2024 Updated Tour of Texas' Largest 3D Print Farm
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- Опубліковано 29 чер 2024
- Take a sneak peek into our 3D Printing facilities! Join Kason Knight, our Managing Director, as he shares the latest updates on our 3D Print Farm, HP Multi Jet Fusion fleet, and other cutting-edge Additive Manufacturing gear. Explore the future of manufacturing with us in this quick tour!
For anyone interested in learning more about some of the individual components highlighted in the video:
AM Flow - • Using Machine Learning...
HP MJF In Operation - • High Speed Industrial ...
HP MFJ 5420W - • Unique HP MJF White PA...
Shout outs to:
@VisionMiner
@impacsystemsengineering7012
@Merit-3D
@Nexa3D - Розваги
Timing of the guy dropping the spool was just perfect! 2:49
He was fired 13 minutes later.
Give that kid a raise. He made the video memorable.
@@TheOfficialOriginalChad Then sued
i agree with @schtinerbock4570 now you have to plan to have him drop something in the background of every video, when i-solids becomes a fortune 500 he will have his own wikipedia page
Bro is firet
I love how HP found a way to still sell ink for their 3D printers. Don't ever change, HP.
The printer doesn't work if you don't have magenta filament on the shelf.
You make the 'shop tour, business pitch' video look easy... Im impressed.
Thanks for the kind response. Admittedly, this was our second take. The first one was a bit too long, and I felt we delved too far into details better suited for future videos. In an attempt to be concise, it did feel more like a business pitch than intended, but we've been encouraged by the overall response and feedback.
your facility is AWESOME! On behalf of all 3d printers (people not actual printers lol), wish you the best of luck :) You are the pride of the industry
Hey @IamHamdan, we really appreciate the kind words. When you do something every day, even if you are passionate about it, it can still be frustrating, difficult, or even just feel like "a normal day at the office" so its encouraging to hear this. Thanks!
Loved the tour! So many exciting technologies. I'd love to see the showroom examples you can show up close to compare results and capabilities of the different technologies.
ive loved watching you guys grow, I know a lot is confidential but its amazing to see anything you can show us!
Awesome facility! Thanks a ton for the 3D Scanner shoutout :) Rob will be in Spring, TX in June, he'll have to stop by for a visit! Cheers!
This was pretty cool. I am glad it randomly popped up on my feed.
As a 3D printing geek I thoroughly enjoyed this tour! Your energy is infectious and you obviously love what you do. I wish you all nothing but success!
Thanks for the kind words of encouragement!
Post production is truly impressive!🙌 Thank you for the tour. Inspirational.
Thanks so much!
Great video, and great insight into how much work (and machinery) is involved to scale an operation to this level. 👍🏻
Many thanks, we appreciate your time and feedback!
Awesome factory and great job on the video. I have a small 3D printer farm myself but seeing this just blows my mind. Thanks for sharing.
Those HP machines are really nice. When I was doing engineering work we had Stratasys Forus 900 and 380 FDM machines but I didn't know HP made 3D printers too. That's pretty cool. I personally have a FormLabs resin printer, an AnkerMake M5 and just ordered a Prusa MK4 waiting on delivery for that machine. Cheers!🙂
Would love to come visit! You guys are scaling right and looking ahead
Hey @ShopNation! I've been a fan of your channel for a while and it would it would be awesome to meet up sometime - you are definitely more than welcome to visit. Hit us up anytime!
Incredible. I wish I needed something.
Impressive operation.
Love to see the expansion and growth! Go i-SOLIDS!!
By far and above the best print service provider in Texas.
I think you got the spot on. Thanks for the video.
Remarkable. Thanks for the tour. Since I live not too far, I may reach out for an actual tour and a visit. I only use 3D printing for my own personal motorbike restoration projects but all of it holds my interest. I've also some great friends at EOS in the Austin area whom I met when needed/thought I needed something metal printed. Regardless, keep it up and I wish you all the continued success.
Please do! We always enjoy meeting with 3d printing enthusiasts regardless of whether there is any immediate need for us to help with any projects.
