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Small Scale Manufacturing Machines

karakoram

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Interesting. I work in manufacturing (I'm a mechanical design engineer). I design injection molded parts, injection molds (the mold set itself that is used to make injection molded parts), and I do machine design. I've designed firearms, car parts, airplane parts, industrial machine parts, etc.

I know that PCBA (printed circuit board assembly) manufacturing equipment takes up very little space, in the typical operation - the pick and place robot, solder wave oven, etc. I could see the potential for offering CM (contract manufacturing) as a business in this area.

As for 3D printing, I will echo what others have said in prior posts - its good for prototyping and in some instances, small production runs. The more pro level equipment gives better finishes on parts, while cheap, hobby grade equipment gives poor finishes. I have 3 of my own 3D printers.

You could run a CNC in your garage, but it will be a small mill and/or lathe, aka hobby level. We only have 220v single phase in residential homes, (pro machines are often 3 phase) and the concrete slabs are not rated for the weight of a pro-level CNC, not to mention the required room for those. I work with CNC machinists daily so I have some experience in the matter.

THe flat pack subwoofer kits is an interesting idea for a home based CNC business - using CNC routers, which are a lot cheaper than metal cutting CNC, due to the reduced need for accuracy & precision. The wood cutting CNC machines are a lot lighter duty than metal cutting machines.
 
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Kid

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Just saw an ad for this

Because its metal, basically they say its beyond "prototype". So what you print can be used in end product.

Price is available via quote, but haven't messaged them.
 

eliquid

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Im looking to CNC some wood.

However, Im looking to easily replicate another product that was made from GFN and I want to "scan it" and copy it exactly and CNC it out of wood.

Anyone have experience in scanning so I can basically "copy and paste" what I want to CNC?

Thanks
 

Conscripted

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Im looking to CNC some wood.

However, Im looking to easily replicate another product that was made from GFN and I want to "scan it" and copy it exactly and CNC it out of wood.

Anyone have experience in scanning so I can basically "copy and paste" what I want to CNC?

Thanks
There are hand held 3d scanners. Unfortunately they are really expensive.

How big or intricate is the piece you want to reproduce? I've had to "recreate" dozens of items. It just takes a little time and careful measurements. The CAD skills required to make the drawing can probably be learned in a week or two. It really isn't that difficult once you get started.

Once the CAD drawings is done sending it to a 3d printed or CNC machine only takes a few clicks.
 
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Aaron_S

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Just saw an ad for this

Because its metal, basically they say its beyond "prototype". So what you print can be used in end product.

Price is available via quote, but haven't messaged them.

The last time I checked the pricing a few months ago, it was just south of $100k.
 

Aaron_S

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Im looking to CNC some wood.

However, Im looking to easily replicate another product that was made from GFN and I want to "scan it" and copy it exactly and CNC it out of wood.

Anyone have experience in scanning so I can basically "copy and paste" what I want to CNC?

Thanks
You have a few options for that depending on the size of the part to be replicated. You can use something similar to the MakerBot Replicator for small scale things. The problem that I have seen with those systems is that they are not incredibly precise nor accurate. They do usually produce a good base model of a complex object that you can use after manually adjusting the dimensions. Obviously, they are very susceptible to variability in lighting and the absorbant or reflective qualities of the source material.

There is the CMM (Coordinate-measuring machine) route if you want something that is very accurate at taking measurements and modeling. They are considerably more expensive than the "visual" scanners.

Probably the most effective use of time and money is really to just learn or brush up on some modeling software and get an average set of precision measurement tools to do it manually.
 

Redwolf

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Just saw an ad from that company - it said "from $150k". So it ain't getting cheaper.


 

LightningHelix

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If you were dead set on metallic 3d printing, couldn't you outsource to someone who already has a markforged printer?

If there isn't anybody or if there are few, you might have an opportunity on your hands.
 
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Aaron_S

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If you were dead set on metallic 3d printing, couldn't you outsource to someone who already has a markforged printer?

If there isn't anybody or if there are few, you might have an opportunity on your hands.
Metallic 3D Printing is great for prototypes on one off unique repairs, but I am fairly certain impractical at scale.

As an aside I know a place in my state that will allow you to run on their machine. They have an EOS powder printer. They are also a 501c3 so the cost is only material+.
 
D

DeletedUser0287

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Aren’t 3D printed metals inferior to traditional metalworking methods?

