Thank you to those who already pledged and to those that will in the future! Keep it coming!!!
Pledge $25 or more – A kitsch 1/12 scale Stephen Colbert head. Wear it on your finger (no risk of suffocation) or set it on your desk to remind yourself how cool you are! True, 3D Printing is for geeks…the cool kind that end up ruling the world!!!
Pledge $100 or more – Just added thanks to the popularity of $100 pledges so far, I am offering a 1/8 scale head.
Pledge $1,000 or more – Not quite a Rap star but got $1000 burning a hole in your pocket? Then this option is for you. Get a 1/4 scale head more than 1/2 foot tall.
Pledge $10,000 or more – A full size Stephen Colbert head for the true connoisseur. Wear it or make it a lamp, but if you can afford this then you must already have a trick Hollywood mansion and superb collection of exotic cars. Party at your place!
I saw this video at http://www.markuskayser.com/ that I want to share with you. It is amazing! Markus Kayser develelped this “Solar Sinter”, a 3D printer usiing sand for material and the sun for energy.
Markus says “In a world increasingly concerned with questions of energy production and raw material shortages, this project explores the potential of desert manufacturing, where energy and material occur in abundance.
In this experiment sunlight and sand are used as raw energy and material to produce glass objects using a 3D printing process, that combines natural energy and material with high-tech production technology.”
Some very exciting news in 3D printing! One of the industry leaders was on Comedy Central’s Colbert Report a couple weeks ago. They actually scanned his head and printed it out. If you are not familiar with how the process works at all, you can watch the video on our home page (www.nwrapidmfg.com).
Anyway, this lead to a challenge, for designs using the scan of Stephen Colbert’s head. I decided my contribution would be a hollow head, large enough to wear. It is the absolute largest part we can build in our machinery!
Support this project with a thumbs up on Thingiverse and by pledging your donation to kickstarter using the links below!
Don’t forget the “Innovation Conference for Engineers” is coming soon!
Learn About the Latest Technologies and Challenges in Product Development and Manufacturing.
This conference will explore new resources, materials, and processes that will help companies speed up, develop, and manufacture products. They have speakers from medical devices to aerospace industries. Alex will be presenting “Direct Digital Manufacturing.”
Well, the first of the year was like a light switch for us. Business has been great. With increased work comes less time, but somehow the influx of work drives more new ideas which lead to even more exciting opportunities!
One of those new ventures is driving new coloring possibilities. We can now produce nylon parts in nearly any color. So far we have just worked in the grey scale, but it proves the concept. Better yet is that this coating is tough, does not easily scratch or peal, and is colorfast. It’s not going to come off on your hand or even in the washing machine. Yes, we tested on of these parts by both washing and drying. This coating can be applied in various gloss levels, but I prefer the matte finish.
Stay tuned as we also have some material advances on the way.
I will also be speaking at two upcoming events: the EOS International User Meeting (IUM) and SME’s Bay Area Innovation conference.
For April’s IUM, the chosen topic is: Manufacturing at the speed of design; The UAV Industry is rapidly maturing. New techniques and workflows are necessary to take full advantage of laser sintering technology. Find out more about EOS’s yearly event at http://www.eos.info/en/news-events/ium-2011.html. I am looking forward to catching up with some former colleagues!
Regarding May’s Innovation conference, the chosen topic is: Talk Title: Additive Manufacturing (also known as Direct Digital Manufacturing or Rapid Manufacturing); Problems and Possibilities – A maturing industry grows up, layer-by-layer. Stay up to date with SME Chapter 098 at http://sme098.publishpath.com/innovation-conference.
Hopefully, it’s not as long until my next blog…Best wishes to all, ALx
Well, it’s that time of year…its finally (keep your fingers crossed) getting warm in Oregon. It’s so nice outside, but I am buried with work. Thank God for Interns!
Eager to work, they bring new excitement to the workplace but need a little coaching. Yes, this means less time in the sun initially, but educating interns (and people in general) is in fact very rewarding and pays off in the long run. Personally, I get really excited about design and sharing the possibilities with other people who share my excitement!
So what are some typical questions?
What materials do you have?
What kind of tolerances can I expect?
How much space do I need between parts?
What are your size limitations?
Can I send you my model to have a look at it?
Material choices include std PA 12, PALS, Flexible rubber-like, and Polystyrene patterns for casting metal parts. PA12 (also known as nylon, PA2200, PA2201, Duraform, etc.) has good all around properties with minimal tendency to distort. Its flexible and tough yet rigid depending on part design. PALS is a new proprietary light-weight structural nylon. It is stiffer than PA12, more like glass filled nylon (such as PA3200gf, Duraform GF or HST, or Windform XT) but it has an additional benefit. Its lighter weight! About 20% lighter than PA12 and as much as 50% ligther than glass-filled nylon. Huge benefit is that if you deigned a part for PA12, the cross-sectional thickness can be reduced by about 30%, for a total weight reduction of 50% even vs. std nylon 12. That’s huge!!! Our flexible rubber-like material (similar to Somos or Duraform Flex) is also a new addition and has many undiscovered possibilities, but it gives new freedom with around 40-60 shore A hardness. Cool stuff! Finally, creating patterns for investment casting is easy with our polystyrene material (similar to Primecast or Castform). We have available a new formula with increased green strength opening new possibilities for Aluminum or Titanium. Nearly any metal can be cast using this process.
Regarding tolerances, in general we recommend to design for +/- 0.010” or +/- 0.5% (whichever is greater). We can do better than that on critical features after becoming more familiar with a design. This also depends on material and process influences. Polystyrene is typically more accurate than PALS for example.
