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Industrial Additive Manufacturing Hackathon Challenge - Jig & Fixture Design
38 Plays2 years ago
The Alberta Additive Manufacturing Network (AAMN), the Manufacturing & Export Enhancement Cluster (MEE) and Red Deer Polytechnic’s Centre for Innovation in Manufacturing (CIM-TAC) are partnering to host an industrial additive manufacturing hackathon challenge.
What is the IAM hackathon challenge?
In this industry-focused design hackathon, teams of engineers will design their selected project for additive manufacturing in context of:
Design
Simulation
Materials selection
Post processing
Quality control
The teams’ designs will be fabricated and tested, the business case for the additive manufacturing design changes will be developed, and the knowledge gained from the projects will be shared publicly. Participants can register as a team or be mixed with engineers from other companies.
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Guest Backgrounds
00:00:12
Speaker
Welcome everybody to another podcast from the Alberta additive manufacturing network. I'm Shorty, your host today, and I'm going to let our guests introduce themselves because who knows themselves better than they do? They do. All right. So up first, we have Tonya. Hi, Tonya. Hi Shorty. So Tonya Wolf, I'm the associate vice president of applied research at Red Deer Polytechnic and obviously very passionate about additive manufacturing.
00:00:38
Speaker
And I'll be talking a little bit about the Alberta additive manufacturing network in this hackathon here. And I have one of my colleagues here today to Carson. You can introduce yourself.
00:00:52
Speaker
So I'm Carson West, I'm an applied research technician here at the CIMTAC at Red Deer Polytechnic. I'll be also talking about jigs and fixtures and for the additive manufacturing process and a little bit about that as well as some of the focus for this year's Akatops.
Overview of the Hackathon: Partnerships and Challenges
00:01:11
Speaker
And our super special guest today,
00:01:14
Speaker
Jacob Reuter, would you like to introduce yourself? Absolutely. So as you said, my name is Jacob Reuter. I'm an application engineer with Stratasys. I've been with Stratasys for a little over going on eight years now, located out of Tacoma, Washington. So I'm happy to be here and talk about jigs and fixtures. That's awesome. Thank you so much. Tonya, what is this
00:01:43
Speaker
Alberta Additive Manufacturing Network, Hackathon. Tell me a little bit more about that. Yeah, thanks a lot. So the Alberta Additive Manufacturing Network, the Manufacturing and Export Enhancement Cluster, which is the MEE, and Red Deer Polytechnic Centre for Innovation and Manufacturing, which is the SIMTAC, are partnering to host an industrial additive manufacturing hackathon challenge. So Carson, you want to tell me a little bit about what is this hackathon challenge that we're doing this year?
00:02:12
Speaker
Yeah, so this year's theme is focused on jigs and fixtures. In this industry-focused design hackathon challenge, teams of engineers and technical people will design their selected project for additive manufacturing in the context of design, simulation, material selection, post-processing, and quality control.
00:02:33
Speaker
The team's designs will be fabricated and tested, and the business case for the additive manufacturing design changes will also be developed. And the knowledge gained from these projects will be shared publicly. Participants will also register as teams or be mixed with other engineers from other companies. Thanks. This sounds super exciting. So are you an engineer or technical person?
00:03:00
Speaker
wanting to learn about design for additive manufacturing? And can you spend about three up to eight hours a week over a two month period to learn a new skill? Or are you a company wanting to take advantage of additive manufacturing, but don't have the time or resources and you have lots of jigs and fixtures around that you'd like to look at redesigning? Then this is the hackathon challenge for
Understanding Jigs and Fixtures in Manufacturing
00:03:22
Speaker
you. So inquire through our website,
00:03:26
Speaker
albertaamn.com and the information will all be there for you to get more and we'll leave that I guess in the show notes as well. So let's learn more about all of this and we're going to send it over back to Shorty to interview our guests and learn about what are these jigs and fixtures and about additive manufacturing.
