I saw my first 3D printer at an H-P plant in 2001. They had printed a fully articulated V8 engine in about 1/4 scale. It was love at first sight. Theirs cost about a quarter million dollars then but today’s systems are much more capable and much cheaper. Fairly good, if basic, systems can be had for under $1,000.
One of the problems with 3D printing is that it requires a 3D drawing. This can take some of skill and time to produce. For a complex geometry getting the dimensions right can be close to impossible. Wrong dimensions make a useless part.
I was watching some YouTube videos of how Jay Leno uses scanning and printing in his garage to restore 100 year old cars. When he has a broken part he scans it with a FaroArm www.faro.com This gives him a drawing, accurate to an incredible 0.0009” that he can tweak in AutoCad if needed. Then into what he calls his “magic oven” (the printer) and a few hours later he has an exact part in plastic.
After checking for fit on the car, he sends the drawing to a machine shop to CNC the real part out of metal.
What a concept for a plant maintenance shop!
How often is a machine down for days for want of a simple part? It may be a custom piece that the machine builder does not stock so you have to wait for them to make one. If it has to come from Europe it may be weeks or even months. Some maintenance shops have wizard machinists who, given a Bridgeport and a lathe, can make anything from scratch. Those folks are getting harder and harder to find and even if they can do it, it takes time.
You think nothing of spending $10-$20,000 for a machine tool for the shop. How about drop a few bucks for a 3D printer and scanner? Compared to the cost of downtime, the ability to get back up and running in hours instead of days is peanuts.
If you don’t have a scanner and printer already, buy one. If nothing else, you need to find out what it can do.
The two Jay Leno’s Garage episodes are here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q3SVTBrKyZk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ZrJsrTT4EA
