obsolete part reproduction interest

[BarnFab]

Why are we making these this way ? Just cause Toyota did ?

Looking at the design aren't you are gunna be better off just 3D printing a clip in surround and make it take an existing rubber steam grommet from McMaster Carr. Since the column takes a clam shell you could print it with the slit in place and slid the two halves of the shell in ensuring a great fit without the "clip" function.

Something like this cut down - McMaster-Carr - https://www.mcmaster.com/products/rubber-boots/tapered-round-bellows-with-cuff-ends/

Just an idea but it seems you are doing your ass on trying to 3d print a rubber boot and not sure what your hourly rate is but i am guessing $20 a unit is long gone

 

[FJ73Texas]

Don't worry about it and let @bhicks make this awesome product for us.

 

[BarnFab]

Don't worry about it and let @bhicks make this awesome product for us.

I must be reading a different thread as from what I can see @bhicks is having all sorts of issues, won't hit is price point, prototypes shown aren't hitting form or function marker and he would really like to get off the pain train and avoid his ass burn price of up to $50 a pair he quoted back in the day.

As I said I could be wrong just offering an alternate solution as I am sure he regrets taking it on before he realized it was rubber

Starting Design

Current Outcome

 

[RHINO]

Barnfab, you might be reading alot INTO the thread, he knew it was rubber from the start, he wanted the experience printing rubber, we tossed around several ideas and variations but decided to keep it closer to toyota's design, and although its been a pain and quite the process, he's into making these.

we know this isnt his top priority and he's doing this between other profitable projects, we're good with that and thats alright.

on the topic, i have a prototype in my hands, well, actually in the troopy console. it fits perfectly and it looks great having something trim that hole!!

i sent bhicks several photos of it installed so he can see it, he asked me not to post photos yet as he isnt satisfied with the finish on the prototype, i think its quite nice, but will respect his wish.

 

[Sundowner]

Just saw this thread; reading through it as I write this, but yeah...when they're ready, I'll take a set!

 

[bhicks]

Why are we making these this way ? Just cause Toyota did ?

Looking at the design aren't you are gunna be better off just 3D printing a clip in surround and make it take an existing rubber steam grommet from McMaster Carr. Since the column takes a clam shell you could print it with the slit in place and slid the two halves of the shell in ensuring a great fit without the "clip" function.

Something like this cut down - McMaster-Carr - https://www.mcmaster.com/products/rubber-boots/tapered-round-bellows-with-cuff-ends/

Just an idea but it seems you are doing your ass on trying to 3d print a rubber boot and not sure what your hourly rate is but i am guessing $20 a unit is long gone

I thought about an insert like the one you linked to on McMaster but the insert didn't address the issue of the plug that fills in the hole getting installed. The plug MUST be rubber to get stretched over the column assembly. The other option was to force the customer to totally disassemble the steering column to insert the plug from the backside but most folks are not going to take on such a huge project just to fill in a hole. I needed to come up with something that looked close to OEM but took little effort to install. I also realized I do not need to worry about the waterproofing aspect of the original OEM part. The 70s that had the removable tops and needed the OEM plugs to keep water out already came with the plugs. It's the 70 Cruisers that don't need the plugs for water proofing that I'm making these for. Those folks have stated they just want something to fill in the hole and deal with the aesthetics. So that is where I focused my design. My priorities were ease of install and aesthetics. That is how I came to the final design. I hope that all makes sense.

 

[Sundowner]

I hope that all makes sense.

It does, to me at least. I was admittedly confused at the beginning because I thought that creating a base model and then molding the parts from rubber would be much easier, but if your goal is printing in rubber, this method makes sense. This also addresses the only other question that I had about the design: if it's not an OEM replica, then an inch is as good as a mile...so why the complexity? It could be simplified in design and still serve admirably, but if it's an educational effort that leads to increasingly-complex efforts down the road, then all bets are off: proceed as you like.

 

[BarnFab]

From the pic alone this seems like a very basic part. I don't know what the back side looks like so I'm not sure how complex the print will be. If it has a flat backside that gives me a flat printing surface with very little built in support and low print time then I will probably be in the $30 range for a pair. If the part needs a ton of support which means support removal, long print times, and hand sanding then they may be up to $50 for a pair. If it's a SUPER simple part I might even be able to get them down into the $20-$25 a pair. My prices include shipping to you. I will need to see some pics of this part no installed from all angles before I can get a more accurate price for a pair shipped. We chemically smooth our parts so they don't look very 3D printed.

