Getting much more reasonable. More than you think and if you consider multiple mill set-ups then we are approaching the same ranges. The WJC that i am thinking of is no more messy than the mill I normally deal with. Enclosure is a must and it amounts to Rod in - then cut part out, conveyor if you desire.> >Wire EDM cutting? Water Jet Cutting? These are spendy in comparison to >milling, but they are great processes. (WJC sure is messy though!)
The tolerances don't need to be crankcase caliber for this part. You build in a buffer with your clamp slot on the low side and everything else is just cream. Certainly doable via extrusion even on large mass parts.>Hmm. I toured Richland Specialty Extrusion this year, and they had some >pretty loose tolerances on their tubes, compared to Sandvik Special metals, >which uses pilgering for its seamless tubing. As far as the milling >operation, that has a lot to do with what kind of mill you are using, and >the state of tool wear, and who the operator is. I machined a precision >gyroscope last term, and I can garuntee you it is within a .0005" tolerance, >which is far closer than you would ever need for most any other project.
Ti is hard to extrude, but not impossible. It probably isn't the choice for our application anyway so it really doesn't matter. One neat thing about Ti extrusions is that you can do impact extrusion with relatively short lengths and get away with some marvelous products, provided you have in-line heat treatment. I would agree that this would be prohibitively expensive.>Titanium and Zirconimum are generally unsuitable for extrusion due to their >crystal structure (hexagonal close packed, it cracks under the residual >stresses imposed during the extrusion. Pilger rolling is the preferred >process). The government found this out the hard way. They built the >worlds largest extrusion press to extrude zircoloid tubing to use as nuclear >fuel rod cladding, and discovered that the process was seriously flawed >after conducting a couple of runs. They now lease that facility to Richland >Specialty Extrusion, a division of Kaiser Aluminum. I've seen it in >operation, its great. They take these aluminum billets that are about a >foot in diameter and two feet long, then press that out into a 40 foot long >tube, which then gets shipped off to Easton Sports who draws that into >softball bats.
Not a P.E. yet, takes years under another P.E. in this state. I have critical things checked by our design group but for the most part I am free to roam. I'm not building bridges or buildings. Yes there are lectual property contracts here but I just made it public domain a few minutes ago. Big Deal. I come up with zillion dollar designs every day... Just a worker bee. Patents are a waste of time, 90% of the time. My philosophy is that you need to make your design obsolete with a new one before it goes public. That's happened many times over. If they want to pursue a patent then that's their biz. Patents that are worth anything cost a lot of money and time. I'd rather design the next zillion dollar widget and move on. LaterZ Dash>Are you a P.E.? Don't you have an intellectual property contract with your >company? I'm sure they will take a piece of that too, even if you did think >it up on your own time at home. You know, the problem with patents is that >once you apply for one, your design is out there for everybody to see, and >unless you have lots of money for a good legal team, your idea can get >stolen. I did some work for a associate professor who owns his own company. >They are designing and producing power converters to use with fuel cells, >and he is afraid of applying for a patent for that very reason. > >Jeff