What did you 3D print today?

little 4 post lift for the matchbox cars

Not me, but we just got a couple of new printers at work and I want to show them off because they're awesome. They're Pantheons, fast and robust. These are commercial units, we'll be running them 24/7 for the rest of the decade at least. The build plate is probably 3/4" thick and solid aluminum, as is the frame at the top.

Our biggest problem is keeping them busy overnight, as they can finish what used to be a 12 hour print in about 3-4 hours.

Quality is top notch. This tool box was printed by one, including the TPU strap.

Here's some of our own parts on the bed. These are CF reinforced nylon.

And CF reinforced PETG. These are screw-in oil funnels with internal passages for venting so you can pour fast. Bit of a Z axis ridge on them, we're still fine-tuning the settings on the printers.

Wow the footprint vs. build volume of that is mind blowing.

In reply to TravisTheHuman :

Luckily, that's not a concern for us as we have enough room to house them. Helps make them more easily serviced, too. Build volume is 300x300x300. More important is that it's fast and built like a tank. It'll run through 1 kg of filament in a day. There's a combined 1 hp of motors on the x/y gantry, and the hot end uses CAN to communicate. They're not cheap but they'll pay for themselves pretty quickly here. They're joining 8 Markforged units that have been extremely reliable workhorses.

It's from a small company from BC and they're motorheads. The sample parts they sent us were weird little things like brackets for a mini bike motor swap, brake levers and an air box lid for a Discovery. 

In reply to Keith Tanner :

Pretty awesome. Can it filament swap automatically? Say for overnight prints of different materials?

Welding jigs for the shop.

bbbbRASS said:

In reply to Keith Tanner :

Pretty awesome. Can it filament swap automatically? Say for overnight prints of different materials?

It cannot. But we mostly just use one material (CF reinforced nylon) due to its strength and temperature resistance. Car parts see some nasty environments. PETG is only used for a few tools and the like.

The speed has forced us to make some changes. We run 24h print jobs on the Markforged printers so they only need attention once a day - and we can also work them through most of a weekend. These are quick enough that we've had to move to 8 hour daytime prints and 16 hour overnights - and they're going to be underutilized on weekends.

In reply to Keith Tanner :

I was thinking CF on one side, TPU on the other. I find my Bambu does much better with TPU when I slow it waaaay down. Part of that is probably the cheap filament though. 

Damn Keith, those are slick!

A bit of a backstory: Google Fiber just became available in my address. Cool, I'll switch and kick T-Mo to the curb for good. A couple weeks ago I made an appointment for Gfi installation. In the interim they came out and ran fiber from the service to a drop at the corner of my house where my utilites are. Neat. 

Then they came out yesterday and asked where I wanted the modem/router. "Inside, please." Well, it turns out they aren't allowed to run wire through an attic. Okay, that's fine, I'll do it, but is it common for people to request that their modem be installed on an exterior wall?

Anyway, they were able to get me a second appointment for tomorrow morning so yesterday I fished mule tape through the attic, made a cutout on the interior wall where the new fiber line needs to go, and fished the mule tape through to its final destination. 

However, I didn't exactly get the cut-in dimensions beautiful on the drywall bit I had to remove. I didn't feel like re-cutting it to fit a new work box and plate, so I designed my own. The box has a hole at the top for a cable-grabbing bushing and bosses for #8 screws to attach it to the stud. The faceplate will screw into drywall and the stud and has a hole in the middle to pass the fiber line and connection through. I don't know what termination GFi has (Cat6?) so it's just a hole for now, but once I know what kind of connection they use I can redesign the faceplate and add the proper jack. In the meantime, though, at least this will look Good Enough.