Could anyone print a tiny plastic part for a model bus? I have one and need a second. My problem is that I suspect a commercial printer would not be interested in a simgle part about 5mm in size or would charge hundreds of pounds for an industrial prototype.
Of course I would pay (or make a donation to charity) but not hundreds of pounds given its purpose..
Any ideas?
Scott
Aldi is,or going to sell one soon then you could join a "mens shed" and make stuff for others. :)
You might get a generous offer from someone, but if not there are various printing as a service, some by one-man bands who presumably are used to small jobs?
I think they're onto their second 3D offering in .au, but don't remember seeing them over here.
Are you willing to CAD it up? If so, there's plenty of 3D printing services. For instance
If you need someone to CAD it for you then you're going to be paying their hourly rate.
There might be some services that can scan an existing piece and turn it into a 3D model, but I don't know of any to suit this use case (it's more complicated than it sounds).
Theo
Have you got a .gcode (or STL or an OBJ) file? (This is a file that contains the instructions for the 3d printer to print the model.) Upload it somewhere and I'm happy to have a bash at printing it.
Or, do you need someone to translate the design of the part into a 3d model? Got any tech drawings etc?
Wee Bob
I should be able to, assuming you have the item in the form of a suitable (.stl / .gcode) file or that it's simple enough to design from scratch?
What colour (I have a few) and material (I mostly have PLA)?
Hmm. 5mm is pretty small, especially with a .5mm nozzle but I can try?
(email valid)
Cheers, T i m
Just love it! People willing to do stuff for complete strangers
Not suggesting in anyway that the OP and the person offering to help would in fit such a category but that remark cannot be allowed to pass without mentioning that people have been willingly doing stuff with complete strangers in many a dodgy toilet for years.
G.Harman
In message , Scott writes
Might it be a part that is already available, or, if not, may also be of interest to others? There are various suppliers of parts for models; one may like to add your part to an existing range?
My first thought would be Steve Flowers of
A colleague of mine uses shapeways.com to produce his designs for railway models, appliance repair, &c. They offer a bunch of different processes & materials (in addition to the kind of 3D printing you usually see). I haven't used them yet but they look pretty good.
And they advertise their services too, and a few even post their nozzle sizes ;-)
I was listening to a chap from IBM this morning he claims that the biggest
3D printer in the world can print a whole full size bus bodywork in one go. Not much help to you I know. I think the bit that you need needs to be defined as a file of some sort to be able to print that. Quite how this is done I'm nnot sure. Brian
Sounds awfully small to me. How complicated is it? If it is basically just a cog on a spindle, can a general purpose cog from model makers be made to fit? Could you actually hand file something out of brass or aluminium? I have done this in the past for clocks.
If its very small you need someone with an SLA printer, most will have FDM which may not be able to do very fine detail.
Do you have a picture?
I thought there was someone (more than one) on this NG that knew quite a bit about 3D printing and had dome quite a bit.
If you can model it in Fusion360 and save it as an .STL file then I might be able to help
Andrew
As 'complete stranger' #1 in this equation, can I make it clear that my motive is not something for nothing but rather to find a way to carry out a repair to a model that is unlikey to be cost effective by any other means.
Any toilet involved would need to be dodgy because reputable toilets do not have power supply for the printer :-)
It is perceptive though as the part needed is a wing mirror for a scale model Routemaster bus.
Thanks to everyone who has replied. I shall see if I can create the file but I suspect it is well beyond my abilities.
Some of us have. However the OP hasn't provided many details as to what they're able to do and where they need help. (3d printing is not like photocopying - it's more complicated than that)
Theo
you just need a BC or ES plug.
NT
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