I have no issues with that and I am pretty sure that when you first jumped in to this thread you did not realise it was a rubber part and thought it would be a simple 3D print, printing rubber is a horrible thing and I am amazed people actually bother as in most cases Rubber products are cheap and 3D printing it isn't which is why I usually end up with 2 piece designs using a printed outer shell to hold / use an off the shelf rubber insert which are plentiful in most sizes and shapes.

I though the design spec was to seal like the original not just fill some of the hole , with that in mind I see why you dropped the boot / bellows from your design . as for fitment to fit the factory one I had to pull it apart so just presumed that was going to be required for this one, cool that is not.

Once your done like most 70 series owners if they are affordable and easy to fit I will be up for a few for sure cause buggered if I will be making any

 

[bhicks]

I came into my office this morning and I had 20 pairs of the steering column inserts all done. After looking them over in great detail, I unfortunately am not happy. Some of the pairs turned out great, some were ok, but many were not good enough. There was too much inconsistency in the printing. I called in my painter, chemical guy, and assembly line guy to figure out the issue. What we concluded is that the early parts (which I had seen personally) printed great. Once I gave them the green light to make a large batch the quality started to go down. After some testing we realized the issue is in the water soluble support material. It's water soluble but also HIGHLY reactive to humidity. It has been stupid humind here in Kentucky the last few weeks with tons of rain. The support material has been absorbing the moisture in the air causing it to swell and print very inconsistantly. With the support material not providing the proper support needed for the upper lip of the insert, the top area gets rougher and rougher. The quick fix is to just replace the water soluble support with a new spool BUT I can't do that every couple days. The spools are extremely costly and I must use the entire spool. We are only printing at 15% speed due to printing in rubber which means prints times are crazy long which leaves the support material exposed for too long in the high humidity. We can remove enough support material from the main spool to only print one part at a time and keep the main spool sealed. That means that between every part we have to unroll more support material by hand and manually feed that into the machine for EVERY print. The labor is now getting insane for these tiny parts. I'm dusting off an old dehumidifier box right now we used to use for drying our painted badges. We are going to try to fit our machine inside the box (with some modifications) and see if we can make it work with that setup. At this point I literally have 4 pairs that I am happy with that meets our quality standards. The other 16 pairs are a no-go. This learning curve on rubber and water soluble filament was been tremendous. I'm learning the hard way as to why there are so few people who 3D print rubber parts for production runs. A single rubber piece isn't bad but sustained printing over a large batch becomes a nightmare. Right now I'm too far down this rabbit hole to turn back. I need to figure this out and create a system that can handle long term production printing in rubber for this product and all future rubber products. I will keep you guys updated once we get some successful results for rubber printing over long time windows.

 

[Sundowner]

Just thinking outside the box, here: is there a way to reduce the impact of the support material going stretchy/flexy on you? Like, can the part be printed inside a jig or a support block? I've seen things like that before, but I'm not savvy enough on 3D printing to know what's possible and what isn't. Or, could it be printed from two different materials that join together as an assembly? I know these probably aren't very good ideas, but maybe they'll spark some thoughts on something that will work, and not destroy you in labor.

 

[Guyute]

I came into my office this morning and I had 20 pairs of the steering column inserts all done. After looking them over in great detail, I unfortunately am not happy. Some of the pairs turned out great, some were ok, but many were not good enough. There was too much inconsistency in the printing. I called in my painter, chemical guy, and assembly line guy to figure out the issue. What we concluded is that the early parts (which I had seen personally) printed great. Once I gave them the green light to make a large batch the quality started to go down. After some testing we realized the issue is in the water soluble support material. It's water soluble but also HIGHLY reactive to humidity. It has been stupid humind here in Kentucky the last few weeks with tons of rain. The support material has been absorbing the moisture in the air causing it to swell and print very inconsistantly. With the support material not providing the proper support needed for the upper lip of the insert, the top area gets rougher and rougher. The quick fix is to just replace the water soluble support with a new spool BUT I can't do that every couple days. The spools are extremely costly and I must use the entire spool. We are only printing at 15% speed due to printing in rubber which means prints times are crazy long which leaves the support material exposed for too long in the high humidity. We can remove enough support material from the main spool to only print one part at a time and keep the main spool sealed. That means that between every part we have to unroll more support material by hand and manually feed that into the machine for EVERY print. The labor is now getting insane for these tiny parts. I'm dusting off an old dehumidifier box right now we used to use for drying our painted badges. We are going to try to fit our machine inside the box (with some modifications) and see if we can make it work with that setup. At this point I literally have 4 pairs that I am happy with that meets our quality standards. The other 16 pairs are a no-go. This learning curve on rubber and water soluble filament was been tremendous. I'm learning the hard way as to why there are so few people who 3D print rubber parts for production runs. A single rubber piece isn't bad but sustained printing over a large batch becomes a nightmare. Right now I'm too far down this rabbit hole to turn back. I need to figure this out and create a system that can handle long term production printing in rubber for this product and all future rubber products. I will keep you guys updated once we get some successful results for rubber printing over long time windows.

