Fun with 3D Printing

Stuball48

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My son does 3D printing for fishing lure molds he is applying for patents on. An amazing piece of equipment. Any special programs needed?
 

GAD

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My son does 3D printing for fishing lure molds he is applying for patents on. An amazing piece of equipment. Any special programs needed?

That's really cool!

As for software, if you want to design stuff you need something to do that with. For simple stuff like the Guild box, I altered someone else's design from Thingiverse using TinkerCAD. TinkerCAD is free browser-based 3D design tool that freaking rocks. For more advanced stuff you'd need a real 3D design tool.

In order to get the file to print, you need a slicer. The slicer I use is Cura which is also free. Many 3D printer brands include their own slicers, and some just use a fork of Cura.
 

GAD

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Here's a useful design I whipped up. I recently bought a Deacy amp and the circuit boards inside broke free of their epoxy and slammed around in the box. I could have just glued them back, but I decided I wanted to elevate the board off of the wood and decided to make a thing.

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This thing worked like a charm and I was thrilled that it worked.

I have another very Guild-related solution that I've created, but you'll have to wait for the review to be posted. :)
 

Stuball48

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Thanks GAD and you got to have that "warm fuzzy" feeling inside--very very impressive designs and builds to me!!
 

fronobulax

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Here's one that will blow your mind.

This is a ring with a central heliacal gear, and six additional heliacal gears:

Screen Shot 2020-01-16 at 3.05.08 PM.jpg

I then merge the two parts together like this:

Screen Shot 2020-01-16 at 3.04.49 PM.jpg

Now, when I print, this part will come off of the build plate and spin without any further steps needed, and without the gears falling out!

How? Because none of the pink parts actually touch the grey parts so they all print individually. Since they're heliacal, when the layers stack, the gears become "locked" into the surrounding ring and central gear. I'm printing one now and will post pics and maybe a vid of me taking it off the build plate so you can see (takes 3+ hours to print on normal quality).

Of all the things I've printed, these little gear toys are by far the most popular. They're mind-blowing and they act as fidget spinners so everyone loves to play with them and marvel at how they're even possible.

So how big a donation do you need to send people one? Any ideas about how to add some kind of Guild reference without violating a copyright?
 

walrus

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All of these designs are really cool, GAD! Thanks for sharing!

walrus
 

GAD

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So how big a donation do you need to send people one? Any ideas about how to add some kind of Guild reference without violating a copyright?


Screen Shot 2020-01-16 at 6.34.58 PM.jpg

Print time on normal quality is 4 hours. Print time on fine quality is six hours. The time scales, too. Printing 4 of them at once would mean 16ish hours on normal. The good news is that this is a very robust printer and I have little doubt that I could print 20 at a time and let it just chug for days. Then the only issue is running out of filament.

Could be a fun fundraiser idea. A simpler print would take less time but printing in a single color really does not.

Note that in this design the G is only on one side, but I could put it on both.
 

GGJaguar

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Can you digitize and print vintage HB-1 pickup rings? :)
 

adorshki

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Can you digitize and print vintage HB-1 pickup rings? :)
(With apologies for butt-inski:) That would be a piece of cake, in fact seem to recall somebody's already obtained a set of 3D printed rings even though don't I remember what p/u's they were for.
 

GAD

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GAD

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Starfire bass bridge pieces?

That's where things get interesting.

Anything that I can measure well I can reproduce within the confines of the machine which is 330 x 240 x 300mm (about 13 x 9.4 x 11.8 inches), but there are limits of the materials involved. For example I can make exact replicas of the old Guild switch tips, but they're plastic so not of much use. I can actually print with metallic impregnated filament so I may experiment with that, and those can even be polished so there's some hope there. When it comes to load or stress-bearing parts, things get more dicey. For example, I could print all the parts and assemble a firearm, but it would explode if fired. Another example would be that I can print a flat head screwdriver, but the blade would likely deform under use.

Similarly I could make a tailpiece, but the part would likely deform under the stress of the strings.

Where it gets fun is that I can print using different materials. I can print in silver, copper, and gold using special filaments, but I have to use a special nozzle because they're abrasive and will destroy the default brass nozzles. I can print using ABS plastic or "Tough PLA" which is much stronger than normal PLA, but still really for use where you would otherwise see ABS plastic used (think Lego bricks and plastic parts in cars). This material versatility along with the large build volume are the main reasons I chose this printer.

Finally, my printer (like most common models) is FDM which is short for Fused Deposition Modeling. This means that it quirts out layers of plastic that melt themselves to the layers below. This is a very different technique from injection moulding and thus has different limitations.
 

beecee

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Companies like Prusa use their own printers to print more printers.

hmmm.....sounds sort of Skynet-ish.
 

adorshki

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Stuball48

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Al:
When the quick witted folks in California have a meeting, you must be chairman and preside.
 
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