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SteveCox3D 85
21 hours ago, toemmes said:Hello everyone! I´m new to this channel because I´m searching for someone with experience in metall FFF and its capabilities. I read a few things about it, but I´m not sure if it is possible to print a metall wood building screw. The steer angles and the point tip seem a little bit tricky to debind and sinter. The screw should be M8 x 80 mm.
Hi there @toemmes, as @gr5 says I've hot lots of experience with Metal FFF. As far as printing threads go, it can work really well as I showed in this post on LinkedIn
The key thing here is whether the thread is large enough size and has enough definition when sliced to print out nicely. The part gets scaled up automatically in Cura 5.1 when you select the metal materials to account for the shrinkage that occurs when the printed part goes through debind and sintering. That means that the part grows by 19% in X/Y and 25% in Z, so you can only get an impression of how the part will turn out by looking at the Preview of the slice where these scaling factors are applied,
The thread angle on the picture suggests that no support would be required for this part and maybe at an M8 size the thread definition would be ok.
It's not just about the 3D printing though, you have to consider the post-processing and the stability of the part when it goes through the final stages of sintering at around 1300-1400°C. The stability of the part and ability to support it's own weight is crucial here. This is a part that you would normally print upright but it is quite tall in relation to it's footprint, so may be unstable and fail at that point. There are stress analysis tests that you can run to carry out a virtual simulation of whether the part will survive which is something I covered here. The screw is also quite tall, and that also affects the costs associated with debind and sintering because of the way the cost is calculated for that processing.
As a general rule of thumb Metal FFF works best with parts that can fit in the palm of your hand and have a Z height up to 50mm with a good size footprint for stability (25mm or less in Z is even better).
There is lots to know to be effective in taking advantage of this process of making metal parts, which is why I shared some of my insights in a series on LinkedIn which you can find by searching on #MetalThursdays
Let me know if you have further questions, I'm happy to help.
Edited by SteveCox3D-
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gr5 2,224
So my understanding is that there is a special support material that goes with FFF metal printing. So you can do overhangs (the threads) just fine. The point obviously can only be as sharp as the nozzle radius (typically 0.2 or .3mm) if you print on it's side or vertically. So either way the point will be like 0.4mm in diameter but it will be sharper if you print the screw on it's side and flat 0.4mm if you print it vertically.
@SteveCox3D is an expert (well at least he knows MUCH more than I do). Maybe he can respond. I believe Steve has customers who save both money and time using FFF metal. Significant amounts of both (even companies with their own metal shop can have a multi month backlog).
I think some customers make pretty boring things like brackets to replace a broken part in a factory and others print really amazing things like generative design (think computer AI designed) parts that can't be made any other way.
If Steve doesn't reply, PM him with more questions and if he still doesn't reply, PM me and I'll give him a nudge as we are in the same chat group.
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