FDM Printers

[macduff]

OMG! Hello everyone, it's been a longtime!
We're getting a uPrint Plus for our office and have a couple of questions. For the folks that have FDM printers, do you have prroblems with the material fumes or the noise of the machine? We have concerns for the folks where the unit is placed.

Hope all is well,

Colin

Colin Fitzpatrick (aka Macduff)
Mechanical Designer
Solidworks 2010 SP 5.0
Dell T5500 Windows 7 Pro (64-bit)
Xeon CPU 2.53 GHz 6.00 GB of RAM
nVida Quadro 4000 2 GB
3D Connexion-SpaceExplorer

 

[MikeHalloran]

I am of the opinion that any expensive and delicate machine, e.g. any 3D printer, should get a room of its own, not so much for noise or smoke or smell reasons, but mostly to keep unauthorized/untrained/unwise fingers out of the machine.

Do include a nice big picture window for dog and pony shows, but keep the doors locked.


Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA

 

[MikeHalloran]

You can justify the isolation room (to managers and other owners of unwise fingers) by saying that the machine needs a stable environment in order to produce accurate models. The statement is not entirely untrue.



Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA

 

[ctopher]

I agree with Mike. Make a room for it. Not much of a need for ventilation, but it would help.

Chris
SolidWorks 11
ctopher's home
SolidWorks Legion

 

[GRF]

We placed ours in a room with some other test equipment and it kept most of the strangers away but not all. Watching one build a part is like watching fire or fish. I use to bring my son in if I had something building over the week end and as a 2 year old he would watch that thing for 15-20 minutes. I worked for a large company with many divisions and once other divisions knew you had a toy they would want to come and check it out and then try to get your group to build things for them with no real way to recoup the material expense. Not bad for one of two small jobs but it started to add up.

Our biggest issue was we had the disolvable support structure which is nice for really small delicate parts but is a mess. We had 10 or so engineers with access to the machine. The area around that bath was a mess. Our safety person threatened to shut it down because their was residue from the bath on the couter and floor pretty much constantly. It is a relatively high ph bath and there are warnings all over the place about exposure. However, numerous times I have reached in with my arm up to my elbo to get something out of the bath because it was trapped. Just wash your arm off pretty well or it will dry out your skin like no tomorrow. I think spilling the powder on you would be a little more dangerous but the concentration in the bath did not seem like an issue. Provided I was not doing this everyday as part of my job just once every couple of months for 10-15 seconds at a time max.

 

[macduff]

Great comments, thanks! I would like to hear some more.

Colin Fitzpatrick (aka Macduff)
Mechanical Designer
Solidworks 2010 SP 5.0
Dell T5500 Windows 7 Pro (64-bit)
Xeon CPU 2.53 GHz 6.00 GB of RAM
nVida Quadro 4000 2 GB
3D Connexion-SpaceExplorer