After buying/building a 3D printer I'm at the point of making a few brackets and mounts for the Ginetta.
Have any of you guys used or had Parts made. Just looking for some inspiration or possible car related ideas?
[Edited on 16/5/17 by AntonUK]
Not car parts, but our mechanical engineer at work has a 3D printer. One observation on parts printed is they tend to be strong in one orientation,
but weak in another. The printer works by building up layers of material and the layers can come apart.
What sort of printer have you made and what CAD software do you use?
quote:
Originally posted by nick205
Not car parts, but our mechanical engineer at work has a 3D printer. One observation on parts printed is they tend to be strong in one orientation, but weak in another. The printer works by building up layers of material and the layers can come apart.
I've been doing a lot of printing .in plastic now, and I'm really happy with the strength and quality. To an extent strength comes from the
design. Layer separation is a printer issue - I only get that on a failed print. I have quite consolidation and strength. You can bake a lot of
strength in if you go for carbon fibre in nylon. It's expensive compared to normal PLA and you need a better spec printer for it. I've not
tried that yet buy it's on the list.
If you want, PM me with the bracket design and I'll send you a print of it so you can judge for yourself.
M
It's worth doing some research on the filament materials: PLA is easy to use, and makes a hard and rigid part, but it's biodegradable (its
main ingredient is corn starch) so has a limited lifespan. ABS is the next level up and it's far more durable - if a little more flexible - but
can be a pig to print until you get the printer dialled in. You will need a heated print bed capable of getting up to 100C or 110C, and will probably
need a heated enclosure if you want to print larger parts, otherwise the part will crack as the printer moves to the higher layers. PETG is a
comparatively new material in the 3D printing world, and it makes good parts - but to get best results you have to print slowly. Nylon is good and
very durable, but you'll be printing at high temperatures, you will need a heated bed, and will probably need an all-metal hot end. The
filaments with added carbon-fibre can be strong, but they can wear the hot-end nozzle badly so you may have to use steel nozzles.
So, as you can see, there's a lot to choose from! Basically, work out what you want to do, what your printer is capable of, what environment
the part will live in, and so on. If you haven't visited it already, the RepRapWiki is a great
place to find information.
I had two bevel/frames made up to go around my clocks and gear indicator.
Would like to get them treated with acetone at some point though, as the finish isn't great, but certainly better than what i had.
I can't believe how these printers are now sub £300.
Ive had a 3d printer for a while now and use it for a large variety of things.
For my kit car I made a surround for my gipro gear indicator which then houses 8 leds giving me engine temperature from a picaxe programmable chip.
Also made my 5 1/2 inch front led headlight covers because I couldn't find any on the net, no strength in them but it covers the clamp bracket I
made and looks the part.
The rear seatbelt mounting points on my mk indy look awful poking out of my rear tub cover so made some simple covers for them too.
Other uses I have had for the 3D printer are some brackets to hold my computer VR sensors on the wall and a stand for my headset. But the most parts
ive designed are for my Radio controlled plane/heli/quad hoppy, holding an array of the electronics all purpose made for my needs, well worth it.
I wouldn't go too structural with the printing, as mentioned it can be weak in the layer direction so needs careful design of kit parts. If you
can already model in 3D its a must have item, but If I wasn't a designed by trade it might have slowed me down a lot or even stopped me buying a
printer in the first place.
Good luck
If you want some parts making it would be better to use 3D hubs, printing as a hobby is as time consuming as kit cars!
I print a fair bit at work. Our stratasys objet is not top end by any means but allows us to blend making it possible to replicate anything from
rubber valve glands to PP structural plastics.
The accuracy is good at 0.1mm and I have never noticed de-lamination.
I would listen to the person above and pay for a prototype service. Building a printer to that level would take some time, and a lot more money than
the service.
Food for thought. I also get stuff machined from plastic when we need to replicate more accurately. Chinese companies offer seriously cheap services.
I agree with all David has said. Quite frequently people mod their printers to take the upgrades, such as the all metal hot ends and stainless
nozzles.
I'm using mine for all sorts - even down to making oddments tubs for my drawers for storing nuts and bolts. I needed an odd size to completely
use all the surface area ina. Drawer - so I made one rather than accepted a compromise. Similarly i needed a scraper to remove some resin from a
mould. I downloaded one from thingiverse and it cost me 50p to print. It didn't last long, but it did exactly the job I needed. It would have
cost more if I'd had to drive or order online.
New filaments are coming on the market all the time, and it's getting easier to get strength without the hassle and smell of printing ABS. I use
PLA+ from rigid ink. It prints brilliantly and is very strong. I'm going to be doing some upgrades for carbon-nylon.
I also use mine to print parts that I will then flat and finish before taking a mould from. Then I get the best of both worlds- dimensional accuracy,
repeatability, very cheap prototyping (compared to conventional part making) and the part is finished in composite.
It is a bit like conventional printers were 25 years ago - you need to embrace a bit of tinkering and fettling unless you're spending over 1k
I wouldn't go back and think it's a sad day if the printer isn't buzzing and chucking something out.
quote:
Originally posted by David Jenkins
It's worth doing some research on the filament materials: PLA is easy to use, and makes a hard and rigid part, but it's biodegradable (its main ingredient is corn starch) so has a limited lifespan. ABS is the next level up and it's far more durable - if a little more flexible - but can be a pig to print until you get the printer dialled in. You will need a heated print bed capable of getting up to 100C or 110C, and will probably need a heated enclosure if you want to print larger parts, otherwise the part will crack as the printer moves to the higher layers. PETG is a comparatively new material in the 3D printing world, and it makes good parts - but to get best results you have to print slowly. Nylon is good and very durable, but you'll be printing at high temperatures, you will need a heated bed, and will probably need an all-metal hot end. The filaments with added carbon-fibre can be strong, but they can wear the hot-end nozzle badly so you may have to use steel nozzles.
So, as you can see, there's a lot to choose from! Basically, work out what you want to do, what your printer is capable of, what environment the part will live in, and so on. If you haven't visited it already, the RepRapWiki is a great place to find information.
Agreed - I play petanque, and our pub team needed some scoreboards, so I made pegs, sockets and numbers out of ABS that have been fitted to a plywood
board. Took me ages, but the end results look really good (that's my opinion, anyway!). I've made loads of other bits & pieces to
repair stuff around the house - the only thing that hasn't got any printed stuff is my car!
One of my first big projects was another printer - I had started with a basic machine (to the Prusa i3 design) that I had developed and upgraded until
it worked the way I needed it to, then I printed the parts to build a more advanced machine (a CoreXY machine - search on the RepRapWiki to find out
what that is!). I'm still using the original machine for high quality work because of the efforts I put in to make it work properly; the CoreXY
is currently being tuned and tweaked to give good results.
I find that designing the parts is as much fun as printing them - perhaps more so.
[Edited on 17/5/17 by David Jenkins]
Here is some cool 3D printing...
http://uk.businessinsider.com/house-3d-printed-24-hours-concrete-russia-2017-3