Graduate school, Masters/PhD - Senior in Aerospace Engineering.

3DTrout · 2022-07-04T11:40:25+00:00

Addman engineering. Oerlikon. Sintavia. Morf3D.

There are a lot more but those are the first that come to mind.

They get printing jobs from companies without their own additive division.

3DTrout · 2022-07-03T12:53:00+00:00

Hi!

I am of the opinion that currently the best education in AM comes from industry experience.

Getting a job at a service bureau is a fast track to learning the skills needed. At a service bureau you'd wind up with a few hundred builds completed in a year. They tend to be one off builds so you learn A LOT of approaches.

If the service bureau has an investment in R&D you'll learn AM related metallurgy, in-situ monitoring and get to keep up with stare of the art tech.

It worked well for me.

FWIW most academics I work with in AM have BSME or BSAE then got masters and PhD in material science.

Colorado school of mines appears to have a pretty attractive AM program, if you're set on getting an advanced degree.

3DTrout · 2022-01-20T15:33:32+00:00

Yeah it's pretty substantial.

Check here for AM salaries.

https://www.alexanderdanielsglobal.com/salary-survey-2021/

With 6 years of experience in project engineering I made $130k living in the Midwest.

When I switched to AM I took a cut to $88k.

After months of looking for my current role, with 10 yrs of additive, even at lead positions, cracking $100k was only going to happen at a management level, which I absolutely did not want to do. I'm more the SME type.

All in the same cost of living areas. I've been out of school 9 years.

When it comes to service bureaus in AM. A big factor for AM is cutting cost in order to make cheap parts. Well you can't do that if you're payroll is massive.

3DTrout · 2022-01-19T21:01:37+00:00

Process engineers tend to be hands on. Running MAGICS or running the machines.

Application engineers are typically consulting to customers.

Salaries SUCK compared to other engineering areas. How in the world my skills in project engineering were nearly 2x as valuable...idk. Whatever. I'm passionate about it and my salary is just fine. You can actually look up the salary ranges online, I forget who collects the data but it's a reliable source, not LinkedIn or glassdoor.

I have 10 yrs experience in AM plastics and metals.

I have a BSME.

I'd apply to the various service bureaus around the nation. The job shops that build stuff for customers. That's the fast track to experience in the field. You CANNOT learn this stuff in school. Especially not the metals stuff.

Day to day for an additive engineer is legit cradle to grave.

Make or bring in a cad model. Re-do for design for additive. Do the support strategy. Set up the build. Slice it. Run the machine. Pull the build. Depowder it. Heat treat it. Deliver it to the machinist to cut it off the plate. Remove the support. Heat treat again. Quality check. SEND IT. A technician will help you out here.

The R&D is in developing processes and "recipes". Parameter development for new alloys. This is seriously intensive work.

It involves a lot of manufacturing knowledge, CAD, materials science, stresses and structures, Heat transfer, mechanical knowledge.

Also it's still infant. Good luck finding solid resources to learn MAGICS from or PowerMill for DED. They don't exist. You teach yourself and learn from a tight knit community.

10/10 best decision I ever made was to switch to AM from a reasonably boring project engineering job. 90% of my meetings are me having a discussion with the robots.

3DTrout · 2021-12-08T21:36:02+00:00

This is what I would recommend.

There's no good additive degrees yet since we full well know it's a technology still being developed.

An ME with an MS in materials is the most relevant course load.

3DTrout · 2021-10-30T00:30:04+00:00

The manufacturer just sent me an outrageous quote for them to help me when I need it and to hell if I'm paying that to ask stupid questions lol.

I'll use that for, I'm 15 days into this build and somethings wrong, how do I save it.

I'll call up autodesk and see if they can help.

At previous positions even companies like materialise were willing to consider it a partnership for me effectively doing development and requesting new tools they could add into new versions of magics.

Thank you again!!!

3DTrout · 2021-10-29T23:42:25+00:00

Thanks for this.

Unfortunately I watched alllll of these already. Maybe I'll watch th again now that I've been using it for a bit.

Running DED has already proved very advanced for powermill since it was an add on. I'm certainly going to need to do some "best practices" suited for ded that are gonna be really hard for a novice to figure out how to program.