All these people commenting about Bambu X1Cs don’t know much about materials. We use X1Cs due to their very high dimensional accuracy but we still only print at 40-60mm/s at 3000-5000mm/s2 acceleration due to the limitation of the industrial nylon blends. Your “fast” printer is only as fast as the material you are printing. For aluminium and stainless we outsource all the 3d printing.
You can speed it up and maintain results! I’d do some research on it.
@@TreyBlack1 have already tried. If you do that then the annealing process becomes longer sometimes by 4 hours.
We would definitely agree. Most of the speed demonstrations commonly involve PLA or PETG and things can be a lot different with engineering grade materials. Our Essentium 280i HT for example is a big and really fast machine capable of 500mm/s yet we very rarely run anywhere near those speeds with materials like PC, Ultem, or PEEK. Controlling thermodynamic properties of the material is often the biggest challenge and limiting factor.
Wow , Great Job!
Thanks!
really cool. i'm just now getting into 3d printing but have been in 3d design since 1999. we just moved to spring and i'd love to come check out your facility
Thanks! You are welcome anytime. Just shoot us an email at sales@i-solids.com to make sure we have someone available to give a tour.
2:48 - Quality control man is actively testing the print quality XD
Lol, good catch! A good old fashion drop test to ensure material durability.
Your spokesperson is excellent and your video is quite informing. Best of luck!
If you are not the owner you should be the ceo of this company, your knowledge and talk flow is amazing. I’m proud of seeing some one with your talent talk so professionally in our home town, Houston… keep up the good work!!
great video.
Been watching for a minute - very impressed with your shop. Any chance you'll ever share details on more the business side of things? I'm interested to hear what types of clients you guys service, what types of parts are generally being made, and how your clients are sourced. That along with maybe revenue and growth numbers, what does the future look like? Genuinely interested, thanks
Thanks for taking the time to watch and the encouraging feedback. I'd be happy to share what we can about our business. I tend to be a fairly open book since our primary goal is to see the additive manufacturing industry grow and, in turn, our piece of that pie will hopefully grow as well. We work primarily B2B and so we assume confidentiality within our standard terms of service. From that perspective we are a limited on sharing information about a lot specific projects but I think we can provide a good bit of context around the general industries and types of parts we see most.
We've gotten a lot of good questions and feedback from this video but I think this might be the topic of our next video. We typically operate really lean and sometimes the more fun things like making videos and content are deprioritized but we are optimistic we will do better in 2024.
Very impressive facility. Those HPs are some high end printers right there.
Thanks for the support!
There has been a lot of growth since the last tour I saw. Congratulations and best wishes for continued success.
The FlashForge Creators in the FDM print farm are looking a bit dated compared to the big HPs and other equipment, but I guess if it's not broken, don't try to fix it. Last week, we donated the five QIDI Tech 1 printers originally purchased for our small print farm. They were the greatly cost reduced copy of the FlashForge with a dual extruder. They were horribly unreliable, and used proprietary parts that were no longer available a year after we bought the printers... basically $3000 down a rat hole, other than a School of Hard Knocks lesson on what not to do in 3D printing. That was two 3D printer models ago for us and a lot has improved since then. Klipper has been great!
I was a bit shocked to see so many. I just gave away a FFCP to a family member because I upgraded to a Bambu Labs P1S. Although the FFCP was and still is a workhorse it's just significantly behind in every measurable way compared to the P1S. FDM has come a long way. I think they're just slowly going industrial only for the reasons stated and just waiting for those printers to kick the bucket (which I'll admit would be a while).
@@boots3372 - FDM technology has been improving so rapidly, particularly since the onset of Klipper, that it's difficult to keep up with the technology. By the time 3D printers are deployed to a print farm, they're almost obsolete. It's not just the cost of the printers that become a sunk cost. If tooling is broadly defined as optimizing processes for the machines you have, then tooling and machine specific training are more significant than machine cost.
