How about a 3D printer section?

That's a good idea, but not too sure how popular it will be.

I'm just now finishing mine. It's an Ender3 v2 with a few improvements. Added frame supports, auto leveling sensor (that arrived DOA, awaiting replacement) Metal extruder, all metal hotend, Capricorn bowdem tube, stronger Y axis table springs, anti backlash nuts for Z axis and a dual Z axis kit. Hopefully with these upgrades it will be possible to extrude nylon and carbon fiber filament.

It's been fun putting it together even though I'm starting to feel that I've found another rabbit hole to fall in. :mrgreen:

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We could just start a thread for info and discussion of custom parts creation, covering 3D printers, CNC machining services, water-jetting, 2D Plasma cutting, and the CAD programs (Solidworks, Rhino, Sketchup, etc). If that thread shows enough activity, that could be a good argument for starting its own section?

I'm assuming a theme that would draw a larger audience would be ways to draw and create custom parts for EV adaptation applications.

Right now I'm writing about an electric conversion where the builder had a motorcycle with an unusually large crank-case, and through the use of CNC and creating custom adapters, he was able to put the electric motor fully inside the case, and still use the factory 5-speed transmission. I also recently saw some videos on "lost PLA" casting. When you want a complex part, but plastic is not strong enough...you 3D-print it, then use it as the core for sand-casting molten aluminum.

For ebikes, specifically, there are still many 3D-printed custom parts that would help new builders convert a bike.

"I just got myself a 3D printer" (26 pages)
https://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=42259

"Custom waterjet parts" (7 pages)
https://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=48811

"Making a DIY fender with fiberglass", Mattycii
https://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=49927#p805265

"DIY custom frames, home carbon-fiber method simplified" (3 pages)
http://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=10906
 
I love my 3d printer, but I don't think there's enough material out there on ES to warrant a whole new section. A reasonably sized thread perhaps... make one with the title "3d printed parts compendium" or something like that.

I recently upgraded to an ender 5+ with 350x350x400 build volume. Hoping to get it reliable enough to print large battery enclosures.
 
I vote yes as well for this section. But as others say it may be a too small subforum...
 
Jordan325ic said:
I recently upgraded to an ender 5+ with 350x350x400 build volume. Hoping to get it reliable enough to print large battery enclosures.

I almost bought the ender 5 and maybe I should have, but for $130 I can buy a extension kit for my ender3 that gives me a 400x400x250 build volume.
 
nicobie said:
Jordan325ic said:
I recently upgraded to an ender 5+ with 350x350x400 build volume. Hoping to get it reliable enough to print large battery enclosures.

I almost bought the ender 5 and maybe I should have, but for $130 I can buy a extension kit for my ender3 that gives me a 400x400x250 build volume.

I considered this route too (or just getting a big CR10), but if you're going to actually print big stuff it will take forever, since that style of printer has to move the whole object back and forth on the Y axis. You are already speed limited with the weight of the bed, add a kilo of plastic on top of it... 40mm/s if you're lucky? With the psuedo-corexy design I have been printing PETG at 120mm/s, two or three times what I could get with my old wanhao duplicator, and since the bed is only responsible for going up and down it makes no difference how large the object becomes.
 
Not sure there is enough for a whole section but would love to here more 3D printer stuff around here. I use 3D printing a lot for both personal and professional uses and find 3D printing a bit discounted by most people in terms of usefullness. Parts that are designed to be 3D printed, printed on a well setup machine with the optimal filament can be extremely strong and useful.

Most of my machines are reprap style cartesians and while I do think CoreXY is better (just wasn't as much of a thing when I built them) having to print with low accel and speed I don't think is much of an issue. If the print takes 24 hours it doesn't really matter as long as the machine is reliable. And even printing large 500g+ prints is still pretty cheap when you can get a 1kg spool of good quality ABS for $19.

Also for anybody printing mechanical parts a heated chamber is the number one upgrade by far. All my FDM printers run heated chambers, normally around 70C and it makes printing strong parts from warpy materials easy.
 
I think it would be nice to have a 3D printer section. I don't think forum threads with tens of pages that you have to dig through are a great way to share information.

