Cost and conversion.

Guys I want to build a small item and was thinking that going in the direction of a 3D printer may be an idea worth pursuing. Say I wanted to print an object 2 inches long by half an inch deep by half an inch tall how much would this cost me in material costs for each item? How long would each item take to produce?

Being a COMPLETE novice to this how hard is it to go from a model made from say Plasticine to a drawing/3d software model to the real thing? I would need to make it with a satin black finish.

I am sure one of you clever guys can give me this information off the top of their heads.

Thanks

I am in the UK by the way.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/16/2015 04:13AM by frankc.

It depends (just what you wanted to hear, right?).

Sorry for leaving the exchange rate up to you...

Considering $30/kg to be about the going rate for non-proprietary PLA or ABS filament (assuming the properties of those materials are suitable for your application), a 100%-filled 2x.5x.5 inch rectangular prism (a half-cubic inch of material) would have about $0.25 of material in it.

As far as time goes, at 100% fill, a general guideline (which is affected by a lot of things) is an hour per cubic inch, so you'd be looking at a half-hour a pop.

Both of those numbers can probably be improved by reducing the infill percentage. Some display models can be made entirely hollow for a dramatic improvement. Functional parts are commonly made between 25% and 75% infill, depending on the application. Don't assume, however, that the reductions would be proportional to the infill percentage, because you'll still have to make the perimeters and motion will slow down with a complex infill pattern if you choose to use one.

Getting a CAD model also varies dramatically. For simple parts, I've been known to model them up using only a caliper and enough measurements to constrain the configuration. For slightly-more-complex parts, I can sometimes get away with the output from a flatbed scanner or a series of photos taken at a long focal length and a dimension to use for scale. For highly complex models, a 3D scanner is by far the easiest way to go from a physical part to a model. There are decent desktop 3D scanners that handle small parts on a turntable with reasonable accuracy and detail for in the hundreds to low thousands, handheld 3D scanners with more size flexibility but marginal accuracy and detail for around the same range, or professional-grade handheld 3D scanners with vastly superior accuracy and detail in the low tens of thousands. This might be a part of the process you could outsource.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/16/2015 02:27PM by IMBoring25.