George. What I really envision is an extension of their FDM technology to extrude metal in addition to the wax, nylon and ABS plastic materials they have now. It would give the customer an additional modeling material to choose from. It seems that this has been Stratasys' main goal in the past and I don't see why it can't continue.
I really don't want to suggest that a metal extruding modeler would compete with an NC mill on either accuracy or available materials. The importance of my suggestion is that it would simply give the customer another choice within the concept modeling arena. IMHO, the accuracy and speed of Stratasys machines, at this time, essentially leave them out-of-bounds for most high volume tooling and production needs.
As we know, the accuracy of a part built with FDM technology (as well as 3D's Actua) is limited by the physics of the extruding head. At this time, accuracy of 5 thousands *throughout* the prototype is somtimes difficult using current modeling materials due to thermal shrinkage. I wonder if an FDM machine extruding a solder material would prove "better"?
If they designed and built a modeler that extruded a metal material, I would see no reason why a customer would not be using another low-cost, easy-to-work material.
Drawing on your tooling world experience, if you were running Stratasys, what projects would you target R&D dollars towards?
The only other projects I can think of are ones with the goal of increasing build speed or build envelopes. Maybe they will create a machine large enough to build a prototype of a car! That's alot of plastic, err, I mean metal!
Regards,
David |
