3D printing is fantastic for creating completely customized objects, which we can easily modify and adapt to the specific needs of each occasion. Also, as you know, 3D printing is the most cost-effective technology for short series.
Don’t you think that 3D printing is an ideal technology for making customized trophies? Today, in Bitfab, we explain how and why you should make the trophies of your next competition using 3D printing.
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Why print your trophies in 3D?
There are many reasons why 3D printing is a very convenient alternative for trophy making:
- You can create a trophy adapted to the specific aesthetics of the competition.
- It is very easy to design a trophy in such a way that, with little effort and small modifications, it can be reused for other competitions.
- The cost is much lower than making a similar trophy with other technology.
- You can choose from a wide variety of colors, materials, textures and finishes
- Can be manufactured very quickly
Customized designs, a trophy for every occasion
With 3D printing, it is possible to manufacture parts at low cost from a single unit. Unlike other technologies, being able to produce the trophies one at a time while maintaining a low cost allows us to manufacture very special parts, closely adapted to the theme of the contest or competition.
We can even make the trophies for the first, second, third, finalists… a different one for each competitor.
A huge advantage is that, as we can design and manufacture quickly and cheaply, we can prototype easily. This means that, when faced with a trophy proposal, we can design and manufacture several versions to present to the customer. In this way you can choose the one that best suits you by having the real trophies instead of using renders.
Reuse your designs by adding a few details
Under the digital manufacturing paradigm our designs are parameterized, which means that we can customize our models with very little effort. A clear example is having a “generic” trophy that we can modify in shape and size as well as adding a pedestal with a specific text for each occasion.
This is a very simple example that we have made for this article, but with just a couple of mouse clicks we can change the thickness, size and shape of the trophy and also the text and typography of the label. We have designed this trophy in 30 minutes using Fusion 360 and it is totally parametric, so imagine what you can do with a little more time…
Cost per unit
As you know, because we have told you in other articles, 3D printing is ideal if we want to manufacture one unit or few units of the same part. This is especially crucial when what we manufacture is unique, so we will never manufacture two identical pieces. This is the case of trophies which are, by nature, something that has to be unique. This is why the cost per unit is much lower than other technologies since we would be making parts almost one at a time.
As you can see, additive manufacturing (3D printing) has a cost that hardly decreases with the number of units of the same product you manufacture, but for few units it is the cheapest technology. Later on we will talk about the price of 3D printed trophies.
A material for each trophy
3D printing is a technology that supports a variety of materials. In this case, more than the materials themselves, we are interested in their appearance, as we seek originality and for each trophy to be unique. Traditional trophies are made of various metals, so possibly the most obvious alternative is to use filaments that imitate the color and shine of precious metals used in trophies, such as gold, silver or bronze.
In addition to these more basic choices, we can choose materials in everything from neutral colors to bright colors and neon. The range of materials is very extensive and varied so you are sure to find one that fits what you have in mind.
Manufacturing times
You know that 3D printing is not very fast, but in Bitfab we can print many parts in parallel and adjust the printing parameters to optimize the shortest printing time.
You can have your customized trophy in a few days, with a production speed that few others will give you.
We rely heavily on this technology because with the proper configuration a model can be printed at a very high speed. Using the models we have shown you before we will calculate the time it would take to print them.
On the left you have the printing time with some “aggressive” printing parameters, using 0.3mm layer height, high speeds and little filling. On the right you have the time using more conservative parameters of 0.2mm layer height and more limited speeds. Both cases are with a 0.4mm nozzle; by using a 0.6 or 0.8 nozzle we could reduce notably the printing time without reducing practically at all the quality of the models, since they do not have a great level of detail due to their size.
We’ll tell you about the cost later, but as you can see, it takes about 150 grams of filament to print a trophy about 21 cm high, which is not bad at all.
How much does a personalized 3D trophy cost and how it is made?
The price of a 3D trophy project depends on the part that we are going to make and if you need help with the design. We can help you in both phases:
- We provide you with a quote online, by email and by phone, and we contact you to advise you on the technologies, costs and design possibilities so that your
- The design of the trophy is charged by the hour. We give you a closed price for a number of hours of design in which we will do the whole design process and review the result with you. If you already have an idea of the type of trophy you want, you can give us the graphic material so that we can incorporate it into the design. If you have the 3D model already done, you can skip this phase and go directly to manufacturing.
- In the manufacturing phase we will print your trophy and, if necessary, we will also laser cut any plate or part of your cup. The manufacturing is charged per printer hour and per kilo of material, but don’t worry, we will give you a fixed price for your trophy and you only have to tell us how many you want.
As always, you can ask us for a free quote and we will help you make your project a reality. We answer in less than 24 hours!
Why make your trophies with 3D printing?
As you have seen, 3D printed trophies give us many advantages over traditional ones, from their cost and time of manufacture to the freedom to choose from an infinite number of different materials and colors. We have worked extensively on making custom trophies, both for individuals who want a special prize for a tournament and for businesses that do this professionally.
In either case, in Bitfab we have the knowledge and tools to help you develop your project of 3D printed trophies. Design, 3D manufacturing in different colors and materials, laser cutting …
Contact us and we will give you a personalized quote for your specific case.
