I assume this is 3D-printed from some 3D printing tech beyond what I've experienced buying some small 3D printed items that are temperature sensitive and kinda flexy?
The mechanical parts of the printer aren't that important pretty much all the printers can reach a good enough resolution for production.
The biggest thing in 3D printing now is high end composite filaments and multi material applications.
So for example if you print with PEEK (PolyEtherEtherKetone) or PEK/PEKK/PEKEKK you can print extremely strong parts which can be used for aerospace applications and even more.
The problem is that those materials are very expensive PEEK can easily get to $250-300 per lb. and even higher for the better known brands and composite PEEK filaments (e.g. fibre reinforced PEEK).
Beyond that you are limited by your print volume but many of the cheap printers especially the Chinese ones are pretty good in that regard.
My largest 3D printer (Anycubic Chiron) has a custom print head (E3D Volcano) and custom drivers my hotend can reach 420c> so I can print with PEEK I just can't afford it, not to mention w/e NASA has used for this which I'll assume is probably even more expensive.
That said I can print quadcopters and small drones with glass or carbon fibre reinforced nylon or PET easily and the 3D printed parts are usually the toughest part of those builds.
If anyone is looking for a good introduction to using (FDM) 3d printing for production, this is a great video of how super-car manufacturer Koenigsegg approaches them:
The key to making FDM parts work for your use-case is generally not buying the most expensive printer - it comes down to material selection, print orientation (others have mentioned anisotropicity which is incredibly important to understand), and designing for manufacturability.
I've spent the last three years running a 3D printing / rapid prototyping lab and love to teach people about the subject, so if anyone is interested in getting into the subject please feel free to get in touch.
I'm curious about the laser scanner that he showed. What kind of resolution does it provide? And how much does it cost?
Really, I don't care so much about the one he showed, but I want to know if it is possible to get one with high resolution (fraction of a mm) for a reasonable price.
The real problem with printing these materials is that the part isotropy is poor, so you get the expected strength on the x- and y- axes but the z- axis (where all of the layers are stacking up) is quite poor. Turns out that printing things in a layer-by-layer fashion has its own cost.
I'm quite involved in this area, happy to share more if anyone is interested.
Layer separation can be addressed trough proper material selection and print settings.
Nylon and resin based filaments have excellent layer adhesion, also keeping your print area sterile and at a correct temperature is very important dust is your worst enemy.
Also too many people think that printing thin layers improves strength it doesn’t it just compounds the problem.
I’m printing large functional and structural parts in nylon with a 1.2mm nozzle and 0.6-0.8mm layer height and with a glass fiber reinforced filament I’ll have a material failure before layer separation.
Define high performance polymers as Nylon is also counted as such.
If you are talking about exotic stuff like PEEK then from what I know it has even better layer adhesion.
The most exotic thing I got to print with was PEI which also didn’t had issues with layers.
Reading more about this drone I’m not even sure if they used high end polymers for it.
The majority of their focus was around the continuous iteration from design to production workflow not material science.
If the blades they printed for the video are the ones used in flight then they printed them with ABS not some alien stuff.
Drones like this don’t actually experience that much force.
No friction, very little torque, little to no shock.
People print multi rotor drones all the time they work perfectly fine, this one is a bit bigger but nothing that would require a ground breaking advancement in the actual printing technology.
> Define high performance polymers as Nylon is also counted as such.
By high-performance polymers, I mean polymers suitable for structural parts and the replacement of metals like aluminum.
> The most exotic thing I got to print with was PEI which also didn’t had issues with layers.
I'd be really interested to hear about your experience with PEI. From the manufacturers and users I've spoken with, printed Ultem (PEI) has diminished strength along the z-axis because of its amorphous morphology. Do you know what brand of filament you used? Did you post-cure or perform any pre-print steps? How did you test isotropy?
Commodity resins are used to replace metals, and in structural parts all the time. Much of it comes down to part design, filler selection, etc.
For example, glass-filled polypropylenes are used all the time as metal replacements in vehicles (injection molded), even in some structural applications, depending on the exact demands.
Nylon is a pretty good structural material, especially glass-filled or talc-filled depending on abrasion resistance and rigidity required.
I don't have experience with the very expensive stuff (PEEK, etc) though, as usually that's much more expensive than the metal and doesn't confer many benefits except in pretty high end applications.
I also sand my parts and cover them with a protective epoxy (UV blocker).
For failure I’ve tested sheer and compression failures including in parts that where physically compromised e.g. by drilling screw holes or pressing in threaded inserts.
Unlike say ABS the failure was never across the layer lines and there was no layer separation or tearing if and when the parts broke they broke fairly cleanly.
Now this is for my specific application and use cases there could be stresses that could result in layer separation.
However I didn’t observed a significantly diminished z strength even when holes were drilled across the layer plain rather than just through it.
If you want to replace metal in general sintering or a lithographic process is likely going to be your best bet but FDM can work for many applications and you can always solve your material weaknesses in your design by for example altering the layer alignment across your design to ensure that the maximum strength is always where it’s need the most.
