Is this the intake of the future? It may be the answer to those low volume intakes like early hemis polys and Y blockshttps://3dplatform.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Prototyping-Engine-Intake-Manifold.jpg
Until they can create a 3-D printer that does not make a highly porous part, no. Both 3D plastic and metal printers create parts that are too porous for use around fluids such as gasoline and anti-freeze. The technology is getting closer, but not quite there yet. At my last job, design engineering often used 3D printers to build prototype intakes for a wide variety of engines (2 and 4 stroke, generally less than 1200 cc). Although most of the intakes were dry and everything was fuel injected, we still had to coat the intakes in epoxy to seal them up. I ran the testing / durability department, and the 3D printed intakes did not last long in the field. They were generally reserved for dyno only engines, and even then the vibration and heat cycles would tear the printed intakes apart fairly quickly. On a similar note, it has become fairly mainstream to use a 3D printer to build the casting cores for prototype and low quantity production casting runs. I have had a couple of companies quote doing a small run of MEL blower intakes this way (6-71, street friendly with water jackets, thermostat housing, and distributor clearance). This greatly reduces the upfront tooling cost, but the piece price goes up considerably since there is a fair amount of time tied up into printing the cores, and they are only good for a single pour.
Output of the CAD design software is input to a slicer program that 'slices' the part into printable layers. Output of the slicer program is a gcode file. Sent from my SM-G950U using The H.A.M.B. mobile app
Most all reputable 3-D CAD programs are able to save a part design file in an .STL format which can then be used for multiple types of "RP" processing machines, including 3-D Printers. - EM
This type of "manufacturing" or part building is moving VERY fast. What can't be done today, may be easily done next week. I just retired out of the Aerospace industry, and I get/got to see how rapidly things move when people want something. Mike
Mike, You are right, the technology is changing rapidly, but it still has quite a few shortcomings, mainly in the time it takes to create the part. Part quality is directly related to how thick the "slices" are. The thinner the better, but more slices take more time to build up the part. VW announced a few days ago that it is going to start using it's bank of 90 3D printers to crank out structural production parts for its upcoming cars. The claim was there is no "tooling" cost. Which I suppose is technically true, but VW still had to buy 90 3D printers, so there was still a large capital investment. Accountant tricks to justify the cost. Unless these are very low quantity parts (obsolete, service, custom order, etc), I still have a hard time believing that a 3D printed part is cost competitive with an injection molded or permanent molded cast part. The Printer costs roughly the same as the injection molder, but cycle times are recorded in hours, not the seconds that an injection molder takes to create a part. Ford built their own "3D" printer a couple of years ago that can create deep drawn parts from flat sheet metal with very minimal tooling. Cool technology, but still very time consuming and not nearly able to produce parts fast enough for production quantities, but when it can produce prototype stampings in 3 to 5 days versus the 8 to 24 wks that prototype tooling typically takes, it makes alot of sense (cents) for the design engineers.
There is a company here in metro Detroit that specializes in 3D printing (I'll be damned if I can find their card or remember their name). They came and gave us a demo at the last place I worked. They had their resin composition and their machine resolution to the point where they could print fully functional fuel injection intake manifolds that didn't require sealing or even machine work. We were told that there was at least one IMSA team who ran their printed manifolds in their race car and that such a thing would cost a customer about $5k. I seem to recall they had the technology to add glass fiber reinforcement to their printed products.
If you want to play around with one you can download SketchUp from Google for free. You can export files as a .stl for 3d or .dxf for a plasma table.
Thanks all!, I am a graphic artist, sorta, along with the photography so I work with the Adobe Creative Suite,,, and really what I wanted to do is make club plaque masters. Better than carving bass wood for days. So I want to import a graphics file to CAD 3D which will give me a file I can output as a .stl or .dfx? That's all??
You start with a 3D CAD model of the thing you want to print. The 3D part file is then saved as a .stl file. The stl is what the printer software reads.
The quality is already there for additive metal. I work for a major player in the valve industry. We have metal printers and have used them for printing the internal components in valves. They flow a variety of fluids and gasses so I'm sure an intake could be done this way. Of course at this time you might not want to pay the price, but give it a few years.
The .stl file is run through the printers slicer software to create the g-code to print it. The stl file will need to be saved in the same measurements as the printer ( inches/ metric) most will be metric, the other thing that you want to keep in mind is the capacity of the printer, A car plaque might be a little large for a hobby size printer you can cut you drawing in half print two pieces and glue them together.
There are metal printers and different plastic materials as well. There are also printers that print sand cores for casting. The 3D scan - reproduction is pretty easy. https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/threads/as-seen-on-tv.1070255/ Check it out
Can we just print that oversize, to account for shrinkage, pack it in and out with casting sand, and do a "lost plastic" casting operation?
Absolutely. This method / process has been used for several years but has gotten even faster and more accurate in the last 3-4 years. - EM
I use "solidworks". Its made for engineers and designers to design up parts and assemblies. one neat feature is the sheetmetal side. design up a part like a fuel tank, fan shroud or what ever click sheet metal and it will unfold it to get CNC laser cut. Can change up all the corners etc for different welds etc.
I agree, this is the best use of this technology for the home hotrodder. Using your low buck printer to create casting waxes or foams to be used as casting cores, instead of trying to actual make the part out of the printer plastic. If the person can pour his own metal, the process should be cheap and fast enough for a person to make a couple of trial runs and tweak their CAD model to suit. Most modern CAD packages allow you to scale the size of the model. However, depending on the part, two percent shrinkage might not be noticable enough to compensate for.
Boy I really couldn't say what printer it was, I used the equipment at case western reserve university you can see a name in the pic. It was all free untill hitting start on the print job. It took 28 hrs to print IIRC. The cost to print it was by the unit and the computer calculated 48 units. It was under a G but not by too much. First pic is an over nights progress, second is about 9 hrs later. Painfully slow. The support is a different material and dissolves in solution
Right there on the bottom of your second photo is the name Stratasys, the same people I posted the link for. That is one high dollar printer I'm sure.
Has to be one of the smaller ones. I have a Stratasys Fortus 360mc and a 450mc at work. The 450 would not need to print it on an angle.
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