The required distance between parts in a moving assembly depends on a several design factors including feature size and mass, you need a minimum of 0.020” and sometimes more than 0.040” between surfaces to not melt the pieces together.
There is a minimum feature size of about 0.030” (sometimes as small as 0.025” in polystyrene and PALS) as long as the feature is more than 0.080” long. For example, pins smaller than 2mm easily break off when taller than a few thousandths, but lettering is fine because it is close to the surface, and longer thin walls are fine too. It’s a bad idea to design points and knife edges. Best practice is to give everything a 0.015” radius if possible. The largest single piece part we can build is about 27” wide by 15” deep by 23” tall in our EOS P730, though typical part sizes are 4-6” cube.
We are glad to consider your data, please visit our quotes page and upload all relevant information. There is so much design freedom with this process. I challenge you to find uses for these materials, old and new. Submit more than one design at the same time and we can probably build them together at a reduced cost. This allows everyone involved to learn quickly what is an optimal design or optimal features using concurrent engineering practices.
NW Rapid can take you from powder to prototype to production in a matter of days.
Powder to part overnight…imagine the possibilities.
Rising from the powder, nylon powder, is a solid plastic intake manifold. The PSU SAE Formula Team designed a new lightweight manifold made from Laser Sintered Nylon to replace their Aluminum one which was heavier, less optimized for performance, and frankly not as pretty.
Using our EOS SLS systems, we were able to realize their design just days before their capstone presentation and only 2 weeks before they will compete in Michigan. With about 5 lbs of weight savings and a safety factor of 3 on their manifold design, the car is sure to be a strong contender in this year’s competition.
SLS Laser Sintered Nylon Part
Following the competition, the team hopes to further optimize their intake design for laser sintering. They are also considering other options such as creating an SLS fuel tank. I expect they will now embrace some of the new material and process options we have available such as a stiff, lightweight material option which will soon be available.
You can learn more about the latest team dynamics at:
Catching up back in the office and wanted to take a moment to share my experience at this year’s RAPID Show in Anaheim, CA at the Disneyland hotel. I always find it very important to get out of the office and gain new perspective. It’s also great to share ideas and get the feedback that you are doing valuable work! My week went a bit like this:
First, I arrived in Anaheim with my wife for the weekend. We are both hard working professionals, so this was a nice way to force a vacation Of course we are both engineers, so in order to see all the attractions most efficiently, my wife downloaded some software which gives an optimized plan based on day of the week and time of year. What this did not take into consideration was the weather…it was colder than Oregon Good thing was the parks were not so busy. Quick tip: Don’t ride Splash Mountain if there is any risk of not seeing the sun.
After dropping my wife off at the airport early Monday morning, I prepared for my presentation at the EOS NAUD (North American User Day). EOS talked about their new materials (including PrimePart ST) and systems (including the P760 and P395). I educated the group of laser sintering users about the good work we are doing in the UAV Industry. Everyone was impressed with the stability of our thin wall parts. Unfortunately, SLS sometimes gets a bad name because there are some pretty low quality parts on the market. We have the expertise and well-maintained machines to create strong parts with walls as thin as 0.50mm or 0.020” in certain materials. The 1mm wall fuel tank which has held 10psi of pressure for the last year was particularly impressive.
The next day, I spoke at the SME (Society of Manufacturing Engineers) RAPID Show to a group specifically interested in aircrafts. The sample parts were again a hit. I had the opportunity to educate some folks on the fact that polystyrene models can be created using laser sintering. I showed some examples of aluminum castings made using this process (though Titanium, Stainless, etc. can also be cast using this process). I was excited to see folks from Boeing, Northrop Grumman, and the Army.
On the last day of my trip, I had the honor of mentoring in the SME Bright Minds program where high school student are introduced to the Additive Manufacturing Industry. Many experts were in the room which lead to some great presentations and conversations. Of note was Mike North’s presentation which includes many of his adventures both caught on film and behind the scenes. All of the students and mentors were pretty excited about the AMP=D Electric 33 Hot Rod from Factory Five http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kpqvpqklyk0
In general, it was so fantastic to see so many old friends and colleagues and meet some new ones as well!
Stay tuned as we have some exciting collaboration including a potential material breakthrough quite soon…
The UAV market has grown and so has Northwest UAV Propulsion Systems. Adding to the growing pains of entering a new market and supporting new designs, purchased prototype parts were received with varying quality and lead times. Rather than being discouraged by the experience, Chris Harris saw the potential and was empowered to bring laser sintering in house, getting control of their process chain.
Northwest Rapid Manufacturing was formed with a focus on producing durable, thin-wall plastic parts on their EOS P390 and has done so for more than a year. With new projects and applications in mind and no machine capacity, an additional EOS P730 large frame laser sintering system was purchased. Northwest UAV now leverages Northwest Rapid Manufacturing to produce production level parts (overnight when necessary) to support various projects including small engine and variable pitch propeller development.
Northwest Rapid Manufacturing continues to build on its core competency while utilizing new materials (including polystyrene for casting metal parts) and producing single piece large parts including fuel tanks.
Join us for Alex Dick’s presentation at the upcoming Rapid 2010 Conference!
RAPID 2010 Conference & Exposition Event Information
Disneyland Hotel
Anaheim CA USA
May 18, 2010 to May 20, 2010
Of course we are both engineers, so in order to see all the attractions most efficiently, my wife downloaded some software which gives an optimized plan based on day of the week and time of year. What this did not take into consideration was the weather…it was colder than Oregon 
Good thing was the parks were not so busy. Quick tip: Don’t ride Splash Mountain if there is any risk of not seeing the sun.