SLM/DMLS Manufacturing and Vape Products

[JustNux]

With the advancement of various technologies DMLS/SLM (Selective Laser Melting) has come to the front and centre of my mind when it comes to part manufacturing as it opens the door to materials which could normally only be machined and produced in quantities that either justified the CAM work done or machines being setup for a specific job.

I am curious as to the general communities opinions of using this method of manufacturing when producing vaporisation hardware.

Material wise there are quite a few "Medical Grade" forms of powdered metal that have become cost effective, in particular Titanium (grade 2) to Stainless Steel (316L )

Would you trust a product made with this method of manufacturing ? Are there any unknowns that concern you ?

My own opinion :

I believe that DMLS/SLM is an advancement forward and has been used within the medical field for a very long time. They have become a bit more obtainable in recent years with more places offering printing services at a more affordable rate and there are now metals of interest to the vaping community ( I believe ) available.

From a renewability perspective, building something from a powder and allowing it to take shape vs milling away a block is always going to be less wasteful (though larger shops likely recycle their milling waste as well).

It opens the doors in certain applications that are not available through subtractive manufacturing methods.

One of the downsides of the technology is that the surface finish is not as smooth as metal made from a dye/cast so if you wanted a sterile surface I'm not sure it would be the right application as much like with 3d printing whilst the material might be ok the pours and layers leave space for bacteria in situations where sterility is required. However , that not being our use case and where it might be the object is being heated regularly I don't think this particular issue with the technology is relevant in the right applications for vapers.


Curious on peoples opinions and I apologise if this isn't the most appropriate section for this post

 

[Delta3DStudios]

I've already been playing around with metal 3D printing for over a decade making high temp scoop tools, although only recently have I started playing with truly vapor safe 316 surgical grade stainless steel for use in the vapor path.

The advantages for me is the ability to create intricate designs that cannot be replicated using traditional manufacturing (for example right now I'm working on a design for a heat-exchanger cooling unit for TinyMight stems which flows the vapor through a maze internally which effectively triples the vapor path length turning a 30mm insert into a nearly 90mm vapor path, as well as a recently published helix twist mouthpiece for the TinyMight - more copies will be available for purchase soon).

However due to the costs of manufacturing I often limit myself to smaller items. Additionally, for legal reasons I personally have no intention of designing any 3D printed vaporizers even though I'd love to do so. I have some awesome ideas for some exotic vaporizers, but even selling 3D printed accessories for vaporizers has become quite a headache legally (IE, I cannot ship anything internationally if it says the word "vaporizer" or "vape" on the packaging materials otherwise customs rejects the shipment and sends it back to me). And that doesn't include other limitations like the inability to ship to certain states like Massachusetts which has banned the sale of vaporizers.

Overall it's just a massive headache that I've opted to stay away from, and instead focus on custom parts to enhance the performance of existing devices on the market.

 

[JustNux]

Thank you for sharing your input , it's very insightful and legalities are a big thing for me being where I'm located which is why I personally don't plan to use the term vape anymore for the items I plan to design and make available.

My own projects are currently more in the Open Hardware space rather than commercial space and looking at potentially organising part runs for locals who are going to continue to have a hard time obtaining ball vapes in particular.

Cost and manufacturing method are always something for me that really comes down to using the tool that best suits the job. In the real world I'm a consultant who often spends his days teaching businesses just because you know how to do something X way doesn't mean it meets every business requirement and honestly whilst I love 3d Printing I know it's not the tool for a lot of jobs.

SLM is a great example, you could price up a block of SS to be milled and have it priced at 75 dollars , and the same object can be priced with SLM and come out to 800. With that said a few smaller parts go the other way and can be a fraction of the cost of milling the same material and the price difference comes in a lot lower than with milling.

With that said my hope was to gather a general opinion on the manufacturing method itself and obviously very very keen to hear from people like yourself who have been using SLM along with other materials for years

I love your maze example , I was thinking very similar in the concept of the heating disks TKO has available for pre-sale. Obviously he's done an amazing job and nothing says it needs to be improved but that was one that really stuck out to me as allowing us to make use of maximising the technology to embed air ways that are simply not possible with milling and which significantly increase the air's path against the hot metal. Seems creative minds think alike

 

[Ramahs]

 

[Delta3DStudios]

For sure, I think it's best to utilize 3D printing for critical components which cannot be machined using traditional manufacturing technologies.

For example look at the now discontinued grasshopper vaporizer. It was jam packed with technology and had a lot of promise, but it was overly complicated in it's design which was it's downfall - too expensive to manufacture with a high failure rate.

HOWEVER the most interesting part was their innovative heat exchanger which was 3D printed - about the size of a small coin battery, they never shared any photos of the part's design, but I surmise that the heating coil was wrapped around this 3D printed heat exchanger, which heated the air as it flowed through a part less than 10 millimeters thick.

I was sad when Hopper Labs shut down, because they had a great idea, if only they had simplified the design (or as I wished, they increased the dimensions to make a slightly larger model with space for a larger standard 1440 battery)

 

[Entheos Hex]

I'm the designer of a new convection device coming out. Not exactly SLM but the upper body of our unit is made with SLS printing. The technology is really helpful in terms of design freedom. No need to make your designs "CNC friendly".