You need to use a higher temp. Something in the mid 200’s °C iirc. Carbon fiber is the same and we haven’t worked it all out with our current printers, too close to the max temps. I have the students researching options on a new higher temp printer.
What 3D-printing projects did you do for your truck and shop?
- Thread starter e9999
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I got my printer primarily for woodworking. Just finished and delivered a project yesterday, where I used the printer to help in the build.
My daughter is on several meds, and asked for a weekly pill sorter for Christmas. I took a look at them on Etsy for ideas, most have round-bottomed "wells" to make getting the pills out easier. I knew I could use my router to form them, but needed a template to guide the cutting. Bambu printer to the rescue! I haven't learned a proper 3D modeling tool yet, but I remembered that AutoCAD can export to .sdl, so I knocked this out, imported into the slicer, and out it came an hour later. The round holes are just to save filament.
Bottom is 5/4 Cherry. Top is a piece of scrap curly hard maple. Dovetailed slide with hidden rare earth magnets to keep it closed. Pretty happy with how it turned out.
My daughter is on several meds, and asked for a weekly pill sorter for Christmas. I took a look at them on Etsy for ideas, most have round-bottomed "wells" to make getting the pills out easier. I knew I could use my router to form them, but needed a template to guide the cutting. Bambu printer to the rescue! I haven't learned a proper 3D modeling tool yet, but I remembered that AutoCAD can export to .sdl, so I knocked this out, imported into the slicer, and out it came an hour later. The round holes are just to save filament.
Bottom is 5/4 Cherry. Top is a piece of scrap curly hard maple. Dovetailed slide with hidden rare earth magnets to keep it closed. Pretty happy with how it turned out.
- Thread starter
- #23
wow, that looks good! Unfortunately, whenever I try woodworking I end up with something with huge gaps and that looks like it was made by a posse of deranged beavers... None of that here! And turned out way prettier than if you had made it all on the printer, too, which would have been my first instinct.
Perfect use for 3D printing. So easy to add bosses etc to jigs and guides for alignment.
I imagine you used a very low infill and thin walls as well to save filament too, since this has no structural strength need?
Perfect use for 3D printing. So easy to add bosses etc to jigs and guides for alignment.
I imagine you used a very low infill and thin walls as well to save filament too, since this has no structural strength need?
Having decent tools really helps. Being able to pop out jigs and fixtures like this in a few minutes is a HUGE benefit of having this printer. I'm still getting the hang of it, need to really dive into a decent 3D design tool. I have several dust/vacuum fittings I want to make now.
Yes, this was a one-off thing so I doubt I'll ever use it again, so I went stingy with the filament. I used white so I could easily make alignment marks on it with a sharp pencil.
- Thread starter
- #25
Talking about woodworking, I made this little tool to mark the midline of a board without having to measure anything. I made the center hole very small on this side but also bigger and conical on the other side for better centering of the marker / scribe and so I can also drill it to size easily if I use a bigger marker.
Should take somebody familiar with Fusion 360 all of 2 minutes to draw. Took me longer cuz I struggled with finding the best way to do the conical hole, ending up using a draft feature after trying countersunk holes and other ways. Cone angle is small so hopefully I won't need supports.
The nice thing about this design is that I am pretty much assured that the center hole is, well, perfectly centered between the 2 bosses, even if the material shrinks a bit and the final bosses spacing is slightly off, won't matter one bit.
Good idea on making it white, I'll do that too so I can write dimensions etc on it when working. I usually like my tools battlegrey but white is better for jotting down notes.
