Sculpteo’s Factory Button

If you’ve been learning about 3D printing, you’ll know that the best things to print are those that are one-offs. Unique, custom items that are made once for someone. They’re special and “fit” only one use or person. 

 

If you want to make many of an item, you should not 3D print but instead use traditional mass-manufacturing techniques. Or so the mantra says. 

 

But we think that’s no longer true. 

 

If you want to mass manufacture something there is still a big cost to “set up” a manufacturing line to do so. But what if you want more than one, but less than a million of an item? Would you spend the set up cost? Probably not. 

 

There’s a market for 3D printing limited quantities of identical objects in addition to custom one-offs. If you want ten, a hundred or maybe a thousand “things”, you still might be better off 3D printing them. 

 

3D printing service Sculpteo recognizes this and has implemented a way to easily do so. The new “3D Printing Batch Control” feature is available to all Sculpteo users in a beta test and permits those requesting more than 20 of an item to: 

  

• See the entire batch of items as it will be produced inside the printer
• Get a better price by optimizing the positioning  and spacing of your items and instantly see per-unit pricing
• Use any of three finishes (glossy varnish, satin polish and double polish)
• Adjust the  orientation of models to ensure correct strengths
• Preview a simulation of each layer of your print to ensure everything is correct

 

These features are far beyond what you’d normally see if simply printing one item. 

 

We think this is a big step forward for those who use 3D print services. It’s no longer a way to “just print things”; it’s now a personal factory service. Need 100 items? Just press the button. Need 200? Press it again. 

  

Via Sculpteo

Lulzbot Simplifies Life for a Mouthguard Manufacturer

We’re reading a case study in which manufacturer Megalodon Sports managed to save considerable cash and time by 3D printing prototypes of their new mouthguard product. 

 

Now, we know you’re thinking that this is going to be one of those standard stories where a manufacturer saves thousands by moving their prototyping from expensive CNC milling processes to 3D printing. 

 

It isn’t. 

 

Megalodon Sports actually was using 3D printing for prototyping - but they were using large-scale industrial 3D print services. Their discovery was that they could produce viable prototypes using a basic Lulzbot personal 3D printer at far lower cost than the “conventional” 3D print services. They moved from a cost of USD$200-400 per prototype to around USD$5 each. The LulzBot paid for itself “within a matter of months.”

 

This move is not one that can always be made by small manufacturers; it depends on the nature of your product, as the personal 3D printers are not as capable as large-scale commercial devices. But they will work in some circumstances, as Megalodon Sports discovered. 

 

What Does A Big Company Do With 3D Printing?

We're reading a very interesting interview by Joris Peels, who spoke to Prabhjot Sing, General Electric's Manager of GE Additive Manufacturing Lab at GE Global Research. 

 

The thought we had was: how does a very large company make use of 3D printers? Readers who have personal devices obviously have very different usage patterns. Here's what Peels found:

 

• GE has over 300 3D printers, covering almost all 3D printing processes
• Equipment from many different manufacturers are employed
• Most 3D prints are for research purposes, although there is recent investigation into 3D printing production airplane components by 2016
• Their focus is to try to reduce the number of steps involved in creating a component by leveraging 3D printing's ability to print arbitrarily complex objects
• GE requires 3D print materials not currently offered by the manufacturers in order to go forward with their plans
• They're seeking ways to 3D print electrical components, like "resistors, inductors and capacitors"
• Metal printed parts are almost strong enough for use, but GE requires a much better surface finish

 

There's much more in the full interview at the link below. Peel's analysis: 

 

It is in manufacturing where 3D printing can make the greatest impact. In speeding up company’s product development, letting them do more iterations and letting them do shorter run parts it can speed up their business as a whole.  It is in manufacturing where serious money will be made either by vendors or companies that outcompete by using 3D printing in their supply chain.

 

Via VoxelFab

Battle of the 3D Printer Manufacturers

The opening of MakerBot's new factory has us wondering about their main competition's manufacturing capability. 3D System's Cube is now selling at Staples online shop, with intentions of being sold in each physical store location. 

