3d rapid prototyping

[lyon]

There is a cool service that takes your 3d models and creates a plastic copy of your model. I am working on a tool for a glass light fixture. We are casting it in steel and will use the tool to slump glass into it to make a glass lamp shade. I used Autcad and 3D Studio Max to create the STL file that will be used to create a scale plastic model. The model will be used by a foundry to make a sand mold to cast the steel.
Sent 3d model out to be produced today.

This is the first time I have produced a rapid prototype and it has gotten me thinking about making some other things. Mainly cars and car parts. Just read a great article about the V2 356 and Strahle, inspiring stuff. Anyhow, I am enjoying making 3d prototypes and stuff out of metal.

[futuresoptions]

Sounds like something I would like to learn to do at some point in time in my life....good luck

[onewhippedpuppy]

Stereo lithography? If so, very cool stuff.

[speedracing944]

I have seen 3 different variations of this process.

1) Metal beads encased in plastic which a laser melts and then the item is placed into a sintering oven burning off the plastic and sintering the metal

2) thin paper which was cut and glued together to make the prototype

3) clear liquid plastic whcih was shot with a laser which made it solidify

All pretty cool processes which can make shapes imposible by other processes.

Speedy

[speedracing944]

lyon,
What part of Wisonsin are you from?

Speedy

[onewhippedpuppy]

Stereo lithography is #3. Very cool stuff, but not cheap.

[BertBeagle]

Eventually, according to Popular Science a few months back, the average guy will have a 3D printer in the home for making replacement parts for whatever breaks - like a knob for the washing machine.

I think they will be in Staples / Office Depot in a few years. Already there is a desktop version for around $2500 - the difference in that machine and the ones like you typically use in product design is resolution. The $2500 machine does not match up to the $35,000. machine.

[kstar]

Here's the ultimate 3D "printer" - the Star Trek Replicator:



Best,

Kurt

[Porsche-O-Phile]

Yea, but I think the principle behind the replicator was that it used the relationship between matter and energy (Einstein's famous E=mc^2) to create matter from the enormous energy available from the matter/antimatter reaction vessels onboard.

I believe energy-to-matter conversions have been done in particle accelerators but the amounts of energy required even to create tiny quantities are staggering. One of the physicists/scientists on here could probably speak to this a little better.

[island911]

I've lost track of how many RP parts I've had made in the last 10 yrs, or so. It's an essential step in product prototyping. ...SLA, SLS . ..

As cool of a process that all that is, interestingly, a good number of files that I send out to an RP house are Machined. Obviously a slew of RP processes are available to to these RP vendors, yet with 5-axis machining, the quick part is often machined. ...even parts w/o a single straight edge, or flat surface. Surprising, eh?

[island911]

Patent was 1993. IIRC.

Edit: nope "Stereolithography (SLA), the first Rapid Prototyping process, was developed by 3D Systems of Valencia, California, USA, founded in 1986."

Maybe another process?

"Selective Laser Sintering (SLS®, registered trademark by DTM™ of Austin, Texas, USA) is a process that was patented in 1989 by Carl Deckard, a University of Texas graduate student."

"Stratasys of Eden Prairie, MN makes Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM) machines. The FDM process was developed by Scott Crump in 1988."

hmmm. What process were you doing, Wayne?

[5axis]

Going the other way. This has been a very nice addition to our shop.
http://www10.mcadcafe.com/goto.php?encode_url=aHR0cDovL3d3dy53aGl0ZWxpZ2h0c2 Nhbm5pbmcuY29t (find the Atos III in the product section)
[We often use it to create models of organic surfaces. We can make a wood grain texture that really looks like a wood grain because it is a scan of a real chunk of wood. The other cool thing is being able to reverse engineer stuff on the fly when customers do not have or lost their data.

The start of a slate textured part.

[HardDrive]

How is rapid prototyping different from machining a piece of plastic using a CNC machine?

[5axis]

RP starts with nothing and builds up a part level by level.
Machining a part starts with a chunk of whatever and removes material to create the shape.

Wayne. Very cool paper! You were one very bright and well organized cat!

[island911]

see http://www.efunda.com/processes/rapid_prototyping/intro.cfm

[HardDrive]

Got it.

So why is adding material better than taking a block of existing material and removing the excess to reveal the shape?

[onewhippedpuppy]

When you add it, layer by layer, you can essentially make it look like anything. Machining is great, but it's pretty hard to shape the inside of whatever you machine without cutting your material in half. With stereolith, you don't have to have access to the inside, because the inside is being "grown" along with the outside surfaces.

[sammyg2]

The last place I worked had that capability.
We would use a fero arm to scan a part into autocad and e-mail it to Sulzer STURM (a division of the company in Virginia).

They had a 3D printer that made a part out of a corn starch type of plaster which was used in the mold making process. More accurate than a regular casting so less machine work needed to remove excess material.

[Neilk]

Originally Posted by 5axis

RP starts with nothing and builds up a part level by level.

It would be cool to be able to order and new 911 body produced out of one part. How long do we have to wait? 20-30 years? Imagine the possibilities.

[onewhippedpuppy]

From what I know of stereolith, a big machine is 2'x2'. I don't know how big they get. Pretty tough to build an entire body of it, though it would be cool.