How long until we see 3D printed components in boat building?

Except you cannot. Setting aside that in nowhere's ville you are relying on a sat phone to download multi-gigabyte toolpath files at 512kbps while paying $2/min for the download that takes 4:30 hours.

and setting aside that a circuit board doesn't get you the surface mount wave soldering machine that is the size of a couch needed to mount the silcon bits onto that circuit board or the VHDL file that describes the logic inside of the FPGA (which Raytheon isn't going to share with you).

Its frankly cheaper and more compact to carry "one of" each black box in ships stores. OR back to my original point, have DHL or FedEx Intl deliver it - and yes you will pay an arm and a leg for customs, but you will get it within 48 hrs.


there just isn't a quotidian usage for this

 

Baltic,

We get it, you are convinced that because it isn't yet possible to do these things it won't ever be possible and the whole 3D printing technology is a joke. I however will stick with the view of people building boat parts using 3d technology, aerospace parts, and NASA who is investing heavily to put a 3d printer on the ISS to print parts out.

I don't think many of these possibilities are quite yet ready for prime time, but they are getting there quickly. In the next 5 years I wouldn't be suprized to see them as reasonable options on large private yachts to print replacement like hose clamps, screws, nuts, bolts, heat exchangers, shackles, ect... All the small metal bits that keep a boat moving.

As for printing larger components... In time, but I doubt many people will be willing to dedicate the space.

 

Stop putting words into my mouth. I was very clear on where 3D printing is very useful - for reducing tooling costs on "production boats" which in all but the Bayliner/Searay world means production runs of a couple of hundred parts.

NASA is a lousy bench model to use. Because almost everyone flying on the ISS knows how to design in CAD (as they are scientists and engineers). and the ISS has a 25mbps data uplink speed - almost 50x faster than your stranded cruiser.

I would be stunned - absolutely stunned, to see 3D laser sinterers on large private yachts replacing $1,000 in cheap and compact spares with a $5,000 laser sinterer that takes up 5' x 3' and requires the boat to be motionless to work http://www.alibaba.com/product-gs/747903172/RFE1290_100C_3d_laser_sculpture_machine.html

it makes ZERO economic sense.

It makes some sense for the shipyard that builds that boat to have that sort of machine in its yard for fabbing complex custom parts - sitting alongside a 6 axis CNC. but the idea that essentially a fancy form of CNC is going to be found on luxoury yachts is what I find silly.

 

Elementary, my dear Watson. An architect of course.
However, this thread is about 3d print for boats, and you'll see there had been a couple of posts asking about large scale gantry printers, which the d shape demonstrates. Personally, I'm a little wary of concrete boats, though. I'd be more comfortable with a composite hull, and the 3d printing of composites in one pass is one of the areas under research by the Mediated Matter group at MIT, linked in my earlier post.
My apologies if it was too hard to join the dots.

 

3-D printing is an awesome developement that is unlocking some design freedom by making possible what cannot be created by other means. It does an excellent job of creating quick one-offs for design validation, replacements for broken obsolete parts - with some limitations on physical properties - and certainly will have an impact on art.

Downside? Materials are still somewhat limited unless cost is no object, and likely to remain so for the foreseeable future. Production rates will remain limited by material deposition characteristics after mechanism and controller limitations are removed, so the expensive bit - the mechanism - will have to be multiplied to get throughput. That's unlikely to happen with so many well-established methods available so it's limited to niches. Finish problems - where esthetic - can be resolved by texturing but they can already be damn good given the right printer. Size limits may get resolved but I doubt it, it's easier to assemble something large from several smaller parts, economy of scale applies just as much to tools as product.

Where the future lies is in providing consumer choice and supporting it Worldwide. A manufacturer can offer a range of options that cannot reasonably be stocked all over the World together with an acceptable (to consumers) delivery time; of course the web is the key to that. Pimp my ride - and I can have the spare part overnight. I'm speaking of point-of-sale manufacturing here, jobs that can't be lost to cheap foreign labor. The potential in that area is unlimited and unpredictable, but likely to first appear big-time in the personal electronics arena is my guess - so just pimp my smart phone for now . . .

Mostly the whole thing, whether a house, car or computer, won't get 3D printed in the vast majority of cases: just the options. So I want a 67 chevy dash in my 2025 Toyota: don't ask why, just do it. Somebody stole one of my Mary Quant custom designed hubcaps: have one ready in the morning! And that's where the money will be!

