Interest in Custom 80 Emblems? (1 Viewer)

[bhicks]

I'm sure many of you are wondering if I dropped the ball on this project. I can assure you I have not. This new machine has kicked my butt every which way. I have had one issue after another trying to get quality consistent prints. I have learned a LOT about working in ABS. Tomorrow I will be writing up a long update on what I have gone through and where I am currently at. I have had to make some design changes across the board in order to get consistent smooth prints that look injected and not 3-D printed. I will be posting pics of those changes tomorrow. I am also working on a website where everyone can go and put in their orders. I realized trying to make a list or work through PM's or emails was going to be a HUGE headache. I plan to send out the first batch of emblems to the people who have helped me get to this point. After that, I will wait a couple weeks until the website is up and I have a large batch ready to ship. I really don't want to make them per order since they take WAY WAY too long to print and you guys will get pissed at me when I take 6 weeks to fill your order. I will explain tomorrow why these are taking longer to print then my old machine. (a very frusturating fact I had not anticipated). My goal is to get a good chunk of the emblems printed ahead of time so I can fill the first wave of orders immediately. So PLEASE be patient with me and I will promise to get you a quality part in a timely manner.

 

[bhicks]

Hey Brad - how hard would it be to make a TEQ badge for a different truck? We just picked up a '14 4Runner and I want to do something about ugly chrome logo. If I send you the logo, can you make a TEQ badge for it? That is, after you're up and running with your new printer

You lucky bastard!! I test drove one of the offroad 4x4 ones with the v8. I loved it and wanted it bad but the almost 45k price tag sent me running. Those are awesome. I would definately be interested in doing a TEQ badge for you. I have had a few people from Tundra forums, Tacoma forums, T-100 forums, 4Runner forums, and more contact me about the TEQ badges. This thing has gotten HUGE. I have had to completely rethink my approach to this project. Right now I'm going to foucs on the 80 series stuff in hopes of getting myself out of some of this debt I have built up from this project. Once I get my head above water and my wife no longer wants to strangle me, I plan to start looking into all the requests. I will contact you at that point. I may just start scavaging all the local junk yards for grilles from all these vehicles to use as a constant template. Beno sent me his grille but after starting the printing process I realized I need a full time 80 grille. Some prints get slightly warped in the process and are no good. I need a permanent grille so I can test fit every single print before I ship it. I want to make sure it will fit perfect before I send it on it's way.

 

[wearsabrowncoat]

Us lx450 guys are in luck then.

 

[bhicks]

So let me give an update. I have ran into a pile of unexpected issues. I started off with issues that had nothing to do with me. The printer they sent me had a damaged extruder nozzle which was causing all of my prints to mess up. It took me almost 2 weeks to track that issue down. Once I figured out the issue I had to order a new nozzle and then just sit for a week waiting for it to arrive. Once I had the new nozzle installed I ran into my next issue which is the software the printer uses. It kept adding error codes to my prints which adds basically tumors or holes in odd areas. I resolved that issue and finally got to printing. Now I ran into the next issue. ABS is WAY more sensitive to temperature when printing. If the temp of the room is not warm enough the layers will not bond properly. This is the draw back working with ABS. It is much stronger, had a much nicer finish, will survive outdoors in harsh conditions for years to come, but is a HUGE PITA to work with. I decided to add a heat lamp to the top of the printer. Well that got so hot it melted the upper wiring harness. So back I went to ordering more parts and sitting a week for delivery. I got the new harness and began my journey again. I got the height of the heat lamp correct and I started getting prints to turn out perfect. Unfortunately my next issue arose. The supports would not come off. I ended up destroying every print in attemps to remove the supports. I now had to build a custom support raft for each and every print. That takes hours and hours for every different type of emblem. I have most of the emblems done at this point. On to my next issue. I spent many days taking the emblems I had printed in ABS and tried every known combination of acetone and ABS slurry to get a perfectly smooth surface. I did get results that were perfectly smooth and looked like injected molded parts. The down side was that when the outer layer got momentarily liquefied my the acetone it caused the two colors to run together and become one. The red and gray teq emblem was now a redish gray. The black and white TOYOTA emblem was now just gray. It was perfectly smooth but looked horrible. I had now gone through gallons of acetone and many spools of filament. Eventually I realized there was just no possible way to get a perfectly smooth finish using any form of acetone bath, brush, dip, rinse, or spray. That meant I had to go back to every design and rethink the outer surface to see if I could break up the surface with some type of pattern to hide the 3D printed look. I came up with a solution that is pictured below that I think looks great and hides any printed lines. Hopefully you guys like what I have done. Now we are to my final issue. ABS cools much quicker so larger prints that take a lot longer usually get warped (destroyed) during the printing process. My plan was to print 6-8 TEQ emblems at a time during a 12 hour print and then switch and do 3 TOYOTA emblems at a time for another 12 hour print. That would keep my machine going 24/7. Unfortunately at about the 6 hour mark the prints begin to warp EVEN with a heat lamp and keeping the entire machine in a large box to preserve heat. Right now I can successfully print 2 TEQ badges at a time and one TOYOTA badge. That means a lot more set up and tear down to print all of these. I still plan to move forward but understand I will be slower at making these then expected. Here's a few pics of what I have going on. The TOYOTA emblem pictured was actually done on my old printer in PLA. This is just a quick prototype reference to see if I liked the finish. It has a bit of a shine to it. The ABS I will eventually print it in will be more of a flatish black. It will also be MUCH smoother. You can get a feel for the finish quality by looking at the TEQ badge in ABS. That finish will pretty much be what all of the emblems look like. At this point I should have the website and a large batch of emblems ready to go in 2-3 weeks. I plan to use my spring break (I'm a teacher) to deal with shipping out all of the orders. My spring break is in a little over 3 weeks.

