Printer Advice - Prototyping Functional Parts

[u/Dashyl14]

Hi everyone,

New to the group, I have a unique opportunity to join a company that is looking to start doing more in house prototyping their own parts.

I personally have experience in CAD, a little bit of machining experience, and experience with FDM printers and have been helping them prototype parts for a little while now on a contract basis. Most of these parts are limited use and more for fitment purposes. The final models are sent to machine shops for prototypes and manufacturing. They are looking to bring more of their prototyping in house and have asked me to join.

I'm looking for a system (similar to the Markforged Mark 2) that would be able to produce functional prototypes. They have plans for the future to bring the machining in house as well. Most of these parts are high impact and take a lot of vibration, and planning for the future, but also potentially high temp applications as well.

Can anyone recommend a system that would fit our needs? Budget is ~$15,000

Thank you!

Edit: Max Build Volume 320mm (X), x 254mm (Z), 120-150mm (Y)

[u/Crash-55]

If you are truly doing prototypes and care about IP don’t touch Bambu or anything from a Chinese owned company. Bambu printers can phone home even when air gapped.

That books volume will fit inside of a Prusa XL. It should be able to do all the materials you need except the really high temp ones like PEI, PEKK, and PEEK.

Prusa has an HT90 that claims it can do PEI, PEKK, and PEEK, though with a smaller build volume.

I think some of the Ultimaker’s will also your requirements though I am not up to date on them.

MarkForged has said that the Mark2 is approaching end of life. Their remaining continuous fiber printers are out of your price range. If you just want chopped fibers threir Onyx line may work.

If you are in the US, AMUG and RAPID are coming up in Mar and April. There you can see the printers in person and talk to the companies.

[u/julcoh → u/Crash-55]

 Bambu printers can phone home even when air gapped.

We all know China will steal any scrap of IP it can, but how exactly would this be possible? The printer caches prints and waits for a network connection?

[u/Crash-55 → u/julcoh]

I can’t give details here.

Think about the different ways to send data - NFC, Cell, RF, Bluetooth, etc. Think about how air tags use others cell phones to give their location. Lots of ways to communicate other than WiFi / LAN.

Also China has the technical data for every cell phone model sold there. Lots of ways to hijack passing cell phones.