I'm not as concerned with throughput improvements with the newer faster machines, although for many designs in PLA, that is a significant factor. We print mostly TPU parts and are adding PETG for structural products. TPU is limited to printing slowly, and for structural parts, most materials are significantly stronger when printed slower. There is "Rapid PETG" that is rated for 600 mm/s but we print it at 100 mm/s. 3D printers aren't very expensive and it's practical to add more printers to get the needed throughput at the best possible strength and print quality. I suspect that's why there are so many FlashForge printers in this print farm, although I can think of better options today.
@@Liberty4Ever Yes, you make good points. I don't even print at Bambu Labs stated 500 mm/s, which is just ludicrous speeds. I mean I did once, to watch in awe! haha
Great tour! Would love to see a couple examples or case studies where a customer is using your services because of - cost comparison, time to finish parts, higher accuracy, stuff like that. From a sales or marketing perspective, I’m sure your sales person would have some interesting thought starters…
Am working on an upstart with a few products to kick off with .. I am local and have plans to stop by, sometime in the next couple of weeks, to discuss options. Cheers :)
Sounds great! Just shoot us a quick message or email whenever is best for you.
Очень впечатляет масштабирование. Думал следующий этап принтеров это серийное производство уже другими методами более быстрыми
Very impressive
I love how he walks past the Tormach a few times with a bunch of bins in front of it. Awesome technology on your shop, other than the Tormach of course. If you need a CNC programmer, let us know!
Very cool.
Holy crap that's amazing. The only reason i'd care to take a job to work in-office is to work there. Awesome.
cool shop!
Thanks, we appreciate the kind words and support!
And here we have a Tormach P1100 gathering dust in the corner! 🙂
Nice facility. I just upgraded all of my machines to new Qidi CoreXY machines. As you know, 2x the speed is just a massive boost in productivity and profitability for FDM.
Very insightful video. Really interested in knowing what it takes to build/scale to this level. I currently run a few printers myself and hope to scale significantly at some point, but me being me, I always wonder if I can ever scale to match the capacity you have.😅
Хотелось бы увидеть как и где снимаются размеры, сканируются и моделируются детали.
It's very interesting. The post processing to get smooth injection mold type quality just seems too great to make it worthwhile. It must be doable though.
I couldn't imagine keeping all of those Enders going...
I recently stopped by for a tour of the place and was really impressed with what you guys have built. Congrats! I wanted to chat with you but I believe you had a representative there from another company so I didnt want to interrupt. I have 3 X1 carbons in my print farm, and yes they are nice, but they are not that much faster. I recently installed klipper on my ender 3 print farm, and my bambu is 30% faster, no where near needing 10 bambus to replace 130 FDM machines, some people just dont know what theyre talking about. Thats 10 nozzles will never replace 130 nozzles no matter how fast the machine is. At least not in our life time. Most people with 3d printers dont understand the relationship between flow and speed. Bambu is not the speed demon people think it is when you compare actual flow rate. You can buy a 100 dollar hotend and get the same result.
Maintenance with 130 Enders would be a complete nightmare....
Thanks for the kind feedback and I'm sorry I missed you.
I would agree all the way around. A lot of people look at X-Y speed and acceleration as having a direct relationship with time/part - this might somewhat true for simple consumer materials with really simple geometries but in the vast majority of situation we've seen its the material properties and/or complex geometry that become the concern and printing faster only increase the risk of failure and/or decreases the layer adhesion. If I increase my overall print speed by and average of 30% but I also decrease my yield rate by 10% then there is real potential that I am actually at a net loss when you consider that 10% failed prints means an increase in material costs and potential inventory issues, labor costs to adjust productions schedule for reprints, expedited shipping costs for not hitting original deadlines, potential lost future opportunities if it were to jeopardize a customer relationship. All of these things are very important and could be costly to a business but none of these would really apply to a consumer working on their own projects and wanting them to be done an hour or two faster.
I also like what you say about the number of nozzles - we use the term "nozzle density". I would much prefer 2 printers running at 100mm/s than 1 printer running at 300mm/s. With two printers I had redundancy in case one were to go down and I can schedule them to have 1 person start them simultaneously. On the other hand, with a single faster printer I would have to schedule someone twice a day to accomplish the same number of print jobs and if it were to break then I would be in a lot more trouble.
