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Glad this is back on the front page.

I know you are busy, but is there a reason you can't cut out anyone else here (and possibly more work and confusion for yourself and others) and upload the file yourself? That way, if there are questions/concerns/tweaks that need to be taken care of, you'd be the best person for the job. Again, just curious.

Do those sites require a min. purchase? any idea how many cc's the part would be (for material and machine costs?). You believe Nylon 12 would be sufficient for this particular application? It seems that you do. I for one don't care what it looks like, as long as the durability and functionality is there.

With the 3D printed options, do you think there is a reason to go the route of having a mold made for injection molding? Do you think the increased cost of each individual part would be worth it? Each buyer would probably want 4 pieces, at a minimum.

Thanks for bringing this back up and for all of your work.
 
for the one-off solution, printing is the way to go. Unfortunately, mold cutting costs a lot, but injection molding would be the overall cheapest per part and most reliable construction method. The drawback is the starting costs...if every pig owner in the world bought 8 of them for $50 a piece, the costs could easily be justified, but you see how open our wallets tend to be, as a group. The offer to share the file and let individuals decide which direction to go is totally understandable and as far as I'm concerned, goes above and beyond as there isn't a built in reward for the artist and his brushes...Be careful Nickey Nickles, you'll give away the store...
 
WORDY response to ensue...

LAMBCRUSHER said:
GOOD WORK, Dude! we missed you, but you were not letting anyone down...glad to have you back. and it sounds like you got some good results cooking here...I had a thought for a couple other little fj55 parts that maybe you could help us work on in the future...
Click to expand...

;) GLAD to help. I'll just have to self-regulate just how "helpful" I try to be. I remember conversations surrounding hood bumper/stops and some thrust washers. I'll revisit that thread to see what I can help with.

onemanarmy said:
Glad this is back on the front page.

I know you are busy, but is there a reason you can't cut out anyone else here (and possibly more work and confusion for yourself and others) and upload the file yourself? That way, if there are questions/concerns/tweaks that need to be taken care of, you'd be the best person for the job. Again, just curious.

Do those sites require a min. purchase? any idea how many cc's the part would be (for material and machine costs?). You believe Nylon 12 would be sufficient for this particular application? It seems that you do. I for one don't care what it looks like, as long as the durability and functionality is there.

With the 3D printed options, do you think there is a reason to go the route of having a mold made for injection molding? Do you think the increased cost of each individual part would be worth it? Each buyer would probably want 4 pieces, at a minimum.

Thanks for bringing this back up and for all of your work.
Click to expand...

Yeah... a few things to answer there. Shapeways already upped the price of that technology - now it's $5 plus a part volume fee. Each part is coming out to $29. Jerks. That's an awful lot to pay for a non-molded part, IMO. Even if it does perform just as well as the real thing. Regarding having the part molded, here is my math...

  • Injection Mold Tooling: $2200 (Aluminum Tooling, quoted by both Protomold and Xcentric Molding). At that price I'd still need to drill some holes after molding (called a secondary operation) since the "side actions" for the holes would double the cost of the tool! Not a deal breaker, but adds some time. Out of the mold it would look like this, before the hole drilling:
PM SS.jpg


It should look like:

ShouldBe.jpg

  • Per Piece Cost: $3 (Glass-Filled Nylon)
  • Anticipated Volume: 400 pieces (Assuming 100 pig owners in the world want a set of 4...)
  • Total Cost: $2200 + $3*400 = $3400
  • Recoup Cost: $3400/400 = $8.50 ea

Seems reasonable, right? BUT the questions are 1) how many folks would actually purchase these and 2) what might they be willing to pay? They're NLA parts, but at the same time they're just dumb pieces of plastic. My gut tells me you have a hard stop around $20/piece. If you sold them for $20/piece (bordering on highway robbery) you wouldn't break even until you sold 170 of them (about 40 complete sets).

So... my local molding resource, that when to sh!+, was looking like $1000 for the tool! If you do the math there, you see I'd break even much earlier (110 units) OR I'd be able to sell them less, say buy 3 get 1 free. Parts houses like SOR would charge more because they're pirates and because they'd spend the up front engineering costs. In this case my cost is free because I love my cruisers and this forum.

End of rant, for now!
 
When you have a door that can't open or you damn sure know the time is coming when it won't, you buy a set or two. I would think every 55 owner on here realizes his time is coming. Hope you see a way to get some made because I'm down for two sets.

Thanks Man!
 
I’d be down for 12 bucks. I’d be down for 16... prolly a 3-4 month lead time after tooling is paid for? Reasonable. I got a quote today for a bard fitting mold with 2 slides and 2 cavities pushing $35k
 
scrapdaddy said:
When you have a door that can't open or you damn sure know the time is coming when it won't, you buy a set or two. I would think every 55 owner on here realizes his time is coming. Hope you see a way to get some made because I'm down for two sets.

Thanks Man!
Click to expand...

With that file of his, you can have 8 made at shapeways of your choice of material. The short run cost for those who can’t wait for a molded part would be $26 each or more. My barbed tee fitting should be in my hands in 3 weeks and cost me 70 bucks in mechanical component grade nylon. They can print it in stainless steel for 170. Fair pricing for one off stuff. Obviously not great pricing, but compared to unobtainuim, it’s a greAt deal. I got the boss to spring for the pro version of sketchup. 3D printing is revolutionizing product development
 
I'm in for a set of 4, thanks for the legwork, and answering my questions.

it's not just a dumb piece of plastic.....it's integral to proper door operation, so $20 a piece is very reasonable, especially when the stock piece fails and you have this dumb/surprised/sick look on your face.
 
I had a couple extra printed. These are from the badass HP Nylon 12. If anyone is totally handle-less right now I can spare one. Think of it as beta testing 3D printed parts... You'll be obliged to give feedback to the forum!

Let me know.

PHOTO_20171203_144024.jpg
 
LAMBCRUSHER said:
C’mon, nickles , how much did they want for the stainless steel ink?
Click to expand...

I guess this process makes a lot of unobtanium old news, crazy! Reminds me of a term we used to use -vapor ware -but now there is such a thing as vaping so don't use it anymore...
 
yeah, I wouldn't want to be confused with a vaper...
 
et al...don't forget things like rear reflector rings- reverse lenses- windshield wiper pivot covers. door regulator link clips...what else....
 
LAMBCRUSHER said:
C’mon, nickles , how much did they want for the stainless steel ink?
Click to expand...

Hah! I'll check, why the heck not.

Ol Yeller said:
I guess this process makes a lot of unobtanium old news, crazy! Reminds me of a term we used to use -vapor ware -but now there is such a thing as vaping so don't use it anymore...
Click to expand...

This ties back into our other '55 unobtainium thread. I previously took the approach of wanting to help get things reproduced, i.e. legit manufacturing. Maybe my contribution here on this forum is helping get things re-designed (CAD) and finding the right 3D print technology to facilitate.
 
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