Anyone playing in the CNC field, (personal or professional) knows the 3D
printer world relatively well these days.
Even me..., just finished adding steppers to my own mill/lathe for full
CNC....now just completed building a dedicated touch screen controller with
custom keypad to drive it all (electronics design engineer by profession)
The 3D printers best suited to such a project (bell housing) are now being
purchased by small companies to replace foundry work.
They deposit cintered metal where needed in the layer, and sand around where
not. Then a high powered laser fuses the layer. The system repeats until the
whole unit is built up. Cl;ear away the sand and you have a part in hand.
Right now the biggest industry concern,,, yes... people can print a hand
gun! It's been done, and fired. Some guy on youtube even fires an AR-15
where he made the main carrier on a 3D printer. Anything made from plastics,
nylon, poly, etc can be made on a 3D printer. Now, even metals of all types.
metal examples http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=88BPmL8cGAo
kind of plasma cutting in reverse...metal deposition
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iLndYWw5_y8
Zcorp ..wild all in one pieces
http://www.zcorp.com/documents/259_650Video.wvx
oh..car related...Even Jay Leno has his own 3D printer. He uses it to proto
parts ...makes blanks for sand cast molds to make parts he needs not avail
anywhere else.
nfi...just dreaming what can be done....sooner than you think. :-)
Paul Tegler
ptegler@verizon.net
www.teglerizer.com
----- Original Message -----
From: "Randall" <tr3driver@ca.rr.com>
To: "'Triumphs'" <triumphs@autox.team.net>
Sent: Wednesday, January 23, 2013 7:50 PM
Subject: Re: [TR] Your own T5 Conversion
>> We're getting to the point where a 3D printer could produce the bell
>> housing.
>
> We're already there. I read an article just the other day about a printer
> that could easily handle a bellhousing in several kinds of metal:
> http://www.designnews.com/author.asp?section_id=1392&doc_id=256731&dfpPParams=ind_183,industry_auto,bid_27,aid_256731&dfpLayout=blog
> "Potential materials include high-grade steel alloys, tool steels,
> aluminum or titanium alloys, nickel-based superalloys, and cobalt-chromium
> alloys."
>
> All it takes is money at the moment. But I expect the prices to continue
> dropping dramatically as the printers gain acceptance. Some home units
> are already below $1500 (though they don't handle metal or anything as big
> as a bellhousing). And the 'toner' is still expensive too, from what I
> hear.
>
> Of course, I'm still not crazy about trying to convert a TR3 into a MR2;
> I'd rather be making repair parts for A-types <g>
>
> --- Randall
>
> ** triumphs@autox.team.net **
>
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