3D printer – new work toy , a miriad of personal creations await!

Almost as a laugh I slipped one of these on to the end of my budget request this year. We had all been told to look for savings and to expect budgets cuts so I put it on the end expecting a polite **** off response but the rest of my budget might get the nod through to keep me sweet. However, everyone else got a 25% budget cut, I got a freeze and told this bad boy was going to turn up next week too! Keeping my head down with the other department heads!

Very excited – 100% geeky I know but I can’t help myself! Lots of worthy ( 😐 ) reasons to want it for work – but sod that, it’s a summer of printing random plastic widgets for me!

So what random plastic widget that you can’t find in the shops would you make? First on my list is a colour matched deck plate with an integrated cover for the bilge pump in my kayak that doesn’t exist, a better mount for my gps thingy, a new knob for my oven, a couple of bits for my van I can’t find anywhere and a silly design for an egg cup that I’ve had for ages and couldn’t find any other way to manufacture. I wonder how many people have been caught making a “present” for their wife in a 3D printer 😀 Not that it crossed my mind to do that…..at all….

Where do you work / what as? Design Engineer?

Design teacher (mainly A level) in a (relatively posh independent) school.

Given their price…. can I suggest you start knocking-out chain guides?

Edit: or spokey-dokeys

A Garmin Dakota mount that doesnt rattle!

Lightweight road Chain Catcher.

Given their price…. can I suggest you start knocking-out chain guides?

I had wondered about a little side line in something like that. A friend of mine in another school who have a little laser cutter makes a very nice little income making, of all things, superman style capes for lego men and selling them on ebay!

superman style capes for lego men

now THAT is niche!

Go-pro mounts would be good…. how about a wotsit for clipping your iPhone to your camelback chest strap, for a bit of filming?

Convert – Good stuff thought you may be in Design Ed! It’s the future of manufacturing!

how much does one of those things cost?

15-20k retail

Did you order the support removal thingy too?

It prints with ABS doesnt it? Don’t expect anything really strong but certainly handy and will be useful for the teaching as well 😉

About fifteen grand.

I’d like a replica Peacekeeper pistol from Farscape please, Santa.

A colour capable one – £12.5K to schools (they do an educational subsidy), about £15-16K to industry I guess.

I didn’t actually want the colour version but happy enough that’s what’s coming!

Did you order the support removal thingy too?

Oh yes!

Dumb question, but do they take ages to “print” something? (I realise it’s size dependent, of course)

I wonder how many people have been caught making a “present” for their wife in a 3D printer Not that it crossed my mind to do that…..at all….

If you were to scan and then make a replica, would you be tempted to scale it up and then put on display to gawps of admiration when her friends come around.

wow! lot of money. is this a modern version of the vacuum former that we had in school?

I’d make:
– a spacer for my XT cranks that are currently being bodged with two spacers off some RaceFace cranks
– a correctly shaped chainstay protector, rather than using a neoprene one
– case for my phone with a buckle on one end that I could securely attach to by Wingnut backpack
– a cable guide to attach to my bottom bracket
– a Cheryl Cole miniature
– a Specialized DMD compatible chain guide

Ah, now that would be interesting. 🙂

It’s not quick, but idiot proof so you can walk away and have a coffee whilst it does the hard work. About 10-12mins to print a little pot with a screw top lid the size of an old school film canister in the demo I saw. Material is not cheap (about 30p per cubic cm) so big models could cost lots if you are not careful. The support material is the clever bit I think.

If you were to scan and then make a replica, would you be tempted to scale it up and then put on display to gawps of admiration when her friends come around.

That might push the size limits of the machine a bit (it can only make a max of 9″) but I suppose you could do it in 2 halves 😉

30p per cubic cm?!!?!??!
Can you not just steal some centimetre cubes from the maths department?

Mech Hangers

custom lego bricks

I love RP it’s such an awesome development. I spend lots of time verifying FE models using these babies. The products they produce are structurally not up to scratch compared to actual injection moulded polymers.. Hopefully they will be good enough one day. Some machines can produce pretty good structural stuff, but only at the 250-500k price bracket

these are very popular in schools now.

We’ve been running 2 for about 2years now, not as fancy as that, much more homebuilt ours, but with 2years development they rival proper commercial grade printers like the £40k HP job.

A word on strength, yes they print in ABS or PLA (smells like sugar cane!), the temperature of the head, bed and ambient temperature are absolutely critical. It depends on what material you are using, but we find if the temp on any of the 3 parameters +/- 10c your plastic either burns or doesn’t lay correctly so you get weak layers, or just plain weak structures!

Its a huge learning curve, especially with the fill materials/layers and support structures, often less is more if you catch my drift.

We also manufacture our products almost entirely from 3D printer (natural ABS) components, as our designs change regularly and the quality/tolerances from the printers are (to us) equal to proper extruded/moulded plastic components at a tiny fraction of the price***

***Just ONE set of mould/extruder components (forgetting the massive cost of an actual plastic machine, £50-250k) for ONE product line would be in the region of £165k, then 2months down the line when some components change you can throw away a good deal of those moulds and have to commission new ones. Vs. a £5k plastic printer that pays for itself & printing materials over night by making trivial parts for other plastic printers (making spares for other users, setup wedges/dimension checks, extruder cooling kits etc).

Lastly, we’re also looking to start an ABS plastic recycling centre, as we alone generate about 5-10kg of waste plastic in a week that can easily be melted down and re-extruded onto drums for use again and again (until there is no waste, only £££ finished products). But the cost of the machine means we estimate we’d need at least 20kg a week to make it worthwhile, so thought of effectively ‘buying in’ using freepost boxes, other peoples ABS waste/scrap, then sell them back cut-price reels (around half the cost of RRP).

A Garmin Dakota mount that doesnt rattle!

+1

I am properly jealous. Not only do I want one for home, but I have been trying to get one of the cheaper ones for work through official budget channels. So far, no go. My boss, who recognises that they are awesome things, just won’t put one through on the lab budget. And when I think of all the things we could make…

Anyone would think that a security team in a software company wouldn’t need one by the way he’s acting!

Convert – I take it you already know the delights of Thingiverse.com ?

Oh, and as for things to make… Custom egg-cups for all the staff at the school with their faces on the front. Or a new set of mounts for my Contour that have the same curve as a Mk. 7 helmet so that I can get rid of the one I had to heat-bend and then duct tape on.

Willard – why not buy a kit and make your own ?

Convert – I take it you already know the delights of Thingiverse.com ?

Not that one -thanks, I’ll have a look. I take a trip to Grabcad every now and then and some of the kids I teach are addicted and now frequent contributors.

could always make a woman 😆

A Garmin Dakota mount that doesnt rattle!

Lightweight road Chain Catcher.

Like this guy makes? http://www.racewaredirect.co.uk/

I don’t know if he does one for the “Dakota” but he owns/manages a rapid prototype company, so would probably make you one.

Lastly, we’re also looking to start an ABS plastic recycling centre,

I’d be interested in that. Good idea. There’s a danger that most RP machines will just end up producing more unrecyclable tat.

Having said that I just got a sample for the Connex500- 9 different buttons in 27-90 shore rubber done in one build 🙂 Just the thing for a phone case

How do you find the PLA compares to ABS? I like the idea that it’s biodegradable.

Some kind of polyhedron/chain main type thing that makes people wonder how you got it to fit together

Mint Sauce key rings?

Rachel

Can you print another 3d printer?

Yes that ^^^

Yep, There are others but I think the “reprap” was the first 3d printer designed to be self replicating.

Mint Sauce key rings?

Rachel

Annoyed that you beat me to it!