I also don't really see a problem with a slightly inactive forum section. It's just another bit of text for people to scroll past in the index if they're not interested.
 
scianiac said:
Also for anybody printing mechanical parts a heated chamber is the number one upgrade by far. All my FDM printers run heated chambers, normally around 70C and it makes printing strong parts from warpy materials easy.

I'm curious how you keep your enclosure at 70C. Is it as simple as keeping an 60W incandescent bulb inside the box while printing?
 
nicobie said:
scianiac said:
Also for anybody printing mechanical parts a heated chamber is the number one upgrade by far. All my FDM printers run heated chambers, normally around 70C and it makes printing strong parts from warpy materials easy.

I'm curious how you keep your enclosure at 70C. Is it as simple as keeping an 60W incandescent bulb inside the box while printing?

Found it pretty much essential for reliably printing ABS here, variable ambient temperatures where totally screwing things up without it. Just using an mdf box with the printer inside at the mo, lower than 70 degrees (probably around 40) because the electronics are in there too but around 70 makes perfect sense. No need to heat it at 40, the bed makes more than enough heat to keep it up to temp and if anything, it would need vents to stop if going higher but there's not much point screwing around with it further. Makes more sense to build a printer into a box (use the box as the frame/structure) with the electrics on the outside instead, heat and electrics don't play well and there's loads of wasted space, surprising how big a box needs to be for a little 220mm x 220mm bed printer!

A 3d printing section would be great but what's really needed imo is version control software, a gitlab account for sharing designs. If you've never come across git it's well worth checking out, some very good TED talks on using it for things other than software, makes collaboration and forking (copying) projects easier, much easier! 3d printing has countless applications with EVs, we see it used a lot but it's just a tiny fraction of what we'll see in the future and the disjointedness of it all is what's holding it back, files all over the place with nothing linking back to it's origins... any software developer can see it's a godawful mess but that link to the tools that can make it tidy and streamlined hasn't been made yet and it can't really be made by just anyone, it needs something already popular to get it off the ground.

Maybe that's beyond the scope of Endless Sphere, could need a dedicated frontend or threads that can display linked stl files at the very least. Definitely something a company could get some seriously good rep for imo, 3d printer companies are already doing so (MakerBot with Thingiverse, Ultimaker with Cura etc.) and there's no reason someone like Zero or SurRon couldn't benefit the same way for EV parts.
 
nicobie said:
scianiac said:
Also for anybody printing mechanical parts a heated chamber is the number one upgrade by far. All my FDM printers run heated chambers, normally around 70C and it makes printing strong parts from warpy materials easy.

I'm curious how you keep your enclosure at 70C. Is it as simple as keeping an 60W incandescent bulb inside the box while printing?

Yeah just build a box around the printer with poly-iso foam, move the electronics outside, and I use a 200W incan bulb hooked up to a PID controller. 200W plus the heated bed they heat up reasonably quickly, my largest printer has 2x 200W bulbs along with a large heated bed. Any heat helps warping but it also improves layer bonding, warp wise 70C is great for ABS, pretty good for nylon, and OK for polycarbonate.
 
Addy said:
I think it would be nice to have a 3D printer section. I don't think forum threads with tens of pages that you have to dig through are a great way to share information.

I also don't really see a problem with a slightly inactive forum section. It's just another bit of text for people to scroll past in the index if they're not interested.

Agreed, When things are spread out everywhere you will never find it.
So what if there are just 10 threads in the subforum for the first year?
At least you will be able to find those threads.

I think a lot of sub forums is the strength of a forum vs a lot of other platforms, where there are just an endless feed of comments.
As soon as something is a few days old it is forgotten and lost in the feed.

I think there should be a subforum for 3d printing/printers, and defiantly one for programmable controllers too.
With a subforum for every well known brand of controllers.
like sevcon, ASI, APT, Votol, Kelly, sabvoton, far driver, Nucular, and so on. Then one for others.
 
Thanks for the advise. I already have one of these on the way. I'll add a 1" foam back and top. Also, I will move the motherboard and meanwell outside the enclosure. 👍

 

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I'm curious how you keep your enclosure at 70C. Is it as simple as keeping an 60W incandescent bulb inside the box while printing?

