I'm looking into easy fixture solutions and was thinking about 3D printed fixtures. Would that be possible. I'm wondering if I could make some fixture arms, or even some standoffs, or if needed some complex fixtures. That being said, what filament would work well for both precision and accuracy as well as durability. PLA and ABS look like good candidates. Or am I wasting my time?
for your normal FDM printers: ABS or PLA would work just fine. whichever is cheapest, really. You have to make sure that everyone understands that these fixtures are NOT guages! I had someone try to bring up the point that these need to be qualified in order to use them. And of course, they were wrong because no measurements are being taken from the fixtures. they are there simply to hold the part in place so the CMM can do it's job a little better.
The Form2 is an SLA printer so it uses a liquid photoreactive resin. (Similar to DLP printers but the Form2 uses a laser.) It's not really a hard sell. Right now Formlabs just came out with the Form3 so they're trying to shift the rest of their Form2s. Current price on the Formlabs website is $2850 for the Form2. Then it's around $150/L of resin which i can get a good 5-7 prints out of depending on if i make them solid or hollow them out. There will be on-going costs as the resin tanks and the resin itself are consumables. I was lucky and i was able to acquire the printer from another department but since december i've spend somewhere in the realm of $5000 in consumables through test prints, prototypes, development prints, etc. It takes a while to get the workflow down and understand the shrinkage and all that mess. I've got a bucket full of prints that i can't use because the fixture ended up too small or too big or i messed up in the modeling or any other reason.
BUUUUUUUTTTTTTTTT
if you use R&R fixturing or the Hex brand fixturing you can compare the costs there. In my case it's completely necessary to have single fixtures for each part number because the operators here have no idea what a CMM is or what it does so i have to "idiot-proof" it as much as i can through clever fixturing and programming. So if i were to buy enough R&R fixturing to have individual fixtures i would have spent close to $300,000 IN FIXTURING ALONE! So, yes, having a 3D printer allowing me to custom make my fixtures for under $10k was a no-brainer to my bosses. That case may not work for everyone but it did for me.
Keep asking away at any questions ya'll have and i'll do my best to keep answering.
i also made a new post rather than commenting back on the other one. Just for clarification sake.
vpt.seChairsWithWheels
for your normal FDM printers: ABS or PLA would work just fine. whichever is cheapest, really. You have to make sure that everyone understands that these fixtures are NOT guages! I had someone try to bring up the point that these need to be qualified in order to use them. And of course, they were wrong because no measurements are being taken from the fixtures. they are there simply to hold the part in place so the CMM can do it's job a little better.
The Form2 is an SLA printer so it uses a liquid photoreactive resin. (Similar to DLP printers but the Form2 uses a laser.) It's not really a hard sell. Right now Formlabs just came out with the Form3 so they're trying to shift the rest of their Form2s. Current price on the Formlabs website is $2850 for the Form2. Then it's around $150/L of resin which i can get a good 5-7 prints out of depending on if i make them solid or hollow them out. There will be on-going costs as the resin tanks and the resin itself are consumables. I was lucky and i was able to acquire the printer from another department but since december i've spend somewhere in the realm of $5000 in consumables through test prints, prototypes, development prints, etc. It takes a while to get the workflow down and understand the shrinkage and all that mess. I've got a bucket full of prints that i can't use because the fixture ended up too small or too big or i messed up in the modeling or any other reason.
BUUUUUUUTTTTTTTTT
if you use R&R fixturing or the Hex brand fixturing you can compare the costs there. In my case it's completely necessary to have single fixtures for each part number because the operators here have no idea what a CMM is or what it does so i have to "idiot-proof" it as much as i can through clever fixturing and programming. So if i were to buy enough R&R fixturing to have individual fixtures i would have spent close to $300,000 IN FIXTURING ALONE! So, yes, having a 3D printer allowing me to custom make my fixtures for under $10k was a no-brainer to my bosses. That case may not work for everyone but it did for me.
Keep asking away at any questions ya'll have and i'll do my best to keep answering.
i also made a new post rather than commenting back on the other one. Just for clarification sake.
vpt.seChairsWithWheels