00:03:45
Speaker
Thank you. I was just about to ask you that because, man, jigs, fixtures, it sounds really cool, and I'm sure they do certain things. In our machine shop, we try and use them, but they're typically very difficult to design, and then we need to find somebody who can actually make them. So I'm really looking forward to hearing some of the nuances and best practices here. So I guess I should ask, what are jigs and fixtures?
00:04:14
Speaker
Like in a broad sense, I know they can be really specific and used for different applications like welding, measuring. So yeah, it's a tough question. I'm sorry to ask it, but yeah, what are jigs and fixtures? Yeah, so jigs and fixtures are kind of a broad term used in the manufacturing industry.
00:04:38
Speaker
And the whole point of jigs and fixtures is to ensure process repeatability. The definition for a jig is something that guides a tool. And then a fixture typically is referring to something that holds a workpiece. So, you know, a drill jig guides the drill bit
00:05:04
Speaker
in location, into a specific location, add a specific orientation. That's a very simple definition of a jig, or example of a jig. And then a fixture would be, in simplest terms, something like a clamp could be a fixture. Like a C-clamp? Yeah, like a C-clamp, something that would hold a bork piece in place while you perform some kind of operation on it.
00:05:33
Speaker
So yeah, in simplest terms, that's kind of what they are. A lot of times in industry, they are kind of combined into these massive tools. And whether it's an automated process or a manual process to hold parts and perform different machining operations or what have you. So yeah.
00:05:58
Speaker
It's interesting because as we start advancing the technology with CNC machines, more and more people are going to say, well, why don't we just get a vice or clamp that thing with the C-clamp and present it to the NC and it'll then figure out where to drill all the holes and everything.
Efficiency and Quality in Manufacturing
00:06:15
Speaker
But I've seen some hugely successful projects where they've taken the product and then a really simple application
00:06:22
Speaker
just drilling a one hole, for instance, using a drill jig and the amount of time it saved and the amount of throughput that went through there was just amazing. So yeah, I'm looking forward to hearing a little bit more about this and how it can help our companies be more profitable and more competitive, yeah.
00:06:40
Speaker
Yeah, efficiency is kind of the driving goal for a lot of these types of tools. And not only efficiency, but again, repeatability. And if you have those things, then you're going to end up with a quality product, right? So it's kind of the goal of manufacturing as a whole. Absolutely. And the limits of fits and dimensions and
00:07:04
Speaker
tolerancing that will basically guide us to that jig creation or fixture creation, right? So, let's talk a little bit more about the performance then. How did jigs and fixtures improve the performance of a process or, you know, a type of manufacturing process that we're trying to do? So, you know, as I said before, we could be doing anything. It could be a fixture to saw cut pieces or it could be the weld or
00:07:29
Speaker
You know machines. So what what are the ways that we can start improving the performance of our manufacturing? Yeah, so You know a lot of times I like to use the the implementation of more organic shapes is kind of the a good example of why
00:07:52
Speaker
uh, why good practices and creating jigs and fixtures is so important because, um, as we get away from, you know, blocky shapes and move more toward, more toward, uh, ergonomic products and, um, you know, that kind of thing.
00:08:09
Speaker
it's more and more difficult to hold things in place to make repeatable cuts, to make even to measure.
Challenges in Designing Jigs and Fixtures
00:08:19
Speaker
You think about something even as simple as like a brake line on a car. And you need to make sure it's the right shape. Well, OK, are you going to take your measuring tape and try and measure out all your different curves? Or would it be more simple just to
00:08:37
Speaker
you know, copy that geometry and bring it into a program that'll, you know, create a mating part off of that master geometry and then print it.
00:08:54
Speaker
That would be a good example of how additive can start to play roles in manufacturing and make it easier and less expensive to create those manufacturing tools.