Forged is the strongest because it maintains grain structure or something like that.

I have done research on smaller manufacturing machines and honestly you get what you pay for. All the cheaper manufacturing machines produce like others have said hobby/fun/prototype level.

For example, I was looking at Tormach CNC machines because they looked like a higher end CNC hobby level machine. I did more research and people were complaining about poor tolerances. If you want to produce sellable quality product you gotta get the good stuff.

Unfortunately, the industrial stuff are large, super expensive (80k+ I have seen), a manufacturing space for 3 phase power.

I was in this research phase years ago. And decided to pivot away from metalworking for now.

A good product is like a good meal.
1) Good Equipment
2) Good Knowledge
3) Good Materials/Ingredients.
Unfortunately, none are cheap.

Spent too much time trying to think of a way to produce quality product in a 100sqft room...doesn’t really work out.
 
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Aaron_S

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Aren’t 3D printed metals inferior to traditional metalworking methods?

Forged is the strongest because it maintains grain structure or something like that

Yes. True. That's a way which this thread has gotten off track. None of the pricing even considered raw material. The stronger forged stock is cheaper than pounds of modified powders. Like I said in my clarifying statements 3-D printing is not slated to replace cnc and casting anytime soon.
 
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karakoram

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On another note, if anyone in here knows a reputable anodized aluminum extrusion manufacturer ...gimme a holler.
I know of a couple of extruders in the SF Bay area. You will have to pay for an extrusion die if you need a unique cross section design. Otherwise, you can use one of the dies they have on the shelf - you may need to pay the die owner a rental fee as use of their die wears it down. You are also stuck with the pre-existing crosssection which may or may not work for your parts/assembly (product).

Also, extrusion companies will give you bars that are fairly long, as the process creates extrusions that are fairly long from each aluminum slug they press through the die. They will ship you extrusions around 20 ft long on a truck and will have a MOQ that might exceed your budget. If your volume does not justify extrusions, you might consider redesigning your part for CNC. Later, as your volume ramps up, you could look into revising the part design to be extruded.

[side note: for those of you who don't know, extrusion is a process where you take a large chunk of aluminum, and force it through a steel "die" or plate with a hole in it. You use a humongous press and a very, very large amount of force to do this - at these pressures, aluminum acts like play-dough - think of the Play-Doh fun factory - that is the exact same thing, except that you are extruding play-doh through a die made of plastic. Unlike the play-doh, the extruded aluminum comes out fairly straight, though it will need some straightening post-op. The extrusion will have a constant cross-section throughout its length, which limits the applications of this process to parts that do not need to vary over their length.
Playdoh.jpg
]

Anodizing is a finishing process. It is separate from extruding the aluminum. You must provide the extrusion, already cut to length, to the anodizer. Lots of anodizing companies exist all over the USA. We have one here in my small town in Reno. There are several in Sacto.

3D printing and CNC milling are very slow. CNC milling has added complexity that comes with trying to hold and accurately locate your work piece, especially if you need to machine both sides. Not to mention the fixtures and different size bits you'll need. There's a lot more learning required to make an accurately milled part than there is to 3D printing.
CNC production runs are common. They are used in low to medium volume production runs of parts. Higher runs typically start with a raw casting or forging, with CNC finishing up the features of the part that require better tolerance control and better finishes than the raw casting has.

By way of example, I used to design firearms. You can buy AR-15 lower receiver raw forgings (aluminum) from many different manufacturers. You must then have them CNC machined to the final dimensions of the design. You then typically have them anodized to a color.

With many parts, its not possible to eliminate machining of some features to final dimensions. CNC is required even in high volume runs, though they might make a dedicated machine that can only perform a very narrow range of operations - if the volume of parts needed justify this dedicated machine.


Thats awesome, tbh i think printing molds is the best way to go to create a small scale manufacturing process bc molds have a expiration date and you can make as many as you need based on the demand.
I design injection molded parts, and I design molds for injection molding plastic parts, along with performing injection molding simulations and analysis.
Steel and aluminum molds can wear out as they are used. Depending on the type of mold, and the metal used to make it, they can last a few thousand cycles, or a few million.

We experimented with 3D printed molds in the past, and found that they did not last past a few cycles (like under a dozen cycles). The issue is that the molds are 3D printed from thermoplastics (and usually not thermosets).

