Got a 3D printer now, it's fun!

[madeupname]

Those speaker surrounds look very professional, but how do you get the 'plans' for something like that,
or do you scan an existing part as a pattern please?

[Gin Kii]

Those speaker surrounds look very professional, but how do you get the 'plans' for something like that,
or do you scan an existing part as a pattern please?

Assuming the part is not complex they can be drawn in emachineshop very easily (export as .stl) if you are unable to download it or know how to use full blown 3d software.

This took me about 5 minutes, dimensioned of pdf drawings I already had.

[madeupname]

Thank you, I'm an interested lurker here, and admiring the results some of you get

[GSRman]

anyone had success/failure with TPU/TPE ninjaflex etc?

[Benonymous]

anyone had success/failure with TPU/TPE ninjaflex etc?

I have successfully printed with both (Nijaflex is TPU) TPE is fairly easy to work with. It is important that your extruder does not have a big, unsupported gap between the drive wheel and the tube that the filament feeds into. The rule with all flexibles is "slow, hot, no retract" so my settings would be (for TPE) 40mm/s, 240C and set retract to zero. TPU is generally softer than TPE and can easily compress in the drive mech and get minced up so it might need further tweaking.

If you're starting out with flexible, I'd go with TPE to get the hang of it. BTW, if your printer is Bowden tube rather than direct you can get some harder flexible filament (forgotten the maker) but generally, normal TPU and TPE wont work as it compresses and folds in the tube.

[GSRman]

Thanks Benny -

[trent from punchy]

Got one in the office now, a Lulzbot mini 2. Quick, easy and good quality.
Ive done pretty much every gopro mount I could find now.. what's next?

[sssgtr]

A friend with a farm of a few mk2’s got an mk3 same time I did and reckons he can’t get quite the same quality from the mk3 yet. He prints a few thousand things a month so I’m inclined to believe him. Reckons the mk3 will take some time to get tweaked to be as good and the smarts are better of course too.

How are you finding the MK3?

[Slides]

Are any of the regular print plastics good enough to use as ignition coil brackets for COP coils at engine bay temps? For a 13b so can have pretty thick section around coil.

I currently have cnc aluminium but they cheaped out and have the same coil locating bolt/connector orientation for front and rear rotor which is emotional to fit (and requires bending thd coil boot firmly) if you still have an air conditioner pump. Would like to improve design and pay one of you blokes to print in plastic if practical otherwise it will go to a shop and I'll have to get 10 made from aluminium to make it worth while.

[AxGT]

You _might_ get away with it with ABS - it's glass transition temp is 105c, so if its not copping heaps of radiant heat, it will probably survive.
Not sure anyone here is set up to print Nylon or PEEK/PEI.

[Slides]

I might give it a go anyway, will learn something if nothing else. What model formats/software are most people using?

[Shonky]

I might give it a go anyway, will learn something if nothing else. What model formats/software are most people using?

Fusion 360 (free version) output to STL and load into Slic3r software to either print directly to printer or write Gcode to memory stick. Pretty simple really.

Or just output the STL and send to a printer on one of the 3D printer sites like 3DHubs. Saves a lot of fucking around tuning it if you have a cheap printer.

Main thing is to understand how prints are built up when designing IMO.

[AxGT]

STL is the most generally accepted. Personally, I use Fusion 360 mostly when modelling from scratch. I've not got any ABS, nor have I printed it before (PLA, PETG, and TPU only here)

[AxGT]

So these turned out pretty good!

Yeah, I did some speaker spacers for my Liberty up - working great

Rear ones during the print

[Slides]

Thanks blokes. Did a bit of pro-E back at uni, then pretty much no design in first job, did several solidworks courses with work over the last couple of years so hopefully I can muddle my way through fusion 360, should be very basic extrude/cut operations for any bracketry/plates I will want for automotive stuff.

Might even be worth getting a low quality printer just for fitment checking even if I end up getting metallic parts lazer cut/cnc'd. I guess if you go a bit lego spec you could make shape evelope stuff for large turbos etc in numerous parts with lots of void and glue together for fitment checking.