Help needed; for a complete noob!

[mit123]

Hi Folks,

I washopeing someone could assist me.

I run a garage which fitsbody panels.






What I would like to dois start printing the panels we fit; hopefully saving on cost.







I understand that therewill be various costs involved such as buying the printer; buying theplastic in rolls (filament? Sorry but im unsure if thats the correctterm as I have only just started researching) as well maintainencecosts. Obviously the printer cost is dependant upon what I choose togo with; how would I go about estimating the other costs?






I have access to theparts which I would like to duplicate; but I do not have theexperience or equipment beyond that (just yet).






I have attached animage of the type of panel I would class as the largest size I wouldbe printing.






My questions are;


-What printer typewould you recommend for a good smooth finish like in the picture? Oratleast something which will only require a minimal amount ofsanding.


-What plastic typewould you recommend?


-What rough cost wouldI be looking at per part?


-What other thingsshould I research to help me get a full idea before I bite the bulletwith buying a printer?






All assistance isgreatly apprecieted.






Thanks






Mit

[mit123]

Sorry but I am having problems uploading the image.

The dimensions I will be roughly printing

2m x 10cm x 10cm

and/or

30cm x 30m 30cm

[curious aardvark]

is that actually 2 metres ? 2mx10cmx10cm
or 20cm x 30cm
if the biggest size is 30cmx30cm - then size won't be an issue.
Lots of printers around that can handle that size - cheep to expensive

Your biggest issue is most likely going to be designing the actual files to print from.

3d printers work from stereolithography files (.stl)
These need to be designed and produced in Cad programs.

It is unlikely that the car manufacturers will give you their files - not in their best interests as they'd rather sell you the part.

There is the possibility to scan the original parts. But to do this with any reliability you need to invest in a decent scanner. Currently the best and cheapest that might serve your purposes is the scan-in-a-box: https://www.scaninabox.com/

Great piece of kit. There are plenty of cheaper scanners around - but they don't really work :-)

Printerwise, start here: https://tevo3dprinterstore.com/produ...er-3d-printing

Have a look at this: https://tevo3dprinterstore.com/colle...3d-printer-kit

Now a lot depends on what material you want to print with. If you want to use ABS - you'll need a heated enclosure around the print area, otherwise it's just crap.
Pet-g is probably going to be your best bet and that doesn't need heated enclosure and is a lot more durable than abs.

Cost wise, once you've got the equipment, it varies on what material you are using from £10 a kg on up to £60-70 for more specialised materials.
Weightwise, for thin panels (1-5mm) weights will be equivalent, for thicker panels - because 3d printers don't need to make everything solid - the weights should be a lot less.

What we actually need is some idea of your budget, and whether you or anyone where you work, has any computer aided design experience.

Don't sweat finish too much, you'll pretty much always need to do a little sanding, and you'll need to paint it anyway to match the car.

[mit123]

Thanks for your response curious aardvark, yes I actually mean 2m. I will be looking to print parts such as side skirts/ spoilers as well as smaller parts such as wing mirror casings.

I would be looking to scan the parts; something I would also appreciate any guidance with what kind of things to look out for. There are no other options whatsoever which can scan well enough?

What would petg durability be like? As you can imagine I would need the product to come out rigid and long lasting.


Budget wise I was initially starting out with a piece of kit for under £2000 including the scanner but I am unsure if that can be done after looking at the scan-in-a-box scanner cost?

No one at work has used CAD including myself, however I am quite good at picking up computing tasks after abit of guidance. I will go and take a few classes if I need to (if this is sufficent) ; would watching tutorial videos be sufficient for difficulty level of the task?

In terms of sanding would it need a full sand from coarse through to fine; or just a fine sand would be sufficient (if the 'scanned in' part was perfectly smooth and ready to spray?

is that actually 2 metres ? 2mx10cmx10cm

or 20cm x 30cm
if the biggest size is 30cmx30cm - then size won't be an issue.
Lots of printers around that can handle that size - cheep to expensive

Your biggest issue is most likely going to be designing the actual files to print from.

3d printers work from stereolithography files (.stl)
These need to be designed and produced in Cad programs.

It is unlikely that the car manufacturers will give you their files - not in their best interests as they'd rather sell you the part.

There is the possibility to scan the original parts. But to do this with any reliability you need to invest in a decent scanner. Currently the best and cheapest that might serve your purposes is the scan-in-a-box: https://www.scaninabox.com/

Great piece of kit. There are plenty of cheaper scanners around - but they don't really work :-)

Printerwise, start here: https://tevo3dprinterstore.com/produ...er-3d-printing

Have a look at this: https://tevo3dprinterstore.com/colle...3d-printer-kit

Now a lot depends on what material you want to print with. If you want to use ABS - you'll need a heated enclosure around the print area, otherwise it's just crap.
Pet-g is probably going to be your best bet and that doesn't need heated enclosure and is a lot more durable than abs.

Cost wise, once you've got the equipment, it varies on what material you are using from £10 a kg on up to £60-70 for more specialised materials.
Weightwise, for thin panels (1-5mm) weights will be equivalent, for thicker panels - because 3d printers don't need to make everything solid - the weights should be a lot less.

What we actually need is some idea of your budget, and whether you or anyone where you work, has any computer aided design experience.

Don't sweat finish too much, you'll pretty much always need to do a little sanding, and you'll need to paint it anyway to match the car.

