Design Help

[lstbl]

Hi all,

I was hoping to get some help with a design I'm working on. This is my first exposure to the world of 3D printing, and so forgive my ignorance of even basic ideas.

I am designing support beams for a shelf in my apartment. This shelf houses 2 speakers and a receiver. The motivation for designing these supports is because the receiver is too large for the shelf, so I wanted to build support legs that would add a few inches to the front of the shelf in order to support the legs of the receiver. Hopefully that wasn't too confusing, I've attached a sketch of this idea as well as a picture of the shelf (without the receiver) below:

image3 (1).jpgIMG_1469.jpg

I broke this piece up into 2 segments, because building the piece whole wasn't possible given the printer dimensions. See .obj files below:

bottom part.objTop part.obj

I was planning on having these pieces printed at the library (wohoo free 3d printing!). However, when uploading them to the CURA program, it estimates that it will take about 6 hours for the bottom piece and 10 hrs for the top piece. The library has a 2 hr limit for printing jobs--however the director said this is semi-flexible. I don't think he'll allow a 10hr print though.

I also looked into a few different companies. The cheapest quote I've gotten so far is $200 for each leg (way more than I wanted to spend).

So, my question is, is there some design ideas that ya'll might have that could help save print time and/or cost, while still giving me reasonable structural support? Ideally I'd like to do this in 2 pieces and have each piece take about 2 hrs to print.

Any help would be great!

[LambdaFF]

Note : I can't see your obj files, so everything is based on the pictures.

Have you considered doing something like this ? Print it on the side : less infill, ,no big filled surface, overall gain.
Sans titre.jpg
Also, try changing layer thickness to speed the print. You could probably get way with something good at 0,3mm if your nozzle is at least 0,5mm.

I don't want to disappoint but 2 hours seems a bit on the low side, hard to say without a design & slicer at hand but I'd say closer to 4 hours. On the plus side, have you tried 3D hubs ? I can't think anyone would ask 200$ for something like that.

[anthony27]

LambdaFF is definitely on the right path,
I would even suggest a bit more triangulation through the middle, depending how you orient the grain

[awerby]

While 3D printing is great, it's not the only solution to everything. Get yourself a piece of wood and a saw and you'll have your shelf supported a lot quicker and cheaper. Use a good quality of wood, some sandpaper and varnish, and it will look better too...