The plastics that are injected into the mold are also thermoplastics, and are molten, and after they are injected into the mold the heat they contain must be sinked away from the part fairly quickly (the plastic part is cooled from molten to a solid - like freezing water), preferably under 30 seconds to at most a couple of minutes. Steel and aluminum molds act like heat sinks. 3D printed thermoplastic molds might work for the first few shots (a shot is one molding cycle), and then would start to melt in the areas the mold is in contact with the injected plastic.

Typically you run a chiller attached to the metal mold that holds the mold temperature constant even as many parts run through that mold reject the heat they contain into the mold. If you did not run a chiller, the molds would heat up over time, resulting in defective parts.


That one (Metal X) is one we're talking about - only one from the list being able to print metal (CMIIW)
So $100K retail price.
We looked at getting a Metal X 3D printer. It was our hope to 3D print a mold to reduce the cost/time it takes to manufacture a mold, which are CNC and sinker EDM cut from steel or aluminum. We discovered a couple of issues:

1) You must have an oven with ventilation to place the raw (green) 3D printed parts into. This is a sintering process that must be performed after the part is 3D printed. This is because they use a plastic binder to temporarily hold the metal particles together in the shape of the part you printed. Conveniently, Marked Forged sells sintering ovens. They are expensive (IIRC, $30K or $50K depending on what size oven you buy)

2) the raw (green) 3D print must be larger than the final desired dimensions. This is because a metal 3D printed part shrinks when its cooked in the oven, and basically burns off the plastic binder. This is why you MUST have good ventilation of the oven. This means that you can design the part in 3D CAD, but you must scale it up. I don't recall the exact amount of scaling required. IIRC, 20% or more larger than final desired dimensions.

3) As the scaled up part must fit into the sintering oven, the oven internal dimensions is the true limiting factor with regards to the size of the parts you can make with the Marked Forged system. In our case, we wanted to 3D print mold cavities. We found that even our smallest molds did not fit into the sintering ovens that Marked Forged sold. And the kicker is that our molds are much smaller than typical plastic injection molds - we occupy a niche industry within injection molding, so the parts we molded were smaller than you might find in standard injection molding.

4) the final, sintered mold cavity plates still required finishing on a CNC. This is because inserts and ejector pins must fit the cavity plates very precisely - to within .002". This is essentially hand-fitting two parts together. By way of comparison, most of the parts in your car's engine are built to a tolerance of only .005", and most are larger than that.

When we looked at all of the above, and compared that to the cost of having our molds made in the traditional way (CNC and sinker EDM) in China, for a cost ranging from $1200 (simple mold) to $7000 for a complex mold, then the Marked Forged solution did not make economic sense for us at the volume of mold projects we had at the time. One of the problems with manufacturing molds is that as a business, it doesn't scale. You typically make one mold, possibly 2 copies from one design. They take a lot of engineering to design them, both in CAD work and molding simulations. So, as you should know from CENTS and MJ, engineer it once and sell it once or possibly 2 or 3 times is not a productocracy.

This is in contrast with our customers: They make hundreds of thousands of parts using the molds we made for them. Engineer it once, sell hundreds of thousands of parts. This is more the direction I would like to go with my own venture.
 
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LordGanon

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Following. It's an industry I get more and more interested in, although so far I've done well leaving manufacturing to people with a lot of experience in the field.
 
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karakoram

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Here's an idea: Contract Manufacturing

The machines to manufacture PCBAs (Printed Circuit Board Assemblies) are fairly small. I've been to the APEX tradeshow Home | IPC APEX EXPO 2021 where manufacturers of the equipment had entire production lines setup in their booth, at the show. The entire line would fit in a 2 car garage. Here's an example, though this is larger than the lines I saw demo'ed at APEX
 

marklov

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I know of a couple of extruders in the SF Bay area. You will have to pay for an extrusion die if you need a unique cross section design. Otherwise, you can use one of the dies they have on the shelf - you may need to pay the die owner a rental fee as use of their die wears it down. You are also stuck with the pre-existing crosssection which may or may not work for your parts/assembly (product).

Also, extrusion companies will give you bars that are fairly long, as the process creates extrusions that are fairly long from each aluminum slug they press through the die. They will ship you extrusions around 20 ft long on a truck and will have a MOQ that might exceed your budget. If your volume does not justify extrusions, you might consider redesigning your part for CNC. Later, as your volume ramps up, you could look into revising the part design to be extruded.