[curious aardvark]

2 metres.
In short - not a snowflakes chance in hell.

There are a few machines around that can print length. But even the ones that 'cheat' - and use a sort of conveyor belt approach, are way way more than £2000.

Have a look at these:
https://blackbelt-3d.com/

The other one is a prntrbot - doesn't look like it's on sale yet: https://3dprint.com/179736/printrbot...3d-printrbelt/

To do it any other way you're looking at huge machines: http://builder3dprinters.com/product...-extreme-2000/
And even that doesn't quite do 2 metres.

To get a surface as smooth as injection moulded body panels, if you printed vertically at 0.1mm you could just use fine sanding. However, you could not use powered sanding discs as the plastic would simply melt through friction generated heat.
Usually the simplest way to do it is to use a thin layer of filler and sand that.

As far as scanners go. At the moment the scan-in-a-box is really the only one I know of that will produce results sufficiently detailed and scaled to be useable without many hours of post scan processing. But even with that - something as long as 2 metres is going to take some post processing.

There is nothing cheaper on the market that would work, and industrial scanners tend to start around the £10,000 mark.

Basically, unless you are producing panels for hi-end supercars, I doubt it would prove cost effective.
Speed wise, 2 metres at a reasonably high resolution, you need to start thinking printing time in days not hours.

If you're in the uk, drop me a pm and maybe we can sort something out with test prints of smaller panels and items.
This is my day job as well :-)

[mit123]

Thanks for your response CA; well that is a shame as I was hoping to make the larger panels mainly.

In terms of smaller parts such as wing mirrors etc (max size 50cm x 50cm) what kind of printers are available which are not only cost effective but will also do a good job printing?

I guess I will test it out with a 'cheaper' and smaller printer and if I can get the process right and good enough to use the parts; and if it goes well then I will consider investing for one of the large scale printers at a later date.

So are we saying that there are no printers/ 3d printing is the wrong technology to use for this kind of thing in terms of level of sanding required; as ideally I guess I want something which will produce the item almost perfect so I do not need to spend longer than 30 mins making sure that it is ready to spray.

Does anyone know links I can look at to see the quality of a 3d printed item (at 0.1mm vertical print or similar quality)

How long would it take to print something the size of a wing mirror?

Thanks for any replies.

[curious aardvark]

wing mirror at 0.1 - probably 8 hours plus at.
A rough print that size could probably be done in 3-4 hours.

have a look at resin machines. Cost more to run, but produce higher resolution prints that would just need painting. the resins have come on a lot recently and are much tougher and more viable than they used to be. But print volumes tend to be much smaller.
Check out the form2 https://formlabs.com/request-sample-...SAAEgK3ffD_BwE

0.1 is pretty smooth and most printers these days will go down to 0.05. But bear in mind that doubles the print time. I've never printed anything higher than 0.1 - and that's usually reserved for very small fiddly items like replacement battery covers for various things.
Also 0.05 is a ridiculously small amoutn of extruded plastic, so not sure how reliable most machines would be at that resolution. I certainly wouldn't trust a bowden extruder type to print that thin a layer reliably.

Given that the cheapest kit in the uk is now just under £100 - you might as well buy a cheap machine and have a play before investing in something more substantial.
But you are not going to be printing anything 2 metres long for under £10,000 and with smooth print settings you'd be looking at several days print time.

For small items, yeah it's viable and worth doing - but at the moment for large simple things like body panels, not so much :-)

You are also not going to be scanning them with any chance of success for under whatever the scan-in-a-box costs.

For small items I use a set of digital calipers and openscad.
And I can duplicate most things fairly quickly.

It's also always worth a search of www.thingiverse.com - surprising how many car parts people have already made. You just download the .stl file from there.

[Amateur Maker]

@Curious Aardvark

Let me preface this question with an acknowledgement that I do not, and have not ever, owned a 3d printer. I'm doing research while my finances do some recovery from a prolonged bout with unemployment, and so have read a lot of diverse information on the subject. So please pardon my ignorance and further my education.

Would it be possible to build an Open Rail style printer like this Voxel OX or similar design to enable printing a 2m x 30cm x 30cm object?

[curious aardvark]

it's possible to build a printer any size.
I'm currently in the process of building a delta with around 1.3m build height.

The physical build is often NOT the hard part of making a 3d printer.
Getting the firmware and electronics to work and maintain accuracy, is the hard part.

With something 2metres long, you would be better off moving the printhead assembly rather than the build plate. Keeping a 2 metre moving build plate level would be harder than levelling a static 2 metre build plate - which would be a real pita anyway.
Have a look at these guys, been making huge fdm machines for quite some time. https://3dplatform.com/

Also the BAAM - which they make actual cars with is worth a look: https://www.e-ci.com/baam/

In both cases the printhead(s) are on a moveable gantry.
The hardware is relatively cheap. You'd need beefed up stepper motors and at least 40x40 aluminium extrusion. Be worth going for a duet board as well: https://www.duet3d.com/
In fact the duet people have built some amazing machines around their kit, and it would be worth talking to them and discussing the printer anyway. They had a six into one extruder running off the board at the tct show this year as well as a large delta with the most crowded effector I've ever seen.

You could certainly buy the hardware for well under £2000.
making it work......

But yes, it's certainly doable.

[Amateur Maker]

Cool, thanks for the feedback.

I've been planning on a Duet3d board for my 3rd printer (bearing in mind that I don't have my 1st yet).