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| davew Member Since: 02 Jan 2012 Location: North Yorkshire Posts: 888   
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For the latest project I decided I really needed to use ABS rather than PLA as it's possible that, being left in the car, it may experience higher temperatures than PLA can sustain. ABS is a pig to print with compared to PLA and I now understand why there's so much chatter around 3d printers and bed adhesion !
Anyway with a bit of messing around I managed to get the ABS to stick to the print bed. My speed and temperature settings need some work to get a better finish but overall I think the result will be practical if not quite as pretty as I'd want - I need to do some speed and temperature test pieces to get the ABS print as good as the PLA print is. Anyway, the current project is to make a replacement bracket for our broken Oztent chair, spurred on by the discussion on camping chairs ! I've beefed the bracket up a bit over the original to try and avoid the same thing happening again, it'll be interesting to see how robust a printed part is compared to the original. Here's the first ABS print of the bracket, I was using pretty coarse settings as I had no idea if the ABS would print at all and didn't want to spend too long printing it to then have it not work...  Click image to enlarge http://www.yorkshireoffroadclub.net/ |
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14th Apr 2016 3:05pm |
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| davew Member Since: 02 Jan 2012 Location: North Yorkshire Posts: 888
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I've never really liked the aluminium cover over the bonnet vent on my motor so decided to print a new custom one. It's 400mm long and 130mm wide so needed to be printed in two halves. Each half has a stepped join on the main surround so they can be glued together fairly easily. This print was done in PLA, I will probably end up printing an ABS version as it gets a tad hot above the engine !
This is it, fresh off the printer, needs a bit of finishing work but not too much. The finish on the PLA is a lot shinier than the finish on ABS, another reason to perhaps use ABS. Click image to enlarge http://www.yorkshireoffroadclub.net/ |
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21st Apr 2016 10:14pm |
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| davew Member Since: 02 Jan 2012 Location: North Yorkshire Posts: 888
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That's a good point, I did consider printing it in three parts to give a bit more flexibility in how I joined it. In two parts each part would barely fit on the printer bed. It had to be printed diagonally across the bed to get it to fit within the print area. I've been wondering about printing a similar pair of wing top covers for the heater inlet and the, normally, blank plate on the RHS. They're a bit too big for the print bed by about 15mm though so a diagonal cut might work better for that, especially if I put a "dummy" join in form the other direction so it looks more symmetrical.
The step is just an undercut of 5mm so on the left half the top goes over the right half and then it's swapped around on the bottom so the right half goes over the left. The outer is 3mm deep and the overlaps are 1.5mm deep. That and doubling up on the vertical grill in the centre should give plenty of contact area for the glue. It doesn't show up too well on the picture but there are rivet holes just to each side of the centre where it will be fixed to the bonnet so strength shouldn't be an issue in this case... sagging might be if I leave it as PLA and it gets too hot though ! 
The first version of the design printed the grill elements at 45 degrees, which would have possibly allowed a stronger join but it looked odd for some reason. it might have been because the Corvette lettering is angled and it somehow merged with it. I might also revise it to add some mounts for computer fans underneath it so I can switch them on when it's struggling to stay cool. That might also be a good time to look at a stronger design and, if I haven't increased the print bed size, maybe do it in three sections. http://www.yorkshireoffroadclub.net/ |
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21st Apr 2016 10:43pm |
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| Go Beyond Member Since: 30 Jan 2012 Location: Headcorn, Kent Posts: 6678 
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I'm subscribed to this thread Dave as I find it fascinating, I haven't got anything useful to add but wanted you to know that you should keep updating as I'm sure there are plenty of us reading
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22nd Apr 2016 5:44am |
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| bpman Member Since: 21 May 2008 Location: Oslo Posts: 8069 
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I'm looking forward to seeing Dave's 3D printed double din dash insert ...
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22nd Apr 2016 5:48am |
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| davew Member Since: 02 Jan 2012 Location: North Yorkshire Posts: 888
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Don't have a need for one yet, have been wondering if I could print an Auto Defender centre console though, perhaps a tad ambitious for a 200x200 print bed http://www.yorkshireoffroadclub.net/ |
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22nd Apr 2016 9:40pm |
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| davew Member Since: 02 Jan 2012 Location: North Yorkshire Posts: 888
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Today's print was one of the original reasons for getting a 3D printer, I think this is the final design revision...
In 2013 I designed a split charge and dual fuel tank monitoring and control system. It shows fuel remaining in gallons in both tanks and the voltage for each battery as well as controlling the low fuel light and fuel gauge to show the current fuel tank in use. It also operates the solenoid that switches the auxiliary battery in for charging when the main battery is topped up. Anyway, I built the thing and used an LCD on the dash to display the info, trouble was that the LCD didn't mount into any sort of box so I had to bodge one together form a standard ABS box, held onto the dash with double sided tape. It works but has a tendency to fall off form time to time !
