Yet another "3d printing" thread.

[smegballs]

So I just attended a presentation in uni, given by a guy who works for Arrk a rapid prototyping/rapid manufacture firm.

Some of his key points were:

There's a lot more to it that getting a RP machine, a cad file and pushing a button. A lot of operator skill is involved.

He doesn't see "home-production" RP happening "for the foreseeable future.

For load bearing parts, you can't just re-create the geometry of a machined part and print it off. You need to (re)engineer parts specifcally for that particular RP process.

The actual processes themselves (SLA, SLS etc) haven't actually changed that much in many years. The main breakthroughs have actually been with getting the materials to perform better.

The media term "3d printing" is normally used incorrectly. Only a few of the RP processes are "printing" processes.

It's a blurred line between RP and Rapid Manufacture. Lots of jobs his firm gets are rapid low-volume production runs as opposed to pure prototypes.

Was pretty good, had loads of parts left out made by all sorts of different processes. Had a vacuum cast bone, made from using a real femur as the master.

[Nexus Icon]

I did a presentation on RP/RM to a couple of guys from Arrk not so long ago. There were some other companies represented, btw, I didn't just do a presentation to two guys.
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