Any Interested in Manufacturing Parts?

I am preparing a product for Kickstarter in the fall. You can view a picture of an older prototype here: https://roboppics.com

If people subscribe on Kickstarter, I might need to print and assemble 10 - 50 of these in response to the Kickstarter campaign.

It is 90% 3D printed on a Taz 6 using PolyMax - which is a little hard to print and does require thicker PEI on the build plate plus an enclosure.

I am just wondering if there are Taz 6 owners who might be interested in making parts?

I send you the g-code, you make the parts on your Taz, you send me the parts and make a little money and maybe learn a bit… Real distributed manufacturing :slight_smile:

Anyone interested enough to talk about it?

Thanks,

Michael

Hi Michael,

I am happy to say that this service is something we are offering! Please email us at support@lulzbot.com and we can talk about the details of your project.

Thanks Tyth,

I sent an email.

There are lots of services where you can order 3D printed parts. 3D Systems and Proto Labs for instance, where you can upload a part, pick a material, and get a quote back.

Are you saying that Lulzbot has an offering like this?

I was thinking more along the lines of coordinating Taz 6 owners so that they can participate in a market for manufacturing parts.

More like an Uber of 3D printing.

Lots of people own your printers. I bet many are not using them fully. Why not create a way to connect people who need parts with people who own these underutilized resources.

I would be interested in something like this however, I don’t have an enclosure but live in a low humidity state. Also, what is meant by needing a thicker Pei?

Hi Joe,

PEI or Polyetherimide is the thin plastic film stuck to the build plate of a Lulzbot.

It has some great properties for sticking to and holding the printed model, and yet is able to be easily separated from the completed print.

The strength of a Polycarbonate filament, particularly with larger prints, the 3mil PEI film that is standard on a Lulzbot can be lifted right off the bed as the plastic cures. One solution is a thicker PEI such as 1/16th of an inch thick. Another solution, or so I have heard, is an aluminum build plate. I have not tried that.

To get consistent prints, you need to control the environment. This includes humidity (below 15% for many filaments) and temperature. I use a room dehumidifier to hold the humidity at 30%, which seems to work fine for PC-MAX. I find that when printing PC-MAX, the temp inside the enclosure without a heater runs close to 100F since the bed is heated to 100C. This makes a big difference in print quality over room temperature without an enclosure.

With a heated enclosure, you can run the temp up to 50C (122F), but Lulzbot says above that and you risk serious damage to the printer (although there are some strategies for getting around that by also adding cooling for key components).

The reason that no one including Lulzbot sells a heated enclosure, is that Stratasys owns the patent on it. Which means you pretty much have to build one yourself.

Michael

Picture of a structural part printed on the Taz 6 for this project.

https://forum.lulzbot.com/t/large-structural-piece-in-polycarbonate/6735/1

I’m in the process of modifying my TAZ 6 to print at those temps. I would be very interested

Excellent! Drop me a line at myeager@roboppics.com. Let’s get it going!

The plan is to run the kickstarter campaign in November. There will be nothing to make till we have at least 10 subscribers to the campaign, But once we have subscribers, we will need parts, it would be great to assemble the first 10 in December for xmas delivery. And it would be great to get a network of Lulzbot owners making parts!

I am currently running without a heated enclosure and getting good results. I think heat is not needed, you just need an enclosure.

As you can see in the photos, I am using the enclosure by Printed Solid that Lulzbot sells in their store. It is a total pain to assemble, but otherwise it is very well designed.

Also PC-MAX seems forgiving about the humidity. Seems fine at 30% unlike other filaments. As long as you can hold at 30% humidity or below, you should get good results.