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Is this a candidate for metal printing?

In general, no. The design you have there has too many features that requires "printing over air". Talk to a person who has some experience in 3D printing to get an idea. Some features of the design look to be unnecessary. You should sit down with an engineer/designer who has some experience in machining and discuss options for what you want to accomplish. The part, as pictured, would be almost trivial to cast with some machining afterwards to clean up. If this is a prototype you might want to consider simply machining it from several parts and then building it up by welding, silver brazing, bolting, or clamping.

It can be 3D printed but with great difficulty and it will be expensive whatever method you choose. Your time would be more profitably spent re-designing it for easier manufacture.

-DU-
 
And the expense?

The expense depends on whether your next employer offers relocation as part of the hiring package.

This bugger would be even harder to defend than it is to make.

Take the weekend for yourself, the design off of front-page. Let the brain run subconscious background analysis, massively parallel. As is its nature.

Clean-sheet the bitch Monday morning. It will be better.
 
LOL (at myself) :nutter:

Thanks, DU and
thermite.

Okay, 3D printing isn't the magic bullet I thought it might be, or a least it needs an experienced designer to be fair to the process.

I will try to leave La La land behind and look at it as a machined weldment/fastened assembly.

I'll bring this thread back up when I have something.
 
In general, no. The design you have there has too many features that requires "printing over air". Talk to a person who has some experience in 3D printing to get an idea. Some features of the design look to be unnecessary. You should sit down with an engineer/designer who has some experience in machining and discuss options for what you want to accomplish. The part, as pictured, would be almost trivial to cast with some machining afterwards to clean up. If this is a prototype you might want to consider simply machining it from several parts and then building it up by welding, silver brazing, bolting, or clamping.

It can be 3D printed but with great difficulty and it will be expensive whatever method you choose. Your time would be more profitably spent re-designing it for easier manufacture.

-DU-

168468025.fKDHt4BI.1.png


That "thing" is almost trivial to cast in stainless steel? :rolleyes5:

Looks to me that it should be pretty much doable with DMLS. Probably some finishing touches by traditional machining afterwards.

This was some production feasibility study on valve block, also shows needed support structures. Lots of hollow sections and unsupported area too.

https://www.vttresearch.com/Documents/Factory of the future/ValveBlock_VTTInternetVersion.pdf

metal-3d-printing-applications_VTT-hydrolic-valve-stainless-steel.jpg
 
I am going to make it as two pieces and weld it together.

Just to clear up how hollow the part is drawn, this is a sectioned view:

sectioned.png photo - David photos at pbase.com

Progress.

But it isn't Monday yet.

Leave your "back burner" subconscious to beaver-away at it, you may do better, yet.

:D

It was frustrating at times for a creative mind to report directly to a CFO for long years, but a valuable less was learned.

The immovable goal was never to accomplish a task at the least cost.

The GOAL was to not have to do it at all! ZERO time, effort, or spend, IOW [1].

Anything else is but "second place winner" by the metrics of a good finance guy.

[1] It does have it limits as to diminishing returns. Boss was proud one year he had convinced the Chairman to close three stores that were not profitable and done very VERY much better as to overall profitability.

Considered me a bit of a smart-alec for suggesting we close the remaining 15 stores and get REALLY rich!

As one might guess, the "better plan" was to be more careful as to choice of location and continue to open more new ones. As we did.
 
"Considered me a bit of a smart-alec for suggesting we close the remaining 15 stores and get REALLY rich!"

That's funny :)


Thermite, luckily I don't have to defend my craziness to my boss since he is equally so...being we are the same person .;)

All this part is is an argon nozzle for a joint that gets welded many hundreds of times a year. The welding machine is setup up to create a weld that penetrates through the back side making a bead both front and back. The argon needs to shield all around to accomplish a sound weld on the stainless steel. Can't have any sugaring.
 
"Considered me a bit of a smart-alec for suggesting we close the remaining 15 stores and get REALLY rich!"

That's funny :)


Thermite, luckily I don't have to defend my craziness to my boss since he is equally so...being we are the same person .;)
It was a bit of "Jewish merchant humour". He didn't get it right away because he was, I was not, and he just hadn't expected it the other-way-round from an Engineering/Manufacturing "lapsed gentile"!

:)

As to no one else to convince? Now THAT is funny! Or maybe just dangerous?

Because the times when I did NOT have a "naysayer" handy as a grounding influence was always when I went-off on my most hare-brained and wasteful of projects!