00:09:09
Speaker
Absolutely. We've been doing a couple podcasts on that specifically and taking a 3D scanner, for instance, scanning the part that you want to put into that jig or fixture and then being able to actually start assembling that tool in your CAD software so you can do that. It's kind of funny that people are talking more about different types of
00:09:31
Speaker
Products to manufacture so in Alberta we're trying to diversify and look at medical device manufacturing so we've got this little talus bone here And I I don't even know how to hold this It works well with my fingers, but now that I need to you know machine this and measure it So this is this is the kind of thing that I'm I'm sure you're talking about right exactly Yeah
00:09:54
Speaker
You basically just create a nest based on that geometry or a scan and it could be as simple as one little staco clamp holding it in place while you do whatever you need to do. That brings us to some of the challenges. There's not only the design challenge and presenting the part, but what other types of challenges do you see when it comes to jigs and fixtures?
00:10:21
Speaker
You know, a big one is cost. You know, the cost to manufacture something
00:10:30
Speaker
In a traditional way, a lot of times you're using the same equipment that you're using to create your products, right? So you're eating 100% valuable value add time on your machines to create non-value added parts. So that's a big one. Or you're outsourcing
Additive Manufacturing Processes and Their Benefits
00:10:49
Speaker
and that can, especially with labor costs and all that stuff, that can be costly as well.
00:10:55
Speaker
Design skills is a big one that figuring out how to translate GD&T requirements and even just orientating datums and all that stuff and translating that into a fixture can be challenging, especially if there's limited CAD skills or anything like that.
00:11:24
Speaker
organic shapes is what we touched on a little bit earlier. How do you physically make the thing? We've typically gone to old school websites like CarLane or some of those manufacturers where you can buy like a jig kit. But like you said, it's for blocks and for standard shapes. So that's really the biggest challenge.
00:11:48
Speaker
In our shop, for instance, we don't have anybody that's dedicated to jigs and fixtures. It's one of those things where we either have to outsource it or look at an alternative way of manufacturing that jig and fixture. Seeing that you work for Stratasys, I'm probably sure there's some type of AM process that is coming out to help us manufacturers.
00:12:15
Speaker
you talking about using blocks and pegs and those types of more traditional ways of holding parts. I think inspection is a really good example of where you might use that in a more traditional way. But instead of doing that, why don't you just take your, you create your data,
00:12:39
Speaker
made off of your datum points to create your inspection fixture that's unique to each part. And then you don't actually have to spend a whole bunch of time setting up your blocks and creating your CMM setup. You just have your program.
00:12:56
Speaker
and then your specific fixture holding everything in place the way it's supposed to be. And then you run it. And again, if you do absolutely need to have something that's custom made, you're not eating up machine time to do it. Right. Absolutely.
00:13:12
Speaker
Yeah, it's huge. And typically what I've found is you get all this traditional sort of setup going and you stop building your jig or your fixture for measuring, and then all of a sudden you have clearance issues, right? So for me, I need to see how it's going to look in space before I actually start doing it. And that's where the software really helps, right? So with the types of software that's out there,
00:13:37
Speaker
There's a design for manufacturing and assembly, and I know that goes back to more of the product part of it. But the types of additive manufacturing equipment that's out there, is DFMA gaining more traction now with the ability of being able to create parts or products or jigs or fixtures a lot quicker? Yeah, absolutely.
00:14:06
Speaker
If you think about just the fundamental difference between traditional versus additive, traditional, most of the time, you're carving material out of a billet or some general shape. And then with additive, so it's a super time-consuming process if you've got really complex or sparse geometry that are required there.
00:14:36
Speaker
Whereas additive, you're only putting material where you need it. And depending on the type of AM you're talking about, with FDM specifically, you can even tailor the inside of the material, inside of the geometry, if you don't have a super load-bearing part or that kind of thing.
00:15:01
Speaker
So yeah, there's a lot of thought and benefit you can get out of thinking about it from a process perspective and realizing that, oh, you don't need to have all of this extra material because it takes so much time to hog it away in subtractive manufacturing that you can just leave it out and there's no
00:15:27
Speaker
No downside on the additive part. Then there's a whole bunch of other rules like minimum feature size and thinking about how layers adhere.