Depending on the isolation of the enclosure you will probably need more that 60W heating power if you want to keep 70ºC
I have an enclosure with little isolation and just with the heat bed at around 80-90ºC it keeps it at around 25ºC
steady. It is enough for 3D printing modified ABS.
Anyway I don't print much with ABS anymore as it is a very low strength material and it degradates too fast for outdoor applications.
For Strength/stiffness I normally use PLA+ and for strength/flexing I use Nylon. Both are far more reliable that ABS for end components.
 
Thanks for the info. I am a total newbie at 3D printing, so everything is useful info to me.

I was wondering if I should even mess with ABS.I have a spool of nylon on the way to try, but was wondering if the carbon fiber infused stuff is worth messing with. I will mostly be using the printer for brackets and enclosures.
 
nicobie said:
Thanks for the info. I am a total newbie at 3D printing, so everything is useful info to me.

I was wondering if I should even mess with ABS.I have a spool of nylon on the way to try, but was wondering if the carbon fiber infused stuff is worth messing with. I will mostly be using the printer for brackets and enclosures.

Possibly not. I use ABS all the time, it works well for me and acetone smoothing and bonding comes in really useful but it's toxic stuff, finicky to use and other materials have better properties. Maybe stick with PLA initially, it's amazingly rigid, nice to print and a "clean" material (no unpleasant smells, biodegradable, etc). Very good when starting out and ideal for throwaway stuff, I try to use PLA for anything that I don't expect to be using for many years (not with much success though, 2 printers would be ideal as changing materials is a pain :/ ).

I've never tried fibre impregnated filaments but some certainly have much higher strength. Not worth going that route until you've had plenty of experience with regular materials imo, 3d printing isn't inherently all that strong, it takes some practice to learn how to get good strength and often there are extra steps (parts are sometimes baked for long periods to improve layer adhesion for example). Unless you've already got your process to the point where strength can't be improved further then expensive and sophisticated filament is a waste, you'll get far more benefit from improving the process with regular filaments and tweaking designs to get best from 3d printings strengths and weakness.
 
Yeah ABS is great for many reasons but certainly has downsides, starting with PLA is definitely worth it to learn with for fume and temperature reasons. For mechanical parts I think the most important thing to understand about 3D printing is not what materials are strong vs weak but how to design and print things in the optimal orientation for strength, even materials with the best layer bonding still are much weaker across layers and understanding were to add or remove material around high stress areas, using fillets, etc it much more beneficial than trying to print a poor design in a more exotic and difficult to work with material.

I print a lot of filled filaments, mostly NylonX which I buy on the 3kg spool and having tested many others I would say they really aren't worth it until you get better at 3D printing. Strength wise they generally aren't actually much stronger and many are weaker, the real places they shine is on how they effect stiffness, HDT, and warping. And there are downsides like nozzle clogging and wear. For instance I run all 0.6mm tungsten carbide nozzles for those reasons.

NylonX for instance warps less than straight nylon which makes it much easier to print dimensionally accurate parts, has a higher HDT, and still has impressive impact qualities without being quite so flexy. Actual pure strength is maybe slightly higher in some conditions. For these reasons filled versions of easy to print materials (not super warpy) I find are really only useful because they often look nicer. While a carbon fiber PLA is stiffer than normal PLA, PLA is already stiffer than you need it to be most of the time and it doesn't warp and HDT will be gained way easier by just annealing it so CF PLA seems kinda pointless for most applications. Same goes for ABS and PETG. Nylon and PC though benefit a lot because it really does make warping less of an issue. There are also "low-warp" versions of those materials which are often just filled with other fillers they don't tell you about.

Oh and one more tip for great printing, dry filament is worth any effort required to keep it dry. Sure you can get away with slightly moist PLA and if you live somewhere dry it may not be that bad but man once you print super dry stuff it's a thing of beauty. At this point I print almost everything straight out of dry boxes filled with silica gel or for the really tough stuff like nylon molecular sieves and everything else is stored in a dry chest and only taken out to print.
 
Looks to me as though the 3d printer "section" has already been created
https://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=112648#p1666076
:thumb:
 
Excellent info! :bigthumb:

So far I have only used the PLA that came with my ender 3 v2 and the benchy I printed with it turned out almost perfect. No strings or blobs. just a tiny almost unnoticeable wave in a section of the the hull.