Some among us might just flood the zone with an inert gas so nothing else could "be there" no matter WHAT the shape and do the weld. Argon not the cheapest, and "trapping" gas wasted by too-rapid escape from that zone mayhap cheaper than precisely limiting the distribution incoming. See furnace brazing, etc.

Hacker's Second Law applies [1].

And I did say "not have to do it AT ALL", yah? Does that weld even have to exist, or could the PART be what is re-engineered?

:)

[1] Few things in the human experience are ever truly "new". Job One is to ascertain how previous successful entities addressed the same or similar challenges. THEN see if their solution even needs improvement - or merely adaptation.
 
In general, no. The design you have there has too many features that requires "printing over air". Talk to a person who has some experience in 3D printing to get an idea. Some features of the design look to be unnecessary. You should sit down with an engineer/designer who has some experience in machining and discuss options for what you want to accomplish. The part, as pictured, would be almost trivial to cast with some machining afterwards to clean up. If this is a prototype you might want to consider simply machining it from several parts and then building it up by welding, silver brazing, bolting, or clamping.

It can be 3D printed but with great difficulty and it will be expensive whatever method you choose. Your time would be more profitably spent re-designing it for easier manufacture.

-DU-

I Take it you don't have much experience in metal 3d printing... A sintered laser powder printer (for instance a Renishaw am400) could print this part without any issue.

Also, what the fuck are you playing at in regard to casting??? Those internal features would be nearly impossible to cast without a huge amount of effort and expertise. As my father would say, your a fool.

This is the kind of thing a sintering laser can do all day...
ren.JPG
 
All this part is is an argon nozzle for a joint that gets welded many hundreds of times a year. The welding machine is setup up to create a weld that penetrates through the back side making a bead both front and back. The argon needs to shield all around to accomplish a sound weld on the stainless steel. Can't have any sugaring.
You don't want jets of shielding gas, you want a fog. Look at a typical TIG gas lens. What I've done in the past with excellent results is make a 5 sided box the shape required, fill that full of brass wool ( https://www.amazon.com/Brass-Wool-Skein-Fine-Grade/dp/B01CTGGGIM ), and plumb a gas line or two to the box. Use a separate regulator to feed your back gas equipment, and it can work extremely well.
 
You don't want jets of shielding gas, you want a fog. Look at a typical TIG gas lens. What I've done in the past with excellent results is make a 5 sided box the shape required, fill that full of brass wool ( https://www.amazon.com/Brass-Wool-Skein-Fine-Grade/dp/B01CTGGGIM ), and plumb a gas line or two to the box. Use a separate regulator to feed your back gas equipment, and it can work extremely well.

What he said. Though I might say "shield", "blanket", even "cocoon".

It is meant to be a "non-participating" isolator or BARRIER. Not meant to be an active player applying gas pressure or chilling effect, either one, to molten metal.

Trust any gas to do a good job of diffusing on its own resources, most especially anywhere HOT. It is what they DO, and one has a harder time trying to prevent it than need to encourage it.
 
You don't want jets of shielding gas, you want a fog. Look at a typical TIG gas lens. What I've done in the past with excellent results is make a 5 sided box the shape required, fill that full of brass wool ( https://www.amazon.com/Brass-Wool-Skein-Fine-Grade/dp/B01CTGGGIM ), and plumb a gas line or two to the box. Use a separate regulator to feed your back gas equipment, and it can work extremely well.

That's a good idea for me to add. I made a shortcut so I can find the wool next week. Thanks!
 
That's a good idea for me to add. I made a shortcut so I can find the wool next week. Thanks!

It still isn't even Sunday, let alone Monday.

Not "add". Use instead of.

Laid into simpler and cheaper stamped or drawn metal "cups". Or even in store-bought ceramic shapes.

How long did you expect that complex Stainless part to live, undamaged, in the presence of welding operations and spatter, anyway, before it needed repair or replacement?
 
Thermite, you are making too much sense.

But, if I do make this, I save the cost of paying a highly skilled welder to come in. It is very hard to get a good looking bead to form on the side opposite from where you are welding. Especially when you are fighting gravity and dealing with thin stainless steel. I have a good tig welder, but she hasn't gained the knack for doing this particular joint. I believe that makes it worth the cost for this part.

I have thought some more about at least talking to someone who does DMLS and asking about having it made in two parts. That may be easier for them by eliminating most of the over-hanging areas that was pointed out to me, earlier.

Just because I can't help myself here are my sketches showing room for the defusing wool or a donut made from this stuff: McMaster-Carr

Showing a recess for the defuser. Could be held in place with a thin snap ring:
modded1.png photo - David photos at pbase.com
modded2.png photo - David photos at pbase.com
 
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