Next level community support! Thank you. In for a few pairs if/when complete and also buying some badges for holiday gifts and such in the mean time. Cheers!

 

[ATL Cruiser]

This is so awesome. Thank you for these detailed updates. As a former, wanna-be, engineer, the details have been really cool to read.

I'm already using your other two products (the cupholders and the diesel badge). Love them.

 

[bj70bc]

I came into my office this morning and I had 20 pairs of the steering column inserts all done. After looking them over in great detail, I unfortunately am not happy. Some of the pairs turned out great, some were ok, but many were not good enough. There was too much inconsistency in the printing. I called in my painter, chemical guy, and assembly line guy to figure out the issue. What we concluded is that the early parts (which I had seen personally) printed great. Once I gave them the green light to make a large batch the quality started to go down. After some testing we realized the issue is in the water soluble support material. It's water soluble but also HIGHLY reactive to humidity. It has been stupid humind here in Kentucky the last few weeks with tons of rain. The support material has been absorbing the moisture in the air causing it to swell and print very inconsistantly. With the support material not providing the proper support needed for the upper lip of the insert, the top area gets rougher and rougher. The quick fix is to just replace the water soluble support with a new spool BUT I can't do that every couple days. The spools are extremely costly and I must use the entire spool. We are only printing at 15% speed due to printing in rubber which means prints times are crazy long which leaves the support material exposed for too long in the high humidity. We can remove enough support material from the main spool to only print one part at a time and keep the main spool sealed. That means that between every part we have to unroll more support material by hand and manually feed that into the machine for EVERY print. The labor is now getting insane for these tiny parts. I'm dusting off an old dehumidifier box right now we used to use for drying our painted badges. We are going to try to fit our machine inside the box (with some modifications) and see if we can make it work with that setup. At this point I literally have 4 pairs that I am happy with that meets our quality standards. The other 16 pairs are a no-go. This learning curve on rubber and water soluble filament was been tremendous. I'm learning the hard way as to why there are so few people who 3D print rubber parts for production runs. A single rubber piece isn't bad but sustained printing over a large batch becomes a nightmare. Right now I'm too far down this rabbit hole to turn back. I need to figure this out and create a system that can handle long term production printing in rubber for this product and all future rubber products. I will keep you guys updated once we get some successful results for rubber printing over long time windows.

jeeze, i feel bad for you buddy, i know this is a proof of concept for you on other projects , but if it were me i'd probably cut my losses and decide to not ever do any rubber ever again, and i wouldnt hold it against ya either ... even if i was waiting for a set. After all, this is a vanity project for this trim piece for us 70 guys

 

[jayp2]

View attachment 3263140
these two trim pieces are not available on their own, the only way to get them is with a larger assembly from a different spec'ed rig than many of us here have, that would require some fidley wiring, plug modification, different hazard switch and possibly other modification.

i'd like to see how many people want these, and maybe we can have them reproduced.

Just seeing the thread

I'd take 1 or 2 of each

 

[bhicks]

Time for another update. After a couple weeks of battling this rubber trying to get these parts as smooth as possible I have come to the realization that in order to get these parts to our standard of quality we have to spend a ton of time/labor/money in support removal, chemical smoothing, 2nd wave of chemical smoothing, and finally heat smoothing in an oven. The process has totally killed the budget in affordabilty. I decided to audible and do a full 180. We dusted off our SLA machine which is a liquid resin 3D printer and tried printing some rubber resin. After about 30 attempts we got a print right off the machine with zero chemical smoothing or finish processing of any kind that looks fantastic. We are very happy with this look. Now we need to see if we can repeat the process for production or if we got lucky with the process. Hopefully we can recreate this part on a much larger scale. This gets us really close to the injection molded look we are wanting AND keeps the cost way down. Below what we were originally quoting. Here is our latest version.

