MR ED 's ultima hop-ups

[Mr. ED]

I'll get a price from materialize for the current state of the model. It still needs work to become fully functional, but that'll give us a good idea already

[Mr. ED]

320 Euro I think I just lost some motivation

[tamiyadan]

.

[Mr. ED]

What the heck? I just lost 4 hours of redesigning the cage for a lower price. The program hung up as I saved my work. And apparently my previous saves all failed. Bummer!

[Mr. ED]

I succeeded in recovering part of the work from an auto-save, so I only had to spend an hour to finnish it up again and get a quote.

First estimate: around 160 euro including shipment.

To get there, I had to reduce the overall size: shorter lower and narrower, and reduce the print time = fewer pipes and lower total length of pipe
I tried to keep the styling similar but yeah, I know it's not the same...

[Coelacanth]

Man, that's too bad it had to be narrowed so much...the whole purpose of the cage is protection...on the top and sides.

[Mr. ED]

Yes. I believe the price is determined in part by the space the part occupies in the printer. So just puttin on antenna on the roof would raise the cost.
If I knew exactly what the cost components are, I could redisgn the cages accordingly. But I doubt it would get much lower than 150 euro

[jwscab]

you could probably make it cheaper if you were to make it more of a build-it-up design, so like make the cabin top snap into the lower part, or create sections somehow. Granted, this will make it weaker, but with it being printed anyway, I'm not sure I would be running it too much anyway. You could make the joints a male/female type connection.

[Mr. ED]

Yeah, that'd be a way to teduce the box size. But it also multiplies the chance of having tolerance issues with the first print. Snaps that are loose, or crack because too tight... Male parts that won't fit their counterparts.
A cage body has no aerodynamics to speak of, so I wouldn't expext anyone to race it. But otherwise, 5mm diameter glass reinforced nylon is pretty tough.
The narrow body would be less vulnerable than the wide one too.

[XLR8]

Actually, I really like both versions.
I've never worked with a printing service so I really have no idea how the process works. Is it possible to upload two versions: a compact single-piece version and a larger multi-part version? I just reckoned that, since there are no tooling costs per se, perhaps you could offer as many versions of the cage as you wish and the printing service will recover a portion of their equipment costs each time the product is sold. How does the printing service process actually work?

[Mr. ED]

There are some different setups for the printing services.
I don't know the details yet, since I basically just used the materialise site to get an estimate. I went to their site, uploaded an stl format version of the design and picked the material, printing method and finish. After inspecting the model, the site displayed the price for one piece, not including shipment. I think it also displayed the price per unit for higher quantities.
So, once I comlete the design, anyone could ask me for the file and go through the same procedure.
Or I can open a shapeways shop. Anyone that gets a product printed from my shop then pays shapeways for the print, service and shipping, and a small fee which shapeways putsin my account.
And there's thingyverse... Which I think is like a shop where anyone can buy modes to print on their homeprinter. Not sure about this.
I believe there's also public libraries where people upload models for free use.

[Mr. ED]

... Is it possible to upload two versions: a compact single-piece version and a larger multi-part version? I just reckoned that, since there are no tooling costs per se, perhaps you could offer as many versions of the cage as you wish...

I got so round up in your next question I kinda forgot to answer to this.
Yes, I could make different versions available. But I do feel like I should either get a prototype printed to verify all is good, or have a design which is not too expensive and pretty much free of risks.
I wouldn't want someone to pay 300 euro and then get told it doesnt fit or ...
So, as I'm not gonna spend 300 euro for a test print, the 2-seater as it stands, is not a valid option. The single seater... Maybe but not now. I'll see what I can do for a "kit" cage and maybe try to make it printable on a filament printer too.

[XLR8]

That seems reasonable; for every cage design, you will require a test print to verify correct fit and these are not provided to you free of charge.
I would guess that this kind of development cost might act as restraint for many of these printing service's "shop" partners. Maybe some printing services someday will realize the value in providing their partners at least one low-cost test print per design as this could lead to more options and more products available to their customers and the opportunity to grow their business.

[Mr. ED]

It depends on who the service targets as a customer. Materialise is mainly oriented towards rapid prototyping as part of research and development.
Their customers require the high-tech only they can offer, and the faults revealed by the prototype early in the design stage allow cheaper corrections compared to corrections in later stages.

[Mr. ED]

While trying to figure out more about the print shops/communities, I came across a fairly local print shop.
I uploaded the narrow cage as is and got an online offer for it.
It came up being less than 50 euro. Woot!
It's not an sls print, but hp mjf (multi jet fusion technology).
The plus; it's printing nylon, with a very high resolution and accuracy. So it will look better than sls, not need postprocessing, and will have the toughness of nylon (if you keep it from dehydrating).
The minus: only dark grey or black (dyed for 5 euro extra), no glass reinforced nylon

The design freedom is similar to sls and it's also available at shapeways and materialise and others. I need to check the pricing on shapeways still. Materialise was way more expensive, only slightly less than sls.