@@AlexanderSmith600obviously you didn't have to replace a bed on x1c. Talking about nightmare.😂
Silly fanboy.
Let me get that tormach since its just being used for storage!
Крутое производство!
Never thought I'd see a myriad of Flashforge creator pros in an industrial setting.
yeah that through me off lol
Alright, I got a BambuLab X1C so I think I'm ready to compete! 🤣🤣🤣
Nice! We started in 2015 with just a knockoff Makerbot from Micro Center running in a closet so you never know. We like working with "competition" so we'll hopefully keep in touch!
@@i-solids That's actually where I'm at now. And yes, it's also in a closet. I sell small items of my own design on Etsy. I'm only dreaming of one day growing to your level! I really appreciate your videos and your shop. It shows me there's a way.
I see the Aggie ring there, gig em! Do yall have any details around uptime and maintenance? I’m getting into 3D printers myself, having an industrial engineering degree and using Python,sql, powerbi, I love to see which machines have better up time and reliability :)
For someone who cant even get a fdm printer to work, this is impressive
Haha, we've had more than our fair share of filament spaghetti and hot ends completely covered in plastic.
Bruh Dropped the Spool
Cool
You mention being one of the largest. I know Slant 3D has the numbers in printers, but no where near the quality. How would you say they compare, volume wise?
Super
I’m curious about the dashboard you glazed over. The over view of all the printers. What is that? Is that a proprietary app?
Indeed, me too...
I'll make a note to see if we can make this a future video but the short answer is this is our own internally created software that interfaces with a modified versions of klipper / octoprint running on each printers. This setup allows all of the machines to operate all independently but can be controlled by a certain location as needed. Similar to a "SCADA" or supervisory control and data acquisition system in a factory environment. There are some 3rd party system like 3DPrinterOS but many of them tend to be designed more for an educational or multiuser scheduling environment whereas our needs were a little different.
you can do a 24/7 live stream...That should be enough to appease us XD
Lol! When we first started up in 2015, one of things we liked to do was provide a live broadcast of every 3d printer we had. This originally to monitor them remotely but we also foudn that customers enjoyed seeing their parts being made if they wanted to. At the time 3D printers were still pretty rare to see so many people would sit and watch parts being printed for hours. We unfortunately had to get rid of this as we grew for two reasons: 1) With more and more printers our internet bandwidth was becoming a bottleneck and 2) as we started working with more and more businesses the confidentiality of parts being produced prevented us from sharing most of what we work on.
Perhaps we could live stream a few cameras around the shop? The only concern there is we are all pretty close here and might have a strange sense of humor from time to time.
@@i-solids some solutions:
1. Don't use video, only 1-layer shots (real-time timelapse)
2. Use unique links for every prints, not for printers.
Print starting - user get link. Printing ended - link die. If user set "public model" option - privacy of link doesn't matter
1:35 good printer choice
How do you deal with emissions from pla and abs, asa ? I'am currently designing a 3d-print service to the a Gamelab of Turku University of Applied Sciences. To get rid of them from the source area I try to seal the enclosures and circulate the air inside through hepa, silica beads and activated charcoal. When they are saturated from the emissions: If I wash them before heat-reactivation the emissions will end up waste water purification. I have no idea is that ok or e.g worse than just disposing filtration media into general carbage(which in Finland goes to 600C burner). I mainly focus on PLA but even for that the officials told me to not dump the polluted air outside.
ha im right down the road from yall i might just try and get some stuff made
About 10 years ago we ran 43 fdm printers. Visited China under contract, and they had print farms with hundreds of printers. 10 years ago.
Wonder if those HP MJFs are like desktop printers and warns you of being out of toner when 25% is still left, and refuses to allow you to use non-HP branded refills. 😅
Off topic but I see you have a couple of Tormach machines. Do you offer machining service as well?
