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Thread: Any 3D printing fiends here?

  1. #1
    Senior Member Wallythacker's Avatar
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    Any 3D printing fiends here?

    Well, now I've done it. I tossed the idea around for a good year and meant to buy last fall during Black Friday but chickened out at the last minute because I really hadn't done my homework and I knew "buyer's regret" would surface soon after the item arrived.

    Then it dawned on me to look for a used item in Kijiji. That meant doing research first as you all know, buying privately means no return/no refund. I can live with that. Now, I dove into Kijiji. Holy cow. So many for sale! As usual the pricing was all over the map, from above the new retail price (what are they thinking, do they think buyers aren't going to know the value of the item before negotiations start?)

    So I found a nice clean, but tiny 3d printer made by Creality, the Ender 2 Pro. It was only $160 and he included a cool wireless gizmo to control the printer from anywhere. I like that idea as these things run up to 600F so they could be a fire hazard. At least now I can the thing off if I leave the house and realize it was printing when I left.

    Of course I couldn't make it print anything at home. Nada, Nein, zippo. I must have read 1000 internet pages troubleshooting why to no avail. I broke open a brand new roll of filament and BINGO!, problem solved. I guess the partial roll the guy gave me got waterlogged and was no good. Then I went printing, anything and everything. You really do have to dial these things in, but once you got it, very little fiddling is needed.

    The bug bit me hard. Of course when I was browsing on Amazon and seeing some great sale on larger printers I thought, "hmm, since this model Creality is on sale for $xxx.xx I should be able to negotiate a used one for quite a bit less." So, back to Kijiji and I had pretty well made up my mind on the size, features and price for my second printer.(Interesting note, at least half the sellers I talked to had 2 or more printers even after they sold off the one advertised on Kijiji. Quite a few folks had printer farms, running at least 4 machines with the sky as the limit.)

    I didn't have to look very far, there were 8+ machines with the price and features I wanted within ~150 km. It turns out that the day before I had arranged a road trip to see a machine in Richmond Hill I found an ad with not 1, BUT TWO printers with the features I wanted, but the price for BOTH machines was what I was willing to pay for just 1! There's just no way I could turn down a deal like that. I still can't figure out why they didn't sell before I found them. I missed so many other good price ones as they sold a day or two after they got posted. Oh well, maybe it's because dude lived in Cambridge and not the GTA. Doesn't matter, I ended up with them and I'm incredibly happy.

    As I write this all 3 are busy printing. I have this huge list already of stuff I want to design and print. I used to know Autocad quite well at one time and the new version, from what I gather, lets you design with 3d printing in mind. Bonus! Now I know I have a decently interesting hobby that will keep me out of trouble this coming winter. Here's the first printer I bought, the tiny Ender 2 Pro. Name:  Ender II Pro.jpg
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    Good grief. I didn't realize I rambled on so much LOL!


    Last edited by Wallythacker; 08-15-2022 at 05:22 AM.
    Zero, 2014 ES Plus 5MT, written off but not forgotten.
    Zero II, 2014 SE, 5MT, climate She's HOME now!
    Shelby AKA "Cute", 2017 ES 5MT, A/C.

    Mirage owners look at the world differently than everyone else, but in a better way
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  3. #2
    Daox (this forum's co-founder) is a 3D printing fiend!

    He also has a CAD/engineering background and has designed & printed a lot of neat stuff for fun & profit.

    Maybe he'll chime in & talk about his latest business venture selling 3D printed items.

        __________________________________________

        click to view fuel log View my fuel log 2014 Mirage ES 1.2 manual: 63.2 mpg (US) ... 26.9 km/L ... 3.7 L/100 km ... 75.9 mpg (Imp)


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    Wallythacker (08-16-2022)

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    I own a little 3d-printer aswell, a renkforce rf100. I've printed some stuff for in the house, but also for my mirage.
    The hubcaps (not sure if it's the right word) are 3d-printed (out of PLA) and I've printed some replacement parts for the sunvisors. I really like having one around the house, and most of the time I come across something, I'm thinking that I can model it myself (I use tinkercad) and an hour or less later it's already printing. I'm thinking of buying a bigger one, that can print more than just PLA (especially ABS or PETG), because the PLA is "melting" with this heatwave in europe. Your ender 2 pro is also already bigger than mine, I can only print 100mm x 100mm x 100mm.

