Evening STW.

I am wanting to have a few things 3D printed as part of a project I am working on at the moment. But i’m not sure exactly how and where to start?

I have got pretty detailed hand-drawn pictures of what I want, but I don’t think I am capable of making them computerised.

I have found loads of places online that allow you to send in your computerised designs and they will print them and send them out to you. But I think I need the step before this first, and somebody to spend the time designing them properly.

Does anybody know of a decent company that could do this for me? I am based in Sheffield, so that would be ideal, but obviously if things are via email it doesn’t matter.

This leads onto my next question. Do I really need 3D printing.
Without going into to much complexity into the designs, its basically 5/6 metal ‘shapes’ with certain diameter holes coming out at differing angles.
These will eventually be joined together with carbon tubing.

Basically a slighter smaller, and more complex version of this –

So I was also thinking about a 5-axis CNC machine, and a couple of blocked of aluminium.

Anybody got any thoughts?

Cheers
J

Is this for a diy project, or work-based?

(It seems to me that a steel fabricator is the obvious, if not fashionable, choice)

Conventional 3d printing tends to use plastic based materials, would these be suitable for your intended project ? i.e. they won’t be very strong. Are you confusing 3d printing with CNC machining ?

As you’ve worked out, you’d need a CAD model of the object you want “printing”, there are loads of CAD tools out there but it would take some time to get proficient.

As ^^^^^^, are you sure a metal fabricator isn’t the way to go ?

5 axis machine would need the same cad data as printing and would cost the earth to machine from solid.

As above, looks like a job for a fab shop with a bit of simple machining to finish the tube ends and drill the holes.

You need to decide how ‘strong’ (awful word) your parts need to be. 3D printing may not be good enough. 3D printing has advantages, but you may find something more conventional works better. As you say, you’ll need something like stl files for a 3D shop to produce your parts. You can do this yourself, either by buying a 3D CAD package or one of the free programs, but this will require you learning how to drive it. Or find someone who can take your sketches and produce the CAD, but this may cost you.

I also would suggest the metal fabricator. Get some drawings of the individual tubes and then an assembly drawing take some 30 mins to weld up. I can do solidworks models but they would have education on the left hand side.

Onshape is a good and free CAD package that you could use to design the parts yourself. By the founding team of Solidworks.

I then use Protolabs and/or i.Materialise to make bits.

However, if it needs structural strength, the various plastic materials available might not be any use to you, and the sintered metal options could be an expensive way to get a weak metal.

Finding a small CNC machining firm might suit? I can recommend one in Livingston who’ll take on small jobs if he has time between bigger customers.

Local steel fabricator having a quiet January does sound like it might be a winner!

B

If you’ve got sketches/annotated hand drawings I’ll be happy to turn them into a model (.Stl or similar) and or manufacturing drawings (email in profile, I think).

The other posters are thinking the way I would, fabrication might be more suitable, what strength characteristics do you need?

(Source: engineer, worked with 3D printing, rapid prototyping, composites etc.)

There’s more than 30mins prep work in even what the ops original pic shows for welding that.

You’ll be surprised how expensive this could be for a 1 off economys of scale bring the prep time down for many of.

Find a neighbour/keen amateur/home engineer might be a good option if it’s for a home project.

you mean like this

[url=https://flic.kr/p/Qa2GCJ]15697333_10211760778843880_9072240073232235339_n[/url] by mike.mcdermid, on Flickr]like this[/url]

trail_rat – Member

You’ll be surprised how expensive … 3D printing is, especially if working in metal, even more so if you need to be sure of it’s strength, as you may have to consider ‘hip’ing…

Fixed it.

Depending what you’re wanting/ your drawings are like i’m happy to have a go at trying to draw them up on Solidworks, I’m a mech eng student and any practise is good! Email in profile if it’s of any interest. We have a 3D printer at uni that i’ve used to design and print (and now in use) a couple of things for myself and others. The parts have been made from ABS but not necessarily under loads of tension, I made some 10-7 Speed cassette converters for downhill set ups.

For the drawing, use fusion360, pretty easy to use, took me a few days to get used to it, pretty good tool, which is free too.

Thanks for all the replies, its given me some things to think about.
Maybe fabrication is the way forward, in my head this wasn’t going to be as ‘pretty’ ridiculous remark I know!

I have just downloaded the fusion360 program which Seosamh77 recommended, I’m determined to give it a go myself first.

However Tiim, thank you very much for your offer. I will fire the drawings over to next week when I’m back home, and see what you make of them?

Thanks again guys, this place comes up trumps again!
J

5trail_rat – Member
There’s more than 30mins prep work in even what the ops original pic shows for welding that.

You’ll be surprised how expensive this could be for a 1 off economys of scale bring the prep time down for many of.

Find a neighbour/keen amateur/home engineer might be a good option if it’s for a home project

This is the way to go. Making anything usually take a lot more prep than you realise, when expensive equipment is involved your pocket s will soon be emptied!