Oh shoot I live like right there
Didnt know HP had 3D printers. Hopefully they are better then the normal inktjet/laser printers :P
I'm sorry you can't scan that 3d object till you replace your filament with Genuine HP filament.
HP has some pretty shady business practices. Like putting 3 different labels on the same printer and disabling speed and features in the firmware for the "cheaper" models.
@@FrugalShaveyeah, HP is one of the companies that I would avoid at every opportunity. A lot of printer companies are scamming their own customers, but HP seems to be the worst.
When will you introduce metal printing ? Great factory
Thanks! Thats a great question - our SLS printers are capable of "cold metal fusion" printing but we haven't yet begun offering that since it does require post processing in many cases. I think we might be close to adding this option though.
What's the cost difference in a part from a FDM machine vs one of your MJF machines?
This is one of our favorite questions. The answer can be complex and sometimes surprising-perhaps this is another great opportunity for a future video.
The reason it is complex is because there are a lot of different factors that come into play, such as material usage, machine utilization, ease of powder or support removal, geometric concerns, lead time, risk profile, etc. Many of these things might not be worth investing too much time in for prototype production or smaller volumes, but with large quantities, workflow efficiency is the main driver in delivering on-time, with good quality, and with profitability.
Generally speaking, FDM has a lower equipment and material cost but higher labor and a lower yield rate. Alternatively, MJF has a high capital value and material cost, but it is very reliable and much lower labor relative to production volume. This means that MJF can be equal to or lower cost than FDM for complex geometries, tight tolerance requirements, high volumes of smaller parts, or critically short lead times. FDM, on the other hand, can be much cheaper for simple or bulky designs where lower infill percentage will be sufficient, for really large parts that aren't as time-sensitive, and when using some colors.
It is crazy knowing the cost of their equipment they must be making some good money and have a hell of a sales team. Also, I bet almost every one of their employees are not just people you pick up off the street that stuff takes brains to run and I'm sure the wages are above average. Pretty cool to see this operation.
I like you logo
Y'all need some artwork on the walls.
Surprised you don’t have them stacks vertically going all the way to the roof
how do you know who to hire ?
and who design your parts ?
2:47 You're welcome.
If you can speak Chinese, you will have a large number of fans
What brand of filament you use for PLA?
We can use over 1000+ kg of filament per month and the demand for certain material/color combinations can fluctuate a good bit so finding a supplier that has this level of inventory available and has a diverse product line (ABS, ASA, PETG, TPU, and PC, etc) on top of also have repeatable colors, material traceability / datasheets, and of course at a low price is a lot of to ask.
A few years back Polymaker opened a warehouse in the Houston area and we have worked closely ever since. There are things that we run into from time to time but overall we recommend them for most consumer grade materials and even some higher end engineer grade materials.
For applications that require material certification or for really exotic materials like carbon fiber PEEK or ABS-FR we like working with Essentium and 3DXTech.
Maybe those big beasts can replace 40-80 FDM printers, but if you divide their massive cost, that would be like $4,200 per FDM machine. Yikes those beasts are pricey. (Maybe still a way to reliably move from a one-off prototype to a small batch for prototyping.)
Please think about total cost of ownership and not about the first impact… e.g. maintenance, labor, space
You seems don't have SLA (stereolithography) 3d printer. We can produce one SLA for you if need.
What industries do you serve?
wow, there are multi billion $ equipments!
This would be a dream job for myself to have. Are you hiring? i have a small print farm that i do small odd end things for friends and family. I have been trying to grow it, but im open to coming on board in your FDM department, possibly learning the other processes.
That's awesome! It can be difficult and sometimes even frustrating when machines arent operating properly but we genuinely enjoy what we do. Please feel free to reach out to admin@i-solids.com with inquiries about open positions.
This is the you always always do an audio check.
There is a very loud background noise in the shop and the mic was having to transition between. We appreciate the feedback and will work to see if we can get something to work a little better. Thanks!
Those FDMs definitely need to be replace, by faster ones, Bambu or not. They would also cost less to run because they consume electricity for a shorter time. You can base your numbers on slicer settings, but you should buy like a p1s, you will soon realize the speed, reliability and quality improvements. I can’t even think about doing a manual, or semi manual bed leveling, those black enclosed machines are ancient technology now.