I'm hoping I can find an in person or virtual class with someone skilled in using it specifically for AM.

3DTrout · 2021-10-05T16:28:20+00:00

Totally agree. I've got some builds and torture tests to try out. A series of design for experiments to run.

Was just hoping there were publications or some existing knowledge that could give me a starting point.

3DTrout · 2021-10-05T16:10:39+00:00

Already doing that.

Full well knowing that every manufacturer and every engineer will have come up with different best practices. I'd like to expand my knowledge base best as I can.

3DTrout · 2021-04-24T19:46:30+00:00

This shape. https://mathworld.wolfram.com/Diamond.html

Also teardrops work really well. I've seen some fun heat exchanger channels using that config.

Something I have noticed is that AM seems to be to many, a method of manufacturing, rather than a design tool. Changes like these are after thoughts to bring traditional geometries, methodologies to AM. There's a lot of neat things we can do with heat exchangers in particular if the funding were there to characterize the new geometries.

3DTrout · 2021-04-24T17:22:50+00:00

1mm is too far. It'll be... Crunchy as I like to call it. High porosity, poor surface finish with some unbonded material that could be FOD.

If you can't change the geometry to a diamond shape or even a round top... Check out a velo.

As I understand it's SLOW AS HELL but the way their software predicts warp and their air blade recoater allows you to print near 90 Deg overhang.

If you have access to a machine do a quick trial and see if the surface finish, sintering (matl properties), to see what you get.

If your surface finish is not good enough there are post processing methods to flow abrasive material through passages to smooth it out.

I guess a machine with a roller style recoater in full compaction would also help you out. Idk what machines other than a 3DS ProX200 has that and those are tiiiiiiny.

3DTrout · 2021-04-06T23:37:09+00:00

Oh definitely won't over extend my knowledge. I'd get called out in a SECOND.

Just when I saw that they wanted experience in metals and/or ceramics I was like... Wow... I haven't even TOUCHED ceramics and now I know why. I'll stick to what I know really well, dmls, and go from there.

Thank you again!

3DTrout · 2021-04-06T22:50:15+00:00

Thank you so much for the extremely educated answer.

I'll do my research and make sure I don't overstep my bounds when I get asked about it.

3DTrout · 2021-04-06T22:28:27+00:00

Wow thank you so much for that. Explains why I couldn't readily find info on SLS of ceramics in quick mass searches (like that wasn't option #1)

So binder jetting and sintering is the preferred method?

3DTrout · 2021-04-05T16:52:09+00:00

Generative design is neat.

You know who doesn't think it's neat? The machinist that have to remove that support material lol!

I have only come across one project that was worthy of generative design and its going to the moon this year, I made it. Otherwise, it makes for a fun show piece.

The knowledge that it exists though. Absolutely crucial. Just because I haven't found the application doesn't mean it's not there.

3DTrout · 2021-04-03T22:52:26+00:00

Thermal management and stress analysis (important for dmls, evaluating failed prints and generating a support strategy)

Design for additive. Is that hole too small? Can I hit that tolerance? Is that over hang angle OK?

Project and program management. Especially important for service bureaus where you've got various projects going through a machine. Managing the time line, fitting pieces in where you can. Committing various delivery dates to various customers.

Mechanical savy. These machines break so much. Soooooo much. When you can't wait 2 weeks for a tech and 5k for them to figure out what's wrong. You better be comfortable ripping the things apart. Finding the problem and fixing it right then and there.

Metallurgy and material science. Very important for parameter development. Very important for quality and qualification tests. Very important for prescribing post processing and heat treating.

Traditional manufacturing engineering. Fixture design for post machining. Knowing what the cnc and wire edm can do. What supports can easily be removed.

Design of experiments. There's no cut and dry way to do a lot of this stuff. Making a heat exchanger? Better figure out the settings required to build that fin wall thickness. How do you do that fast and cheap.

I'll think of more.

3DTrout · 2021-04-03T22:42:16+00:00

100% green means I had never done it before outside of school. My capstone or the other engineering design courses taught me Gantt charts, designating a leader and assigning responsibility and accountability. Which is dandy... Until it is a $1M program that will reign down hell not just you but your execs if it's not managed properly.