I beams are also much stronger in a specific direction but it’s not seen as a weakness but rather strength.
Technically they printed it for a mold but that's because fiberglass is better and while you can can print with glass reinforced materials the fibers have to be quite short which reduces their tensile strength compared to composite sheets.
That said if you really wanted too you could print a functional hull, but it's not a good application for it.
Not every manufacturing method is appropriate we can CNC mill a car from a single block of aluminum too but it's not exactly a good manufacturing process for this task.
EDIT: HanseYachts AG apparently prints a 10m (~33ft) hull for one of their Yachts using a cellulose composite filament.
You could do that, but it wouldn't be a good idea. Fiberglass works very well for that application and is much cheaper, faster, and higher performance.
It seems very large portion of yacht cost is interior installation. Printing might lead to all sort of safety, maintenance, performance and comfort advantages that you can’t achieve with normal manual labour.
I’m guessing some sort of hybrid approach could win.
Based on the size of most UAVs and the fact that it's NASA, they're almost certainly using a large format printer from Stratsys or 3D Systems in the $250K+ range.
I have quite a few friends that work at Stratsys you’ll be surprised just how unimpressive their print quality actually is compared to many hobbyist printers.
They are very consistent however especially at their volume and the material quality is also excellent which leads to very good production results.
From the video at least they print the prop blades on an Ultimaker and an old one to boot this is something you can easily do at home.
The body of the UAV looks like it is a skinned composite so it wasn’t fully 3D printed I’m guessing they printed a skeleton and then put composite sheets over it.
This doesn’t look like anything you can’t print at home if you know what you are doing and have either a high end hobby printer or a custom built one.
I work in a lab that has a large variety of printers from hobby grade to Stratasys FDM and resin SLA, polyjet.
You're right that the stratasys machines are unimpressive in their quality and precision; I can get a better end part in many cases with a $300 Prusa clone than a $25k F370.
However you're also right that their consistency is their main strength, and in my opinion this is why they are worth the money (if you need high throughput and low failure rate). The Stratasys printers we have are easily the most reliably machines we run, and have a close to 100% success rate while being completely hands off. The calibration routines, heated build chamber, and disposable build plates are key here.
The other area where Stratasys leads is with soluble support. I haven't found any generic material that comes close to SR-30. PVA is an absolute nightmare for reliability. If anyone has found something that they are happy with, please let me know.
You can probably find the same soluble support Stratsys uses the price is just going to be bonkers like all their materials.
I just print with normal support structures but E3D soluble support is supposedly very good (but very expensive like $280 for 5 lbs.).
So I’m not going to spend that much money I rather print something that would print with minimal supports and just cut them off.
Yeah Stratsys doesn’t care about the final quality of your benchy but it will work every time and their integration along the entire toolchain is excellent including the design phase which means your CAD is going to be aware of the dimensionality impact of the printing as well as other constraints like support material placement.
ABS is a pain to print without an enclosure, and ABS for the most part doesn't absorbs water also it's not as much of an issue with the final parts (aside from Nylon that can expand easily) but rather that moisture caught in the filament boiling during the extrusion which results in your print looking like a sponge.
It prints fine on my non-enclosed delta. My printer isn't anything special, it's just, like you said, water absorption by the filament is an issue if it's left out in the open.
The key is simply to keep the filament in a drybox before use. It doesn't need to be anything fancy- I use a 5-gallon Home Depot bucket, a small jar of Damp Rid (Calcium Chloride), and a seedling heater mat to keep things warm. It works great.
I also have a CR10(s) pretty decent printer if you are willing to work out its quirks.
For water applications PET or PLA would be the best don’t use nylon and ABS is a bitch to print with without enclosures.
I would recommend you getting some protective epoxy for any prints you want to last for anything that is going to be in water just sand the part and put a marine epoxy layer on top of it the additional weight isn’t an issue.
I would think so. One of the Stratasys engineers at their skunkworks division in Minnesota walked me through their process for printing something as large as a full-size table (upside down to minimize support material). The technology is really impressive but the uses seem few and far between.
While "FDM" or "FFF" 3d printing (the kind most people think of when they think 3d printing) is most common, there are tons of others. SLS can produce impossibly complex "solid" metal objects, SLA can use resins that have very unique properties (some extremely hard, others nearly perfectly transparent, etc...).
Even if you don't leave the FDM style of 3d printing, there are tons of different techniques and plastics or plastic-hybrids that you can use. Often they can even be used on hobbyist level machines. Different kinds of plastics including Nylon and Polycarbonate, carbon-fiber infused filaments that have incredible tensile strength, even some metal-powder infused plastics which are designed to print, and then "bake" to harden them.
It's a pretty awesome field with a lot of variation in what is possible even at the hobbyist level.
