SpookTheHamster wrote:The price range for a laser machine is probably not much different to that of a large 5-axis mill.
Yeah that may be true but you wouldn't use that machine to produce those parts either. A large 5 axis mill is almost as different in it's capabilities and cost from a turn/mill lathe as a Laser is.
SpookTheHamster wrote:Also remember that with SLS/SLA more than one part can be produced at a time. You have a set volume of goo/powder to work with, and you can fill it with as many or few bits as you like.
Although I'm going out on a limb here I'm going to have to question the ability of SLS to produce multiple parts any quicker than single ones.
I have used a little laser etching machine and whilst you can load a rack of parts to be processed without the need for setting up each time it dosen't actually make the process 'Go' any quicker. Divsion of labour, the machine still only has the same amount of lasers (1 or 2 I guess). In the same way as wikipedia desbribes that SLS works you can see the Laser as the cutting tool, it cannot be in two places at once.
So if this 'multi-part in single cycle' breakthrough is simply to avoid interupting the cycle to re-load parts, human intervention if you will, this can be acheived with the aforementioned 'Big Mill' by using a mounting rack or plain old clamps to load multiple parts/peices of material at once. Even the humble lathe can be accesorised with a bar feed attachment of a pallet loader.
I also happen to think that the overheads of the Big mill will be much lower than a comparativly priced big laser, but that bit I will admit to not being 100% sure on.
SLS is still great though and your right about design intent and stuff there is an increasing need for weird shaped parts particularly in F1, there is a reason that most raw metal comes in round bar form though, because circles are usually best, cheapeast and strongest and able to go round and round if required.
So on the subject of THIS part i remain convinced it is turned.
