My Dad came for a few days to our house in London.
He had a broken part for a sun shade for his house. A plastic part melted away in the sun and there is no available spare parts. The company making the sun-shade is either bankrupt or cannot provide spares.
I had a go at re-building the parts with a 3D CAD software and trying to print with my new Replicator 2X from Makerbot.
Below the results. I still do not know if the part works because I need to ship the part ot my Dad in France, if only he had a 3D printer in his house I could simply send him the digital file for him to print !! Maybe in the future….
Also below a 3D representation of the actual file. This is version 4, which is complete but not final until actually checking the fit.
I also made the part stronger in the area were the original file failed, by putting a couple of strong pieces of ABS.
The part is made of Natural ABS extruded at 230c. Printed a medium resolution. With layer thickness of 0.27mm, 75% infill, 2 shells, 110c heated platform with Blue sticky paper, the model is sliced in 103 layers, weigth is about 22grams, volume is approx 22cc, cost of ABS is approx $1.06 (with $48/kg retail price), time to print is approx 1h 50 minutes for the latest version 4.
Main problem encountered was to actually construct the part in 3D.
It required a lot of measurements using a micrometer (Mitutoyo are the only one worth buying…i bought other brands and are simply flimsy in compare)
We need a 3D scanner to be able to capture all the details and then some fancy software to recognise actual primitives in the file to allow for reverse engineering. There is still plenty of things to improve before 3D printing makes it to replace traditional manufacturing methods or goes into everybody’s house !!!
I also spent a “few hours” of my time on this which would make a single repair unaffordable for a business in my opinion. Nobody will pay more than a few $ for the new parts and it will still cost “man hours” even if the machine steps are now very short and accessible.
End of Post.
