Not to be picky, but it took 62 hours to print the first half of the pattern! Given the fine result, it was worth it. But, ya, time consuming. Denis
Yeah it was For the next print, my printer becomes a enclosure, a wifi connector plug and a webcam. If anything goes wrong, I can shut down the power with my phone.
Actually, almost done setting up Octoprint on my corexy printer myself. Will be super nice to start up a print from anywhere that has cell signal. Should really help you along in your process of getting all these made. Has the foundy got back to you have proto casting costs yet?
At the moment I trye to flash my printer with klipper firmware to get better quality and less printing time.
Long time no see Motorbike season is getting to it's end, and so i hav again more time to push on my project. Had to redesign the inner part of the Ports, because after I studied on the printet halve of the cylinder I realized that it won't work. All the fresh gas that gets via the aus ports in between the two cylinders will straigt be sucked into the exhaust... so i got ridd of the auxilery ports. I finished the CAD work about a week ago and now I'm in touch with a german foundry who does prototypes. I sent dem the CAD files and now I'm waiting for their offer for a prototype. Hope it's not that expensive I think it might be If it's to expensive, I think the best way is to trye it with lost PLA Casting. Tryed to make coreboxes in my CAD programm, but that's another story. That's realy complicated and i won't finish it if i don't have to Kind regards Harry
Update from the german foundry: The price for 5 complete finished zylinders will be about 45.000 Euros I understand the price, and it's not that much for all this work, but I don't have thst much money for a prototype So.... it's time to trye it on my own
Not that it matters that much, but for 45k Euro, if you proceeded, what kind of tooling would you own and what would be the price of additional copies? If the instruction was really for the economics of 5 prototypes, either the wrong question or wrong foundry was asked. I read back through the thread and saw mentioned of a number of casting methods, and even saw a quote of my post where I said I'd probably tool them as you were planning, but I can't find exactly what method you intend to use. What casting method do you intend to use? I would think surely some evaporative casting method, and if so, have you ever cast anything with that method? Best, Kelly
Hi Kelly, Yeah i read your posts. I asked the foundry for the "Feinguss" casting whitch means something like wax ore pla casting. They do it, but they will do the cylinder only in sand casting and for that they have to make the tools and so. Tey allso offered the final CNC work, so I get completely finished cylinders wich dont need some work. I will question them if it's imposible for them to do it in Wax or PLA casting. Greetings
Unless you are dealing with a foundry that specializes in prototyping and small quantities, it's probably futile. A 45k Euro price is just another way of them telling you they dont want to do it unless you pay to tool it for there processes. Even so, if they're a production foundry who makes there money from production, most would just no-quote it because they cannot devote their precious development resources to endeavor that wont yield production annuities. It would be quite rare that you could source such an effort, even at 10-30 pieces in any economically sensible manner unless your participating customers can afford to pay x000's of Euro per copy. -Thus you have www.TheHomeFoundry.com Deep fins are challenging features for any process. I cant recall, have you cast similar items before or will this be the first time for whatever process you choose? ......assuming you will cast them yourself. Best, Kelly
Welcome to Europe especialy Germany and Austria. Here everything gets exorbitant expensive and over regulated. It's a pain to get special things like things for foundry work. I hate it. Yeah, that would be my first time for casting. Thats why I will trye to corporate with a Foundry near me... but I'm waiting for a respond for a few days. If he gives me a little bit of help, I will make the cores and everything so that he "only" have to make the molds and pour the metal (easy said) I'm 100% shure I can prepair everything right for him... so I hope he says yes
If I were you, I'd give serious consideration to making the molds so the foundry's only task would be to pour them, and take advice from them on how to make the feed/vent/riser system. If you had a good master pattern you could use a bound sand like catalyzed sodium silicate, but beware, pulling molds with those deep fins is not trivial task. Having a smooth enough finish as printed will surely require resin not filament printing, and sufficient release agent will most likely mean dip or some tedious application work......which leads to evaporative casting but.... Inestment with PLA wax will also have it's own challenges. For wax you still need to essentially do the same mold work you would for bound sand, except they could potentially be silicone. In any case, the investment will be fragile in those deep finned features. You may also find it very difficult to get those deep fins to fill with investment without vacuum, though vacuum degassing the slurry and vibration might suffice. The downside of investment will be burn out and getting your mold to survive it, and the need to preheat that mold in order to pour it. Either is a lot of work, and initial failures could/should be expected.......so perserverence will carry the day. Good luck, Best, Kelly
Thanks Kelly Your tipps and tricks are gold So next step for me is finish the CAD work for the core boxes. Than I have to print the Pattern for making the mold and get the finish smoth. I'm thinking of print the Pattern, and use silicone molds to make resind patern from that. Lots of work, yes...but it's fun so lets trye it
First Corebox is nearly finished. It's printed with PLA, sanded and i sprayed a Car 2K Body Filler at my Shop. So I only have to sand it again for smoothnes, and then apply a thin coat of clesar coat. And then it's time to trye out making the first Co2 Sandcore. Keep fingers crossed that it's working as expected. For next friday I'm invited to a local foundry. We will see if they will accept me making the molds and bring them over to them. Hope they are open for such a project.
Meanwhile my Intention was to print the parts for the model to make the mould. The intention of my printer was something different Lucky I checked after a few minutes . I made the mistake to dial the leyer hight to 1mm instead of 0.1 mm...so the first layer was perfect...but then: Spaghetti allarm
The foundry visit sounds fun, hopefully they are willing to work on the project with you. I have not 3D printed all summer, time to get it running again now that it is colder outside.
