Greetings from Ducted Wind Turbines in NY's North Country!

[Valairian]

Hi everyone!

     I am an experienced rank amateur to 3D printing.  I've owned a Prusa MK2 non-s since I built the kit, and have run a few spools of filament through it.  I am bringing 3D printing to my company (I'm the chief Engineer) with an ambitious Voron 2.4 build.  I'm printing all the parts myself, making a few mods off the bat, including a StealthBurner, Dragon HF VORON edition, an LDO orbiter extruder (I'm a sucker for planetary drives), and 270 degree doors.  Oh, did I mention I'm building a 500mmx500mmx500mm version?  We need the build volume to print cowlings for our wind turbines.  I'm sure that could cause me some trouble, but playing it safe's boring!

[Demosth]

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We need the build volume to print cowlings for our wind turbines

This sounds exciting! Can you share more about the company and what specific industry you cater toward?

Welcome to the community, please take some time and create a build diary to share with the community, I especially like the thought and perspective from a "business" point of view. What works well and hurdles would give huge insight.

 

[Snympi]

Good luck, sounds like a nice project. I can confirm that the Galileo extruder is really great - not that the others are not, but I've had the best experience with CF-PA and CF-PC with the Galileo compared to others. More traditional filament types print like a dream on a Voron 2.4 (just keep PLA cool enough).

 

[Valairian]

 

Thanks guys!  Jeez, I thought I posted this a week ago, apparently it didn't post from my phone.  The company is Ducted Wind Turbines, we are developing a wind turbine with roughly 20% better efficiency for the small and distributed wind markets.  Our real goal is that the turbine be part of a mobile wind/solar/storage system that can be rapidly deployed after disasters or in less-developed areas to provide power for communication and other essential services.  Sadly to do that we have to have a profitable business first.  It was started by an Aeronautical Engineering professor at Clarkson University, along with a serial entrepreneur and a sales expert.  I was the first employee hired, based on my experience with structural certification of wind turbine blades, and the fact that I was one of professor Visser's former students.  

We are building a printer as a last resort (although I've been secretly hoping to find an excuse) because the parts we need to print are simply too expensive to fabricate any other way.  Even farming the parts out to a 3D printing house was 50x more expensive than printing ourselves.  It's also the reason for exceeding the accepted size limit; we need a bed that'5 500x500.  I've read about some of the problems we might encounter, and I'm looking at ways to counter them. 

I love the idea of a build journal!  I've already started taking photos for it.  I'm also designing a few special parts which I'll share as part of the journal.  For example, I've spent the last week modifying the StealthBurner STLs to work with a full orbiter extruder and a BLTouch bed sensor. 

 

[Demosth]

Awesome to hear - I am really excited about your project and cannot wait to see your progress.