Dave Price, our rapid manufacturing sales manager, takes a look at how FDM technology is helping to rewrite the design engineering rulebook.

Once the preserve of concept modelling and functional prototyping, FDM technology is leading the way in rapid manufacturing, proving its mettle in the realm of low-volume production runs.

Nowhere is this more evident than in the jigs and fixtures market, where more and more businesses are waking up to the significant time and cost savings that can be realised by using rapid manufacturing alongside traditional manufacturing methods.

New design rules

One area where rapid manufacturing is really shaking things up is manufacturing engineering. In the past, jigs were manufactured as three or four individual aluminium parts which then had to be bolted together. FDM technology enables these parts to be manufactured as a single piece, with no further fabrication required.

For a manufacturing engineer, this means they no longer have to worry about draft angles or undercuts. Nor do they have to take into consideration how the manufacturer will physically machine the parts, or how they will be fixed together. Ultimately, there’s no need to compromise on design just because you’re limited by manufacturing methods. The engineering design rules as we knew them no longer apply; a revolutionary concept which is gradually taking hold.

However, that’s not to say that anything is possible and, after what should be a consultative process between the client and our bureau service, it might be that it’s just not cost-effective or practical to manufacture a particular jig or fixture using FDM technology.

But just because FDM may turn out not to be a suitable method for manufacturing a certain part doesn’t mean that it won’t work for another. There are time savings of around 60% to be made when using FDM technology to manufacture fixtures, as well as up to 80% cost savings compared to manufacturing the same product in aluminium. Given that, it makes sense to thoroughly investigate how your business could use the technology.

The future of design

There are well-established manufacturing methods in place and I’m certainly not suggesting that FDM replaces all of these, but it’s definitely an extremely valuable alternative. Effective rapid manufacturing for low-volume production is all about delivering efficiencies, be it cost or time savings. An added bonus to this is that with FDM, there are design efficiencies to be made, too.

There’s no longer a penalty to pay for designing something more complex and the sky is the limit when it comes to engineering design. Watch this space.

For more information on how our FDM service bureau could benefit your business, contact Dave Price on 01295 672588, fill out this quotation form or email [email protected].

Are you a designer looking for a 3D bureau to print a prototype product? Or are you a manufacturing engineer looking for some support for low volume production runs? Look no further. Laser Lines has one of the UK’s largest FDM 3D printing capabilities at its headquarters in Banbury and through its network.

Here are the top five reasons why you should speak to Laser Lines about your 3D printing requirements.

1. Laser Lines has 18 3D printing systems at its base in Banbury: 15 Fortus FDM systems and three Polyjet systems. With these machines, customers can print with all Stratasys materials, including 12 different types of thermoplastics. It also has access to 140 other systems through the Stratasys network so can print objects from 405 x 355 x 405mm on the smallest machine and 900 x 600 x 900mm on the largest.

2. Turnaround from CAD files to finished product is usually five working days. Most of the work produced in the bureau comes from the UK currently although there are International customers too. One of our largest clients is based in the Philippines. You can submit CAD data or STL files from anywhere – all you need to do is click the get a quote button.

3. The bureau can offer one-off prototypes and also low volume production runs of up to 500 or 1000 units. Dave Price, manager of the 3D printing bureau unit, says: “Quite often, for low volume runs, it’s more cost effective for us to print items than to use injection moulding. Where this is the case, we often print one part and send it back to the client for approval before we do the whole print run. The FDM systems are great for printing jig and fixture parts in particular. We do a significant amount of work for companies in the aerospace, defence and automotive industries.”

4. Laser Lines has extensive experience in 3D printing and has a team of four application specialists manning the bureau. Dave says: “Part of the service we offer is consultancy as we have so much experience in this area – Laser Lines has been working with 3D printing for 20 years! Much of the work we do is printing items that have been reverse engineered, so we have helped enthusiasts print parts for their vintage cars and helped many companies with replacement parts for legacy products that are no longer in production. Many customers are still unsure about what they can – and can’t – print and also on the types of materials available. With the range of systems that we have access too, we can advise on the best materials and technology for each project, whether they are printed in engineering grade thermoplastics, fine detail, rigid, clear or in colour.”

5. The strangest thing the bureau has been asked to produce is a model of a deceased dog (from a 3D scan) and the most fun thing was a series of video game characters that were 300 mm high. Dave says: “I love the bureau work as it is so varied. We can print work from all sorts of CAD files including STL, IGIS, STEP and SLDPRT. We have software that checks that the file quality is good enough and we can often do a quick fix for minor problems. We’re also getting more items that have been taken from Thingyverse CAD files.”

If you have any 3D printing questions call Dave and his team on 01295 672500. To get a quote, all you have to do is submit the artwork files by filling in the form on this page and one of the team will get back to you within 24 hours.