3D printing in metals

Does not sound right to me, the earlier attachment says a M4 x 0.5 steel bolt will yield at 2100N

Latest one says the short length of thread in ali is caplable of taking over twice that at 4620N.

I would say the bolt will rip out of the thread long before it breaks

Currently also produced a couple of parts at Prototi. In table of attachment different mentioned strength. Contact was easy and fast. Able to do T6 annealing options for aluminium (stress relief and improve ductility) and other heat treatment for M300 (18NI300 Maraging steel) to make it very strong 1890 Mpa!

Only some parts have additional cnc maching and got a email quality check showed a crital oversight so the parts been reproduced. Which is good to hear.

Quote from: JasonbDoes not sound right to me, the earlier attachment says a M4 x 0.5 steel bolt will yield at 2100N
Latest one says the short length of thread in ali is caplable of taking over twice that at 4620N.
I would say the bolt will rip out of the thread long before it breaks

I have been down this Gemini path before with apparently contradictory answers. Its a weird animal, sometimes its how you pose the question. Or it selectively talks about one aspect & only when you push it does it cough up a more complete analysis. At least in textbook mechanical engineering stuff, all bets off on many other subjects. It sometimes fibs or gets mixed up. Anyway back to the 3DP failure modes, it has this to say. I'll leave it at this.

Thanks for the update.

I'm not inclined to do a destructive test on the other prints that I have but next time I order will get a small block printed to do a physical test on.

I saw such a printed exhaust component at the MECA meeting last year. It looks like the rest of the exhaust system has been fabricated.

To use this printing process some form of 3D CAD is required to generate the STL files. Are there any recommendations? I currently only have 2D (Draftsight).

Onshape. It has a free plan (if you don't mind your work being publicly available), nothing to download - works in your browser, no files to manage, simple classy user interface design, masses of help, tutorials, forum. It will export .stl, but I have not tried it for printing yet, but am thinking of having a carb body done.


This is the finished piece. For scale,the bore is 7/16". I have started a gunmetal fabrication, but am not far along with it yet. I would need to add machining allowances for having it printed, probably in aluminium.

Fusion 360 is another that is free for home use and will produce STL and STP file sfor printing. I use it for all my CAM

I do use Alibre for drawing which can be had for a 1 off payment, you can get a months triel free.

Roger, an other option is Solidworks for makers (hobby).

Currently until 13 january 24 dollar each year.

There are two options
- 3DEXPERIENCE SOLIDWORKS for Makers - > local on your pc with option cloud base storage or local
- SOLIDWORKS xDesign for Makers -> Cloud 3D CAD: Browser-based, motion studies

Both has also have rendering to generate pictures.

https://www.solidworks.com/solution/solidworks-makers

Happy new year.

Love the technology and for a one off absolutely amazing however the costs currently make this process unviable for any commercial venture.
We have designed a little IC engine that can be built with a few hand tools and with a little help from Jason presented it to Craft-Cloud. At nearly £400.00 per engine ( admittedly all stainless steel ) we don’t see a market. Perhaps next year??

  Graham.

I would need to add machining allowances for having it printed, probably in aluminium.

you mean that the metal printed part is not exactly the same size of the drawn part ?
actually I have to increase the size of my PLA printed part (104 %) to get metal casted parts the right size for my engines owing to metal shrinkage during casting, is it the same when printing metal ?

Quote from: Zephyrin

I would need to add machining allowances for having it printed, probably in aluminium.

you mean that the metal printed part is not exactly the same size of the drawn part ?
actually I have to increase the size of my PLA printed part (104 %) to get metal casted parts the right size for my engines owing to metal shrinkage during casting, is it the same when printing metal ?

The bores tend to come out a bit smaller than drawn and are rough. For something like a carb you would want a smooth surface to the inside bore so best to make the 3D model like a casting and allow a small machining allowance.

That is what I did with this stainless steel trunk guide, the model had the bore 1mm smaller and I also allowed 0.5mm of material on the feet and face of teh flange so they could all be machined perfectly flat and to exact size. The outer surfaces were not critical and the texture wa sa bonus a sit wa smare like a casting that I wanted th epart to replicate



Machining feet


Boring


Faced & drilled


Complete

I have finally downloaded Fusion 360 (now Autodesk Fusion) after some language/land problems. The free version did not exist on the Swiss website, only the US one. I could register with my bluewin.ch email address but could not download the programme. Luckily I had an old yahoo.com email that allowed the download.

Now I can see how intuitive the interface is 

Sorry, Roger, but if you are not familiar with 3D CAD modelling, you should not expect the process to be at all intuitive.

Roger

I started on my own using Fusion 360 5 years with past knowledge of industrial solid modeling. Initially I got it all wrong but I was corrected by the model engineering club who were running tutorials during COVID lockdown. Even so the speed of learning was dictated by the slowest member of the group. In the end I bought a copy of "Autodesk Fusion 360, A Power Guide for Beginners and Intermediate Users" published by CADArtifex. It is now in its 7th edition. This has become my only guide to Fusion 360 and has yet to let me down.


AVTUR

Although the placement of some of the icons has changed since they were done the three part beginners videos by Lars are quite good.

https://youtu.be/A5bc9c3S12g?si=ajrN3S4OAMRbzJ80