Right now I'm printing with some Sunlu PLA+ that came from Amazon that arrived without being vacuumed packed. :cry: I probably should have sent it back but wanted to use the printer so took a chance. I read on youtube that there is a possibility that it can be dried in the oven? I already bought a couple of lbs. of desiccant and am thinking now that I need one of those dryer/feed boxes too.

I have already figured out that it's super important to pay attention to the way your print is oriented before slicing to maximize strength due to layer adhesion problems.

Looks to be a long journey to get good at this, but glad that I started on it. :mrgreen:

Is the couple of bucks that PLA+ costs over PLA worth it? Are there any filament makers I should buy from, Or maybe more importantly, are there any makers I should avoid?

Many thanks to those who take the time to answer my newbie questions. When I get good at this I will remember to pay it forward to other beginners.

Nick the noob
 
If I recall PLA is less susceptible to moisture, or rather absorbs it slower so if stored poorly will start to have issues eventually. A lot depends how moist the environment they are being stored in is. Obviously if you hear popping sounds any filament is way too wet but long before that you'll start to see little "pits" in the print surface, one layer high little indents, that and stringing. If it seems to be printing fine I would just store it in an airtight container with some desiccant when you aren't using it and you should be good.

I still think it's worth it to build a direct feedable dry box, many easy designs out there and even if you don't super need it for PLA you'll have it ready to go for future more moisture sensitive filaments. Currently I use the individual cereal storage bin system with each spool in it's own container so I can move them around to different printers but probably easier to get a bigger storage box that can hold multiple spools if you have one printer.

The easiest and most entertaining way to learn about stronger printing is to just go watch all of CNCKitchen's videos on the topic. I know there is even one on how much stronger modified PLA+ filaments are. Also endless videos on ways to improve layer bonding.

At this point I buy almost everything from Matterhackers and I only have good things to say about them, great quality even on their build series stuff that is quite reasonably priced, great customer service, super fast shipping, they carry most brands if you need something more exotic. I do use some 3DXtech stuff but they are pricey and honestly I've had really mixed luck with some of their stuff, they just happen to make a few things I need.
 
Thanks, I already am subscribed to CNCkitchen He has been excellent. I like CHEP too. His easy going style is refreshing.

Didn't know about Matterhackers, but after a quick look, I can see I'll be sending a few $s his way.

Like I think I've already mentioned, 3D printing looks to be quite the 'rabbit hole'.

:D :D :D
 
This are my suggestions for printing strong parts, most of the suggestions are in order to achieve maximum strength and they differ from what is normally used for aesthetic parts. As well there are some suggestions in order to improve parts printing speed.

- Nozzle diameter: 0.6mm to 1mm. (I use normally a 0.8mm)
- Layer height: 40% to 55% of nozzle diameter.
- Line width: 110% to 150% of nozzle diameter. (I use 150% for external perimeters, and around 112% for the other lines)
- Infill pattern: Gyroid. (If sliced in Cura activate “Connect Infill Lines”)
- Printing temperature: As high as the material allows without material degradation.
- Printing speed: Low to medium. (I use 30mm/s for external perimeters, 45mm/s for other perimeters and 65mm/s for infill)
- Use a volcano heating cartridge or similar so maximum volumetric speed can be increased. Test before increase. ( I was able to set it up to 20mm^3/s)
- Use minimum cooling or no cooling at all in order to enhance layer adhesion. (I use auto cooling, it only starts cooling if the layer time is under 30 seconds or at bridges lines)
- Use brass nozzle. (Not if you are using a FG or CF reinforced material)
- Use an enclosure if possible to avoid fast cooling and prevent high internal tensions and warping deformations. (YES even with PLA)
- Set bed temperature to maximum recommended for the material.
- Use some kind of adhesion enhancer in the bed like PVA stick or similar.

I use Sunlu PLA+ it is far more stronger and hit resistant than ABS and far more reliable for outdoor applications (It does NOT biodegradate or affected by UV as much as ABS). It has a softening point a bit higher than normal PLA. It needs to be printed at higher temperature than normal PLA. I recommend it very much for mechanical applications.
 
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