 

[hamishpotter]

badges - thank you

I'm sure many of you are wondering if I dropped the ball on this project. I can assure you I have not. This new machine has kicked my butt every which way. I have had one issue after another trying to get quality consistent prints. I have learned a LOT about working in ABS. Tomorrow I will be writing up a long update on what I have gone through and where I am currently at. I have had to make some design changes across the board in order to get consistent smooth prints that look injected and not 3-D printed. I will be posting pics of those changes tomorrow. I am also working on a website where everyone can go and put in their orders. I realized trying to make a list or work through PM's or emails was going to be a HUGE headache. I plan to send out the first batch of emblems to the people who have helped me get to this point. After that, I will wait a couple weeks until the website is up and I have a large batch ready to ship. I really don't want to make them per order since they take WAY WAY too long to print and you guys will get pissed at me when I take 6 weeks to fill your order. I will explain tomorrow why these are taking longer to print then my old machine. (a very frusturating fact I had not anticipated). My goal is to get a good chunk of the emblems printed ahead of time so I can fill the first wave of orders immediately. So PLEASE be patient with me and I will promise to get you a quality part in a timely manner.

bhicks thank you for the update, totally understand. we have a Makerbot in our office and the thing is constantly bugging up.

hope things go smoothly. really appreciate the heads up, also you might consider just throwing 'em up on Etsy or similar site so you don't have to create a one-off destination. unless that's part of it.

good luck and looking forward to seeing the finished product(s)!

James

 

[bhicks]

bhicks thank you for the update, totally understand. we have a Makerbot in our office and the thing is constantly bugging up.

hope things go smoothly. really appreciate the heads up, also you might consider just throwing 'em up on Etsy or similar site so you don't have to create a one-off destination. unless that's part of it.

good luck and looking forward to seeing the finished product(s)!

James

I looked into Etsy, but they take a pretty substantial percentage. I am already not making a profit on these. I'm trying to break even; which at the way things have gone that is not going to happen. If I go with Etsy I will go WAY in the hole on this endeavor. I have a buddy that owes me a favor. I'm doing all the molding in his house and for a trade he is going to build me a basic website. That is what he does for a career.

 

[bmac1996acc]

How's it coming along Brad?

...via IH8MUD app

 

[Slabsides45]

I have a question/request: I like the look of the "T O Y O T A" badges, but don't care for the fairly evident oval print behind the text. The originals (i.e., like a '94) had a solid black horizontal background running the width of the grill. Any chance you can manufacture something to run the width of the grill with identical lettering to those early '80's, which would totally obscure the sombrero oval? This would negate the need for one to totally change out the front grill parts to have a retro look.

I'd be all in for that!

 

[OverLand Cruisers]

I'm totally down for a TEQ front emblem!!
Cool!

 

[bhicks]

I have a question/request: I like the look of the "T O Y O T A" badges, but don't care for the fairly evident oval print behind the text. The originals (i.e., like a '94) had a solid black horizontal background running the width of the grill. Any chance you can manufacture something to run the width of the grill with identical lettering to those early '80's, which would totally obscure the sombrero oval? This would negate the need for one to totally change out the front grill parts to have a retro look.

I'd be all in for that!

To make an emblem that goes all the way across the grille I would need a MUCH larger 3-D printer and another 50-100k to buy it. The front "TOYOTA" emblems are maxed out on width.