00:15:42
Speaker
There's a whole bunch of rules, right? With any manufacturing process, additive is no different. There are rules that make your designs more or less efficient to be built, to be used. And you always need to think about that.
00:15:58
Speaker
Absolutely. It sounds like an experience is one of those things that people would need and, you know, trying to find a master or sensei to be able to draw some of that knowledge from.
Material Selection in Additive Manufacturing
00:16:08
Speaker
And what we started doing is we've taken the old guys in the back of the shop that are really good. They have everything up in their head.
00:16:16
Speaker
trying to extract that information and put it into a computer and try and get more and more of that knowledge. What's really cool is like this hackathon for instance, you know, I wish that we had access to more of these when I was younger because when you're stuck, I shouldn't say stuck, when you're working in one company and your career path is sort of stagnant, it's difficult to get an experience. So
00:16:40
Speaker
having sacrifices is just amazing. But one of the things I wanted to bug you about was you mentioned different types of additive processes, so FDM, SLA, and we've been doing a lot of podcasts and talking about the different methods and when to use them. Is there a specific type of material or type of process that you would
00:17:00
Speaker
recommend for different types of manufacturing processes. Like, for instance, I would say, you know, a welding fixture jig needs to probably have some sort of heat resistance, right? Or a machining one, if we're going to be putting in the machine with coolant, it's got to have some sort of water chemical resistance. So yeah, how difficult is to learn your way through that?
00:17:21
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, it's definitely something that experience helps with the materials and the different additive processes. You said for a couple of different things there, heat resistance, chemical resistance, we have really moved to our focused FDM at
00:17:46
Speaker
the manufacturing space because you're using thermoplastics, they're really robust, well known. The mechanical, thermal, and chemical properties are relatively well known, easy to test.
00:18:01
Speaker
So that's kind of why FDM has been such a useful technology in that space because, you know, there's just a lot of different, there's a lot of flexibility that you have with within that process. So for high temp, you have things like Ultem and
00:18:22
Speaker
Even polycarbonate in some cases has relatively good heat capability. And chemical resistance, you've got things like nylon on the lower end and then, you know, up to like peak or peck materials on the higher end for things that are going to be in touch or in contact with different types of solvents and that kind of thing. Is there metal types of fixtures and jigs as well? Or is that really going to start weighing in on the pricing a little bit?
00:18:52
Speaker
So metal is, there's definitely additive metal systems out there. Typically, they're quite a bit more expensive. And a lot of times, we'll see people that are really interested in metal for the traditional manufacturing space. They'll find that the biggest barrier is that cost. So they'll see the price tag on the piece of equipment, at least a piece of equipment that's going to yield accurate parts.
00:19:21
Speaker
out of the machine and the facilities requirements involved in that. And a lot of times they're better off just outsourcing to a service bureau if they need metal at all. So that's another thing that we run into is a lot of people have this traditional manufacturing mindset of everything needs to be aluminum, everything needs to be steel. Well, does it though?
00:19:43
Speaker
Can you get by with using a plastic part? We've got a 35% filled nylon that has, in the X and Y direction, has a modulus of a million PSI. So that's a very rigid material that is used all over the place in tooling, especially in automotive.
00:20:07
Speaker
end of arm fixturing. And we're talking really big end of arm fixturing. We have our largest machine right now is two feet by three feet by three feet. And we're filling that with a robotic end of arm fixture for a car, part of a car. So the benefit of using material like that as opposed to what would have traditionally been like aluminum,
00:20:35
Speaker
you're reducing the weight of the tool. So you're able to reduce the load on your robotic arm and then potentially even increase your cycle time because you've got less weight swinging around in space there. So yeah, there's just a lot of places where you actually can get by and even benefit pretty greatly from using plastic over metal where it was traditionally being used.