Now i gotta figure out how I can make the area surrounding the centerhole at 100% infill so I can drill it fine while keeping the rest at much lower infill to save filament. No idea how to do that yet. Suggestions? (I'm usually using Prusaslicer but will look into Fusion 360 FFF features soon.)
added: figured out the local infill bit. Very easy in Prusaslicer, I just added a "Modifier", an area around the hole where I could set the infill at 100% while keeping the rest at 20%. This will also come in handy when I have internal threads in bodies that I want to reinforce.
added 2: I'm an idiot, it is better to use the extrude at angle function to do the conical hole rather than Draft, saves a step. But here is the beauty of 3D printing: I could make the conical hole the correct angle to fit perfectly my machine-sharpened (!) pencils for best centering. Try that with shop tools! Sadly, probably won't help much my huge woodworking fitting errors, though... And, yes, the irony is not lost on me that I used a $200 machinist tool to measure the pencil point angle to make my 50c printed tool arguably a tiny bit better... sigh...
oh, completely unrelated, but since you mentioned vacuum adapters, in case it helps somebody, I have made some in a pinch just by taking some PVC pipe, warming it up with a heat gun and molding it around existing nipples. Admittedly not as elegant as 3D printing but worked a treat. I wonder if that would work out with PLA too in case the 3D print is a tad off...
Should take somebody familiar with Fusion 360 all of 2 minutes to draw. Took me longer cuz I struggled with finding the best way to do the conical hole, ending up using a draft feature after trying countersunk holes and other ways. Cone angle is small so hopefully I won't need supports.
The nice thing about this design is that I am pretty much assured that the center hole is, well, perfectly centered between the 2 bosses, even if the material shrinks a bit and the final bosses spacing is slightly off, won't matter one bit.
Good idea on making it white, I'll do that too so I can write dimensions etc on it when working. I usually like my tools battlegrey but white is better for jotting down notes.
Now i gotta figure out how I can make the area surrounding the centerhole at 100% infill so I can drill it fine while keeping the rest at much lower infill to save filament. No idea how to do that yet. Suggestions? (I'm usually using Prusaslicer but will look into Fusion 360 FFF features soon.)
added: figured out the local infill bit. Very easy in Prusaslicer, I just added a "Modifier", an area around the hole where I could set the infill at 100% while keeping the rest at 20%. This will also come in handy when I have internal threads in bodies that I want to reinforce.
added 2: I'm an idiot, it is better to use the extrude at angle function to do the conical hole rather than Draft, saves a step. But here is the beauty of 3D printing: I could make the conical hole the correct angle to fit perfectly my machine-sharpened (!) pencils for best centering. Try that with shop tools! Sadly, probably won't help much my huge woodworking fitting errors, though... And, yes, the irony is not lost on me that I used a $200 machinist tool to measure the pencil point angle to make my 50c printed tool arguably a tiny bit better... sigh...
oh, completely unrelated, but since you mentioned vacuum adapters, in case it helps somebody, I have made some in a pinch just by taking some PVC pipe, warming it up with a heat gun and molding it around existing nipples. Admittedly not as elegant as 3D printing but worked a treat. I wonder if that would work out with PLA too in case the 3D print is a tad off...
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- Thread starter
- #28
It really is worth setting everything up parametrically for the dimensions of the CAD object. Takes a bit more time upfront, especially when some dimensions depend on others, but what a pleasure later on when you want to make a change, so easy and fast.
Like with the midplate scriber above, I am making some more to use as jigs to drill right in the middle of a board thickness. Just type one different number in the parameters list, bam it's done, everything adjusts automatically and off it goes to the printer. 30 secs to get a completely different jig.
Like with the midplate scriber above, I am making some more to use as jigs to drill right in the middle of a board thickness. Just type one different number in the parameters list, bam it's done, everything adjusts automatically and off it goes to the printer. 30 secs to get a completely different jig.
19 hour print:
Very nice 18V battery tote to quick grab-n-go when heading out on a job:
Very nice 18V battery tote to quick grab-n-go when heading out on a job:
- Thread starter
- #30
very nice! You guys are getting all fancy with multicolored pieces, looks good.
I can see that you would need the tree supports for the latches overhang but why did you need them for the upper part?
Next version: battery contacts and wiring with an Anderson outlet for a power station! You could get your engine started with one of those!
I can see that you would need the tree supports for the latches overhang but why did you need them for the upper part?
Next version: battery contacts and wiring with an Anderson outlet for a power station! You could get your engine started with one of those!
- Thread starter
- #32
I will be exploring the use of locking tabs for parts assemblies, like in the bezel above. So I made a little jig to find out how thick these tabs should be for the PLA I am using. Something like:
we'll see what works best.
