On Tuesday 04 April 2017 02:51:22 Gregg Eshelman wrote: > I wonder if they've heard about lost PLA casting? One off and short > runs without needing to make expensive, reusable patterns, plus the > ability to do casting shapes impossible with patterns that must be > removable from a sand mold, could be a money maker for the foundry. > 'Course they'd have to get and learn to use a 3D printing setup.
That looks like something I could do, if I had a big enough printer and could learn how to do the 3d model to feed the slicer software for the printer. I'm thinking of the belt guards in particular which would need at least one dimension in the 250mm by 100 by 100 range. Can we slice and print from a sketchup file, or do I had to learn freecad? Looking at the relative cost of the string vs the pellet fed printing head, pellet is 5% of the string on a cost per pound basis. One belt guard out of pellets would pay for the diff in print heads, and I can think of several things hacked up out of 1/2" alu plate now that would look better if cast, but would probably be plenty functional in one of the higher temp plastics, like timeing belt guards. Z is fairly well out of the way, and I'll have a keyboard/mouse house/shelf above it, but x is right in the flying swarf path. Don't like the plastics color? Paint it. And I am fairly familiar with iron casting, having spent much of a summer setting and pouring the molds I set at the end of my shift in an iron foundry in Perry Iowa. But then I was in my mid 20's, ten foot tall and bulletproof enough to handle an 80 lb bucket of iron on the far end of a 6 foot handle. Today I'd be hurting whats left of my back with 5 lbs of iron in a clay lined and lipped small bucket. That summer hurt my back and its never fully recovered. > On Monday, April 3, 2017, 5:17:33 AM MDT, Gene Heskett > <[email protected]> wrote: We have a foundry here, but no clue what > sort of a 3d file they might accept. Or what they might have as an NRE > price policy. Currently their main contract is for wheel hubs for 20" > and 24" White Truck wheels. White being one of our smaller truck > makers in terms of the overall market for "large cars" here in the US. > So I'd expect the NRE stuff may be farmed out, and the finished form > shipped back for pouring and final machining. > > Cheers, Gene Heskett > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- >-------- Check out the vibrant tech community on one of the world's > most engaging tech sites, Slashdot.org! http://sdm.link/slashdot > _______________________________________________ > Emc-users mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users Cheers, Gene Heskett -- "There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order." -Ed Howdershelt (Author) Genes Web page <http://geneslinuxbox.net:6309/gene> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Check out the vibrant tech community on one of the world's most engaging tech sites, Slashdot.org! http://sdm.link/slashdot _______________________________________________ Emc-users mailing list [email protected] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
