Dear Brock
If someone could offer a reliably working 3D-printer for 20 000 US$ Benefon
would most likely buy one quite soon.
The unit should be very easy to operate, as close to a laser printer with
smart-queing (includes priorsation) as possible. The intended user group
would be about 10 including B. Sc and M. Sc mechanical designers and a
couple of Industrial designers. The prototypes should be accurate (
tolerance about 0.1 mm) and should withstand transport and fairly careful
handling. Minimal touch up required for using the prototype as a silicone
mold master for urethane copies.
Marginal cost for making a 150 x 50 x 30 mm thin wall piece would not exeed
2$. The printing must not fail more than 1 times / 100 attempts. Also the
printing should not need much experience in using the equipment. You should
be able to add your job to the queue and recieve promptly an estimate of
delivery time which should be kept.
The above mentioned part should be built ready to use in about 6 hrs.
There should be an "advanced"-option which lets you fiddle with the
direction of slicing and variational slice thickness would also be nice.
We have been shopping for an office RP -unit for a while. We will keep on
shopping. Sanders requires too much time to process + knowlege and work to
dewax, after trying Actua there is nothing but wax in your hands which
isn't well suited for thin wall objects. Genisys is too rough. Z402 is too
hard to get.
While waiting for RP to develop further we try out "ramp-up tools" that
have been put together to produce final parts byt cutting all the corners
possible. This gives us some room to make changes without ruining the
optimation of the final serial production tool.
As you notice we are not seriously participating in the development of RP
systems, just waiting for the fruit to become ripe.
Does this serve as an answer to your question?
Have a nice weekend
Martti Huolila
______________________________________________
martti.huolila@benefon.fi
Tel: +358 - 2 - 77 40 209 (direct)
Fax: +358 - 2 - 77 40 333
Benefon Oy
(Meriniitynkatu 11)
PL 84
FIN-24101 SALO
Benefon, the company employing me, is the second largest cellular phone
manufacturer in Finland (of 2). Benefon was founded in Feb -88, and has
experienced a nice growth since. Turnover -97 was about $ 75 million with
some 250 employees (as in -96 also). We Specialise in NMT-phones have an
ETACS-product and launched our first GSM in -97.
______________________________________________
bhinzmann@sric.sri.com on 02.04.98 20:07:55
To: elaine.hunt@ces.clemson.edu, rp-ml@bart.lpt.fi
cc: (bcc: Martti Huolila MHU/Benefon)
Subject: RE: if things are so great then
elaine,
Thanks for giving us that price point target. Of course, in two years,
that'll be $10k instead of $20k, but at least we know what you think it is
now.
How about some of you other RP customers out there. If you had a $20k
machine right now, that could make a prototype in any material, plastic,
metal or ceramic, how many more would you buy than what you own now, for
whom
would you buy them (skill level, i.e. how simple will it have to be to
operate?), and what would you expect them to use it for? If you don't own
an
RP machine now, would such a $20k machine put you in the market and for
how many machines?
This is not a hypothetical question.
Brock Hinzmann
For more information about the rp-ml, see http://ltk.hut.fi/rp-ml/
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