RE: [rp-ml] RE: de-powdering mass quantities of sintered parts?

From: Ed Tackett <etackett_at_rapidtech.org>
Date: Mon, 21 Jan 2013 14:34:54 -0800

Yea Fine de-powdering is a real time killer.

 

You can use small tumbler media to "cut" the nooks and crannies. In that
case you could lubricate the parts in the tumbler but that would have to be
tested.

 

Sure the idea is sound kind of like a gold mining trammel think washing
machine drum on a spinner with HP air and then hit it with blast media Ill
send you a diagram in a few minutes.

 

Maybe running baking soda would work
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodablasting and media is cheap
http://www.eastwood.com/soda-blasting.html

 

 

Cheers,

 

e-

 

Ed Tackett

Director

RapidTech

National Center for Rapid Technologies

University of California Irvine

Saddleback College

(949) 824-4938

Skype me _at_ ed.tackett

 

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From: owner-rp-ml_at_rapid.lpt.fi [mailto:owner-rp-ml_at_rapid.lpt.fi] On Behalf
Of Amend, Matthew J
Sent: Monday, January 21, 2013 2:03 PM
To: Greg Paulsen; rp-ml_at_rapid.lpt.fi
Subject: [rp-ml] RE: de-powdering mass quantities of sintered parts?

 

Hmmm. Removing parts from the cake is quick, it's removing powder from the
parts that takes time. Especially getting it out of nooks & crannies. Also,
we are careful to put the loose powder back into the recycle mix but want to
discard the baked powder that's adhered to the parts.

 

We're thinking along the concept of a drive-through carwash. Put them into
some sort of cage that gets blasted by HP air and then by beads. Preferably
all within an enclosure.

 

 

  _____

From: Greg Paulsen [mailto:GPaulsen_at_protoprod.com]
Sent: Monday, January 21, 2013 1:42 PM
To: Amend, Matthew J; rp-ml_at_rapid.lpt.fi
Subject: RE: de-powdering mass quantities of sintered parts?

I was reading an article on Shapeways and noticed they use a large tumbler
(commonly used for polishing metal parts). Here's the article's link:
http://fabbaloo.com/blog/2013/1/8/deep-deep-inside-shapeways.html#.UP2znSc0V
8F look at the 4th picture down. Depending on your part/cake density and
your parts geometry I could see a whole cake thrown in a tumbler and left to
self-clean. This may affect recycle rate if you're throwing cake back in the
mix.

 

As an experiment we rigged a rigid grate/sifter over a collection bin that
was mounted to one of our smaller tumblers and turned that on. After a
couple hours the majority of powder was broken free and parts were ready for
bead blasting. You just want to make sure that dust containment is available
if you try this or things can get messy.

 

Gregory M. Paulsen

Prototype Productions, Inc.

Office 703.858.0011 x314

Cell 540.974.1348

gpaulsen_at_protoprod.com

www.protoprod.com <http://www.protoprod.com/>

 

From: owner-rp-ml_at_rapid.lpt.fi [mailto:owner-rp-ml_at_rapid.lpt.fi] On Behalf
Of Amend, Matthew J
Sent: Monday, January 21, 2013 4:07 PM
To: rp-ml_at_rapid.lpt.fi
Subject: [rp-ml] de-powdering mass quantities of sintered parts?

 

Hi folks,

 

I'm with an RP lab at Boeing and we're looking for a way to save time and/or
labor de-powdering parts from our nylon sintering machines. The quantities
we build are increasing and it's getting cumbersome to do all the cleanup by
hand.

 

Does anybody know of automated or mechanized methods for de-powdering?

 

 

Matthew Amend
Boeing Rapid Prototyping & Modeling
Laser Sintering Lab 9-120 12E3
206 662 7495
Received on Tue Jan 22 2013 - 00:23:44 EET

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