Thanks for touching on biodegradable plastics here and I would be interested in learning more about those in a future video. It might also be interesting to compare the carbon footprint or overall environmental impact of these two manufacturing approaches.
Any chance you can publish the STL or step file for the tee? I'd love to try one out for myself! Such an interesting topic for 3D printing discussion...
Given that no STL has been uploaded yet, I opted to create my own and upload it to printables. You can find it if you search "Redesigned Golf Tee - Optimized for 3D Printing"
Mold quote matches my experience for an overseas moldmaker - for a tool steel mold. Injection molds are not restricted to tool steel. Some 3D printing resins are capable of withstanding hundreds of shots. High-temp filaments like PEEK can also withstand molding temperatures and pressures for typical molding polymers. Sure, the surface finish won't be great, but it won't be any worse than the FFF-produced tee. Then there are aluminum molds which are capable of tens of thousands of shots. Even though the price of aluminum has risen dramatically, machining it is still much faster than tool steel.
This was super interesting as a thought experiment since I am in the early days of my 3D printing business, played a round of golf this weekend, and started thinking about printing tees. Even though the cost per tee to manufacture is $0.03, the ones I buy and arrive at my door are $0.24 per tee, so designing my own for my own use can be significantly cheaper. Definitely subscribing since the thought experiment through the rest of the video was super interesting, and looking forward to seeing more!
I haven't watched the whole video, so here's my take based in a little hobby experience with 3d printing and a few years in a production setup job. Most people would default to the hobby printer format as their starting point for this job, so say an Ender 3 with standard .4 nozzle, then they would likely start printing out bed fulls of Ts with a run time of a few hours a batch. But when you think of the printer as a collection of industrial components that can be setup for a given job there's other options. You have your basic machine dimensions and we can assume these won't be changed too freely for this job, though there's no reason you can't build a 3D printing machine specifically for T manufacturing and dimension it to suit your needs. So you take your machine and instead of using one nozzle to trace every line of every T you gang many nozzles together. Accounting for the space needed to operate, you will inly need a few mm of X/Y travel on this job so the head size will likely limit your density. Now you can print a bed full of Ts at the same rate as printing a single T. Or if there's a lot of wasted space due to the heads you can have each head printing say 4 Ts, meaning you get an even fuller bed in the time it takes to print 4 Ts in the default method. This is analogous to an injection molding machine filling many molds at once using many injectors running off the same machine, each mold possibly contains several objects. Moving on to the design of the part, the default inclination is to keep the .4 nozzle and print the Ts layer by layer, this gives tou good density on your plate but a weak part and slow times. So again, these are industrial Legos, you don't have to use the default hobby machine hardware. You dont even have to use the arbitrary 1.75mm filament! You can even produce your own filament to any diameter you need. But let's stick with the 3mm filament that's already available. With this filament and a large diameter nozzle we could flow a lot of plastic and effectively reduce our movement distances. One option would be a wide layer starting with the cup and spiraling up and in. Creating the cup the recess and the stem all in one spiral motion. If we up the filament size and the nozzle size we could approach the actual diameter of the stem, make the cup in a spiral then simply extrude the stem with a purely Z axis motion. Leaving the stem a solid piece with no layer lines. Calibrating the flow and Z rate near the end will result in a nice point. At this point we have reduced the process to such a simple motion that it's challenging to even consider it 3D printing, it's simply extruding plastic to solidify in open air with a bit of XY to form the cup. Each batch, assuming the flow and heat capabilities of the machine are up to it, could be done in seconds. An ender3 sized bed could hold a hundred Ts and produce several batches a minute. You are at the point where a small machine could conceivably produce tens of thousands of parts a day, upwards of a hundred thousand if run for 24 hours non stop. A machine sized for an industrial space could produce many times this. Just a few thoughts.
If you're clever about it, it looks like you could tile that design in 3d by stacking rows of tees in alternate directions with no need for support material, meaning you'd end up with the entire build volume full of usable tees that just need broken apart. This would further minimize labor, and perhaps even packaging, since you could sell them in blocks that perfectly fit into boxes.
@@slant3d Assuming you have automatic print removal, do you see any benefit in duplicating to fill the plate and/or stacking the design vertically, or would that just increase the cost of a potential print failure? In other words, to maximize throughput and minimize cost per part, is it better to fill the print volume, or print serially one after another? Also assuming the parts are more or less touching which would already minimize travel moves and stringing risk.
