jeex
October 26, 2015, 12:09pm
1
Hello all,
Have been printing with UM2 for a while. Now we’re shifting from prototyping to small constomized production. See
http://jeexgame.com/ontwerp-jouw-eigen-jeex-game/
Still only for the Dutch market, as production is slow. I’m looking for faster (less noisy) and better production methods. Is Form1/2 an option? How are costs of resin compared to filament? I calculated that it is a bit faster.
Or are there other affordable printers/methods?
Thanks
6 Likes
Hey, resin is much more expensive than filament. It is also much more work to print with an SLA printer… if you ignore the fumes of the IPA and the resin itself, there is a really filthy process of cleaning the modell, UV hardening them, removing the support, filtering the left over resin, cleaning the buildplatform… Also you have to take into account that the resin vat also degrades and has to be replaced which is also quite expensive (formlabs themselfes recomment every 1liter a new tank, but some users, and also we are, experiencing quality and riability losses at around 1/2liter resin on a vat. Also tough resin wears down the vat even faster). it is so expensive that we even created a sole product (ReCoat Kit) to cut down the cost at least on that point a bit…
So for 1 liter resin printing you’ll need (as a rough guess)
1 Liter Resin (yep, definitaley)
~1,5 (Vats)
~0,5 Liter IPA isopropanol
~20 one way/disposable gloves
~1 Roll of paper towels
I guess thats it…
2 Likes
Resin and resin tray replacements make the cost of printing with the Form1 more than 500% more than FDM. I.E. $270/liter (about 1 kg) for the Form1 ($150/liter for resin plus 2 build trays per liter @ $65 each) vs.about $40/kg for FDM. Protomold.com can make molded parts at a fraction of the setup costs of traditional molds. Quickparts.com also offers some molding options. You can also buy a desktop CNC mill and make your own molds to press parts in a hand operated desktop injection molding machine. The margins you need to make and the quantities of parts you plan to make will determine the best approach.
2 Likes
jeex
October 26, 2015, 3:40pm
4
OK. Thanks for the input. So much for the resin printer
I just made printing a lot cheaper with a less expensive (and just as good) filament provider in The Netherlands. http://hestay.nl . Saves about 25%.
Now the only issue is time.
Does anyone have experience with http://ira3d.com/en/content/16-poetry-infinity
They advertise on speed, but the way i see it you can only speed up the motors and mechanics, but you cannot speed up the flow and hardening of PLA.
This one looks very suspicous… just rendered pictures of the printer… they even come up with a new acronym FLD which doesn’t add any value. since you have already a decent FDM with bowden tube i would recommend a lulzbot. since this one gives you a better performance for printing flexible filament
I would be leery of this company until they show videos of the machine working at speed and photos of the prints it makes at high speed. Its doubtful its really much better than an Ultimaker2… at least until they really prove it.
If your parts can tolerate a larger nozzle and layer height then you could use a 0.6 or even a 1.0 mm extrusion nozzle from E3D. Check out their high output “Volcano” hot end at http://e3d-online.com/Volcano .
How many pieces of each part do you want to make each month? That will determine the best approach. 3D printing will not likely be the answer for higher volumes unless your margins can cover the cost of a small printer farm.
jeex
October 26, 2015, 6:13pm
7
Printing the board game takes almost 22 hours but costs only about EUR 5.
In production of “plastic” objects there is a huge gap between producing a few (like tens) and the minimum of 5000 when we’re talking casting. I have to produce about a few hundred objects and it seems almost impossible at normal expenses.
Piet3r
October 27, 2015, 1:38pm
8
Have you thought about making your own molds with a 3D printer? Zortrax has a really in-depth guide of how to make a mold from Z-ULTRAT material. Once you have the mold, rubber and silicone material choice and color is endless. It won’t last forever, but you should be able to do about 100 demolding cycles before you have to re-print the mold.
jeex
October 27, 2015, 2:06pm
9
It is on my wish list, but getting started with moldin is not easy. Where to find materials in NLD, that sort of stuff.
Do you have a URL to that Zortrax page?
Piet3r
October 27, 2015, 4:02pm
10
davjams
October 28, 2015, 2:53pm
11
If you still wanted a resin printer you should look into Photocentric’s Liquid Crystal printer. It’s resin and it’s really cheap, only £499!
hi dav, do you were I can buy one
thanks
elliot
davjams
November 7, 2015, 7:49am
13
Laird
February 24, 2016, 2:18am
14
Resin printing (SLA) is a good choice for making a single high quality ‘master’ but would be far too slow and expensive for making hundreds of copies.
Extrusion printing is cheaper and faster than resin, but the quality is much lower. And printing hundreds of copies would be extremely tedious.
I’d recommend using either SLA or extrusion 3d printing to make a master (SLA if you need the resolution), then make a mold and use resin casting to make hundreds of copies. It’ll be a lot faster and cheaper than printing every copy.
For making thousands of copies, injection molding will be cheaper. The reason you can’t use it for smaller quantities is economics - the molds are expensive ($thousands). But once you have them, you can stamp out thousands of copies for near-zero cost.
The only case where it makes sense to print large quantities of the same thing is if they’re personalized, in which case they’re unique. You’ve not mentioned that, so IMO 3d printing isn’t a good way to go for your game parts.
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