[side note: for those of you who don't know, extrusion is a process where you take a large chunk of aluminum, and force it through a steel "die" or plate with a hole in it. You use a humongous press and a very, very large amount of force to do this - at these pressures, aluminum acts like play-dough - think of the Play-Doh fun factory - that is the exact same thing, except that you are extruding play-doh through a die made of plastic. Unlike the play-doh, the extruded aluminum comes out fairly straight, though it will need some straightening post-op. The extrusion will have a constant cross-section throughout its length, which limits the applications of this process to parts that do not need to vary over their length.
Playdoh.jpg
]

Anodizing is a finishing process. It is separate from extruding the aluminum. You must provide the extrusion, already cut to length, to the anodizer. Lots of anodizing companies exist all over the USA. We have one here in my small town in Reno. There are several in Sacto.


CNC production runs are common. They are used in low to medium volume production runs of parts. Higher runs typically start with a raw casting or forging, with CNC finishing up the features of the part that require better tolerance control and better finishes than the raw casting has.

By way of example, I used to design firearms. You can buy AR-15 lower receiver raw forgings (aluminum) from many different manufacturers. You must then have them CNC machined to the final dimensions of the design. You then typically have them anodized to a color.

With many parts, its not possible to eliminate machining of some features to final dimensions. CNC is required even in high volume runs, though they might make a dedicated machine that can only perform a very narrow range of operations - if the volume of parts needed justify this dedicated machine.



I design injection molded parts, and I design molds for injection molding plastic parts, along with performing injection molding simulations and analysis.
Steel and aluminum molds can wear out as they are used. Depending on the type of mold, and the metal used to make it, they can last a few thousand cycles, or a few million.

We experimented with 3D printed molds in the past, and found that they did not last past a few cycles (like under a dozen cycles). The issue is that the molds are 3D printed from thermoplastics (and usually not thermosets).

The plastics that are injected into the mold are also thermoplastics, and are molten, and after they are injected into the mold the heat they contain must be sinked away from the part fairly quickly (the plastic part is cooled from molten to a solid - like freezing water), preferably under 30 seconds to at most a couple of minutes. Steel and aluminum molds act like heat sinks. 3D printed thermoplastic molds might work for the first few shots (a shot is one molding cycle), and then would start to melt in the areas the mold is in contact with the injected plastic.

Typically you run a chiller attached to the metal mold that holds the mold temperature constant even as many parts run through that mold reject the heat they contain into the mold. If you did not run a chiller, the molds would heat up over time, resulting in defective parts.



We looked at getting a Metal X 3D printer. It was our hope to 3D print a mold to reduce the cost/time it takes to manufacture a mold, which are CNC and sinker EDM cut from steel or aluminum. We discovered a couple of issues:

1) You must have an oven with ventilation to place the raw (green) 3D printed parts into. This is a sintering process that must be performed after the part is 3D printed. This is because they use a plastic binder to temporarily hold the metal particles together in the shape of the part you printed. Conveniently, Marked Forged sells sintering ovens. They are expensive (IIRC, $30K or $50K depending on what size oven you buy)

2) the raw (green) 3D print must be larger than the final desired dimensions. This is because a metal 3D printed part shrinks when its cooked in the oven, and basically burns off the plastic binder. This is why you MUST have good ventilation of the oven. This means that you can design the part in 3D CAD, but you must scale it up. I don't recall the exact amount of scaling required. IIRC, 20% or more larger than final desired dimensions.

3) As the scaled up part must fit into the sintering oven, the oven internal dimensions is the true limiting factor with regards to the size of the parts you can make with the Marked Forged system. In our case, we wanted to 3D print mold cavities. We found that even our smallest molds did not fit into the sintering ovens that Marked Forged sold. And the kicker is that our molds are much smaller than typical plastic injection molds - we occupy a niche industry within injection molding, so the parts we molded were smaller than you might find in standard injection molding.

4) the final, sintered mold cavity plates still required finishing on a CNC. This is because inserts and ejector pins must fit the cavity plates very precisely - to within .002". This is essentially hand-fitting two parts together. By way of comparison, most of the parts in your car's engine are built to a tolerance of only .005", and most are larger than that.