If the golf tee was only being invented today there would be a lot of screw holes that would have gone unfilled. I've used WAY more of them doing that than I ever went through when I used to golf. That's a use I don't think can be replaced by 3d printing. lol
Appreciate the video, but I think comparing injection molding cost of the 3D print design Tee vs 3d printing it was misguided. Using a bad argument to justify the product/concept, even though you already highlight there is a effective molding Tee that is cheaper. Soo, yeah, most the video pivoted to making molding bad for products not designed for it.
The existing tees already amortized the mold. They did not have to start from scratch. If you are starting a new product from scratch a molds is a very dangerous decision
You said 30 cent a piece for the 3k mold but it can make 50000 pieces so it's 6 cents a piece by that logic not 30 cent, it's 30 cent if you buy a mold and do not use it to it's max capacity, you should have compared a less expensive mold. It's like buying a big hp printer for only a thousand of those instead of a smaller printer, sure for 10k it's useful but not if you can't use it after.
We compared to the mold that was provided by the injection molding company when we had them quote the part at 10,000 units. The industry is the industry
I take it you missed his point about making them out of biodegradable plastic then? Also if they are more durable then you won’t go through as many and you could pick up the broken bits. You also seem to have missed the point that a lot of tees now are already made of plastic (injection moulding) and are weaker than these 3D printed ones.
@@slant3d not all wood filled is biodegradable since it is just standard PLA mixed with sawdust but I have seen some claim to be fully biodegradable and contain wood.
Thanks for touching on biodegradable plastics here and I would be interested in learning more about those in a future video. It might also be interesting to compare the carbon footprint or overall environmental impact of these two manufacturing approaches.
3D Printing is wildly less due to reduce shipping and reduced wasted inventory (at least 25% reduction from that alon)
Love that you put the year 1920 and Dr. lowell inside of your left hand - very authentic!
I like that you compared the prices for 10000 units in both manufacturing processes, nice
Yes. 3D Printing is far more scalable than people realize.
Another interesting and thought provoking video! I really like these short, engaging videos. Well done!!!
Thank you. Thanks for watching
Any chance you can publish the STL or step file for the tee? I'd love to try one out for myself! Such an interesting topic for 3D printing discussion...
Given that no STL has been uploaded yet, I opted to create my own and upload it to printables. You can find it if you search "Redesigned Golf Tee - Optimized for 3D Printing"
@@rhynnoh1991 That's a nice-looking golf tee.
Mold quote matches my experience for an overseas moldmaker - for a tool steel mold. Injection molds are not restricted to tool steel. Some 3D printing resins are capable of withstanding hundreds of shots. High-temp filaments like PEEK can also withstand molding temperatures and pressures for typical molding polymers. Sure, the surface finish won't be great, but it won't be any worse than the FFF-produced tee. Then there are aluminum molds which are capable of tens of thousands of shots. Even though the price of aluminum has risen dramatically, machining it is still much faster than tool steel.
This was super interesting as a thought experiment since I am in the early days of my 3D printing business, played a round of golf this weekend, and started thinking about printing tees. Even though the cost per tee to manufacture is $0.03, the ones I buy and arrive at my door are $0.24 per tee, so designing my own for my own use can be significantly cheaper. Definitely subscribing since the thought experiment through the rest of the video was super interesting, and looking forward to seeing more!
This is nice. I just checked and yes it is pretty expensive where I live which means these designs can actually be given a go!
I haven't watched the whole video, so here's my take based in a little hobby experience with 3d printing and a few years in a production setup job.
Most people would default to the hobby printer format as their starting point for this job, so say an Ender 3 with standard .4 nozzle, then they would likely start printing out bed fulls of Ts with a run time of a few hours a batch.
But when you think of the printer as a collection of industrial components that can be setup for a given job there's other options. You have your basic machine dimensions and we can assume these won't be changed too freely for this job, though there's no reason you can't build a 3D printing machine specifically for T manufacturing and dimension it to suit your needs.
So you take your machine and instead of using one nozzle to trace every line of every T you gang many nozzles together. Accounting for the space needed to operate, you will inly need a few mm of X/Y travel on this job so the head size will likely limit your density.
Now you can print a bed full of Ts at the same rate as printing a single T. Or if there's a lot of wasted space due to the heads you can have each head printing say 4 Ts, meaning you get an even fuller bed in the time it takes to print 4 Ts in the default method.
This is analogous to an injection molding machine filling many molds at once using many injectors running off the same machine, each mold possibly contains several objects.
Moving on to the design of the part, the default inclination is to keep the .4 nozzle and print the Ts layer by layer, this gives tou good density on your plate but a weak part and slow times.
So again, these are industrial Legos, you don't have to use the default hobby machine hardware.