On a related note, did you guys have success with gluing PLA with common adhesives besides the super expensive PLA-specific ones? I hear superglue and JBWeld plastic bonder work OK.
added: well, looks like for a workable tab it's gotta be either 1 or 1.5mm thick if the tab is 10mm long. Probably more the 1mm. That's not much. This stuff is much harder than what I'm used to seeing with tabs on various plastic parts. A similar thickness with this PLA is not flexing at all. Interesting test!
we'll see what works best.
On a related note, did you guys have success with gluing PLA with common adhesives besides the super expensive PLA-specific ones? I hear superglue and JBWeld plastic bonder work OK.
added: well, looks like for a workable tab it's gotta be either 1 or 1.5mm thick if the tab is 10mm long. Probably more the 1mm. That's not much. This stuff is much harder than what I'm used to seeing with tabs on various plastic parts. A similar thickness with this PLA is not flexing at all. Interesting test!
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This is the best glue for PLA, it literally welds them together:
IPS Weld-On 16 Acrylic Plastic... https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00R5NYM7M?ref=ppx_pop_mob_ap_share
You have to be very careful with it, the stuff is very thin and pours out of the tube. Smells nasty too.
CA adhesive (Super glue) does work well, plus you can do an instant set with a quick spray of activator.
IPS Weld-On 16 Acrylic Plastic... https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00R5NYM7M?ref=ppx_pop_mob_ap_share
You have to be very careful with it, the stuff is very thin and pours out of the tube. Smells nasty too.
CA adhesive (Super glue) does work well, plus you can do an instant set with a quick spray of activator.
- Thread starter
- #34
Thanks! I do have some IPS16 on the way actually, looking forward to trying it. I have printed some coupons to do a test. I probably also have some standard acrylic cement someplace in a cabinet but more likely than not, long out of its prime...
I have never used activator for CA glue. Not quite sure why it's needed or desirable TBH. But open to the idea.
I have never used activator for CA glue. Not quite sure why it's needed or desirable TBH. But open to the idea.
- Thread starter
- #35
Well, the PLA bolts I made may not be as strong as I thought. I had a 1/4-20 PLA bolt holding a chuck stand like above but with 6 chuck keys so a bit of weight. Thought it'd be nicer if the bolt was printed as well. Looked plenty strong. Well, I came back in the shop the next day and the whole thing had fallen off the supporting arm. The bolt broke during the night, presumably being sheared from a horizontal axis bending stress (the stand base was tilted). I am thinking that the layered fabrication lends itself to weakness if the layers are not sufficiently fused for whatever reason. (I had printed the bolt in a vertical position so the layers were perpendicular to the bolt center axis.) And another 4mm PLA bolt I made also broke in 2 while threading it into a nominally the same size but tight threaded hole.
OTOH, I printed a 10mm bolt -so quite a bit thicker- and I can't break it by hand trying to bend it.
All of those were printed around 220C.
So, caution needed there, maybe.
OTOH, I printed a 10mm bolt -so quite a bit thicker- and I can't break it by hand trying to bend it.
All of those were printed around 220C.
So, caution needed there, maybe.
Love seeing more people jumping into printing. I've only been doing it for a little over a year, got into it for my business and automotive hobby needs. Started with a ender 3 and then recently made the jump to a bambu lab p1s. Most of my printing is pla for test prints and then petg-cf, will be getting into ASA shortly. I do all my design in fusion 360, tried blender and hated it.
All my automotive stuff is for my lx570 but so far ive done some utility light mounts for my roof rack, a switch mount in place of sunglass holder, lift gate cargo light. A fun hobby when it works out!
All my automotive stuff is for my lx570 but so far ive done some utility light mounts for my roof rack, a switch mount in place of sunglass holder, lift gate cargo light. A fun hobby when it works out!
Very nice. What lamps are you using on the roof rack? I have a Sherpa rack sitting in the garage waiting for warmer weather to get installed, then I want to add lights.
Thanks, was in HF just the other day, will check them out next time. They look like just the ticket.
How much fun was it working with the inserts? I haven't tried/needed them yet, but have a project in mind that I might use them.
