The effects of losing or breaking parts of products or devices can range from inconvenient to the disastrous.3D printing will consign the days of having to pay exorbitant repair costs, or else throw away a mostly functioning device, to the past, by enabling consumers to produce replacement and spare parts.
Engineers at Ashley Furniture used 3D printing to replace a vacuum retainer ring for a point to point drilling machine. Instead of buying the whole pod for $700, they were able to 3D scan the part to capture the geometry, and print a replacement part for $1.The digital workflow means that costly storage of rarely-ordered replacement parts will no longer be an issue for manufacturers, and consumers will stand a chance of having even their out-of-production components replaced.
Engineers at Ashley Furniture used 3D printing to replace a vacuum retainer ring for a point to point drilling machine. Instead of buying the whole pod for $700, they were able to 3D scan the part to capture the geometry, and print a replacement part for $1.The digital workflow means that costly storage of rarely-ordered replacement parts will no longer be an issue for manufacturers, and consumers will stand a chance of having even their out-of-production components replaced.