00:21:02
Speaker
No, absolutely. We've, we've definitely seen so many examples of it. And like you said, I mean, you, you look at where do you need to beef up the design, for instance, you know, back to need to go and you design it accordingly. And that's the beauty with AM and with the CAD software that we have these days. Um, it sounds like RDP, um, is a good place. And I probably should pull in Tonya to talk a little bit about it. Cause they've got quite a few pieces of equipment there. And so Tonya, do you have any words to add?
Iterative Design Process for Jigs and Fixtures
00:21:32
Speaker
Thanks, Jordy. I was just going to ask Jay a question. When you're going through this design process for design for additive, and even in the jigs and fixtures, how many cycles would you expect to go through to have a really great design? Is this a one and done thing or what would be a typical piece? Because you think, ah, jig and fixtures is going to be such a small piece. I'll have this knocked out in like a couple of hours. It'd be perfect bang. What's the real expectation here to do something meaningful?
00:22:00
Speaker
I mean, it really depends on the complexity of the process, right? That's where with additive, we have those different materials, right? Some cost more than others. When you're prototyping, you're fixturing, use a less expensive material and you'll be able to iterate so much more quickly, sparse it out, make it super light so it doesn't take much time or material. And then when you nail in that design,
00:22:27
Speaker
then go to the heavy-hitting materials where you're actually going to be putting them into production. And I would say, for the example of that M. DeVarn fixture, you're usually going to have to go through at least a couple of different iterations to get to your final design. But that's kind of the beauty of it, because you can put something in production and then realize that, OK, that's not
00:22:54
Speaker
Perfect. And then you can just create another one. And yes, there's cost associated with it, but the cost doing that versus having to go back to a machine shop or a tool shop and have them recreate a metal tool from scratch is just so much that it just makes sense to go with additive where you can and then have that flexibility in your process and have people on the line be able to say, ah, this doesn't work for me. Can we try this?
00:23:22
Speaker
and just have a lot more back and forth between the people that are actually doing the work and the people that are designing. So yeah, there's definitely, with anything, there's always iteration that's going to happen. But it just creates such a more flexible process in getting to the end result. So in this hackathon challenge piece, then, we'll have different manufacturing companies that have a jigger fixture that they'd like to have redesigned.
00:23:50
Speaker
And we'll have a team, groups of, or little teams of all sorts of different engineers or technical people that want to try this out. And then the, I, then they're going to come in, probably maybe meet with you every couple of weeks or something that to, to show your design. And then we'll get it printed at RDP using one of our 3d
Hackathon Logistics and Opportunities
00:24:09
Speaker
printers, probably likely on the, our new Stratasys 450. So I'll plug that one for sure. Thanks Shorty. So we can do those rapid iterations.
00:24:19
Speaker
Um, during their check-ins with you, what are some of the things that you're going to be looking for in terms of their designs to do like a go, no go, um, in the, in the printing? A bribe that starts out, right? They usually get that out of the way. Yep.
00:24:37
Speaker
Yeah, so that's a good question. A lot of things that I'll be looking at, you know, there's the important ones where we're talking about it impacts the functionality of the tool and that's minimum feature size.
00:24:50
Speaker
you know, thin walls. First and foremost is I'm going to be asking, you know, how is this tool going to be used? Not only like what is the function, the desired function of the tool, but how is it going to be used by the operator? And that'll kind of inform me how beefy it should be. You know, and there's a lot that can go into play whether or not something needs to be
00:25:19
Speaker
you know solid you know bulky and solid or if something can be bulky and sparse with different components that are that are different um you know features or pieces of the geometry that need to be solid for being in contact with um you know a metal piece or something heavy or whatever and then
00:25:41
Speaker
From there, we can talk more about how to integrate some metal components off the shelf, threaded inserts, shims, that kind of thing to help create even more flexibility and functionality in these designs. So those are the kind of things that I'll be looking at and thinking about.
