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

Baltic,

How long do you think it takes to make a 3d model? The guys I was working with could turn out simple parts in 30 minutes or less, then hit the print button and the part was being printed immediately.

For the car guy, he would just take the old one, have it scanned on a 3d scanner, smooth out the damaged portion, and hit print. You are talking about an hour, maybe two, then he can go on to something else.

Figure about $5,000 for a <50micron accurat hand scanner, and about $100,000 for a high end commercial SLS machine. So for not a huge expense you can make a replacement part in a few hours of anything you need.

And frankly most marine parts are so low volume that they might as well be custom fabrication parts anyway. I doubt anyone will be making cleats or turnbuckles with them commercially any time soon, but I can certainly see one off stem fittings, custom anchor rollers, specialty fittings, all being made from 3d printers. Heck I know of a number of designers already looking into it for custom boats.

 

Baltic,

That's where 3d printing fits currently. I don't think anyone is really thinking 3d printing is going to replace a factory turning out hundreds of thousands of 1/4" bolts. Things like cleats well maybe, but again not terribly likely in the near term. The economies of scale just don't work when compared to casting parts.

But for things like replacing that old cleat that has atypical bolt holes, or building a custom bow sprit, replacing a part on a 20 year old engine, these things are being done now. Because the cost of turning a part into a 3d rhino drawing is negligible, the time to print the part is a few hours or so, and it can be in your hands in just a few days.

As prices fall for the printing and scanning machines from the tens of thousands for a set up to the couple of grand, the machines will become much more accessible to the average user. And for people where the cost of down time is higher than the expense of the machines it may already be close.

Let's take a modern super yacht of today, with huge power generation, lots of engineering space, and a massive amount of stores dedicated to spare parts both in space and money. For about $50,000 they could replace many of the metal spare parts that must be carried in case anything goes wrong with a SLS machine and a scanner plus a computer with CAD files of all the parts they would normally carry onboard.

So let's say the 1/2 socket fell overboard while tightening something down. Instead of having to make do with a crescent wrench, they just print off a new one from the cad file on the computer in a few hours and keep working. Now was that $50,000 machine worth paying for to replace the $4 socket? No of course not, but is it worth not having to worry about carrying two sets of tools? Perhaps to some, not to me.

But with machines expected to drop to the $1,000 range this scenario becomes much more in reach of the 50+ foot boats. Assuming they are even capable of working on board a boat. But if not, I can certainly see them being installed in boat yards in far away places, where having a large inventory of parts just isn't practical.

 

Originally Posted by rwatson View Post
Who would print a 6 metre lump of concrete ?????

Your logic seems flawed to me. Why would you spend 3 weeks plus, placing miniscule dots of concrete in rows, when you can make a mould like a keel or a wall, and simply pour it in ?

 

What?

Why wouldnt the entire ships circuitry be stored in a few hard drives on the ship itself ??

You should look up the link I posted, about creating the small circuits by printing them - that wasnt a big printer.

Lets see, Raytheon wont provide a DVD of the firmware that can be burnt onto the printed circuits of a 33 million dollar tanker ? They would be falling all over themselves to provide a system that can be printed, and have generic ROMS implanted, for business like that. It may be intellectual property, but black box manufacturers would not hesitate to provide a licensing/maintenance agreement to bona-fide business concerns. Look at the navies of the world - they have to be provided the machine code in many cases to ensure autonomy.

No, its not, if you have a container load of circuits and control devices onboard, spread throughout the kilometer long hull. Then there is identifying the part by telex or phone ... .

Besides the storage space, there is risk of damage to spares from heat, impact, water etc over the years. Not to mention the out of datedeness, and the problem of cataloging and parts control.

RAN ships already carry piles of circuit boards, with CD's of the firmware in case of malfunction in electronic units.

Replacing it with two specialist printers, where time, not just expense can be critical, makes a whole lot of sense.

 

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.

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

I suggest you contact the Oak Ridge National Lab to find where AV week got their info for the article.

 

Here are examples of selective laser sintering:



Here is an example of metal deposition via wire arc welding. You can see why you might want to combine it with "as you print" CNC to get a smooth finish on a closed shape.

