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3D Print to Assembly Line.


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Hey fellow 3DCoaters!

Does anyone know if it's possible to use a 3D Print as a prototype for manufacturing purposes.

Let's say I developed some toys in 3DC, can I simply take 3D Prints of my models

and use them to cast the molds needed for mass production?

Anyone familiar with this process? Is this even possible?

Many thanks in advance!

Sam

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Check out these threads. Andrew added undercuts in version 4 beta to help with the manufacturing process. I followed a couple of threads on the subject so it looks like he added the undercut feature per request... I followed the threads because it was interesting.

http://3d-coat.com/f...showtopic=10220

http://3d-coat.com/f...showtopic=10230

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While certainly a nice idea, 3D-printed molds unfortunately would not match manufacturing demands.

Methods like Injection-Molding work with extremely high pressures and of course high temparatures (liquid plastics).

Trying to use 3D-Metal-prints would fail as well and printing such would cost insane amounts of money.

It's common that molds for plastic-parts are cnc-milled, one had to digitally create a mold first.

Digital Mold-Making still is a process which more or less only done with Nurbs-Applications as also most items

which get physically produced are modelled in Nurbs. The manufacturing-industry is specialized on this sort

of input data.

It is generally possible to also create a mold from your mesh in some CAD-programs which also deal sufficiently

with meshes (Rhino for instant). As it typically is no option to convert a detailed sculpt to Nurbs, the mold will have

to be a mesh too. One therefor needed to find a Milling-Service who can actually handle mesh-data.

Most processes involved are quite specialized, that's certainly not something one can learn doing in an hour or so.

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Sure it's possible - that's what I do on a daily basis :) .

You can print an object and reproduce those either in resin or in metal without much worry about undercuts and geometry.

Things get tricky when you wish to try injection moulding process used for mass production (tens of thousands copies). Model has to be properly design for this method.

But as I've said - if you keep the numbers in hundreds it should be fairly easy.

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Sure it's possible - that's what I do on a daily basis :) .

You can print an object and reproduce those either in resin or in metal without much worry about undercuts and geometry.

Things get tricky when you wish to try injection moulding process used for mass production (tens of thousands copies). Model has to be properly design for this method.

But as I've said - if you keep the numbers in hundreds it should be fairly easy.

@'Przemas

I would be interested if you have tested the new "Undercut Feature" in Version 4 Beta and how well it works...

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@Digman: I've just installed the beta and started testing the feature. While it miss some important elements it does surprisingly good job at the moment :) . Praises goes to Andy for implementing it. For sure I'll drop him an email with info what to add - he's such kind and patient fella :) .

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  • 4 years later...
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Got to revive this thread.

The undercut removal tool is just barely usefull for manufacturing purposes.

It would be greatly improved if the devs could make it multithreaded, added a parting line definition function with deviation parameters, and a tool specific shader that could show a draft analysis using the defined vector and angle. I would settle just with making it a bit faster (multithreaded) for starters, which could be done by letting the tool handle voxel cells in parallel, but I'm no dev. 

Is there a way to make this an official bugfix or feature request?

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Hi !

At Mantis you can find change logs, day to day reports about bugs and 3DC request list.

Fell free to make an account there. Your help is welcome.

or

Send any support-related questions, feature requests to Andrew Shpagin at

support@3dcoat.com

Best regards ! :)

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