Slant 3D Production 3D Printing Service
  • Production 3D Printing Quote
  • Products and Services
    • Production 3D Printing >
      • How to Use Production 3D Printing
      • 3D Printed Part Properties
      • Technology
      • 3D Design and Engineering
      • Product Fulfillment
    • Angled.io
    • Slant Promotions
    • Slant 3D Printing API
    • 3D Printing Etsy Integration
  • About
    • Past Clients
    • Contact
  • Blog

Slant 3D Blog

Some Things to Know about High Volume Production FDM 3D Printing

7/19/2019

0 Comments

 
High Volume, Production 3D Printing is able to produce thousands of parts per week, eliminating warehousing and providing more flexibility in the design and production of parts. But there are several misconceptions and great abilities that people overlook.

Speed

3D Printing is often considered a slow process for making parts. 1 part at a time that is true. That is why we deploy hundreds of 3D printers, in our printing farm, all working in parallel so that even though a single part might take an hour to print, we are still producing hundreds of parts per hour.

Capacity constraints can sometimes slow down production of orders, just as with any process. But we are constantly building out more capacity so that is mitigated as much as possible.
Picture
A Node of the one of the Slant 3D Printing Farms

Colors

FDM 3D printing has a decided advantage over all other 3D printing processes. We are able to to create any pantone required by the client in our plastics. Other processes are generally limited to black, gray, or white. If you want a specific color it is exorbitantly expensive. FDM printing allows us to create a part in any color of the rainbow, and everything in between.
Picture
Filament Colors

Materials

FDM is one of the most versatile 3D printing processes created. If a material can be put into a thermoplastic filament then it can be printed with our machines. For this reason we are able to manufacture parts with materials ranging from simple Bio-plastics and ABS up to Carbon Fiber Nylons. We have even started work with metal printing which will allow us to print parts and then sinter them to create complex metal parts.

Out own material production capabilities also allow us to continue to experiment and develop new materials and mixes. So if you need a plastic we can make that plastic
Picture
A Carbon Fiber Nylon 3D Printed Part

Strength

3D Printed parts are often considered to be weaker than injection molded or machined parts. It is true that the properties of a part vary based on the direction of loading, based on the orientation during printing. This property is refereed to as anisotropic.

But this issue is vastly over-stated and often just wrong. The reason it is so prevalent is that designers have been attempting to apply traditional design principles to the 3D printing process. That is the equivalent of trying to make an aluminum plane the way you would make a wooden one. Similar end goal, very different details.

If an additive part is appropriately designed for the process then it can meet or exceed the performance of traditionally manufactured parts. And we have a team of engineers who are standing by to help you optimize your designs for the process.

Slant 3D has also developed new methods of 3D printing parts which reduces the anisotropic nature of the pieces. In many cases we can achieve 90-95% the strength of an injection molded part the part in the Z direction using additive processes.
Picture

Cost

This is another common misconception. The idea that 3D printing is 5-10x more expensive than other methods at scale. 

Large scale 3D printing is generally less expensive than injection molding up to 20-50000 units just on the savings of tooling. Long term, the on demand nature of additive can make production cheaper than other large volume processes because warehousing costs are reduced which can constitute 10-25% of the cost of a part over its production lifetime.

Then there is the traditional understanding that 3D printing is cheaper than molding at low volumes just because of the savings in tooling. In this situation 3D printing can be 5-10x less expensive than molding.
Picture

Summary

Hopefully we have cleared up an fogginess about the capabilities of 3D printing and the parts that is creates. Is it a perfect process for everything? No. No process is. But it does offer a lot of advantages in cost and supply flexibility.

If you are interested in getting a quote for your project with production 3D printing please contact us and one of our engineers will get in contact with you immediatly.
Get a High Volume 3D Printing Quote
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Featured Posts
    • Cost of Production 3D Printing
    • Design for 3D Printing
    • Benefits of 3D Printing
    • Print Farm Beta Update
    Subscribe

    Categories

    All
    3D Printers
    Applications
    Benefits
    Client Spotlight
    Design For 3D Printing
    Digital Inventory
    Industrial
    Mason
    News
    Online Buisness
    Services
    Toys
    Video

    Archives

    March 2023
    February 2023
    January 2023
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    October 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    February 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017

    RSS Feed

Services

Production 3D Printing
Fulfillment
CAD Design

Company

About
The Company
Technology
Past Clients
​

Support

Contact
Get a Quote
​


© COPYRIGHT 2021. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
  • Production 3D Printing Quote
  • Products and Services
    • Production 3D Printing >
      • How to Use Production 3D Printing
      • 3D Printed Part Properties
      • Technology
      • 3D Design and Engineering
      • Product Fulfillment
    • Angled.io
    • Slant Promotions
    • Slant 3D Printing API
    • 3D Printing Etsy Integration
  • About
    • Past Clients
    • Contact
  • Blog