Fixtures - 3D Printing

Prices for 3D printers vary depending on materials, accuracy, speed. If you are a bigger company, check to see if one exists already elsewhere to try. Can be good for oddball parts to nest, but you are going to start collecting fixtures. Modular fixtures can be reset to another part number fairly easily and they don't take up alot of space when not in use.

This is a personal response and not one to be considered to be from 'Hexagon' in any way, shape, or form.

I have several home-made 3d printers. I am planning on making another one for my office that would be available to the AE's for just this purpose, printing custom fixturing. I am also 3d printing fixturing for my CNC router as I can't afford to get 'proper' step blocks and the like.

I think it would be better to think of 3d printed parts to be used in conjunction with existing fixturing and not instead of. Printed parts are plastic, and will do what plastic does, sag & deform over time when under pressure. If you are clever you can use this to your advantage and make fixturing what will deform itself before it deforms the part you are trying to measure.

You would be able to do stuff with 3d printed fixturing that you can't do with your fixture sets. Curved faces to match the part to be measured. Holes in the fixture to allow measuring of a feature that would otherwise be occluded. A 3d printed tray that allows you to drop a part in only 1 way so your alignments are trivial.

The software for the printers would be the same CAD that you likely already have access to. The CAM side of things is called 'slicing' for the hobbyist machines and there are good, free packages available as well as a growing number of commercial options available as well.

As for the printers themselves, you can get a ready-to-run hobbyist printers starting at $500. This class runs up to about $2500, with the more expensive tending to be better than the cheaper in quality, accuracy and durability. The Commercial units start around $5000 and work their way up from there. In theory, the commercial printers cost more but require less work to operate. There is a trade off between up front costs and hidden man-hour costs in keeping things running. Material costs also vary. I could print a step block pair for probably under $0.25 in material costs on my printers.

I know my company would NOT want me wasting my work hour time on my home made class machines as I am always fiddling around and fixing on them.

If you have a lot of down time between cycles, there may be an opportunity there to add a new capability to the department. If the company has a 3d printer already in another department, it's probably worth trying once to see if it would work for you in this application.