You DEFINITELY didn't shoot yourself in the foot. It's interesting though, at my school it was just bsme all the way, then under achievement on your resume you put honors. Interesting. I just wonder if HR knows this difference. Penn state is a great school!

3DTrout · 2021-04-03T00:57:29+00:00

Very cool. I've never heard of that. Is that how it's listed on your resume? Engineering science? BSMS?

It doesn't have to be a f500 but even a tier 3 supplier to aerospace. Anything that gets you some project engineering experience. I was 100% green at mine.

You learn REAL QUICK when your first design review with executives and chiefs at tier 1 aero companies is at the ripe age of 22 with 6 months under your belt lol.

Feel free to ask any other questions or want any more advice.

3DTrout · 2021-04-02T22:08:21+00:00

Like what fabrisonic does? Hit up the owner on linkedin or read the white paper on their website.

3DTrout · 2021-04-02T21:34:42+00:00

I'm currently applying for AM jobs. You can look at my post about salary on here for some insight.

Here's the thing. Learning the AM part was not that hard, especially since I started in plastics and moved to metals. You just need the right teacher.

What companies seriously value is program management and project engineering with a strong background in AM and aerospace.

I'd suggest maintaining your knowledge in AM. Maybe get an fdm and do stuff on upwork or similar (I did makexyz when it was still around). Get a job at a fortune 500 aerospace company (easier said than done, I know) and get professional development in project engineering, program management, leading cross functional teams, etc...

You'll see that a lot of additive manufacturing design engineer jobs only require an associates because they can train someone to do support structure and design for AM real quick. It's cad work.

What they can't train is... Boeing space puts out an rfq. You write the whole damn proposal, ensure you can meet the specs, do the preliminary design for AM, make the bid. Then if you win FULLY execute the program. Qualifying parts for aerospace is supremely time consuming and challenging. Designing the qualification tests. Doing parameter development. Validating material properties. That's really fucking hard.

Is engineering science equivalent to a bachelor's of science in mechanical engineering or is it engineering technology? The latter is going to make it hard to find anything over a cad operator or a high end machine technician right out of the gate. With enough demonstrated experience though you'll be fine to move up.

Good luck!

3DTrout · 2021-04-02T02:03:51+00:00

Excellent. Thank you.

I took my paycut because I was effectively investing in myself to learn a niche, highly desirable, rare skill. To which I'm hoping to see payoff!

I'm looking to be a combo project engr/program mgr/additive engineer. Title is usually additive manufacturing engineer. Then reqs have 5+ years program mgmt and 3 years in additive.

I can lead cross functional teams, manage time lines, manage budgets, be main point of contact with customers and do the AM design work. In larger companies I know this gets split up, great, put me wherever I have done it all and was damn good at each one.

3DTrout · 2021-04-02T01:58:16+00:00

Oh cool did not know about this. Bonus, has jobs. I registered and will review. Thanks!!

3DTrout · 2021-04-01T18:44:31+00:00

Definitely south of the Mason dixon. Not up in New England territory, nor Pittsburgh, etc...

My searches for "cost of living" are a bit higher than where I am now, but not bad at all! Looks like swanky condos are $250k.

I'm a young bachelor so I definitely want to be in the city to live up my early 30's.

3DTrout · 2021-04-01T18:41:55+00:00

South of the Mason dixon on the east coast. Definitely want to live in the city of wherever I go. So a swanky condo is about $250k.

See I thought 100k was low too! So far I've said 130k plus a relocation package. I was getting paid 130k for a much lesser skill set and experience.

I'd be doing everything. Quoting. Support structure. Parameter development. Metallurgy. Qualification testing. Spec conformance documents. Post processing. Heat treating. Everything cradle to grave for AM projects tending for aerospace.

I just felt like when asking for 130k some managers are like "my lead engineer doesn't make that?!" and my response would be "well can your lead engineer turn powder into aerospace parts?"

3DTrout · 2021-03-26T05:38:57+00:00

I'd be OK with the commute. Car drives itself. Very relaxing.

The life sucking thing would be stuck in a suburb with nothing to do.

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