3-D printer. What to print?

[whisky-dave]

The problem is cycling isn;t it, I use the ; like I have to set a 2KW heater to 1.3KW so it works better.

If I did't use the ; you;d have nothing to complain about.

[Alan Braggins]

Especially with a cheap home use one. With more expensive ones, which might mean using a service bureau, there are stronger options like filaments with carbon fibre embedded:

(There's also selective laser sintering to 3D print metal parts.)

Alternatively, you can 3D print a wax pattern to be used for traditional investment casting.

Or print moulds for a desktop molding machine:

[Alan Braggins]

Bit like the days when 90% of web pages were "I've just written my first web page, so here's a tutorial if you want one too".

[T i m]

The frightening thing is you really believe that!

Cheers, T i m

[dennis]

I can print carbon filed plastics on my sub £200 printer. There isn't anything really special about doing it other than having an all metal hot end and a hardened nozzle to avoid wear.

The cheaper printers tend to use PTFE tubes as linings in the hot end which limits their temps to about 240C which isn't hot enough for some plastics. However you can buy all metal upgrades for a few pounds on ebay/amazon.

Or plastic on some machines. I expect whisky's machine is one of them.

[Rob Morley]

I thought with lost wax you baked the mould to melt/burn out the former before pouring the metal.

[Fredxx]

Even using a sacrificial 3D print, it normal to burn out the PLA in a firing before the pour. That process would normally use a ceramic shell, though some plasters can be used.

Lost foam is the normal process where the sacrificial material is left in situ in a sand mould and burnt out during the pour.

Leaving a solid plastic object in a mould, while pouring hot metal into it, is a recipe for disaster.

[Fredxx]

I would have said you were stalking Brexiters, but hey.

[T i m]

Given that only ~ 1/3rd of the electorate voted leave, remaining is the status quo and therefore would be less off topic. ;-)

Cheers, T i m

[Alan Braggins]

There are people successfully pouring metal in to burn/melt out a sacrifical print in place. For example:

"I knew a solid plastic print would not burn out as readily as a foam pattern, so I thought that if a mould cavity was mostly a void (creating a fill density roughly similar to foam - or ideally even less dense), and giving the metal a large enough volume to fill, it should vaporize the relatively thin shell of plastic and work about the same as the Lost Foam process.

That indeed turned out to be the case. Well mostly the case. It seems whatever plastic doesn't immediately vaporize is more buoyant so it just floats to the top."

[Johnny B Good]

Not yet. The missus thinks we've had the Cookworks Kettle for over a year now (it's not showing any sign of 'imminent failure'). I guess it's high time I took it apart to check it over now that the warranty has expired. I just need a "Round Tuit" to materialise some time soon. :-)

Contrary to my SWMBI's instructions over disposal of the previously repaired kettle, I still have it stashed away in the basement (along with its predecessor, temporarily mended with a plastic cable tie, iirc) so we can avoid resorting to heating a pan of water on the gas hob whilst the Cookworks kettle is out of commission.

Whilst the cost of *yet another* 3KW jug kettle (a mere £9.99 from Argos just over a year ago for the Cookworks one) hardly justifies the expense of even a cheap 3D printer, I'm still rather tempted to invest in another hobby.

I'm sure there are many more ways to stick it to the many manufacturers that rely on the lack of user serviceable spare parts on goods designed to neatly fail just out of warranty to double and triple demand at our disposal expense than fixing a kettle every 18 to 24 months with a one penny part. In any case, I'm sure I can find other, more creative uses for a 3D printer than merely making spare parts to slow down the rate at which I'm contributing to the problems of finding more landfill sites.

Mind you, this looks like it may be a repetition of the economics of using an inkjet printer to print your own photos at home when you can get better quality photo prints in any store that offers digital photo print services at little more than the cost of the consumables sans the investment costs of both capital and time. However, I doubt the suppliers of the raw feedstock could even dream of approaching the markups that the inkjet printer manufacturers have been getting away with all this time so the case for owning (and using[1]) a 3D printer is likelier a much stronger one than for home ownership of an inkjet printer.

[1] I suspect that whilst everyone here *owns* an inkjet printer, many like me probably simply don't use the last one they wasted their hard earned on, especially if the main attraction had been a neat way to label all their printable CD-R and DVD-R media with simple black and white text labels only to discover that the feckin' printer uses the 'photo-black' cartridge instead of the cheaper 'black' cartridge requiring a more expensive investment in colour inkjet carts just to print a few lousy DVD- Rs that you've relegated to obsolescent status, no longer required to store multimedia on and only useful to create legacy boot media where the use of a black marker pen more than suffices for the job.

I wonder, is it just me that sees this as a bitter indictment of the whole inkjet scam or merely a reflection of everyone else?s "Inkjet Experience"?

[dennis]

You wouldn't use a solid plastic object though. A 3D print with a 5% fill would be enough for most moulds and that is pretty low. You are only talking about a shell about 0.6mm thick with a few percent fill to stiffen it.

I wouldn't stand too close though as the air in it might well expand rather quickly and the fumes are unpleasant/dangerous.

[Fredxx]

That's interesting, sort of replicating the lost foam process, minimising the amount of material needed to be burnt out.

The only issue is the time taken to print a part, obviously the smaller the better.