 

We suspect the Cube is manufactured overseas in China, where large-scale manufacturing is commonplace and inexpensive. It also provides another very critical capability: scalability. If you're manufacturing a product, it can be straightforward to rapidly crank up the number of units shipped. 

 

We now have two personal 3D printer companies with significant manufacturing capability. There can be only one reason for this. 

 

They both plan on selling tons of them. 

[UPDATE] We've learned that 3D Systems' Cube is currently manufactured in the USA, not overseas. 

U.S. Losing its Edge in Additive Manufacturing?

For the last few decades, American companies have dominated and advanced the field of additive manufacturing to its current state. However, in a recent report from industry analyst Terry Wolhers, America’s dominance in additive manufacturing could be waning.

 

In preparation for Wohlers Associates annual Wohlers Report,the analysis firm hase released some data that might surprise a few people. Of all the manufacturers of professional grade 3D printers out there, 16 of them are from Europe, 7 are located in China, 5 call the US home and 2 reside in Japan. Compare that with data from a decade ago when 10 companies found there base in the US while Europe and Japan both had 7 companies and China rounded out the group with 3, and you’re beginning to see a change in the additive manufacturing landscape.

 

Read more at ENGINEERING.com

Manufacturing in 3D Printing's Future?

We're reading a post by Joel Hans, managing editor of Manufacturing.net where he postulates the future of 3D printing in manufacturing plants. This got us thinking about manufacturing versus personal 3D printing. 

 

Fabbaloo readers are quite familiar with personal 3D printing and sometimes wonder why this amazing technology isn't used more by manufacturing plants. "Bring back jobs from Asia" is the standard cry. 

 

It turns out that 3D printing is in fact used in North American manufacturing - and it also isn't used. 

 

3D printing is used by manufacturing to produce rapid prototypes of complex or important items in an iterative manner. Test the function or look and feel of an object before you commit the huge expense of manufacturing. 

 

3D printing is also used to produce niche production parts, say a very complex and ultra-lightweight flange for a fighter jet, for example. It's also used to produce low-quantity (1 to 1,000, typically) production runs of unique items. 

 

It isn't used to produce mass quantities of any item. 

 

Why? Because it's just too slow and expensive. Personal 3D printer owners know this. While they are amazed at their ability to produce a terrific custom object at home, they are generally not pleased when the print takes 27.5 hours to complete. Considering the time to print, you simply can't get the efficiency out of your investment in the 3D printer as compared to mass manufacturing processes. 

 

Meanwhile, modern mass manufacturing techniques can rapidly produce high-quality objects at very low cost after you've invested dollars to set up the manufacturing line. 

 

There's a trade-off: uniqueness versus quantity. If you require a lot of anything, prototype it until it's right and then have it mass manufactured. If you need a small number of items, consider 3D printing them. 

 

Personal 3D printer owners usually require only one copy.

 

Via Manufacturing.net

Image Credit: John Lloyd

Advanced Manufacturing Seminars

If you happen to be in Anaheim, California in mid-February (and who wouldn't?) you might want to check out the Advanced Manufacturing Seminar conference, taking place from February 12-14 at Anaheim's Convention Center. 

 

The event is part of a much larger conference, the Automation Technology Expo WEST, which features "thousands" of suppliers. The event is co-located with several other related events, making it a kind of "super convention" for manufacturing. 

 

Why are we interested? It seems that 3D printing will be part of this event, at least from a speaker's perspective. Two excellent  speakers are none other than Abe Reichental, President and CEO, 3D Systems and Jim Kor, President, KOR EcoLogic Inc., leader of the team that produced the world's first 3D printed car.  

 

Via ATX West

Knocking off a few Gas Stations...

I’m guilty of conceiving elaborate plans and trying to make them perfect from the start. Seeing this, my father once said to me, “Son, you have to knock off a few gas stations on the way to the perfect crime.” What he tried to instill in me is that you have to be moving forward, making progress, while planning something big.

 

Read More at Engineering.com

How Will 3DP Affect Your City?

An interesting piece in the Houston Business Journal written by Molly Ryan contemplates the effect of 3D printing on the city of Houston's manufacturing sector. 