Just looking at the video, it looks like they are using fairly "traditional" FDM 3d printing, but most likely with some unique filaments/plastics. If I had to take a complete shot in the dark at what they are using, i'd guess PEEK. It's a bitch and a half to print with using hobbyist devices (it needs a pretty high temperature and the ambient air needs to be kept quite hot to avoid warping), but it's extremely strong and very consistent.
What made you put "solid" in quotes when referring to metal objects? I ask because i was looking at Markforged's "Metal X" printer and thought the final products looked fantastic!
I haven't done any SLS printing myself, but from what I hear the final products are kind of "porous" in a way.
There's the metal bound in plastic that you print, and during the sintering process it removes the plastic, but it can't get all of it out. The parts end up being either slightly porous or still having the binding plastic in it.
I hear they are still extremely solid for most use cases, but technically they aren't completely solid metal.
What you are describing here sounds more like binder jetting than SLS.
Sintering often stuggles with porosity, even using traditional bulk techniques. There is space between powder particles, and some of it likely survives.
It seems like a super interesting field. The fact that it all gets labeled under "3D printed" is confusing, granted ... also not wrong.
I was at an exhibit about the space station and they had some tools they 3D printed to make completing some tasks easier. I was thinking "No way this could this go 'outside' of the space station if it is from the same material I've gotten that warns me not to expose it to high temps or high / low humidity, it probabbly would melt / crack instantly".
PLA (the most common hobbyist plastic used) isn't all that good for functional stuff. It's extremely easy to print with, which is why it's used most commonly, but as you said it has a small temperature range where it's usable, it breaks down quickly under UV radiation, it gets pretty brittle, and it doesn't hold it's shape over repeated stress.
I don't think it would "crack instantly" or melt in space right away, but it wouldn't work long term at all.
But if you just go outside of that most basic plastic, there are tons of other options. Printing with PETG is just as simple in many cases, but it can withstand higher temperatures and is pretty easy to make watertight seals with.
ABS is a great plastic that is also easy to print with once you learn the quirks. It is used a lot in automotive stuff since it's fairly resistant to a lot of temperatures and is pretty hard.
Polycarbonate (PC) is also a great plastic to print with if you need it to withstand a lot of work and different temperatures.
All of those can be printed on hobbyist machines, and I have all of them in the room next to me. And both PLA and ABS have been used on the space station and tools that the ISS 3d printer has printed have been used in space walks!
It's pretty exciting stuff, and while what NASA is using is obviously more advanced than a $300 3d printer you can get online today, it's still using a lot of the same stuff and is pretty close to what you or I could print in our house if we wanted to.
> It's pretty exciting stuff, and while what NASA is using is obviously more advanced than a $300 3d printer you can get online today, it's still using a lot of the same stuff and is pretty close to what you or I could print in our house if we wanted to.
Everything is correct except for this statement! From the video it looks like they are using an Ultimaker for some of these parts, which means you can get similar results even on a $200 Ender-3 (my go-to recommendation).
I think these are polycarbonate made on Stratasys machines. It's really a replacement for the slightly more labor-intensive methods of making stuff out of balsa and styrofoam, sanding and painting, fiberglassing, etc. You still need to sand and paint, to be sure, but... fairly precise shapes can be made directly without needing forms and guides, etc, so that saves on labor.
Polycarbonate has a higher heat deflection temperature than the typical epoxies one might use in this sort of application. Stiffness is a little lower than epoxy, but not by much.
Depends on the uav, but you could do components for a small one. I've printed legs for drones, and they were small enough that I could have done them in metal. The limiting factor without buying something hideously expensive is more about how much metal you want to have molten at once. For little parts you can use a bunsen burner and a small crucible. If you buy a pro setup, it flash melts the metal for you only at the moment it needs it. But they are expensive.
Metal 3D printing technology is maturing rapidly. Many of the aerospace standard materials are available (aluminums and stainless steels, though titaniums seem to not quite be there yet). You won't find it in production much across the aerospace industry, except in trivial applications. ~Everyone~ is testing heavily, and trying to find the sweet spots where it makes sense. Probably a few more years before it flies on anything manned.
The submitter might be from the UK, or some country other than USA, or use language constructs from such an area. The submitter might have corrected the title to match their local conventions.
That makes the title _right_, just not consistent with the conventions of a particular country.
That has nothing to do with respect. On the other hand, if you "respect" organization's spelling choices, you end up with abominations like "macOS". It's better to make a habit to ignore them.
But if an organization (for whatever reason that might happen) wrote about me, I'd expect them to capitalize it properly according to their style guide.
Given this bit - "allowing engineers to change the wings, the fuselage, and other sections quite rapidly.", then it probably is, at least in comparison to having to produce lots of different aircraft.
Exactly - conventional techniques involving moulds would probably be cheaper if you're making 100 or even 10 of them, but if you're making 1 of them 3D printing is excellent.
I assume this is 3D-printed from some 3D printing tech beyond what I've experienced buying some small 3D printed items that are temperature sensitive and kinda flexy?