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If you can SLS, why not go with metal? Sintered metal gears (not 3D printed but "old-school" sintered) are basically the standard way to make gears for power to
by semi-extrinsic 8y ago
If you can SLS, why not go with metal? Sintered metal gears (not 3D printed but "old-school" sintered) are basically the standard way to make gears for power tools etc. nowadays.
- mdorazio 8y agoThe cost differential is at least a full order of magnitude. Nylon SLS machines are available at a $10K price point. Metal (usually titanium) SLS machines are typically well over $100K. Cost of material is also usually an order of magnitude difference. The former is something you might see in a makerspace or college lab, but the latter is going to be restricted to corporate production environments for some time.
- semi-extrinsic 8y agoI assumed we were talking about someone buying gears from a 3D printing service. Then the cost increase for metal SLS seems negligible compared to the increase in robustness. If you're considering forking out $10K for a printer, OTOH, it means that you'll be running it for larger production runs, and then you might as well just get some molds made for traditional powder metal sintering. Especially when you factor in labour costs.