You dont even have to use the arbitrary 1.75mm filament!
You can even produce your own filament to any diameter you need. But let's stick with the 3mm filament that's already available.
With this filament and a large diameter nozzle we could flow a lot of plastic and effectively reduce our movement distances.
One option would be a wide layer starting with the cup and spiraling up and in. Creating the cup the recess and the stem all in one spiral motion. If we up the filament size and the nozzle size we could approach the actual diameter of the stem, make the cup in a spiral then simply extrude the stem with a purely Z axis motion. Leaving the stem a solid piece with no layer lines. Calibrating the flow and Z rate near the end will result in a nice point.
At this point we have reduced the process to such a simple motion that it's challenging to even consider it 3D printing, it's simply extruding plastic to solidify in open air with a bit of XY to form the cup.
Each batch, assuming the flow and heat capabilities of the machine are up to it, could be done in seconds. An ender3 sized bed could hold a hundred Ts and produce several batches a minute. You are at the point where a small machine could conceivably produce tens of thousands of parts a day, upwards of a hundred thousand if run for 24 hours non stop. A machine sized for an industrial space could produce many times this.
Just a few thoughts.
You didn't watch the video but decided to write what basically accumulated to a Ted Talk on the topic of the video? Gotcha...
Really like these videos, makes you think of the overall cost.
Yes. 3D Printing is way more scalable than people realize.
If you're clever about it, it looks like you could tile that design in 3d by stacking rows of tees in alternate directions with no need for support material, meaning you'd end up with the entire build volume full of usable tees that just need broken apart. This would further minimize labor, and perhaps even packaging, since you could sell them in blocks that perfectly fit into boxes.
Labor is already 0
@@slant3d Assuming you have automatic print removal, do you see any benefit in duplicating to fill the plate and/or stacking the design vertically, or would that just increase the cost of a potential print failure? In other words, to maximize throughput and minimize cost per part, is it better to fill the print volume, or print serially one after another? Also assuming the parts are more or less touching which would already minimize travel moves and stringing risk.
This might be a bit silly, but for a 'gift' sale, you could put the golfers name on the Tee. Very unique and unusual gift. Excellent video
Not a bad idea. Thanks for watching
Realy nice video 👍🏻
Thank you 👍
Maybe design a plate on the shaft so that a fixed hight stop is pushed in. Fixed standard, maybe
Different golfers like tees at different heights for different clubs
Why does the cost per peice go down with 3d printing in large quantities?
More scale yields more efficiencies.
4:19 what's written on his palm? 1920 something?
If the golf tee was only being invented today there would be a lot of screw holes that would have gone unfilled. I've used WAY more of them doing that than I ever went through when I used to golf. That's a use I don't think can be replaced by 3d printing. lol
Maybe
The awnser is resin printing
Those videos are really useful 💪 I would like to talk about design on my channel too!
Thanks for watching
Appreciate the video, but I think comparing injection molding cost of the 3D print design Tee vs 3d printing it was misguided. Using a bad argument to justify the product/concept, even though you already highlight there is a effective molding Tee that is cheaper. Soo, yeah, most the video pivoted to making molding bad for products not designed for it.
The existing tees already amortized the mold. They did not have to start from scratch. If you are starting a new product from scratch a molds is a very dangerous decision
what's with the number in your hand, at first when I saw it partially, (192 0), I thought it was the begining of an IP address 🤣
You said 30 cent a piece for the 3k mold but it can make 50000 pieces so it's 6 cents a piece by that logic not 30 cent, it's 30 cent if you buy a mold and do not use it to it's max capacity, you should have compared a less expensive mold.
It's like buying a big hp printer for only a thousand of those instead of a smaller printer, sure for 10k it's useful but not if you can't use it after.
We compared to the mold that was provided by the injection molding company when we had them quote the part at 10,000 units. The industry is the industry
I would rather have wood ones than add more plastic in nature.
I take it you missed his point about making them out of biodegradable plastic then? Also if they are more durable then you won’t go through as many and you could pick up the broken bits. You also seem to have missed the point that a lot of tees now are already made of plastic (injection moulding) and are weaker than these 3D printed ones.
There are fully biodegradable bioplastics. Or we could even us a wood-filled
@@slant3d not all wood filled is biodegradable since it is just standard PLA mixed with sawdust but I have seen some claim to be fully biodegradable and contain wood.
Sorry to be the one breaking the 69 likes and getting to 70
Thanks for watching
This should be required watching for the injection molding fanboys
Very true. People truly underestimate the scale of 3D Printing
Great video!! 👍
Thanks for watching