 

its not very usefull for obsolete parts, since typically they were milled CNC is better and no less expensive

cost relative to a tooled mold assy line is increadibly high, so its not really an option for consumer goods.. Not at all a fit for personal electronics since production tolerances are high

That 67 dash in your Toyota might happen in 2025... but not anytime soon

 

If replacement obsolete parts are available there is no point in printing them, agreed. There already is an existing capability for replacing broken parts for which no data exists; the parts can be superglued together, a 3D scan is taken and the part printed. If the ignition cap breaks on your rare antique auto this could get you running in time for the parade . . .

 

Just this weekend I was talking to a friend who does classic Jaguar restorations. He was telling me about an engine part for a XKE that they couldn't find at any price. It took three months to find a spare, and even then had to have it shipped in from Honk Kong. The total cost including labor was over $2,000. I don't know if it was critical that the part be original (I don't think so), but I do know he is now investigating a 3d stainless printer for these type of situations.

 

The issues I see for more broader popularity and mainstream applications are:

-its not an efficient way of producing things. No matter of clever tech innovations will make individual part printing to be able to compete with mass produced pieces. Laser melting small area at a time while heat dissipates to surrounding mass will never beat the injection molding where it takes seconds to create even complex parts. I can see printing challenging CNC more and more but CNC can create parts yet its not in every home - yes printing allows for more accessible and user friendly operation than CNC.
Scenarios where things like wiring harnesses are being printed (plastic and copper) are quite far out. People who think these are near future reality (in practical terms, not experiments) have no clue how cheap manufactured goods need to be.

-its not easy to design or 3d-model. Especially good parts. When I hear something like '65 dash in modern car I just think all the challenges of making parts fit. Its not simple - and it takes enormous amount of time to come up with custom solutions. Now things like cars are also EXTREMELY regulated - from minimum radiuses and impact absorption for crash safety to recycling etc. In modern man one cannot sell baked buns made from raw milk next to ones made from pasteurized milk and a float for a fish net cannot be an empty juice bottle or piece of cork but needs to be CE approved float for that purpose.

Its unlikely scenario that there will be huge mass customization possible for many many reasons. To some extent yes but as much as the wildest speculations.

 

Aviation Week & Space Tech Nov 11/18 page 22 has a discussion of ongoing use for sprayed parts entitled ,,,,Just Getting Started.

EADS the Euro aircraft builder uses laser sintering to replace a cast steel nacelle hinge bracket .

Cuts raw material consumption by 75% and saves 10KG per shipset. IN use NOW.

The newest research is at Oak ridge Nat lab where tiny chopped carbon fibers are added to printed plastic for a strength similar to aircraft aluminum.

They claim infusing fibers into the raw material is the key to scaling up to the 60-100ft size , such as the printing wings for a large unmanned aircraft.

Boat hulls with far fewer weight problems can not be far behind.

 

As printers become widespread their application to consumer products will initially experience a software bottleneck, with delivery and cost impacted by the need for appropriately trained designers. Eventually a design archive will build to the point where design choice is largely off-the-shelf. For more complex items this would ideally be handled in an open sourced manner with standardized interfaces, like a lot of consumer software, allowing consumers to mix and match. Folks'll buy designs like we buy boat plans and pass them on to a local printer. There'll be a thriving trade in copies distinguishable from the originals only by X-ray. In parallel with that a thriving market will emerge for "certified originals" with - of course -a parallel market for fakes, just like in the Art world. It's going to be an interesting time . . . I just hope Google or MicroSoft don't hog it all . . .

 

Fast Fred,

We had the same claim at work about carbon nano-fibers being added to a custom injection molding material.

The goal was equal strength to aluminum. What we got was about 10% greater than other injection molding material, but about 10% of aluminum.
If you are going to make such a claim, how about providing a reference to where ever you got the information?

There are a lot of claims out there - not much fact.

 

I wonder if some of the less accurate 3D printing techniques couldn't be combined with "as you print" CNC milling to produce a fine finish on shapes that can't be done with CNC alone.

 

As I understand it the structural printing is using primarily powders that require the waste powder to remain during the process to keep the next layer in place.

With extrusion processes (mostly plastics right now) it would seem to be more likely, but the plastic isn't really used for loaded purposes yet.

 

So look carefully at this usage:

Its not a case where such a part already exists as in your "boat on ground" (stolen shamelessly from Airplane on Ground) and is affordable

its not a case where shipping costs are being offset

Its not a case where there is a CAD model already but proprietary

its not a case where time is essential.


same with the EADS ((and Boeing ) factories. For them its just another MFG tool and that it can be tied into the digital development chain more direct than investment casting, and has lower labor costs (since the CAD model is already being created in CATIA and managed in ENOVIA and run to the production floor via DELMIA - there is no added design cost)

So that basically supports where I am saying 3D printing fits.

Sure a hybrid of printing and machining works but now you have to generate two toolpath models which turns out to be a touch more complex, so in most cases, milling from scratch is cheaper and faster