On Wed, 10 Jun 2015 18:00:18 -0700 (PDT), rangerssuck
wrote:
On Wednesday, June 10, 2015 at 7:15:28 PM UTC-4, jon_banquer wrote:
The world has changed and many have had enough of Pay 4 Play liars like slow eddy.
https://www.linkedin.com/grp/post/45...05975009292291
I dunno Jon, I read your Linkedin page, and I didn't see any "admissions" from anyone.
You aren't surprised about that, are you? d8-)
I saw a discussion of the limitations of poorly thought out 3d prints which produce parts that can't be machined efficiently. The same could easily be said about ANY poorly designed part regardless of the techniques involved.
"Design for production" has been a mantra in production for at least
50 years. Caterpillar was a pioneer, in the early '70s, at taking
their new design engineers and putting them on the shop floor for six
months before they'd let them design anything. My FIL was part of that
program at Cat's Aurora plant, teaching those new engineers how things
are actually made. It really paid off for Caterpillar, and other large
manufacturers picked up on the program. But not everyone caught on.
That said, I spent the day yesterday at the Javits Center in NY attending the MD&M show http://mdmeast.mddionline.com . I spoke with plenty of manufacturers who use 3D printers to generate mold patterns, proofs of concept and finished products. These are real companies producing real products.
So, perhaps 3d printing has been overhyped in your world, but it certainly has not been in the world of medical devices - the surface is only beginning to be scratched.
I took a look at the "admissions" comments Bonker's apparently is
referring to in the subject line, and it's all about one small aspect
of AM -- prototyping for conventional machining -- that isn't even
where the action is in AM anymore. Since they're involved in machining
and CAM, it's no surprise that's where their attention and interest
lies, but the real interest in AM has moved on.
Tooling, like the AM plastic fixturing, clamps, and gaging tools at
Volvo Trucks, is attracting a lot of interest. And scroll down to look
at the colored drawing of this mold insert:
http://tinyurl.com/okd2jgx
That thing is made of maraging steel, and it cycles 40% faster than a
conventionally milled or EDMed mold, because of those cooling
passages. They're a snap with AM, but impossible to machine in a
single piece. The company is doing a land-office business in making
those molds.
The irony here is that one or two of JB's commentators are bitching
that designers are 3D printing things that can't be machined (what
else is new? They've been drawing things that can't be machined for
eons.). But that mold cavity, and the fuel nozzles the turbine-engine
manufacturers are making with AM, are made with AM specifically
because they CAN'T be conventionally machined.
How many such parts will be uncovered is hard to say, but AM already
is moving past that stage, at least in terms of where the incentives
are driving the machine builders. The US Army, Navy and Air Force, and
domestic aircraft manufacturers, are using AM right now as a way to
make on-demand replacement parts for airplanes and military equipment.
That market potentially is huge, extended to civilian uses beyond
aircraft.
This "hype" subject came up months ago, and I pointed out at the time
that there certainly is a lot of hype about 3D printing in the
consumer press and in some segments of the trade press. It's possible
that the hype has penetrated the design and management departments of
some manufacturers. But the people who know what they're doing aren't
the ones who are hyping it (except in press releases). They're
building machines that are actually making parts, in both plastic and
metal, for a variety of industries. And the market is growing pretty
fast overall, even if it's a little herky-jerky. If the price of
full-melt metal AM systems comes down, there won't be any question
about it.
--
Ed Huntress