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    Senior Member Wallythacker's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by MetroMPG View Post
    Daox (this forum's co-founder) is a 3D printing fiend!

    He also has a CAD/engineering background and has designed & printed a lot of neat stuff for fun & profit.

    Maybe he'll chime in & talk about his latest business venture selling 3D printed items.
    I had forgot my glovebox lamp was from him. It still works well. I'm curious what he prints now.

    Quote Originally Posted by JRB201 View Post
    I own a little 3d-printer aswell, a renkforce rf100. I've printed some stuff for in the house, but also for my mirage.
    The hubcaps (not sure if it's the right word) are 3d-printed (out of PLA) and I've printed some replacement parts for the sunvisors. I really like having one around the house, and most of the time I come across something, I'm thinking that I can model it myself (I use tinkercad) and an hour or less later it's already printing. I'm thinking of buying a bigger one, that can print more than just PLA (especially ABS or PETG), because the PLA is "melting" with this heatwave in europe. Your ender 2 pro is also already bigger than mine, I can only print 100mm x 100mm x 100mm.
    My Ender is 165mm x 165mm x 180mm. A nice for many things, I turn to my CR-10 for the big jobs, it is 300mm x 300mm x 400mm. I think it will get enlarged to 1000mm on the Z axis. there's a few things where I need that size.

    I didn't know PLA would melt or get soft at such low temps. I'd like to see the hubcaps. Here's CR-10 big printer

    Name:  cr-10 fact.jpg
Views: 251
Size:  28.6 KB
    Zero, 2014 ES Plus 5MT, written off but not forgotten.
    Zero II, 2014 SE, 5MT, climate She's HOME now!
    Shelby AKA "Cute", 2017 ES 5MT, A/C.

    Mirage owners look at the world differently than everyone else, but in a better way
    We're driving the Beetle of the 21st century, the greatest small car now available!

        __________________________________________

        click to view fuel log View my fuel log 2017 Mirage ES PLus 1.2 manual: 39.0 mpg (US) ... 16.6 km/L ... 6.0 L/100 km ... 46.8 mpg (Imp)


  8. #5
    What's the most useful thing you've printed so far?

        __________________________________________

        click to view fuel log View my fuel log 2014 Mirage ES 1.2 manual: 63.2 mpg (US) ... 26.9 km/L ... 3.7 L/100 km ... 75.9 mpg (Imp)


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    Senior Member Wallythacker's Avatar
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    I've printed far too much "toy" kids of stuff. My kid is a real Pokemon nut and she has 23 of them to date out of the 900 and something. I guess the most useful thing to date are hard cases for Nintendo Light, Switch and DS. Those gadgets are expensive. Oh, I printed some fan ducts for older high wattage quad core desktop computers.

    It's weird that I have a long list of items to print out for the printers to improve the printers. I gather that's SOP as none of them come with every feature or convenience. I hope to start producing odds and ends for the Mirage. Maybe a sleeker mount for my computer I bought from, was it you? I forget. A plate for aftermarket seat heaters I'll be adding. If I get ambitious enough I'll design a piece to connect the console to the dash with an opening for my amateur radio.
    Zero, 2014 ES Plus 5MT, written off but not forgotten.
    Zero II, 2014 SE, 5MT, climate She's HOME now!
    Shelby AKA "Cute", 2017 ES 5MT, A/C.

    Mirage owners look at the world differently than everyone else, but in a better way
    We're driving the Beetle of the 21st century, the greatest small car now available!

        __________________________________________

        click to view fuel log View my fuel log 2017 Mirage ES PLus 1.2 manual: 39.0 mpg (US) ... 16.6 km/L ... 6.0 L/100 km ... 46.8 mpg (Imp)


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  11. #7
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    I've given some thought into turbocharging my Mirage. Of course, it's not exactly cheap unless I can produce the majority of the more expensive parts myself. 4-5 years ago I don't think it would have been possible without spending a crazy high sum of $$$ but now? I can have stainless steel parts produced to my form factor and specs for as little as $130 per kilogram of finished material with very little machining required! My installation may be produced from resins capable of extreme stress, all stainless steel or a combination of the two.