 

[bj70bc]

How does this process differ from the original attempt?

 

[sleepydad69]

How does this process differ from the original attempt?

Difference Between Fdm And Resin Printing

For those who think it's easier to annoy you than to Google 'Difference between fdm and resin printing' themselves.

letmegooglethat.com

FDM or fused deposition modeling is a lot like putting icing on a cake. you go in a specific order. layer upon layer building up the cake as you go. This is fine but it makes doing overhanging structures very difficult because something needs to hold the overhang up. You can't put the roof on the house without the walls.

photo sensitive resin printing uses a liquid resin and build plate/screen/UV lights. The UV cures the resin into a pattern. you can print super thin layers.

This is a very simplified explanation, tons of wiki and youtube if your interested. Each type of printer has it's pro's and con's.

 

[bhicks]

Difference Between Fdm And Resin Printing

For those who think it's easier to annoy you than to Google 'Difference between fdm and resin printing' themselves.

letmegooglethat.com

FDM or fused deposition modeling is a lot like putting icing on a cake. you go in a specific order. layer upon layer building up the cake as you go. This is fine but it makes doing overhanging structures very difficult because something needs to hold the overhang up. You can't put the roof on the house without the walls.

photo sensitive resin printing uses a liquid resin and build plate/screen/UV lights. The UV cures the resin into a pattern. you can print super thin layers.

This is a very simplified explanation, tons of wiki and youtube if your interested. Each type of printer has it's pro's and con's.

Bingo. Good description. I usually avoid production parts with an SLA printer because the cost of the resin is insane and prevents affordability to the customer BUT in this unique situation these are super small parts so the resin use is limited AND the savings from not doing a costly smoothing process actually makes the SLA machine the less expensive option. This might be a first for us but it seems to work financially. In the past we have only used our SLA machine for prototyping since its print speed is about 5-10 faster than a standard FDM printer. It allows us to get through the prototyping process much quicker. Hopefully our little SLA machine can actually handle extended production runs. We will see.

 

[Waikato Willy]

ou

Time for another update. After a couple weeks of battling this rubber trying to get these parts as smooth as possible I have come to the realization that in order to get these parts to our standard of quality we have to spend a ton of time/labor/money in support removal, chemical smoothing, 2nd wave of chemical smoothing, and finally heat smoothing in an oven. The process has totally killed the budget in affordabilty. I decided to audible and do a full 180. We dusted off our SLA machine which is a liquid resin 3D printer and tried printing some rubber resin. After about 30 attempts we got a print right off the machine with zero chemical smoothing or finish processing of any kind that looks fantastic. We are very happy with this look. Now we need to see if we can repeat the process for production or if we got lucky with the process. Hopefully we can recreate this part on a much larger scale. This gets us really close to the injection molded look we are wanting AND keeps the cost way down. Below what we were originally quoting. Here is our latest version.

out of interest are you able to tell me the brand / and the rubber resin you are using?
we have 2 Figure 4 standalones from 3D systems that print in a rubber material but I have found it breaks down after a while in any kind of UV environment and splits , we also have TPU in a stratatsys F170 FDM that works ok but the quality is garbage , like you have mentioned we do have a chemical smoothing machine but it is around a $100 bucks a cycle !

 

[bhicks]

ou

out of interest are you able to tell me the brand / and the rubber resin you are using?
we have 2 Figure 4 standalones from 3D systems that print in a rubber material but I have found it breaks down after a while in any kind of UV environment and splits , we also have TPU in a stratatsys F170 FDM that works ok but the quality is garbage , like you have mentioned we do have a chemical smoothing machine but it is around a $100 bucks a cycle !

Right now we are working with Liqcreate Flex-X. With resin of any kind it must be properly UV cured to prevent breakdown and develop UV durability. We have a UV curing machine. The rubber type resins typcially take WAY longer to fully cure. Most folks run the normal plastic resin settings with the curing machine thinking they cured the rubber part but that ends in quick failure of the part. The cure time for rubber is 4-5 times longer. At least for the couple brands we have tried so far.