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New 3D Printer Can Print With Carbon Fiber
cold fjord sends this news from Popular Mechanics:
"[M]aking custom racecar parts out of carbon fiber is daunting. The only real method available is CNC machining, an expensive and difficult process that requires laying pieces by hand. To improve the process, [Gregory Mark] looked to 3D printing. But nothing on the market could print the material, and no available materials could print pieces strong enough for his purposes. So Mark devised his own solution: the MarkForged Mark One, the world's first carbon fiber 3D printer. Mark debuted his Boston area-based startup MarkForged at SolidWorks World 2014 in San Diego with a working prototype. The Mark One can print in carbon fiber, fiberglass, nylon and PLA (a thermoplastic). ... The main advantage of the Mark One: It can print parts 20 times stiffer and five times stronger than ABS, according to the company. It even has a higher strength-to-weight ratio than CNC-machined aluminum. ... Mark says that he imagines this machine is for anybody who wants to print in a material as strong as aluminum. Beyond racecars, it could be useful to industries like prosthetics."
This is the first materials advance I've seen in ages, bar superficial things like the ability to make ridiculously expensive full-colour prototypes of things that need moulding to make en masse.
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There must be another CNC than the one I'm familiar with: "CNC machining, an expensive and difficult process that requires laying pieces by hand"
"The only real method available is CNC machining, an expensive and difficult process that requires laying pieces by hand."
CNC means Computer Numerical Controlled, which isn't remotely similar to laying out sheets of resin-bonded carbon fiber by hand. Or are they forming blocks of fiber made out of a lot of bonded sheets, and then CNC-milling them into shapes? That seems like a pointless waste. Very confusing sentence, there.
Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines.
Just you fucking wait.
We're half way to printing a Gallardo.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
Unless this layers carbon fibers + resin + hardener making the epoxy bond immediately
Actually it does. Check out the video on the website:
The machine costs next to nothing. Now the ink cartridges ...
Intron: the portion of DNA which expresses nothing useful.
Vapor-hardware is a thing. And you're lookin' at it.
Except, they are already demo'ing a working prototype at a decent size trade show. That's some pretty thick vapor. I know demos != shipped, but I'm going to give this one the benefit of the doubt since it's very similar to well-understood and already available hardware.
It may not have the strength of CF done properly, but it will be much stronger than the alternatives like ABS and PLA. There are plenty of applications where that "between" strength is useful. The claim is that it is stiffer and stronger than 6061 aluminum. That means you don't have to go into a machine shop to cut a bunch of 6061 aluminum- you can print a part and get similar characteristics. The 3D printer doesn't care how complex the design is- it will produce it at much lower cost than a machine shop full of mills and guys who know how to run them.
Yes, that' what I thought, too. Until I built a 3d printer, spent time to calibrate it and learned how to use it.
Now I can make things much much stronger than a garlic press.
Yes. Doing a mould for injection moulding can cost anywhere from $10,000 to $100,000+, which is where most of the setup costs go. After that, you can stamp out thousands of parts using ti for pennies each.
A 3D printer is ideal for small runs (under 1000 or so) because while each part is more expensive, you're not incurring expensive NRE in making a mould. And depending on the quantity, you can save some time since you don't have to wait for the mould to be machined and tested (which can take weeks).
Before that you really only had CNC machining and vacu-forming to make parts. Today, you have an additive process (3D printing).
I suppose the next revolution would be a combined 3D printer and CNC mill - the CNC is great for shaving stuff off bulk (something 3D printing does poorly - the more solid there is, the harder it is to printer), while 3D printing can be used to make structures that are impossible via a single piece.