 

[bhicks]

I'm sure many of you are waiting for an update and want to purchase. Work and my personal life have been CRAZY the last few weeks. I have been working really late hours just to keep my head a float and then my wife and I are planning for child number 3. That has been consuming my free time. We decided to adopt a baby girl and there has been a ton of classes we have had to take on the weekends to be able to adopt her.
In regards to the emblems; I am still moving forward on them. I spent last week printing a large batch of the flat red and sliver TEQ badges. those are the ones that can be mounted on any flat surface of your 80. I also purchased 4 types of adhesive to test which brand/style was best for the flat TEQ emblems. I found that the 3M automotive adhesive was by FAR the best option. That stuff is strong as hell. I will be including the adhesive on all emblems that mount flush that don't have the mounting tabs. I'm now printing a large batch of the TEQ emblems that mount on the grille. As soon as those are done I will start a batch of the "TOYOTA" emblems. I also plan to have the website up by the end of next week so you guys can start ordering. Hopefully at that point I will have a large amount of printed emblems so I will be able to ship the first wave of orders out within a couple days. I will post some pics when I get home tonight of my progress. Again, please be patient. this "little" project has turned into a MUCH larger project and it has come at a very busy time in my life. I am doing everything I can to get this project to market as fast as I can without compromising quality in any way.

 

[bdg4512]

I'm sure many of you are waiting for an update and want to purchase. Work and my personal life have been CRAZY the last few weeks. I have been working really late hours just to keep my head a float and then my wife and I are planning for child number 3. That has been consuming my free time. We decided to adopt a baby girl and there has been a ton of classes we have had to take on the weekends to be able to adopt her.
In regards to the emblems; I am still moving forward on them. I spent last week printing a large batch of the flat red and sliver TEQ badges. those are the ones that can be mounted on any flat surface of your 80. I also purchased 4 types of adhesive to test which brand/style was best for the flat TEQ emblems. I found that the 3M automotive adhesive was by FAR the best option. That stuff is strong as hell. I will be including the adhesive on all emblems that mount flush that don't have the mounting tabs. I'm now printing a large batch of the TEQ emblems that mount on the grille. As soon as those are done I will start a batch of the "TOYOTA" emblems. I also plan to have the website up by the end of next week so you guys can start ordering. Hopefully at that point I will have a large amount of printed emblems so I will be able to ship the first wave of orders out within a couple days. I will post some pics when I get home tonight of my progress. Again, please be patient. this "little" project has turned into a MUCH larger project and it has come at a very busy time in my life. I am doing everything I can to get this project to market as fast as I can without compromising quality in any way.

Not good enough, skip class and make some emblems for our trucks.

I'm sure we all can understand, family taking precedence over side projects. No worries, we'll get them when we get them, but if you do skip class to make some of the "Toyota" badges with "80" in the background, I wouldn't be mad at you. haha.

Good luck with the adoption and let us know when that website is up and running, I've got some orders to place.

 

[bmac1996acc]

Are you still doing the rear hatch emblem with the curved back?

 

[bhicks]

Are you still doing the rear hatch emblem with the curved back?

Everything I have posted will be getting made. I just can't deal with releasing every design at the same time. Each print file takes days to set up and perfect. The "auto" support function sucks so I have to make my own custom supports for every print. I have also spent $100's just in filament trying to perfect just the first few designs. I will be releasing 3 designs in my first wave. The red/silver and the black/white front emblem TEQ badges. I will also release the flat TEQ badges in red/silver and black/white that can be mounted anywhere flat. I will also release the "TOYOTA" emblem for the front LX and Yota grille. After I get the majority of those orders met I will then release the next wave of emblems. It's just WAY too crazy trying to keep up with 15-20 different designs at the same time. I'm one person with one machine so I have to keep it simple. I will eventually get through every design plus all the personal custom requests. Once it's all done I will then shift my focus to the front and rear cup holders, shaky mirror fix, winch controls on the dash, cell phone/GPS mount, and a few other ideas I haven't started developing yet.

 

[western flyer]

We are cheering you on, both with the adoption and the emblems. Thanks for doing this. Best of luck in all of it.

 

[hamishpotter]

X2

Sent from my SGH-M919

 

[Slabsides45]

To make an emblem that goes all the way across the grille I would need a MUCH larger 3-D printer and another 50-100k to buy it. The front "TOYOTA" emblems are maxed out on width.

Sooo.... You're telling me there's a chance?

 

[HDJDub]

I'm definitely more keen on the emblems without the honeycomb look, is there anyway to go back to the old material?

 

[punkrockpoppa]

Sooo.... You're telling me there's a chance?

:thumbup:

...via IH8MUD app

 

[bhicks]

I'm definitely more keen on the emblems without the honeycomb look, is there anyway to go back to the old material?

I do have the non-honeycomb files and can print those as well. They will be released later. Which non-honeycomb emblem did you want? I just need to get a few prints on the market. I have maxed out all my funds and I have to start bringing in some form of revenue to even pay for more filament.