When we looked at all of the above, and compared that to the cost of having our molds made in the traditional way (CNC and sinker EDM) in China, for a cost ranging from $1200 (simple mold) to $7000 for a complex mold, then the Marked Forged solution did not make economic sense for us at the volume of mold projects we had at the time. One of the problems with manufacturing molds is that as a business, it doesn't scale. You typically make one mold, possibly 2 copies from one design. They take a lot of engineering to design them, both in CAD work and molding simulations. So, as you should know from CENTS and MJ, engineer it once and sell it once or possibly 2 or 3 times is not a productocracy.

This is in contrast with our customers: They make hundreds of thousands of parts using the molds we made for them. Engineer it once, sell hundreds of thousands of parts. This is more the direction I would like to go with my own venture.


The plastic injection machines for my purpose seems to start at around 400k from my research, even though I will contact a seller of such equipment but do you have any thoughts on things to keep in mind when choosing a machine?
 
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AFMKelvin

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karakoram

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The plastic injection machines for my purpose seems to start at around 400k from my research, even though I will contact a seller of such equipment but do you have any thoughts on things to keep in mind when choosing a machine?

Buying an injection molding machine and running it yourself only makes sense if you are a contract manufacturer, or if you plan to run hundreds of thousands, or millions of parts. Getting set up to do injection molding yourself isn't trivial. You need a building, poeple who know how to do it, quality control, etc. You also need the parts you want made designed, and mold designed and made.

You might consider hiring a contract manufacturer that does injection molding. You still have to buy (pay to have made) a mold for each part you need molded. Depending on where you go, the costs could be under $10k for simple stuff. More complicated stuff can run into 10's or 100's of thousands for a mold.
 

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Interesting thread. First I recommend having a product and doing a profitability study before getting any equipment. I have a 48"x48"x8" CNC, a 100 watt laser with a 48"x36" bed and my son has a pair of 3d printers. They are all collecting dust in my garage.

I know, my fault for not coming up with a use for them after the existing work dried up. Yes they are great for prototypes, and if you can get a large recurring order for parts they work great. However making "one offs" is difficult as you are always hunting for the next job.

So, hey, if you have any ideas you're not using, send them my way. I'd love to see them making chips, sawdust and smoke instead of taking up space. And if you're in the area and want to use some machines, let me know, they're available. :)
 

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Buying an injection molding machine and running it yourself only makes sense if you are a contract manufacturer, or if you plan to run hundreds of thousands, or millions of parts. Getting set up to do injection molding yourself isn't trivial. You need a building, poeple who know how to do it, quality control, etc. You also need the parts you want made designed, and mold designed and made.

You might consider hiring a contract manufacturer that does injection molding. You still have to buy (pay to have made) a mold for each part you need molded. Depending on where you go, the costs could be under $10k for simple stuff. More complicated stuff can run into 10's or 100's of thousands for a mold.

Thank's for the clarifying that, I may have dodged a bull there.

The design is fairly simple and it would be 6 variations along with the design improvements I have in mind. Contract Manufacturing seems more feasible and the product is selling more than enough volume. If I could get the different molds designed for under 400k that would be good too. I have an appointment with a consultant on the matter as I've been focused on selling them not making them lol.
 
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jlwilliams

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I have some experience from past life, including some expensive mistakes.

If you buy machines with the idea of "I'll run this in my garage and get RICH" you are mistaken.

Now, at the risk of seeming to contradict myself, if you want to get rich in manufacturing a prototyping shop is not a bad investment. If you have ideas for products you could blow a fortune before getting your first product on the market if you have to rely on others to create real solid objects. Worse still, your products might suck if you design it on paper or on a screen and never actually build one to try. If you don't find out what's wrong (or could be better) with your idea, the market sure will. Much like rewriting is the best writing, reworking your ideas for physical products is worthwhile. By taking control of your own prototypes you can build it and rebuild it until it's what you want it to be instead of running with good enough because a third or sixth revision costs too much.

So let's fast forward. You had an idea. You built a few copies. Tested and refined them. Your ready to sell. You build a site, test landing pages, sales funnels and so on. Don't buy a 50,000 square foot building and fill it with lathes and mills just yet. There are loads of job shops just like that out there. You pay more per piece to get a CNC shop to make your parts than it would cost you to make them yourself, but you get to take advantage of the fact that the machines and skilled machinists are already in place. They aren't scratching their head figuring out how to run this six axis Swiss mill. They start making your parts first thing in the morning. Boom. If you can sell it profitably while paying to sub out manufacturing, you can move your operations "in house" incrementally to increase your control and margin.