    Check out this stuff, it's the stainless I might use: https://www.matterhackers.com/store/...nt/sk/M8H26VSM

    It's absolutely astounding to think that a home printer is now capable of creating a model that with reduction and sintering yields a 100% solid stainless steel component ready for use. My head is spinning thinking how practical it may be to make a turbo at home, including the actual turbo! A supercharger might in the cards as well. I'm not a huge fan of superchargers but on a small engine like the Mirage a super might be the better choice. Hell, go for broke, a multiple stage turbo/supercharger like they had in the highest performance WWII fighters would be incredible. The engineering is all out there, the tools for design and layout are there, now with home printable material the puzzle pieces are complete.

    I admit I'm a Luddite when it comes to a lot of things but when something as amazing as this comes along it really opens your eyes about what you can do.
    Zero, 2014 ES Plus 5MT, written off but not forgotten.
    Zero II, 2014 SE, 5MT, climate She's HOME now!
    Shelby AKA "Cute", 2017 ES 5MT, A/C.

    Mirage owners look at the world differently than everyone else, but in a better way
    We're driving the Beetle of the 21st century, the greatest small car now available!

        __________________________________________

        click to view fuel log View my fuel log 2017 Mirage ES PLus 1.2 manual: 39.0 mpg (US) ... 16.6 km/L ... 6.0 L/100 km ... 46.8 mpg (Imp)


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    mohammad (08-29-2022)

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    Quote Originally Posted by Wallythacker View Post
    I've given some thought into turbocharging my Mirage. Of course, it's not exactly cheap unless I can produce the majority of the more expensive parts myself. 4-5 years ago I don't think it would have been possible without spending a crazy high sum of $$$ but now? I can have stainless steel parts produced to my form factor and specs for as little as $130 per kilogram of finished material with very little machining required! My installation may be produced from resins capable of extreme stress, all stainless steel or a combination of the two.

    Check out this stuff, it's the stainless I might use: https://www.matterhackers.com/store/...nt/sk/M8H26VSM
    its $130 per kg but they also charge $50 per part for "debinding and sintering" which i imagine is just putting it in a giant oven to fuse all the printed material together.(first item free)

    https://www.matterhackers.com/store/...et/sk/M8NCJ01G
    please consider checking out my Mirage related youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6c...IEViRFw/videos

  14. #9
    Senior Member Wallythacker's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by mohammad View Post
    its $130 per kg but they also charge $50 per part for "debinding and sintering" which i imagine is just putting it in a giant oven to fuse all the printed material together.(first item free)

    https://www.matterhackers.com/store/...et/sk/M8NCJ01G
    That's pretty much it. I'll try a reasonably complex part first and see how that works out. If all goes well I can calculate a total projected cost and go all in. I think the existing intake manifolds on our cars are plastic so there's likely a fair bit of ABS or similar I can use before I'm forced to use SS. This might be a lot cheaper than I imagined.
    Zero, 2014 ES Plus 5MT, written off but not forgotten.
    Zero II, 2014 SE, 5MT, climate She's HOME now!
    Shelby AKA "Cute", 2017 ES 5MT, A/C.

    Mirage owners look at the world differently than everyone else, but in a better way
    We're driving the Beetle of the 21st century, the greatest small car now available!

        __________________________________________

        click to view fuel log View my fuel log 2017 Mirage ES PLus 1.2 manual: 39.0 mpg (US) ... 16.6 km/L ... 6.0 L/100 km ... 46.8 mpg (Imp)


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    I'd definitely take measurements before and after the sintering process, so that you can get the most precise turbine possible using 3d-printing. Don't forget turbo's have a very low tolerance, and I am afraid that the sintering processes might ruin those tolerances.

    I'm following a youtube channel who has done this aswell (at home) but that didn't turn out really good, his parts are warped slightly.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tw9VF1V-Lzc



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