Michigan Escapee
ArboristSite Operative
Personally I don't really like to dink around with 3D printing as an end product. From my perspective, you do it to verify that the thing will fit, and if you're lucky, you can try it as part of a working mechanism.
Then you touch it up, make a mold off of it, and throw it back in the resin recycling bucket.
Most places where I've seen it in action are still using the laser cured resin versions. And in those places, you've got a small army of people working on various phases of it. Or at least, 4-5 people.
The cheaper ones remind me of an old technique where you take a part, or a broken part, abrade it, then get out the super glue and baking soda to build up, and modify what you want. It was an easy way to add and subtract, plus you had a little mechanical strength. But you really wouldn't want to replace something like a mower part with it, or the vibration would rip it to pieces.
For just mold making, some of the old soldiers used a block of foam, a pencil torch, dremel, etc and could crank something out faster than a 3D printer, and a render monkey inputting the data.
So, plenty of ways to do it.
As for the $30 a month thing, if you're even doing just a short production run of 20-100 parts, $30 is nothing. For some shops it makes more sense to just pay $600-$2400 up front, and then it's there to use, whenever, and for-8-10 years, until your hardware/OS platform becomes non viable.
Then you touch it up, make a mold off of it, and throw it back in the resin recycling bucket.
Most places where I've seen it in action are still using the laser cured resin versions. And in those places, you've got a small army of people working on various phases of it. Or at least, 4-5 people.
The cheaper ones remind me of an old technique where you take a part, or a broken part, abrade it, then get out the super glue and baking soda to build up, and modify what you want. It was an easy way to add and subtract, plus you had a little mechanical strength. But you really wouldn't want to replace something like a mower part with it, or the vibration would rip it to pieces.
For just mold making, some of the old soldiers used a block of foam, a pencil torch, dremel, etc and could crank something out faster than a 3D printer, and a render monkey inputting the data.
So, plenty of ways to do it.
As for the $30 a month thing, if you're even doing just a short production run of 20-100 parts, $30 is nothing. For some shops it makes more sense to just pay $600-$2400 up front, and then it's there to use, whenever, and for-8-10 years, until your hardware/OS platform becomes non viable.