00:26:03
Speaker
It's going to be really interesting as these projects start coming in, you're going to see different types of manufacturing processes and then they're going to have to sort of design, you know, the fig jigs and fixtures around, you know, that type of environment, right? So they're almost going to have to, I would think, identify
00:26:21
Speaker
based on the environment, what type of AM is going to be best suited, I guess, for that environment, right? So the one thing I know about Stratasys is there's so many different types of materials. So in that FDM realm, they might be able to basically say, oh, FDM's kind of 90% of what I'm going to be able to use, right? So it's going to be really interesting.
00:26:42
Speaker
Yeah, and that's something actually I wanted to get into that earlier because there are five technologies within Stratasys, right? So we've got FDM, SLA, powder bed fusion, P3, which is like our DLP technology and PolyJet, right? So three photopolymer and two thermoplastic technologies. So
00:27:07
Speaker
We can certainly look at how any of those tooling designs could benefit from any one of those technologies. It's not just FDM that we use for jigs and fixtures. We can certainly use and have seen a lot of success with creating jigs and fixtures with our SAF powder bed fusion technology.
00:27:29
Speaker
Even our you know, especially really really small parts that you're working with you can absolutely use our p3 technology For for those kinds of things their materials are extremely extremely tough For you know being as small as small as you can make them Yeah, that's that's definitely something I'll be thinking about as well. Awesome. Yeah, that sounds really good. I
00:27:56
Speaker
All right, then Tonya, how many spots do we have? Like this is probably a competition base. You want to get as many applications in as possible for the hackathon. So, um, yeah, I think as things evolve, you'll kind of update the groups and hopefully we get, you know, uh, lots of projects to choose from and we get the cream of the crop. That'd be great. So it'll be a really great challenge and, uh, we'll be accepting applications. We're looking into early January.
00:28:23
Speaker
for both companies that like to submit a project for review and there's no cost to anyone to participate. And all of the printing will be done as part of our funded program through the manufacturing enhancement and export cluster. So that's really exciting. And then all of the results will get presented at Smart MTX in May. So another reason to participate is to join that Smart MTX and showcase the work and meet with some of the other
00:28:51
Speaker
other people there who are both the vendors, the manufacturers, and the users of all these technologies. So a really great program, and we're looking forward to kicking this off. So thank you.
00:29:02
Speaker
Thank you very much. This was great. We were part of the Smart MTX last year. What an amazing presentation. We got to see some really cool projects. We actually had some projects in there as well that were quite successful. We're going to hopefully commercialize those soon. Yeah, that'd be great.
00:29:24
Speaker
I'm going to have to edit that. But everything that you need to know will be in the notes on the podcast. And then check out our LinkedIn page to make sure that you're up to date there. And there'll probably be, is there a specific person that's going to be in charge or is there an email account monitored? Tonya, you got like the least amount of time ever. So have you got somebody like Carson doing that?
00:29:48
Speaker
You bet. So if you go to info at albertaamn.com, that's our email for the Alberta Additive Manufacturing Network. So email to that and we're monitoring that daily. And then Carson absolutely will be the technical contact to get all of the teams together and connect with our sponsors.
00:30:10
Speaker
and our partners on this piece. So that's exactly by getting to introduce to Carson today, then you'll know some of the people behind this that you'll be able to be working with to have this through. So don't delay, inquire today. Where'd you get that from? That sounds like a pretty good line. I know, right? We should maybe use that.
00:30:31
Speaker
Is there anything else that we should talk about today? I think we've covered pretty much everything. Jacob, thank you so much. I'm very jealous. Absolutely. I love that neck of the woods that you're in. Mountain biking, snowboarding, so active in that area. Oh, yeah. I love it. Get a little bit of rain, no snow.
00:30:48
Speaker
And of course, Tonya and Carson are in the central Alberta region, which basically covers the whole entire region. So yeah, it's a good mix. I'm really happy to see this group. It's going to be really fun and exciting. Well, thank you so much. I really appreciate your time. And I'm looking forward to the next podcast session. Thank you so much, everybody. Take care. Thanks, everyone.