r/AdditiveManufacturing

This is because despite the higher chamber temp in the IDEX 22, the motion system, extrusion system, and overall build quality of an IDEX 22 leads to extremely inconsistent production, various artifacts that render the potential strength from a higher chamber temperature utterly pointless.

Source: I am the former VM print tech. Part of my job was to use the IDEX 22 to beat Bambu printers. It was never going to happen even with all the tricks in the book because the 22 is fundamentally flawed. UTM tests always showed Bambu beating the IDEX on just the default Bambu profiles.

Don't get ripped off for $15k

BTW Rob. Pay me all the overtime you owe me, and make up for the benefits I should have received for full time work. 10k should suffice. Maybe then I will shut up, and you can carry on posing as an expert in this industry with your chatGPT YouTube scripts. I'll admit its surprising they don't teach you about integrity at your jiu jitsu gym.

This post is the tip of the iceberg. Your company is weaker than the Titanic.

P.S. If you really need a high temp printer, Prusa's HT90 will easily beat this thing. If you already own a 22 and cant get a refund, I am happy to help you for free. It needs to be babied to work at all, chances are you already wasted hundreds in filament if not thousands trying to make it do what was advertised.

d.m. here or on instagram (at) jgaf any time. I know the printer better than anyone and want to do my best to be sure you can recover some of those 15-20k losses incurred. Because I'm nice. I won't send you down V.M.s manufactured customer service frustration rabbit hole or worthless A.I. wiki.

Hi there, the topic on SLS vs MJF seems to be alive again on the industry press.

I was an SLS operator back in the day. I am just wondering if from a technical and part properties perspective the MJF process is superior from every point of view or not.

I understand the caveats of prices, service contracts, material availability etc. that comes with each brand, printer model or even distrubutor/location.

Leaving those aside, I am just looking at process/part property. What's the "scientific" take here?

This all comes from a discussion with another operator but neither of us are proper materials/process experts. Please school us as required.

I understand the following on MJF:

- MJF process uses IR heat rather than laser so fusion is more controlled, hence better part performance
- MJF process with detailing agent marks the part boundaries, hence a bit more precise
- MJF process is the same speed each layer regardless of build density or part geometry
- Claims cooling is faster?
- Most powders are grey and parts look a bit "unfinished"

On SLS:
- Laser induces thermal bleed and local heat accumulation.
- Lasers scan have to travel to "draw" the geometries to be fused, more density build equals longer print times
- There are SLS with grey/black parts as well as white parts, parts may look more well finished.

On SAF:
- Is it just like the MJF process with only one agent for thermal absorbtion? Then the better dimensional accuracy and part properties achieved due to the "detailing agent" of MJF are lost here?

If you have all the money and no preference in brand and the technologies came in the same build volumes, when would one use SLS compared to MJF?

I understand that in the real world pricing, build volumes, machine sizes, powder management etc. all influence the purchasing decision. But if we were to be in a lab just looking at the technology itself how would that conversation go?

Thanks.

I have been doing research and have found some solutions on how to do this but wanted to see if anyone has some first hand experience. I am printing with 30 or so P1S printers exclusively ABS and need to start building a serious air handeling system. These are in a 14,000 Cubic Foot room.

I am thinking I will duct all of the printers together and pull the air directly out of the printers the trick is going to be doing this without cooling the inside of the printers. Than taking that air passing it through a heat recovery ventilator to recover some of the heat especially in the winter and pump that back into the room.

The questions i am working on are.

- How do i measure the air being pulled from the printer.

- How much air should be being pulled from the printer.

- Making sure the air pull is balanced between all of the printers.

- Is there a way to monitor the air pull to make sure this doesn't change.

- I need this to scale this building is designed to fit 300-400 printers.

- Is there anything i am not thinking about or issues i may run into?

I just got hired as an AM technician and got offered a salaried role of 23.50 an hour. I've been there a few weeks and just received my second paycheck which was missing 10 hours of OT from staying late for trainings and helping turnaround our SLM printers.

