Right...well...

on the good side..I found a place that had some PrintBite in stock. So I have a piece on the way!

On the less good side, I have been discovering the limitations of 3D printed parts in terms of strength.

I had reached the point on my tank suspension where I just needed to make the shocks and I had a basic one unit of the 8 made, and could then just run off the other 7 without worry. If I made the thing vertically on the bed, I got a lovely looking part ...that would snap easily. If I made it horizontally on the bed, it was a lot stronger, but looked like crap. I have had to abandon any thought of hte shock shaft being printed and have instead just made the shock ends parts in plastic and will use a steel shock shaft screwed into the plastic. Should work just fine .... but will be a bit more fiddly. I have made small pilot holes in the parts so I can drill them to size and screw in the shock shaft.

I also found some interesting issues while trying to print the wheels.

1) If I made the sides too thick, I had real issues with the early layers curling up on the bed, meaning the back of the wheel ( bed side ) was not flat but bowed badly around the edges. I cured this easy enough playing with the layers...increasing the back layers and reducing hte side layers whilst also reducing the fill %. I also slowed the speed a little. This seemed to give it more time to cool between layers and let them form better. I will get some photos up once I have assembled the whole thing and fitted some springs. Overall I am happy with the fit and finish

2) The higher the fill% the harder they were to get off the bed. I presume it reduces flex, making it harder to detach from the bed. Reducing fill% helped a lot here and the wheels popped off nicely.

I have also hit 'that' point.

Yes....the point where people start to find out you have a 3D printer and 'they have this thing that broke...can you print one!'

My first 'friend' project will be to make a camera tripod some new adjustment knobs as the originals have split and turn on their own.