The X1E seems to be the logical choice in the Bambu lineup.
While the Flashforge Creator Pro 2s are slow they are absolute workhorses and produce high quality parts.
As a business model his it’s great you never dump a machine that is profitable or could be later used to take the slack of a one off print. The older machines are paid-off so as they wear out you can repair them and the repair is tax deductible where a newer you have to depreciate out for 3 years on taxes. If they sale the machine they than have to increase their income and have a lost of emergency production from a small footprint printer. As they continue expanding their operation by adding more building space those printers will be used less and only use in your emergency or if you are at full capacity on your newer equipment. It’s all about customer service the cost to produce on those machines may be higher on each part but losing the job because you just replace them is very bad business it’s all about the scale of the operation as they get bigger even if those machines only make $0.005 per part that machine is that profitable. There is a company in Texas that I know of that there profit per unit is at that level and are making millions a year. 50 years from now he could still be using those machines to take up the overflow of production. This my friends is an operation that will at some point to be used to teach in universities for your bachelor degree in business or your MBA. They have someone that is advising them that is very good or they are just that good in house with the $ numbers.
I wonder if you folks are hiring ? Been wanting to be apart of a team, been doing it alone for a bit though Im more of a team player, Would love to work with folks that share the same passion as me :) i have lots tools and machines i can add also if wanted, And a few full smd rework tables and tools .
Can you scan with that HP, if you're out of ink😅
In the beginning. Why does the railing not have overlays? A farm of 3d printers and no one thought to improve the railings.
I just know that air cant be good to breathe
Bro had one job :v
Such a shame the audio is compromised
check your device, the audio in the video is fine
dreams
Cast of raw materials at full retail price smile when you say that.. your model should run just a few years before everybody transitions to access directly at the cost of raw materials. Can crowdsource purchase so everybody owns and they can print at cost of materials.
they will likely lean on the engineering services portion at that point I would think. aside from the larger high output HPs at its core their business model is essentially centralizing and scaling to quantity output a technology who's core advantage is decentralization and custom/small batch.
Poor dude dropping the roll at just the wrong time loo
Looks nice but aside from your industrial machines I don't think you will make money on your consumer 3d printers, everyone will price jobs as at PLA only cost or they will just buy there own. Look back a few years ago and so called drone imaging services that used consumer dji drones, they are all gone now. BTW many 3d print firms have gone bust because of this.
They are making money off it.
Cost of raw materials solve retail manufacture automated for family and friends the world solve .
You cannot offer 'engineering services' in the state of Texas unless you are a registered firm with the Texas PE board. Please check the rules. Do you have a licensed professional engineer on staff?
I don't know if they're actually doing engineering work or just 3D printing services which probably wouldn't count as actual engineering. Creating CAD models for 3D printing wouldn't actually be engineering work unless they're designing the parts but I think they're just printing parts that customers created. Also the engineering work you're thinking about is probably civil engineering which would require licensing and certification. Mechanical engineering....I don't think so. I worked in Texas for a few years as an engineer designing lawn and forestry equipment. We were not required to be licensed as mechanical engineers nor was the engineering facility required to be registered with the Texas PE board.
Does the HP let you still print if one of the color cartridges runs out that you don't need to use? 😂 Does it need a subscription to work? 🤣
Hahaha.... well, actually, yeah kind of. I'm not the biggest fan of HP consumer products but they do make a very nice additive production workflow. There is a pricey maintenance agreement with a 24 hours response time - if anything were to go wrong we normally have parts overnighted and a technician on site the next day. With one machine offline it could cost $1000s in downtime per day. With that said - there are a lot more companies taking lessons learned HP to improve their products and increasing competition in the space - we hope this keeps HP honest and drives down the cost over time.
Imagine buying more than 0 HP Printers.
Why do we care?
Everybody has a 3D printer :D
rich
nice video bad mic
Just yelling at you.why ?