Introduction
Tomas Piazza, from Trissino in Italy, is the sole administrator of T Design, “a mechanical design studio that designs and manufactures products to meet customer needs for the past two decades.”
T Design’s office building
Hurdles to Overcome
Given the nature of Tomas’ business, the testing stage is crucial for all of their project’s verification. During the testing stage, T Design “assists the client by proposing solutions and parameters for the creation of prototypes to be used for laboratory tests and experiments that allow all functional and production aspects to be verified.” Thus, they pay great attention to detail, considering aspects such as functionality, efficiency, and economic impact.
For some of their projects, T Design had issues with the machining processes that were “geometric in nature, because there are extremely thin structures that cannot be made with traditional manufacturing methods.”
2. LED holder pieces 3D printed on a Raise3D Pro3
There was another hurdle that is a common occurrence in traditional manufacturing to overcome, and that was the cost of tooling for small components, that was too high in comparison to the resulting fabrication.
“Another need the team had was to make multiple versions of the same component and then assemble it until the best configuration was found,” Tomas explains. “This practice had become economically unsustainable with traditional processes because of the sum of fixed costs for each component.” This is despite the material being used was Nylon PA6, which is cheap and easy to machine tool.
For these reasons, they set up their own in-house laboratory for assembly, testing and verification, called T Design SRLS.
T Design’s in-house laboratory
Adopting 3D Printing
In an effort to find more flexibility that would create more satisfying solutions, T Design looked for a new process that could quickly create complex yet functional components. By visiting trade shows and talking to their suppliers, T Design became familiar with 3D printing as a rapid prototyping technology, although they were initially reluctant to invest.
However, the advantages became clearer over time. After a long time researching online and comparing various 3D printing brands, Raise3D emerged as offering the options with the product with the highest price/quality ratio. T Design chose the Raise3D Pro3 since it allows them to print big components.
3D printing small batch components on the Raise3D Pro3
Easy to Learn
The staff at T Design had no prior experience with 3D printing, yet they were able to easily navigate the learning curve and use of their new machine, thanks to the information available online from Raise3D and other sources.
The team uses only Raise3D premium filaments for the prints, specifically Raise3D PLA. The resulting prints were immediately pleasing, as the accuracy in relation to the previously designed digital model was high.
LED holder assembled
The Raise3D Ecosystem
T Design makes use of ideaMaker as a slicer and also for starting prints remotely. The printer works around the clock, and the team can monitor the progress from anywhere using RaiseCloud. The advantages of this ecosystem are many, but include being able to run the printer during off-peak periods, which in turn saves them money in electrical bills.
Conclusion: The Investment Paid Off in Both Time and Money
The bottom line is that T Design are happy with overcoming their initial reservations about using 3D Printing for their projects. As they further state: “Using Raise3D ecosystem is advantageous especially when the quantities do not justify the investment of the mold, with economic savings of up to 70% and reduction of time in the order of 90%.”
T-Design logo
For this Case Study, Tomas Piazza was interviewed by Arianna Zanetti, Marketing Manager of Ciano Shapes, a Raise3D reseller in Italy.
