AdvancedTek Part of the Week – 1/6/16

This is a 3D printed manufacturing/assembly tool from a local Fortune 500 manufacturing company.  It is essentially a custom nut driver that is used in assembling a high value component. The customer wanted to use plastic to prevent marring on the critical surfaces and had selected ULTEM as the best material for strength and impact resistance. Traditionally machined ULTEM parts, however, would have cost $~150.00 per part and a few weeks lead time from their internal shop. The internal shop had recently invested in a Fortus Production system to compliment their CNC machines and decided to print the parts using ULTEM 9085.

Using additive manufacturing eliminated waste of expensive material and dropped the part cost down to $1.26 per part.  They were able to produce one part in 9 minutes, which allowed them to quickly test and redesign to make improvements on the fit and function of the tool.  Once the design was validated, they were able to produce a batch 100 parts in a single unattended overnight build to be used on the manufacturing floor the following day.

Posted by Matt Havekost, AdvancedTek Director of Sales – Additive Manufacturing