wheels, shooter guards, feeder system, as well as the drive sprockets for the track drive.

The school we are located at (McKenzie Career Center) has a Stratasys FDM Maxum rapid prototyper (24x20x24" build size).

At the place where i work we looked at getting a smaller Dimension line FDM machine.... the price of the machine isnt what stopped it... its the material! As stated in previous posts, it costs hundreds of dollars to make a part of any decent size.

Which reminds me... FDM'ers out there.... have any of you wondered if string trimmer line (which you can find in ABS as well as PC) would work as well? I mean... talk about a lower cost option... it might be a conspiracy!

...but then again who wants to risk their machine... hmm.

-q

[Roger]

A lower cost solution? (I found this website and immediately thought of this thread.)

Home built ~$500 machine with $0.37/pound material. But there is a BIG "yeah, but..." attached to these prices. (It's sugar!)

I forgot to add that this "printing" is exciting. Wish I had it many moons ago building architectural models in college....