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In lugnet.cad, Joe Strout wrote:
Thanks - as I said, it was fun making them.
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If I, as a small hobbyist, wanted to make a batch of parts in this way,
what would my options be? Is there any company that will take a CAD
file, print a small batch of parts, and mail them to me? Is that likely
to cost me a fortune?
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The short answers to your last two questions are “yes” and “yes.” RP Service
Bureaus exist (mostly in big cities on the East Coast of the US), but they’re
slowly dying off as more and more companies take their prototyping in-house. The
Bureaus now mostly serve people like independent inventors who need prototypes
for things like patent applications. Additionally, many prototyping houses are
taking their businesses online. One of the sites we discussed at the conference
was:
http://www.xpress3d.com/
Here you can upload your STL file and get a quote from many different houses in
seconds. It’s very useful to get a quote here, even if you end up looking
somewhere else.
Just FYI, I submitted a few of my parts, and the prices I got were in the
$75-250 range for ONE part. I suppose only you can say whether that’s excessive
or not. :) Kinda makes me look at my cars a little differently..
Now the longer answer involves a little detective work on your part. Somewhere
close to you is a University, Community College, VOC-TECH, ROP, or even High
School that has one of these machines. You probably paid for the machine with
your tax dollars. Most of these places also have programs where the technology
is used to help local businesses - i.e. the school will take bids for work. In
some cases, students do the work; in some cases staff does the work. Bring your
file to them and get a quote. It’ll vary from school to school, probably
anywhere from FREE to the xpress3d.com price.
If OCC ever got it’s machine back up and running we’d probably have to do things
like this just to pay for its upkeep and expenses.
If you can’t find a school, it’s possible some business has a model shop that
would be willing to run some parts for you. I know there are several AFOL on
these boards with machines..
Darrell
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Message is in Reply To:
 | | Re: My Big Phat RP Parts
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| (...) Those are really cool! Thanks for sharing them. If I, as a small hobbyist, wanted to make a batch of parts in this way, what would my options be? Is there any company that will take a CAD file, print a small batch of parts, and mail them to (...) (20 years ago, 13-Aug-04, to lugnet.cad, lugnet.parts.custom)
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