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

the thing you are missing is that this is a case where the designer (ie vendor) is also the MFG and the printer. As I said, for limited production runs where the CAD jockey cost is a given anyway, it makes sense.

but tell me, do you know how to best create a 3D cad model for a screw and then the toolpath for printing it?

As for the Chinese jet part - where does it say that they did not use CNC milling to finish the part? They just said that there was a huge cost savings in 3D Sintering the part rather than machining from billet stock.

 

I don't think these sources are 100% on projections but I think they are very solid on the facts. 3D printing is being used, benefits have been recognized and the program is expanding. The military would not tolerate misinformation unless it was intentional.

The article does list parts in a forward program

"Although the specific components fitted to the aircraft weren't revealed, BAE Systems says its Combat Engineering team is developing ready-made 3D printed parts, including protective covers for cockpit radios, support struts on the air intake door and protective guards for power take-off shafts, which are intended to supply four squadrons of Tornado GR4 aircraft."

This is material information. If it is not true shareholders could sue.

Now consider the the long winded posts of naysayers on this board -claims they are experts and consultants but they don't have a clue about file sizes and types? All the systems I have worked with work with STL files -automatically generated triangle surface files. The STL is turned into a slice file by any PC -I bet a phone could do it today and the files are not large. I have never heard anyone refer to this slice file as a tool path which is what a CNC machine runs -far greater complexity. The process is so simple and 8 year old can do it. At CES they are showing kitchen 3d printers for food!

This thread was started with a very pertinent question about how an emerging technology could improve the industry. The links to media and industry are THE MOST IMPORTANT RESULT because obviously some posters are out of touch with what is already done. If you don't believe industry reporting YOU HAVE NOTHING TO CONTRIBUTE!

 

In the case in the article the military NOT THE VENDOR, DESIGNER, OR MANUFACTURER, is producing parts (from files they got from the designer as a condition of the contract I presume). In the case of BAE I would say it is highly likely that they contracted out the design of these less critical parts but require and own the design information with rights to produce.

A screw is a bad example because there are screw machines to cut them out from a limited number of parameters. A hand full of photos from various angles of the screw and a known reference size solid are all that is needed to produce a 3d file which could be measured for parameters (they are discrete, there is no such thing as a number 6.34 screw) entered into a parametric model and spit out of a screw machine. But all that is far more work than you need to do because you can just pick the screw out of the assembly file you carry with you.

 

Screws, nuts, bolts, ect. Are easy, you can go to McMaster Carr and download the SolidWorks file in about a second for anything in their catalog. You then load that into the machine, and hit print. No CAD experience needed, if you want it slightly shorter, or longer, or with a cut out you can use any one of the numerous drafting programs to modify it. Many of these programs are specifically designed for people with no CAD experience. Take a look at Thingverse's drafting tool, even my mother can make it work.

Sure the part will be more expensive to manufacture than with traditional methods. I don't think anyone is arguing that at all. But it's the ability to have a complete stock of every part you could possibly need available with no inventory costs that is intriguing to me. Right now I have thousands of dollars of stainless steel parts sitting on the boat with no hope of ever using them, but with the knowledge that something will break and need fixing. If I want to fix it in a reasonable time frame I have to have it available to me because there aren't parts available where the boat is.

For a small boat yard I can see the same thing. Instead of needing to inventory tens of thousands of dollars worth of parts for infrequent use, they can instead just print them as needed. Not because the printed is cheaper but because it eliminates the carrying costs of all that inventory.

Just ran across this... A new plant is being built to manufactur powder titanium for sintering at a cost of about $50/kg. At those prices once you pay for the machine, and get the cad file (about $50), you could print a titanium 10" deck cleat for about $25, compared to the Schaefer 10" deck cleat for $172. Sure you might loose some strength in the process, but since G5 titanium is about five times the strength of the stainless they are using you have a huge safety margin.

http://www.azom.com/news.aspx?newsID=39331
http://schaeferhardware.com//detail.aspx?ID=892

 

Yes IN A MANYFACTURING PLANT where you can keep the powder quality well insured. Not on a 50' boat pounding across open blue water.

And the CAD file you download (which is bigger than the slice file - I was using toolpath because its the more generally understood term) is non trivial on a connection that runs at 9600 Baud (satellite internet) and costs $2/min.

Sure you can download a screw pretty trivially, but no one is going to let you put a non-QAed screw into a service/safety critical part of the boat. Because the liability if it fails is just too great.

So anything trivial you can download will still cost more in download costs to that stranded boat than carrying the part in stores.

and anything of significance will not be available. The Military stuff that Skyak is going on about is in fact spec'ed in the contract because it is typically "work for hire". That's not the case for that Caterpillar engine in the engine room (much less the yanmar or ford) nor for the NKE autopilot, nor for the hydraulic ram running the deployment of the bow thruster.

Those bits your are either going to have to design from takeoffs or from scratch and that requires a CAD jockey on boat (setting aside that no one will let you 3D print a service/safety critical piece without the testing and HIP treatment discussed earlier.)

So no it won't be cheaper to have the piece flown in

So while you can print the titanium deck cleat for $25 in consumables, you are ignoring the cost of

• the cost of maintenance on the DLMS
• the opportunity cost on the money of buying the DLMS
• the cost to CAD design the cleat from scratch since that file is NOT available anywhere.
• the cost of the lost powder ((its not 1:1 consumables to end product there's a fair amount of waste)

And so you will still be carrying thousands of dollars of stores for service/safety critical components - the rest you simply buy when you get to s chandlery -

And while you save on the carrying cost of inventory that basically doesn't go bad in a seaway, you replace it with the carrying cost of a relatively delicate machine that does.

