One off 3D printing of a small item

What’s the best way of getting this done?

Specifically, this tiny bit:

https://www.printables.com/model/374324-black-diamond-storm-450-led-headlamp-latch-replace

Longer term I intend filing a chunk of aluminium into a replacement latch but I’m just curious about how much this kind of printing work costs. I have zero experience of this.

Black Diamond are replacing the hinge unit under warranty but, y’know.

Does you local libraries offer this service, my good lady is a librarian in Dundee and they all do here.

I’ve used craftcloud.

Really, libraries, I suspect you’d be pointed to the photocopier if I asked at mine.

There are also lots of online services that can print for you.  Some can do metal parts too.

On here the best best is probably to post a stealth topic and see if a keen hobbyist will help you out 😉

I chucked it in my slicer to see what’s what.

It’s an 18 minute job – 6 mins prep and 12 mins print time – and uses 7g of filament (part plus support) which is about 7-8p.  Probably under 5p of electricity.

So my guess is for a PETG print on a Bambu P1S, the cost is around 13 pence, plus machine time, labour and postage.

i can do that for you tomorrow if you want?

Drp

Yes, PETG coming in at just over a fiver on Craftcloud. Steel and aluminium options would be of interest but aren’t cost effective. I’ve got a strip of aluminium on the way for a fiver that I’m going to file into shape manually. Longer term I don’t trust any plastic clip not to break again. I was lucky this one happened at home rather than on the side of a hill.

DrP, I’d be interested in one out of curiosity, to see how strong it is, if it’s not too much trouble.

For want of a nail…

I tried employing some people on Fiverr, but it was loads of back and forth. In the end I  tapped up a friend who has a printer and gace him some beers.

 Really, libraries, I suspect you’d be pointed to the photocopier if I asked at mine.

yes – West Lothian libraries have 3d printers too…  not particularly well publicised.  Its the sort of service that could actually save community libraries – making them “hubs” of helpfulness rather than just about books.

Drop me a line, I’ll see if I can find an envelope, and you could email me a paid Royal Mail post label?

I’ve got a couple on my desk already.

I’ll be interested to see if it’s up for the job.

Slight reroute of the thread.

where is the best place for buying the 3D printer  filament from?

buying 10’at a time seems to bring the cost per KG massively.

Struck out at the local library; Todmorden Library up the valley used to offer the service but doesn’t currently.

That part is tiny! PETG does have a bit of flex to it which helps, but I wouldn’t expect that printed part to be particularly strong.

Some options: get it printed in TPU – more flexible/squishy so doesn’t work for all functional parts, but if it does it’s great because the parts are really strong & not brittle at all.

ABS which you can then vapour smooth which has the effect of “melting” the layers together for extra strength. (never done this!)

Print in Nylon or even better CF reinforced nylon. Has a slight bit of give like PETG but much stronger & more resistant to heat etc. Downsides are, relatively expensive material and (more) difficult to print.

Yeah I’d print that in petg, it’s good layerwise at least, not too many weak spots and I’m assuming it wouldn’t need perfect dimensionality so you could go a wee bit hot for super strong layers and not worry too much if it were a tiny bit out of shape. Nylon’d probably be better but I suck at nylon 🙂

Thing with libraries is the machines are cheap but the skills to keep em running and get good prints are not so common. I donated an old one to a student society and it was totally “you cannot have this as a shared resource, you need one specific nerd who is in charge of it and will spend time on it or it will break then gather dust. It’s easy to be negative about all the underused ones but i think a better way to think of it is you really need 3 or 4 machines out there in order to have one find good soil AND a good audience.

alexandersupertramp
Free Member

where is the best place for buying the 3D printer filament from?

buying 10’at a time seems to bring the cost per KG massively.

Amazon’s generally good… Esun are a consistently reliable manufacturer, not the cheapest but very rarely crap. 1kg is the standard size, beware of cheeky sellers with 500g or 800g reels priced as if they’re kgs. Also beware of 3mm filament, 1.75 is the absolute standard now but there’s still some 3mm out there.

But mostly if you’re not printing yourself it’s better for the printer person to get their own- filaments have varying character, you get used to what you use, a new material or even type like a glow or clear filament can take a fair amount of effort to get a good result out of and what thta mostly means is “you get a less good print for your money”

@northwind

Thanks for the information, all new to me at the moment:)

where is the best place for buying the 3D printer filament from?

