I have small machine plastic parts made in the hundreds via 3D printing, and they work great.
Price from supplier (injection moulded) in Italy EU17.00 + shipping, price from 3D printer kid here in Australia converts to EU32 cents.
Shipping cost is a six pack of beer for printer kids father when he drops them off. Printer kids father and I drink the beers together, so the real shipping and manufacture cost is 3 beers and EU32.00 for the parts.
I'm told, that most of the parts in a cheap 3D printer can be made by a 3D printer.
Todd is utilizing this technology in two forms.
1: To ensure he plots it correctly, test fitting and aesthetics etc.
2: So that he has the design already mapped out and he can then send it off for CNC machining, saving heaps of CNC plotting time and cost.
But, as with my small parts, can be used in day to day production of parts used in in large factories.
Chris nailed it as to how I use the printer for my bike. I print parts that are mostly for my verification, before I spend the money on getting parts machined. Its still more cost effective to have things milled or CNC'd for the better part, unless you are printing metal parts of a great variety for building super cars, eg how the Bugatti guys print their mono block brake callipers amongst a ton of other parts for their cars. A friend of mine is a director at Hispano Suiza , they use 3 d printers a lot for their cars too. They are doing a run of 19 of one model of their cars, and a 3 d printer allows them to be in control of their manufacturing process, and also do small batches of parts, rather than having to sub contract out to another company, which is costly, and normally comes with a minimum purchase order, so while the 3 d printer is expensive, it still is cheaper for them making 19 cars, than having to purchase 3000 items from a contractor which would be parts for say 200 cars, far in excess than what they need, and a waste of money and materials . The other benefit, is there will always be spare parts available... need a new calliper.... print one off, so spare parts dont become a costly investment, and you dont have loads of callipers sitting on the shelf collecting dust.
I dont get to use my printer for me much, except on over night prints if the printer is idle or on weekends. Mine runs pretty busy, I average around 70 hours of print time a week. I produce a lot of end user ready parts, which would normally be obsolete if say I am making plastic parts for a 10 year old winch, which has been superseded, or for mechanisms on a 12 year old super yacht, where chance s are the build company has gone bust, and no one has parts or drawings for what was originally built. I saved a boat 1000's recently by replicating some of their bulwark door dog locks and printing them for them as their build company didnt exist and they were custom made parts. These I printed in Nylon 12.
I can print with carbon infused materials , kevlar infused, glass re in-forced, casting material to make castable moulds, poly carbonate... you name it. But my machine has limits, I cant print things like PEEK, Ultim and a few other technical engineering plastics , thats the next printer up from mine, and will be the next printer I get. My printer was just a side project to keep myself learning and interested at work, it pays for itself, and has taught me a lot, but certainly wont let me retire
so printers can be used for proto typing and end user final products. Yesterdays job was to print a part for a spinnaker retrieval drum, for a TP52 grand prix yacht, its printed in PLA to see if their idea will work, then if it does look like it will work we will either print it in nylon infused with carbon, or we will print a mould that they can make a carbon one from . Eventually for super yachts at least, I suspect each boat will have a industrial grade printer, and they will either purchase the rights to all their printable parts or pay per down load with a time sensitive file, and they will then be able to print things like impellers, seals , gaskets, door stops, what ever they need that is specific to their boat.
That doesn't mean machinists will disappear , that trade will never go away , not at least in the next 50 years
