Anyone know of some good rapid prototyping service bureaus? Maybe some online ones?
I mean for printing in 3D, not rapid injection molding or rapid CNC. Stereolithography serivce.
Where are you located? At university of liverpool there are few. I suppose you could get what you need here, as long as you are in england…
thanks for the offer jmg, very generous. Am in US.
Protolabs doesn’t do the type of rapid prototyping most of us are thinking about … when we think of sending an STL file out and getting back a part. Protolabs DOES do something very cool, they use subtractive (CNC) machining to make it out of the actual material that would be used in production so the prototypes are functional and not brittle. That is their ‘firstcut’ service.
They have another service called ‘protomold’ that cuts a low-volume mold for short runs of actual molded parts.
There are some limitations: firstcut can’t make parts with undercuts like bottle caps with threading. It also can’t make caged objects, like those gimmick caged gears made all in one ‘part’ from 3d printers that we’ve all seen at trade shows.
I have heard of stereolithography parts that are not brittle and are available in a variety of materials. I saw an ad for one of them that seemed oriented towards professionals, can’t remember the service bureau name. Seen one by searching the net but don’t know if they are good, it is called ponoco.com.
I found this shop in the Chicago area (Streamwood)
Geoff Garner
Scimitar Prototyping & Molding, Inc.
http://www.sci-proto.com/
Phone: 630-483-3875
Fax: 630-483-3876
Google “rapid prototype [your area]”. Call a few of them, explain your needs and goals with the prototype, let them recommend which method/material is suitable, send them the part, get a quote, decide who to go with.
Some big online players:
There has been multiple “ads” disguised as a discussion on this forum as well, do a search.
Where in the country are you?
http://www.dynacept.com/ - NY
http://1prototype.com/ - FL
What you’re looking for most likely is some place that will do SLA’s. There’s lots of places but I use the above two for anything that needs to be SLA’ed.
We have a list of prototyping companies on our site, sorted by process or by state:
Feel free to message me if you have any questions.
createitforme.com … FDM & 3D Printing.
If you do not see what you are looking, email us through the contact us page or PM me. We offer some services that are not yet loaded on the website.
Creating made easy!