First 3D printed 'automotive' part (1 Viewer)

[albert110]

During the reassembly process I discovered that the plastic sleeve was missing from the hinge of my rear seat back. Here's the side that did have the original part, but that one was pretty chewed up too...

I briefly considered going through the process of sourcing a replacement, lamenting that I was surely going to overpay for such a simple piece of plastic that I was never going to see, and it occurred to me that this is exactly the sort of tiny project that I used to justify building a 3D printer.

it fit well enough, so I just went ahead and made two of them and replaced the worn out part.

So there it is! So, long story short: if you've ever considered whether there was a good way to solve a $2 problem with only your wits and $350, here's your answer

 

[gilamonster]

nice

 

[MiyamotoMusashi]

Nice. Saw someone do something similar in the 100 forum. Frikken brilliant!

 

[cruisedeisel]

That was everything but epic.

 

[Spike Strip]

Now make 100 of them to get your money back.

 

[albert110]

Now make 100 of them to get your money back.

Well I can comfortably say that the thought of working on my TLC actually increasing the amount of money in my pocket never crossed my mind . I suppose if anyone wants a pair I'll send 'em some for a dollar plus cost of shipping. Or STL files for free, not that it's a groundbreaking design

 

[NookShneer]

AC surround for the next project.

 

[rusty_tlc]

What material are you printing with?

 

[albert110]

This was run of the mill PLA. I could have done it in ABS, but it's cold in the garage and I didn't want to wrestle with warping parts lifting off the bed.

 

[rusty_tlc]

How well do you think that will wear? I've been doing a lot of fixtures in ABS but I have not been impressed with how well it wears.

 

[albert110]

I wouldn't have tried this but I printed off a friction shifter for my bike a while ago and it's holding up really well to the clamping pressure and shear, so I thought it was worth a shot. This piece gets held in place really thoroughly so I'm thinking that as long as it doesn't take on too much water it should be fine for at least a couple years... time will tell though. It is thin though, so it might grind to dust faster than I planned, only one way to find out I suppose

 

[albert110]

I've found that pla actually holds up to shear a lot better than abs, which I suppose makes sense, since and is so much easier to sand and drill into. This is my first stab at something that will see this much vibration though, so I may be overestimating the material.

 

[rusty_tlc]

Have you play around with vapor smoothing?
I have been hot vapor smoothing ABS mold positives and it works great.
Add a little mold release and the positive pops right out of the silicon molding compounding compound.
You have to be very careful with the hot vapor process, it goes very fast. I tried cold vapor but it took so long my attention wandered and I overprocessed.

 

[FJ60Seth]

AC surround for the next project.

This ^^^

 

[albert110]

AC surround for the next project.

That's on the docket, although the plan is to form it out of fiberglass or carbon and then paint it. I've got longer-term plans to make a custom dash, so this is one of the run-up projects to make my mistakes and work out kinks.