I contacted the finance department and they said "you are salaried any overtime would have to be approved by your boss before you work the hours to be payed". My boss is dragging his feet sending the email explaining that I need to be payed at least "straight time".

From my understanding AM technician roles are classified as blue collar and are required to be compensated by time and a half, the other 2 techs I work with have also not been payed overtime (they were the ones who brought the FLSA laws to my attention).

I really like this job but I'm naive and have minimal work experience with government contracts, can anyone weigh in on if this is fishy or not?

I work in an at will state if that matters.

Edit: I submitted a ticket with the DOL to have them inform me of my rights and resources available to me in my state. Thanks for the advice guys.

I'm going to refrain from lawyers for now because I don't want to escalate things too much, my employer is very connected and they would hear about it.

I’ve gotten some insightful and informative feedback thus far. I’m looking to get a feel for what folks in manufacturing spaces are actually looking for out of a SLM machine right now, if a new machine were being introduced to the market. Whether you're running production, prototyping, or developing custom hardware, I'd love to know what boxes a machine needs to tick to actually fit your workflow and budget.

I want to leave this fairly open-ended, but here are a few specific points to kick off the discussion:

Build Volume: What is your sweet spot? Is a 300^3 or 400^3 build volume necessary for the parts you're eyeing, or are you constrained more by machine footprint and powder costs than build envelope?

Budget & Format: Where is the realistic price ceiling for a machine like this in your shop? If a machine hit the $20k to $40k range, would you be willing to look at a high-quality kit format to save on upfront capital, or is a fully assembled, turnkey system a better fit?

Material & Laser Flexibility: Are you looking for a dedicated single-material workhorse (e.g., just Stainless or Aluminum), or is open-parameter architecture a must-have for experimenting and prototyping?

Infrastructure & Safety: What are your biggest hurdles regarding facility integration? Power, footprint, air quality?
What are the biggest pain points keeping you from bringing metal 3D printing in-house right now? Looking forward to hearing your thoughts!

I work at an aerospace manufacturing shop specializing in LPBF metal printing for rotating detonation rocket engines. With guidance from propulsion engineers, I designed, printed, and post-processed my very own solid rocket motor from scratch.

If you want to see a CATO up close and personal, and learn what goes into metal additive manufacturing along the way, check out my trailer and subscribe. The first full video is coming soon.

Anyone read this report on Velo?

Curious is people have experiences to corroborate or denounce the claims in the article.

Shop just outgrew our whiteboard print queue. Running 8 mixed FDM/SLA machines and jobs keep colliding (recently it was 5 but I scaled and now its tough).

What’s your solutions for 3d printer queue management I heard about 3DPrinterOS in other sub and want to doublecheck if it's ok. What are you useing and why?

Currently researching additive manufacturing services for a small production run of SLS nylon cable clips for an electronics enclosure, around 900 units with snap features and a tight fit against a molded cover. Quickparts, Xometry, Fictiv and a few other providers are the names I keep running into but its hard to tell who is better once repeat orders, tolerances and finish consistency are part of the picture. I care most about material consistency, lead time, communication and useful DFM feedback. Which company is most consistent after the first production run?

Reaching out to the industrial redditors here… I have a giant container of nylon powder (about 800 KG) that I need to transfer into smaller containers - and I’m wondering if anyone has any recommendations. I know that powder ‘pumps’ do exist (we have a transitube system) but I’m wondering if anyone has any experience with or can recommend any kind of mobile powder pumps. Would also be useful in other ways in the lab to have something like that.

I’m running 6 3D printers at home for weekend projects, parts for friends, some random stuff for sale etc. Right now I’m struggling with SD cards and notes so its gets annoying. I heard that there are options allowing you to manage a network of 3D printers from different manufacturers as a single system, but I haven’t been able to find anything on the subject lol. And, to be honest, I don’t know if that’s possible or just cheap marketing. Can you give me an advice how to act? Using Bambu mini and Neptune.