Below is part of an ongoing conversation I am having with the SLA house...
NOTE: The pricing shown below is what the original model will cost ME to produce not you. PLEASE DON'T THINK THAT THE MODELS THAT this pricing reflects your cost. What I hope to offer won't be anywhere near this costly!
If there's anyone out there that want's an SLA model instead of a casting from one. And you are willing to shell out the big bucks I am sure we can drive down that $200.
Hey Michael,
It was good to speak with you on the phone and connect with a fellow hardcore gamer.
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I took a look at your site and its awesome that you guys are rocking it old skool as they say. If you are really into old games like me, you should take a look at
http://www.the-underdogs.info/ A great resource for downloading or buying old out of print games.
For your project I scaled down the fighter to around 6\" and by the looks of it you could do fine with SLA technology, which has less detail the but trade off its a bit cheaper. Both SLA and Objet can be primed and painted for customization. We can do that in-house or you can do it yourself. The only thing I'd be worried about is the gun tips, right now they are 25 thou which is just approaching the limit of the machines. They have a minimum wall thickness of 20 thou but it this case I think the guns will come out alright.
Thank you for your offer to for us to make samples of them! Below you'll find our pricing that I made sure is very competitive, with a discount for quantities.
For one fighter:
SLA: 200
Objet: 400
For two fighters:
SLA: 380
Objet: 760
Let me know what you'd like to do and then I'll adjust the manual quote for you on Xpress 3D. Then we can get this project going for you. I look forward to seeing how these come out!
Dan Straka
InterPRO Rapid Technologies
630 Industrial Park Road
Deep River, CT 06417
Toll free: 888-392-0957
Fax: 860-526-8056
www.interpro-rtc.com
Mike,
I sat down with our project manager and the molder and we started to quote your part. The missiles will have to be separated out, and even the ship cut in half. As we talked further it seemed like the molding option might start to be getting out of the budget for the project. As it is it would cost somewhere between 2 - 3 thousand for the making of 3 molds and already it sounds like it might be pushing your budget.
So I thought as an alterative it might be best to make straight SLAs. What you could do to drive down the price is have the fighter be built in two halves and shelled out. Like a model kit. That would really drop down the volume of the fighter and thus the price.
After shelling it out, I would suggest cutting around that red line on the jpeg. I talked to Dan and he though the best and easiest way is to just make the one cut.
Let us know what you would like us to do. Take care.
Dan Straka
Let's sum this up, to make the STL in one SOLID part will cost considerably more then if I break it up.
If I have to break it up we might as well break it down into more/smaller parts. The bed the part is processed on is 20\"x20\". Currently the SLA would be a is solid. If we shelled it out so all we had were the other skins (just like a model car or plane) We consierably reduce the volume and processing time.
Sitting in the normal position the Pyro will be serveral inches tall (more time to process) if we split the wings/stabalizers/missles/cockpit and then split the bodt ib half we effectively have a lower z-axis travel (shorter process time) we might be able to shave more off the cost. I'll ask Dan this Monday.
Bubbalou has offered his services to make Eagle's model ready.
Thought's? Idea's? Concerns?
Bubbalou, you know if we spilt it up it'll be much easier to mold the parts. We might actually be able to do it with paying big bucks for teh mold.
On a slightly different note I am going to order Sp3tre's model for now while we work out the details on Eagle's model I have a little money burning a hole in my pocket, if I don't spend it on me it'll be spent on my kids
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I never purchase anything for ME!