Quote:
Originally Posted by Steeler
Excellent work.
As stated before, if you are willing I am interested in a set, pending price point.
A new bumper cover is in my future and they do not come with these support frames.
Cheers.
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I appreciate the enouragement and am certainly open to the idea of providing these to those who would like them!
My only sticking point thus far are the tabs and their strength. This concern is not exclusive to my 3d prints though...it also goes for the original rings too. When i removed the "good" ring to use as a template it had a broken tab that i super glued/baking soda'd back together prior to scanning..so even the original parts have this as a weak point. I can't solve it of course...so my real goal is to not make it worse.
My initial attempt at mitigtating this weakness by printing it at an angle (~60deg seemed like a good compromise) was a failure as I did not take into account the need to better design my support structure so they could stand as tall and straight as required for the print to eventually make it up to them.
I have since worked through that and am back at attempting another ~60deg angled print. Fingers crossed!
You might be asking why an angle? Attached is a pic showing two broken tabs. The one on the left was printed horizontally and the one on the right at ~60deg. The lines below show the orientation of the layering...the interface between these layers is an inherent weak point of the printing process.
When pressing the tab inward to engage the grille you can see that in the horizontal configuration you are flexing it axialy relative to the layer lines...it has quite a bit of strength and can take it for a while but it eventually snaps like in the pic. While testing for failure the one at ~60deg also broke along the same layer plane (in two places) in a way that took far more force than the horizontal version (roughly twice the material to resist). Better, but good enough? At what point is the potential for breakage considered to have been dealt with properly? Dunno.
This has been quite the learning curve especially when you throw in the different materials each with slightly different properties and printing requirements. If I can complete a full print with the finicky ABS (even though it feels a bit flexxy) it might actually be the best bet given my desire to mitigate the tab snapping...turns out flexxy is good! TPU is also a material i am looking into.
Whether or not I can ever produce a part that will consistently work as intended is the only thing holding me back from throwing this out there as a product for others to buy. I am not a professional 3d printer and would likely be called a hack by those who are...but i am learning (out of necessity) and would love to be able to provide something of use to others!
So I will keep plodding along, provide you guys with updates and God willing we can get there!