You get the point. You probably want to sell ___ (watches, wallets, widgets, whatever) that are your exclusive product. What you probably don't want is to learn how to change tool inserts on an Aloris tool post. So, you design your product. You print, rout, grind out a solid gizmo. Sand it out, paint it up. Whatever it takes. When it's ready you are head and shoulders ahead of the wantrepeneur who's building his business on vapor ware.

A CNC router and a 3d printer in your garage isn't quite a money printing press, but if you are building a business around physical products it's a good idea to actually physically make stuff with your own hands.
 

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Reviving this Thread -

I re read all of this and while the discussion did remain focused on small scale manufacturing from a certain point of view.

Maybe i should've worded it as micro-scale manufacturing where one can start in a garage and sell on a shopify site or esty. With that foothold and small customer base can be scaled up to 'small-scale manufacturing' to machines that can cost 10-100k.

JP
 

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Another class of machine I didn't see talked about here beyond a brief mention in the OP is robot arms. Commonly used in industry are SCARA or Articulated arms. While not really used for manufacturing per se, they are extremely powerful tools for assembly, calibration or testing purposes. My favorite video that illustrates this is the Valve Steam Controller Build Video If you want to keep part of your process local (and within your control) while keeping labor costs down, it might be worth looking into. I can't give specific recommendations but I have worked with Mechademic arms in the past and I think they are 10-20k.

Edit: I just read the OP more carefully and saw it said <$2k, so even entry-level robot arms might be out of the question, though you may be able to print one yourself.
 
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mdot

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As far as 3D printed parts, I think FFF/FDM printing is great for prototyping and very small run production because of how easy it is to use. I'm not sure how I would feel about giving a customer a product with a 3D printed case without the caveat of it still being a prototype though.

You might be able to get away with production-quality SLA/DLP resin printed parts though. Basically instead of laying down a bunch of layers of melted filament, the build plate is inserted upside-down into a vat of photopolymer with a transparent bottom. When a UV laser (or a UV LED with see-through LCD panel as a mask) shines on the photopolymer it solidifies in the exposed area only. By exposing and solidifying successive layers on top of eachother, it can form a 3D object. The resolution is astounding: 0.05mm layer heights are not uncommon, compared to 0.2mm ish for "high quality" FDM prints. The XY (cross-sectional) resolution is incredible too, bounded either by the pixel size of the LCD mask (usually a 2K or 4K display) or the laser (hundreds of microns).

The trade-off is that the photopolymer resin is pretty nasty, and most resin brands require a wash cycle in IPA (though waterwashable resins are available). The build plate area is also much less scalable than FDM - the DPI of the LCD mask (or the ability of the laser to focus) is critical to resolution, so increasing the build plate size would require a larger, higher resolution display ($$$) or higher quality laser optics ($$$$) to maintain the same performance.
 

jpanarra

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As far as 3D printed parts, I think FFF/FDM printing is great for prototyping and very small run production because of how easy it is to use. I'm not sure how I would feel about giving a customer a product with a 3D printed case without the caveat of it still being a prototype though.

You might be able to get away with production-quality SLA/DLP resin printed parts though. Basically instead of laying down a bunch of layers of melted filament, the build plate is inserted upside-down into a vat of photopolymer with a transparent bottom. When a UV laser (or a UV LED with see-through LCD panel as a mask) shines on the photopolymer it solidifies in the exposed area only. By exposing and solidifying successive layers on top of eachother, it can form a 3D object. The resolution is astounding: 0.05mm layer heights are not uncommon, compared to 0.2mm ish for "high quality" FDM prints. The XY (cross-sectional) resolution is incredible too, bounded either by the pixel size of the LCD mask (usually a 2K or 4K display) or the laser (hundreds of microns).

The trade-off is that the photopolymer resin is pretty nasty, and most resin brands require a wash cycle in IPA (though waterwashable resins are available). The build plate area is also much less scalable than FDM - the DPI of the LCD mask (or the ability of the laser to focus) is critical to resolution, so increasing the build plate size would require a larger, higher resolution display ($$$) or higher quality laser optics ($$$$) to maintain the same performance.

I've sold a number of 3d printed parts. However, I've printed small pots with novelty stuff, I've done handwritten custom imprints in hearts etc... and people are usually very happy and williing to spend 30-100$ for those things.
 

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