 

Her investigation showed what most non-technical folks soon discover about 3D printing: you can make almost anything, but it will be more expensive than traditional manufacturing techniques. In other words, it's best for prototypes, one-of's, personalized items and very short run production pieces. 

 

Not news to us or Fabbaloo readers, but it does beg the question: What existing or new businesses can leverage the ability to produce customized objects at a higher cost than mass produced items? We think people in every city will be soon developing their own answers to that question. 

 

Via Houston BizBlog

China Concerned About 3D Printing?

We know the vision: consumer owns an advanced 3D printer. They buy 3D designs online and print out their desired objects onsite within moments. Ta da!

 

We also know the implications of this vision: Dead factories, fewer trains and trucks hauling finished goods around, perhaps a slightly greener world, more 3D designers and fewer manufacturing workers. This, we think, could be generally positive. 

 

Unless you're China. 

 

China, that Great Factory For The World, could be severely impacted in the future if the vision came to pass. This is the premise of a long article in Forbes, where they say: 

 

Such manufacturing is being enabled by the long march of technology.  And it surely worries China.  While economic historians remind us of the importance of the twin innovations of free markets and financial structures, both those factors pale against the power of technology to create productivity, and thus the wealth of the world.

 

If the future factory is a machine born of emerging technologies and requires de minimus labor, on average such factories will be located preferentially where the skills and culture exist to invent and implement.  And, on average, you’d put such factories close to demand.  

  

The idea is that over the long term, technology becomes less expensive while the cost of labor continually increases. In order to be productive, you must leverage technology to achieve the best result. 

 

What do we think? We agree, although the time frame for this is questionable. Current inexpensive (and even expensive) 3D printers have huge limitations on what they can produce. Typical printed objects have no where near the variety of materials possible in conventional mass production. 

 

But that will gradually change over time, and we'll probably see 3DP starting to chip away at mass manufacturing in a few years. 

 

Via Forbes

Additive or Subtractive?

Something struck us the other day when thinking about the variety of 3D printing approaches. Traditional manufacturing is typically "subtractive", in that you take a large chunk of material, say a granite cube, length of wood or a 17 tonne cube of solid titanium and go at it with tools, manual or automated. When the smoke clears, material has been "subtracted" from the original object to "reveal" the final item. Interestingly, Michelangelo believed every stone had a sculpture hidden within it echoing this process.

 

Subtractive manufacturing can be wasteful. Consider the titanium cube that might be milled down to a final object comprised of only 10% of the original cube's mass. Sure, you might be able to recycle the shaved-off bits, but that's not going to be efficient.

 

Step forward to the 21st century where we have "Additive" manufacturing. In this approach there is no original material to subtract from. Instead, we simply deposit new material in an "additive" way to gradually build up an object from nothing. We do this with extruders, laser sintering, powder fusing and other approaches. But they are all additive. 

 

Or are they?

 

Consider the case of Solido and MCOR, who use sheet-based additive manufacturing approaches. In this approach, a flat sheet represents a layer that is added. Then the machine removes (subtracts?) the areas of the sheet that are not required. The question then is, are MCOR and Solido additive or subtractive? We think they are both because they add layers, but subtract from each layer. 

 

To print on one of these machines you must visualize the input material: a stack of sheets, plastic or paper. Your object has to be contained within that stack. So like Michelangelo, we believe every stack has an object hidden inside. Even pancakes.

Specialized 3D Bikes

Those ultra-cool bikes from manufacturer Specialized made from carbon fibre just don't appear. They're designed very carefully - using 3D printing technology.

 

The process begins when Specialized engineers design a bike using a 3D modelling tool. Their objective is to produce something that not only is technically brilliant, but also looks good. The entire bike is modelled digitally before anything else happens. 

 

Then when the design is thought to be as good as possible, it's printed on a Dimension 1200 3D printer. At that point, they have in their hands a plastic model - the bike's frame, in life size actual dimensions. Strangely, the designers then go at the model with hand tools and material to add or subtract, refining to the final shape. This ensures both function and beauty are obtained. 

 

Be sure to watch the video that shows the rest of the manufacturing process, transforming the finished 3D model into a sleek carbon fibre frame. 

 

Via CozyBeeHive