anyone seen this machine make car parts !

[renovation]

http://www.youtube.com:80/watch?v=ggvzcGdZsTc

its a amazing machine that can make parts! and to top it off its all american made.

[uncledaddy]

I haven't seen that particular machine. I did see a similar machine that scans and machines parts out of billet aluminum. Pretty cool.

[Jeffbx]

Yeah, I saw a demo of one of those once. Pretty amazing - just scan in a 3D object and it "prints" a 3D model from plastic or metal powder. Crazy stuff...

[johnnymk]

I may be wrong but they may be just for prototypes. I wouldn't trust the strength of the product in a high stress application.

[Daedalus]

Yeah, the video said as much. The creation process is called rapid prototyping and has been around for a while. The 3-d scanning is new to me. I'm curious about tolerances. How exact is the scan? I doubt it could be used to scan a journal bearing that has to be accurate to within ~.0002", which is about 1/20 the thickness of a sheet of paper. It can only be as good as the number of samples taken, which would make up the vertices of the triangles in the model they showed. In this case you would still need to take critical dimensions by hand the old fashioned way, paying a machinist $200/hour (according to them ) and then update the CAD model by paying a CAD jockey whatever he charges. It's a cool gadget, but I think the applications are somewhat limited.

[Markel]

I may be wrong but they may be just for prototypes. I wouldn't trust the strength of the product in a high stress application.

They say that the "machined" plastic part would become the basis for a casting.

[Jeffbx]

Yeah, the video said as much. The creation process is called rapid prototyping and has been around for a while. The 3-d scanning is new to me. I'm curious about tolerances. How exact is the scan? I doubt it could be used to scan a journal bearing that has to be accurate to within ~.0002", which is about 1/20 the thickness of a sheet of paper. It can only be as good as the number of samples taken, which would make up the vertices of the triangles in the model they showed. In this case you would still need to take critical dimensions by hand the old fashioned way, paying a machinist $200/hour (according to them ) and then update the CAD model by paying a CAD jockey whatever he charges. It's a cool gadget, but I think the applications are somewhat limited.

Yeah, the real benefit is not to duplicate parts, but more for rapid prototyping. Neither the scanning nor the printing are that accurate. But if you have a part in a CAD drawing, it can be very helpful to "print" that part when you're looking at the overall design, rather than sending the specs to the machine shop & waiting.

Then the scanner is very helpful in re-creating older (or competitor ) parts that maybe you don't have a CAD image of already.

Overall they're both just time savers - something that usually takes weeks can now take hours. And if you're paying a room full of engineers, those saved hours can pay for these devices really quickly.