Continuing on from day 1 of the #inktober #engineering challenge, we refine the performance requirements of our metal additive manufacturing system in terms of:

  1. The business benefit that it provides to the end user – our customer’s customer
  2. The output of the system – the product it produces, not the product (the system) we are designing

We also preview two “fun” precision engineering challenges that we’ll have to deal with:

  1. Thermal management issues at precision interfaces
  2. Interchangeability

Our machine is a little unique in that the product it produces has three states and associated processes:

  1. Raw powder material distributed evenly
  2. The pattern being built up and fused together from that powder
  3. The finished product, which is then transported on a pallet for secondary operations

We begin to identify the considerations in each state and at each stage of the project that affect performance as we have defined it.

Maxwell style kinematic mount with hardened inserts-180 w

Learn the principles, techniques, and challengesof designing a machine or instrumentwith submicron accuracy



Time stamps

0:20 Performance / what the customer’s customer is paying for
3:50 Fun precision engineering challenge # 1 – Thermal management at precision interfaces
5:18 Fun precision engineering challenge # 2 – Interchangeability
8:40 Designing from the product out / the product’s 3 states:
9:50 #3 – The finished product
11:26 #2 – The product in process of being built
13:40 #1 – The raw material
14:48 Raw material preparation
18:18 Building up the layers
23:40 Reviewing & wrapping up

Follow along the rest of the way

This post is part of the 31-day inktober engineering challenge. See all of the posts in the challenge here.

Related Articles

In the video, I mention the relationship between repeatability, accuracy, and interchangeability. To learn more about the critical, limiting relationship between repeatability and accuracy, check out my article