 

Depends on the part you are turning out. For someone skilled in 3d CAD it can take 30 mins to turn out a cheap part but not necessarily to do the mold design for it or adapt it for the particular material and those guys are highly skilled and demand a salary premium for the work they do.

OTOH for someone not skilled in 3D CAD, who doesn't have experience with knowing that for a particular shape you first do the filet and then the join or vice versa, it can take a good 2-3 days and multiple trips to the printer.

And why an owner would want to pay the OPEx costs on an ongoing basis of someone skilled in 3D cad, vs only incurring the cost on an as needed basis, it just makes no economic sense

your $1,000 printer is the small part of the cost a Solidworks license costs $4500. And a skilled 3d CAD jockey starts at $70k/yr. That's a lot of FedEx.

Now as for that cleat with the odd bolt pattern, pull an existing cleat, use it to make a sand casting, and then have a machine shop clean it up. MUCH FASTER and cheaper. Remember that $1,000 machine doesn't do metals. For Metals you need a machine that costs $5k and is 2m x 1m x 1.5m and requires 220 3 phase to run

I lived on a 50'er for quite a few years. There isn't space on board for that

 

And on a 33 mil tanker, Raytheon will drop ship cheaper than you can print it and no they will not give you the AHPL files for the FPGA because that's their secret sauce. and your 3D printed circuit board will not have the vibration tolerance nor "harsh environment resistance" that is necessary on boats

So it won't be useable for any mission/vessel critical part. And for the rest it makes no economic sense,

And yes it is cheaper to run a spares store of your PLC controllers. Because you know they work, you know they are certified etc.

One of the things you miss is the liability incurred in one off production, particularly on something like a tanker. If that tanker has another failure and spills cargo - you don't want to be the crew member who happens to know how to do CAD who got shanghaied into making a part that maybe was the cause of the failure

similarly if you are the shipping office, you are not going to authorize the tanker moving without a certified component.

so that market just doesn't exist. its a fantasy

 

Baltic, they are expecting SLS machines to drop to $1,000 in the next 18 months. Apparently a few major patents run out Dec 31, which will open the market a lot.

And you don't need a big machine to print most replacement parts. A 1x1x1 meter box would be plenty. Which could fit where many 50' yachts already have their washing machine.

 

And again you are making the mistake of confusing the cost of the tool vs. the cost of the process

You still need a CAD jockey, you still need a CAD system, then you need a ToolPath app

so that's $10k in software alone plus the salary for the CAD jockey on staff at an annualized cost of $70k


A 1m cubed box is not enough for a SLS machine. There is quite a bit of space taken up by cooling, power supply, multi axis motor. And most important sintering requires a huge amount of energy at 240v 3 Phase. Something your genset on anything less than a 100'er won't do.

I lived aboard a 50'er. I had a 1kw gen set. that's not enough. remember we are talking about DLMS not just plastics SLS. http://www.directindustry.com/prod/...aser-sintering-machines-dlms-7388-885513.html And that beast eats 400watts just in laser power OUTPUT - which means - nor is that a 1meter cubed box.

Because DLMS boxes need more space. and SLS for plastics is useless for what you are describing. so you are probably looking only at boats with over 3kw of genset capacity. and a very large work area. That's not a 50'er

so I stand by my assertion - I would be completely and abjectly shocked if 50ers started mounting 3D DLMS machines in anything less than a decade

 

Another thing to consider is that SLS or other machines are very high tech and need constant adjustment and repair.

Nothing like having the machine you are counting on for a fitting go down because it is sooo much more complicated than a milling machine.

 

And has been pounded by a 1000 mile crossing in even moderate weather....

 

Fast Fred,

I really don't need to contact Av Week since I am completely familiar with the exaggeration/ fantasies/ wish full thinking/ trolling for gullible money providers that goes on.

We put the same sort of articles in Av Week about the material I referred to.
We haven't seen a single part put on an aircraft in spite of 5 years development and lots of corporate support.

 

Including a salt water environment instead of temperature and moisture controlled building.

Baltic - its time to let everyone wait for the developments or the results of their own investment.
Have you ever looked at a 30 year old Popular Science magazine? You will notice the same Disney land fantasys about how everything will magically improve if you wish hard enough and just believe.

 

It's starting to look like the boating world will be left far behind this particular technological advance then.