There is no savings there.

 

Cruise ships have much faster already. In emergency, guests could be knocked off to download needed files. Megayachts have it too.

Here is satellite equipment I gathered from Fleet Broadband

Sailor FB250 $10,499
Antenna 10.75 " Diameter x 13" H
284 Kbps Speeds

JRC FB500 $14,749
Antenna 25 " Diameter x 27" H
432 Kbps Speeds

Sailor FB500 $16,914
Antenna 25 " Diameter x 26" H
432 Kbps Speeds

 

yup cruise ships are faster. And cruise ships have full machine shops already on board. So that's a meaningless example. On a cruise ship, flying in a part is not a massive cost.

So now in addition to a $1,000 3D printer we need
a $2000 workstatons
$4000 in CAD software
$10,000 in sat phone gear
$200/mo in satphone subscription
$20/MB so your rough download cost is $60 for something as simple as a pipe http://www.3dcontentcentral.com/Download-Model.aspx?catalogid=171&id=441191

So to save on say $2,000 in stores of stuff that doesn't go bad we have

$13,000 in gear
$200/mo in subscription costs
plus the materials cost of the part ($25)
plus the download cost of the part ($60)

for making parts that are not service/safety critical.

Yeah that makes sense.... Here's the reality. you can give the printer and the materials away for free and it still would be more expensive.

 

Why would you try and download them as needed, just download the entire parts list for the boat and pull them up as needed. The files just aren't that big. You could store the entire parts list in 3d SolidWorks on a $100 hard drive.

Baltic,

You clearly see the problems, and I don't argue that they exist and will need to be overcome. But I have no doubt that the issues will be overcome, many of the ones that you have raised are already being worked on, or have already been solved.

One of the machines I looked at uses insert cartridges for the powder, so the powder is always in a sealed environment and can't be contaminated.

 

I agree with others (despite being a naysayer for printed hose clamps) that the process can be made to a point and click process. There is no complex knowledge needed like CAM paths which mean one needs to understand a lot about the process.

Equally I think that using a data speed as a limiting factor when discussing future technologies is bit narrow minded. That is one aspect that is bound to get better over next years. And yes a terabyte drive can hold a lot of data.

Still I don't get how we can ignore the immense advances in material sciences - how are we going to print all these advanced different materials on demand?

 

Kero - the discussion is not about "future technologies" the claim put forth is that within 5 years these will be on 50' high end cruising boats in place of stores. Satphone bandwidth is not going to go up that fast. launches ain't cheap.

as for "downloading the entire parts list for the boat" - good luck finding that list. the 3D parts site I've linked to has been around for around a decade - and still doesn't have much of a meaningful library.

Autodesk JUST announced moving to an all cloud based solution but even they have he CAD models edited localluu.

And despite increases in computation power and storage, no one is building fully integrated 3D CAD model as a whole. The complexity of the model is such that it cannot be done effectively. even FEA analysis basically pulls a skin surface that "desolidifies" the 3d solids model.

In fact this issue is part of why OnShape was started http://www.onshape.com/ and they are at least a year away from delivering anything and after they deliver tooling it will take time before any models are actually implemented that way, much less recreational boats where the designers are going to continue in the older tools they have invested so much time and money in.

the issues I have raised:

1) Satellite bandwidth for access to downloadable parts - is not being actively invested in. there isn't a big enough market for high speed bandwidth to remote locations to drive this

2) the inherent incentive NOT to provide 3D CAD models of everything, is being worked on but it is moving way more slowly than you imagine

3) the liability issue of using untested 3D printed parts in service/safety critical component areas has NO work being done on it because there is no financial incentive to do so

4) the cost inefficiency of using a 3D printer on an infrequent basis has some minor work being done on it, but not at the level where service/safety critical parts can be made. Itts all happeing at the "lets make a keychain" level



Nor are there any "immense advances in materials science" here. we are still using laser sintering of metal which is a technology some 40 years old to make some high end parts that otherwise would have been cast. meh.

 

my comment about immense advances in material sciences was to reflect all the specialized coatings and materials that will be NOT available when using printing processes and "homemade" parts.

And while sat nav. might not be growing at great rate the mobile data network will be coming to more and more remote locations.

I fully agree that carrying a hitech specialized devise on board so you can once in a while replace a cracked hoo-dickey is an unrealistic idea.

 

and the $50/kg titanium is interesting - but that is the price of the powder (in theory I believe) not the price of the part

 

if you have internet connection there, then fedex isn't that expensive


but I get your point about specialized coatings and such

 

Titanium powder is a big portion of the part cost. Scintered titanium has some very impressive properties and 3d printing allows you to put material where it is needed and nowhere else. Due to it's light weight a kilo is more than you think and there is no waste. Ti is also one of the few materials with infinite fatigue life and an amazingly high operating temp range.

Ti Cleat? I suppose some want the impressive Ti part down on deck where it can draw admiration. I would get a machine and an engineer and start offering high performance parts that mater -Ti masthead with halyard locks!

I don't claim this is ready to put on boats but this is a very reasonable price for a dream material. The number of parts that can be replaced by a 3d printed part just exploded!

 

No - that's the mistake. Consumables are a small part of the cost. the Opex of the machine, the Capex of all the ancilliary bits are the costs that are prohibitive.

Simiarl to a friend of mine who bought a Porsche soon after getting his MBA, and had to sell it after 6 mos when he realized that with the insurance and gas costs, he couldn't afford to buy the new set of tires the car needed.