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Thread: 3d printed projector

  1. #1
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    Default 3d printed projector

    Anybody 3d printing mounts or such yet? Have not seen anything and figured it would be hot by now. How about stability?

  2. #2
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    At SELEM you see some 3D printed parts on home builds, but it's not super common because the main materials used in most non-commercial 3D printing, ABS and PLA, don't really deal well with heat, fine pitch threads, rigidity, etc.

  3. #3
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    As a matter of fact, the majority of the mounts in my beam table projector (some of you saw it during my talk at selem 10 and again in action on stage with an Ar/Kr 168 for the live Floyd show) are 3D printed!

    They were done on a stratasys eden 360v. Material is a high-density resin. All threaded holes were printed as pilot holes of the appropriate size and tapped by hand.

    PLA would have been too brittle, ABS may have been marginally better for some of the less precise parts.

    If there is some interest, I can dig up and post some of the .STLs for a few of the parts.

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    How about nylon?

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    Nylon will probably do a decent job (but still not as good an an engineering-strength resin) assuming your filament is dry (that stuff is nice and hygroscopic!) and you do it on a machine with really good Z-Axis resolution.

    If you are going to tap your holes by hand, the layer adhesion needs to be really good. Print hot with as much infill as you can!

  6. #6
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    Quote Originally Posted by CountFunkula View Post
    Nylon will probably do a decent job (but still not as good an an engineering-strength resin) assuming your filament is dry (that stuff is nice and hygroscopic!) and you do it on a machine with really good Z-Axis resolution.

    If you are going to tap your holes by hand, the layer adhesion needs to be really good. Print hot with as much infill as you can!
    Im thinking to sink metal thread where neede in the plastic so the thread is solid. Mainly thinking for power supply and driver assemblies and such rather than the optics deck. Still might use shapeways to,print metal parts. Kind of expensive.

    I saw saw video of people doing lost pla by burning it out in plaster. Why not use pva support material only. Now you could use water to remove the pva from the mold. Thenjust heat to drive the water out before casting. I think plaster that has set can take water. Might even be able to make a two part mold.

  7. #7
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    Quote Originally Posted by kecked View Post
    Mainly thinking for power supply and driver assemblies and such rather than the optics deck.
    In that case, even ABS would be ok.
    There are many commercial machines that use P*A or closely-related polymers as support material. In many cases, Oxy-Clean does a better job dissolving the support than the manufacturer-supplied detergent.

  8. #8
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    Smile

    Have a look at "Desktop Metal". It's a new company that claims to have a sintered-metal printer that uses much less binder (so the parts are stronger) and also claims to be 10X cheaper. There was a lot of talk on Reddit about the company about a month ago, and nearly all of the comments were favorable.

    Most importantly, they've already demonstrated the technology and are now ramping up production, so this isn't a pipe dream but rather something you could buy in the very near future. (Or if it's too expensive to purchase for yourself, you could lease time on someone else's unit.)

    Adam

  9. #9
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    now that opens up a world of possibility I want to build a working radial engine.

  10. #10
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    I have a 3d printer and plan on using ABS and possibly nylon. ABS is pretty strong and by inserting small metal rods or spring pins in the main body of the part (design tiny holes into the body of the part then insert metal rods post print). It should strengthen the build enough to possibly get by.

    I am not saying you can print everything this way but a combination of ABS or Nylon and small metal parts (I have a mill and lathe for that) may cut down the amount of labor it takes to produce small parts for a projector.

    It is still too early in my experimentation with the printer to tell but I will post once I have some successful parts done.

    Bonus
    Since Radio shack no longer exists I cannot see any reason why those familiar black project boxes X the metal top option could not be printed. And no DB25 or other hole punching needed put it right into the stl file. The box is already on thingverse its just a matter of editing the holes in blender converting to Gcode and printing.

    But pack a lunch for the print time I would imagine this will take several hours at the minimum to print.
    Last edited by mmuhler; 08-31-2017 at 10:17.
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