nTopology Masking Plugs for Drill Press Casting

grabcad

A. Company Name and Industry:I work at ATI metals, where we 3D print parts for aerospace applications.B. Job Title and Responsibilities:My name is Austin Brittain, and I am a process engineer at a metal additive manufacturing facility in Connecticut. I help find ways to make the metal 3D printers run more reliably and produce high quality parts for our customers.C. Application Information:When I first saw the nTopology fixture generator, its utility was immediately clear to me. From time to time at work we find it necessary to bead blast or grit blast a surface on a part after it has returned from machining. Usually we mask off the machined surfaces with tape and very carefully blast the surfaces that need retouching. The tape application process is very time consuming though, and it would be nice to have reusable plugs that could be moved from part to part quickly. I cannot post pictures of customer parts on the internet though, so at first I was stumped on what to enter into the competition. As I thought about it, my mind drifted to one of my many side projects. I am restoring an old drill press that I bought at a junk shop, and its castings are covered in rust and grime. The makerspace I belong to just got a blasting cabinet, which would quickly remove the rust, but I was worried about damaging the delicate machined surfaces on the inside of the part. The Statasys nTopology fixture generator was the perfect solution! In an afternoon, I was able to design a part that was representative of the casting, make plugs for all the holes, and quickly export them. Now I can print these plugs and get to blasting. D. Project Challenges and Goals:My goal for this project was to finish my first nTopology project. I saw a demo at work a few months ago, and I have wanted to try the software ever since. I had no trouble making plugs for the holes in the castings, but I was not able to get the surface enclosure tool to work. I substituted the surface masking tool with an overhang, and I think that will work for me. Making a whole model of the casting just to make hole plugs was definitely overkill, but It gave me design practice. If this were a work project, we would already have the model from the customer, so the modeling work would be almost eliminated. I look forward to using the remaining days on my trial to further explore this powerful software.E. Alternate Manufacturing Technology: All of these plugs could be produced on a lathe if necessary. ...