I wouldn’t recommend investing a machine to mass produce 3d printed parts. There are better ways to produce large volumes of parts using traditional methods and with superior end results. A 3d printed parts is always going to have its weaknesses. The volume your are looking at you could injection mold the parts and be way ahead of the game. You could even CNC machine parts and do better. Our Objet 30 pro was near 60K all said and done. Materials will cost you $600-$770 per cartridge and have expiration dates. Then you have to factor in maintenance contracts which are basically forced or service on your machine becomes a nightmare around 4K per year. We can help with production for CNC and Molding if you end up choosing an alternate path. Good Luck.
Thank you everyone for all the useful information.
We actually build and repair injection molds at our shop and this particular part is out of our league. I am not saying it’s impossible but it would be a very expensive mold for only 10k parts.
Here is a better look at the part that shows why it would be difficult to mold.
I am starting to think we’ll just hammer by purchasing several more FDM style printers.
Thanks again for all the input.
I wanted to think a polyjet would work because they can do some really cool stuff, but I don’t think its the right fit for this job.
Do you know any small injection molding systems? I’ve been thinking about getting involved in injection molding, but haven’t found much. Most of what I’ve seen are huge machines for industrial manufacturing. I’m operating out of an at home garage shop, so a crazy big or complex system that requires 480V is out of the question. This is the closest thing I’ve found to meet my needs, but the die size is a bit small and I’d like to see something a little more automated.
That’s a good question. I don’t personally know of any machines like you are describing. When plastics were huge in the 80’s there were a lot of smaller presses but they weren’t automated. I’m sure if you look long enough you can find something!
Hi Brandon. I recently completed a 10,000 part order using 3d printers over the course of several months. Like you the mold was too expensive, the original lost in China. The end use was a replacement box for smart meters out of UL94 ABS. I made custom machines for the jobs with oversize nozzles, custom slicing and a special de-plating sub-routine routine, invented a special coating for the bed that releases the prints %100 at the cycle end, and a climate controlled cabinet to run the machines in with an attached dry compartment for filament storage. Once the system is running a worker would visit the print room 3 times a day for monitoring and restarting prints etc. I am at the University of Windsor in Canada, running a Fortus 400mc plus our own machines. The Fortus is what you want for those parts I think. I can set up a factory here for you at a very reasonable cost. I would love to give you a quote for the that run. I think it would be a great learning experience for our students. PS I’ve been starting to see unmoldable parts in million quantity for quotes. Its coming fast.
Hi Brandon, I’ve owned an Objet Eden 500 and an objet Connex 500 in the past. Probably the most user friendly and reliable technology on the market. Material isn’t cheap - but cost is relative to what your customer is paying! I would advise that you get a test print first. The materials are not mechanically strong and they have a low heat deflection temperature. All the best, Martin
if Your Costumer wants to have 10k of These simple Part, why he doesnt build a Injection Mould? That makes definetly more sense, than printing this Amount!! What Material You want to use? The Polyjet Materials are basically developed to print Prototypes, so the Lifetime isnt compareable to Injectionmoulding Parts!
I have two Objet30 Prime and at all Im satisfied with the Printers. But it insnt so easy as the Industry promised. The Postprocessing takes too much time and the Printspeed should be faster.
The Price is actually between 35-45k€. All less this Price is not seriously, from my Point of View.
I would look at far east rapid injection tooling, or potentially protolabs.com
I don’t think the Objet would give part of sufficient strength, and the cleaning of support, build time and setup would be very time consuming.
We have an Objet 24 in-house and as long as the cleaning maintenance procedures are followed, with a yearly service, it runs extremely well and reliably. However, for a job like this we would not consider using it.
I completely disagree with the comment you cannot print end use parts at costs where you can make money and prosper. There are printers out there today that are industrial grade, have a wide range of engineering grade materials available and you do not have to obtain the materials from the vendor where you purchased the printer.