Here's the new box and mount I put together for it, printed in ABS. The mounting bracket goes into the gap between the centre dash and the top dashboard and there's a channel in it to take the ribbon cable that drives the LCD. Hopefully I'll get it fitted this weekend and will add a pic of it in situ. Click image to enlarge Click image to enlarge Click image to enlarge http://www.yorkshireoffroadclub.net/ |
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22nd Apr 2016 9:54pm |
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| davew Member Since: 02 Jan 2012 Location: North Yorkshire Posts: 888
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I have now printed my first printer modification.
The Prusa i3 design has a bit of a potential problem in the way the Z axis is configured. The Z axis uses two outer guide bars to hold the X axis in position and then uses two M8 threaded bars to move the X axis up and down for the Z axis. The problem with the design is that the threaded bar and the guide bars are tied together. In theory this shouldn't be a problem but getting hold of M8 threaded bar that is perfectly straight is near impossible and ridiculously expensive. Any wobble on the threaded bar is transferred into the guide bar and thence into the print, giving banding in both the x and the y axis. You can see the effect on the pics of the LCD mounting box in the post above - a series of small lines at 1.5mm spacing, an exact match to the pitch of the M8 threaded bar of the Z axis. There are a few different solutions to this problem, including changing to M6 threaded bar so it has far less effect on the guide bars. The one I chose was to decouple the threaded bar from the guide bar, preventing any wobble in the threaded bar from effecting the guide bar and the X axis position. I designed my own bracket as an amalgam of some of the existing designs on thingiverse so that it is best suited to my printer. Results so far have been very good with an immediate loss of the banding that I was getting and, as a bonus, the Z axis is a LOT quieter now ! The original design with a bronze threaded bush bolted to the X-axis support together with the guide bearing. Threaded bar on the left, guide bar on the right. Click image to enlarge The design, a bracket to mount the existing bronze threaded bush... Click image to enlarge The printed items with the bronze bush opted into place... Click image to enlarge Click image to enlarge The bracket installed onto the printer, the new bracket lifts the z axis bearing but the threaded bar is no longer linked directly to the X axis support so it can wobble without effecting the print. Click image to enlarge The next mod to fit is the dual extruder head which arrived a couple of weeks ago ! http://www.yorkshireoffroadclub.net/ |
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5th May 2016 9:56am |
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| davew Member Since: 02 Jan 2012 Location: North Yorkshire Posts: 888
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Thought I'd update this with a couple of "installed" pics and an update on the duel extruder experiment.
First, a couple of pics, the first is the final housing for the battery and fuel monitor LCD display in situ. The mounting slots between the bottom of the top dash panel and the centre dash console so no screws/glue/tape required. Click image to enlarge This is a couple of the bits I've made for the camping trailer, some caps for the end of the tubes that make up the supports for the tent. Below the pipe is one of the supports I made (in orange PLA) where the supports bolt through to the trailer frame. Click image to enlarge I tried installing a second extruder but the weight of the extra stepper motor etc... on the x axis bracket was a bit too much, leading to some vibration. I've decided to try again but next time will change to a bowden setup which moves the stepper motors for the extruder onto the frame and just leaves the hotends on the X axis. If anyone needs a MK8 extruder assembly, give me a shout as I'm going to switch to a couple of EDB v6 hotends so I can print nylon and polycarbonate as well as PLA and ABS. http://www.yorkshireoffroadclub.net/ |
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22nd May 2016 10:43pm |
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| ROBBONTHEROCK Member Since: 23 Jun 2014 Location: Aberdeenshire Posts: 637  
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Awesome thread.
I have a 3d printer as well. I Bought a Zortrax M200, its fantastic. [URL=] Click image to enlarge[/URL] I haven't designed / built any Landy parts - yet. But i was thinking of a cool mounting unit for a reversing camera
Anyway I am designing and building this thing........its R/C and its 1/6th scale
http://smg.photobucket.com/user/andyr27/CRARRV/story Cheers Andy Admin note: this post has had its images recovered from a money grabbing photo hosting site and reinstated  |
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22nd May 2016 10:53pm |
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| Rakthi Member Since: 30 Nov 2012 Location: Where the cats are Posts: 200 
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That is absolutely amazing what you are building there!
1:6 scale too, how long/wide if I may ask? Have you done a write up on it on one of the RC forums? |
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23rd May 2016 4:21am |
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| ROBBONTHEROCK Member Since: 23 Jun 2014 Location: Aberdeenshire Posts: 637
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Thanks, yeah i have the "story" posted on the UKTC forum.
http://www.uktank.org/phpbb3/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=4393 Its approx, 1.5m long, by 600mm wide, and weighs around 100kg. Cheers Andy |
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23rd May 2016 5:48am |
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| Rakthi Member Since: 30 Nov 2012 Location: Where the cats are Posts: 200
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Thanks for the link to the thread. Just finished reading it!
Absolutely outstanding and detailed build you have going there. Should post it in "boys and their toys" thread. Model building on a level I can only dream off! Cheers! Stephan |
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23rd May 2016 12:10pm |
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| LoveTheMud Member Since: 19 Feb 2015 Location: Weybridge Surrey & Pontefract West Yorkshire Posts: 411 
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I really think you should expand into the Twisted style double din button unit...
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23rd May 2016 7:18pm |
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