SUNLU

Direct from their site, PLA, PLA+ and PETG are often around £10-12 a kilo, minimum 3 spools of mixed colours, and free delivery.

PETG is working well for me, and seems to get decent reviews on the forums I use.

Anyway, I’ve printed a batch and sent the OP to try, with a few spares for backup in case of any issues.  If it’s not up to it, I can look at something else, or at least he’ll know the file is good to order elsewhere.

Does you local libraries offer this service, my good lady is a librarian in Dundee and they all do here.

Inverclyde offers this as well
I wonder if this is just a Scottish thing ?

Here y’go! Thanks, man, up and running for a trip on Monday.

Looks like it’s working ok!

Fingers crossed you don’t need the spares but something tells me you probably will. Better safe than sorry.

@diggery Thank you, I will try them out out.

If you happen to be near Cambridge… https://web.makespace.org/

Might be other such places nationwide.

I’ve bought a reel of PETG off Amazon, and tried prrinting an ‘anything cage’ ripoff with it.. it’s like it’s made of biscuit!
Cracks and snaps with absolute ease!
PLA, which i’ve had no issues with, seems much better..and from my understanding, PETG is meant ot be stronger.

Was printing with a nozzle temp of 240ish, and bed temp of 70..

Is it just rubbish filament?

Might try Esun – i’ve got their PLA+

DrP

@DrP – was it a new, unopened reel? I think that PETG is hygroscopic so needs to be kept nice & dry. If not it can be a real pain to print with & you won’t get good results. We have used it at work and it never prints as well if someone has left an open reel on the machine for weeks.

If it was a new reel, then maybe the print profile just needs a tweak?

I have never bothered with it at home, as there’s a known issue with the board on my CR10-Mini which means I can’t get the nozzle up to a high enough temp. There’s a fix for it, but I’ve never been bothered enough to do it.

I’ve bought a reel of PETG off Amazon, and tried prrinting an ‘anything cage’ ripoff with it.. it’s like it’s made of biscuit!
Cracks and snaps with absolute ease!

what did you buy? PETG shouldn’t be brittle when printed. It has slightly more flex than PLA which makes it good for functional parts. If the layer adhesion is poor then that’s possibly too much cooling.

Could just be crap filament though! I wouldn’t say esun is the watchword in quality – I buy loads of it, but only cos it’s cheap ? I think you have to assume that any cheap filament is not going to be dry when you get it. I bought some of the proper Sunlu filament driers which you can print from, that helped massively.

Cheers all – i’d read all the above stuff..

It was a brand new, vacuum sealed reel. Opened and immediately printed with.
THEN after reading about cooling, i reduced the fan to 60% and tried printing again. SAme result..

Honestly – i could basically crush it in my hand!

I’m wondering if just crap filament…

I always store my filament in an airtight box with a few ‘demister pads’ in, and a hydrometer in the box (little digital thing, that i can read from teh outside of the box)… may see if that’s dried it a bit, and try again…

DrP

I always store my filament in an airtight box with a few ‘demister pads’ in, and a hydrometer in the box (little digital thing, that i can read from teh outside of the box)… may see if that’s dried it a bit, and try again…

that will (possibly) keep dry filament dry, it won’t dry out filament that’s already wet.

It was a brand new, vacuum sealed reel.

don’t assume that means it’s not absorbed water! especially the cheapo Chinese stuff.

if you need to dry it then a) oven (plenty of guides if you google!) b) cheap generic food de-hydrator (various mods you can do so it better holds filament or even enables you to print directly from c) proper filament dryer/print box such as one of the Sunlu ones. Orders of magnitude better than options a or b, defo worth the investment IMO.

Honestly – i could basically crush it in my hand!

that said, I’ve not heard or experienced PETG going like this even when wet! So could be another problem entirely. That said, wet filament is never a good thing, so a dryer is definitely a good thing to have.

So off the back of this… I’ve ordered a filament drier/feeder box, and another roll of PETG!

It’ll now give me a cahnce to get my reverse-baden conversion working on my Ender3 v3!

Dry dry filament ahoy!!

DrP