What's in the workshop? A 3D printer!
 

Ok, so its in the kitchen, but I thought I'd stick to the theme :D

Frustrated by the declining availability of genuine parts, I decided to start making my own, and to that end I bought a 3D printer - a Creality CR10-S

http://forum.a8parts.co.uk/attachmen...1&d=1541106628

This is a Fused Deposition Modelling (FDM) machine. It takes plastic filament, melts it in a mobile print head, and lays it down a layer at a time to build a solid object. Obviously the first thing I printed was a cat :)

http://forum.a8parts.co.uk/attachmen...1&d=1541106628

It lasted four days before I voided the warranty :D I changed the cheap original fans for some quieter ones

http://forum.a8parts.co.uk/attachmen...1&d=1541106628

I then set about printing a few upgrades for the printer. I love that it can make its own parts! This filament was supposedly aubergine. It turns out more like pink, but it makes a pleasing contrast to the black anodised aluminium so I don't mind.

http://forum.a8parts.co.uk/attachmen...1&d=1541106628

http://forum.a8parts.co.uk/attachmen...1&d=1541106628

I then printed an army of calibration cats while dialling in the settings on the machine :ROFL:

http://forum.a8parts.co.uk/attachmen...1&d=1541106628

Once I'd got the printer working nicely I had a go at making something useful. I made this design in Tinkercad which is a free online 3D cad program.

http://forum.a8parts.co.uk/attachmen...1&d=1541107870

Laying the design down

http://forum.a8parts.co.uk/attachmen...1&d=1541107870

Done

http://forum.a8parts.co.uk/attachmen...1&d=1541107870

http://forum.a8parts.co.uk/attachmen...1&d=1541107870

Took apart a USB cig lighter charger

http://forum.a8parts.co.uk/attachmen...1&d=1541107870

Took apart the D2 cig lighter

http://forum.a8parts.co.uk/attachmen...1&d=1541107870

Mounted the USB sockets in the printed parts and then mounted that assembly in the cig lighter surround

http://forum.a8parts.co.uk/attachmen...1&d=1541107870

http://forum.a8parts.co.uk/attachmen...1&d=1541107870

http://forum.a8parts.co.uk/attachmen...1&d=1541107870

USB charging points instead of a cig lighter :cool:

http://forum.a8parts.co.uk/attachmen...1&d=1541107870

Made some parts to fill in the holes in the air box after removing the secondary air pump.

http://forum.a8parts.co.uk/attachmen...1&d=1541109312

These two pieces snap together to fill in the hole from the air hose and electrical connector.

http://forum.a8parts.co.uk/attachmen...1&d=1541109312

and these plugs fill in the bolt holes

http://forum.a8parts.co.uk/attachmen...1&d=1541109312

A bit of adhesive for extra security

http://forum.a8parts.co.uk/attachmen...1&d=1541109312

Fitted in place

http://forum.a8parts.co.uk/attachmen...1&d=1541109312

http://forum.a8parts.co.uk/attachmen...1&d=1541109312

http://forum.a8parts.co.uk/attachmen...1&d=1541109312

What size of items can these print to, as all I've ever seen produced from 3D printers seems to be small trinket sized items, like your cats? Really thinking about the printing of the D2 foglight grilles, as was mentioned elsewhere.

Will you be having a "What's cooking in the kitchen?" thread, where we have to guess what the mystery printed object is for?

I've been doing that on Facebook +++

This machine has a print bed of 300x300mm so it won't do a foglight grille in one piece, but there are bonding agents for many of the printable materials which are as strong as or stronger than the material itself so its entirely feasible to print them in two pieces and bond them together. It would do a two-piece grille ok though.

I think I mentioned in the other thread that the challenge with the grilles is getting a good enough surface finish on them, and that's going to take some experimentation. I have some carbon fibre reinforced material which prints with a nice satin-sheen finish, but I don't know how durable it is, and its expensive. ABS can be vapour-smoothed with acetone, but its difficult to print and would leave a gloss finish so that would need painting to match the factory look.

Plus of course we still need to scan them in and manipulate the scan in to something printable.

Tbh the grilles project wasn't the primary reason for buying this machine - its more of a future aspiration at this point. Its main use is printing smaller functional parts like clips and brackets which can't be bought from Audi any more, such as the clips for the radiator breather pipe or the starter junction box. Maybe even door card clips, although that's a bit of a stretch but worth a try. Radio adapter plates too.

Oh, and the brake master cylinder brace which I will post up shortly +++

Cool +++

So do you have access to a 3D laser scanner to scan the original parts MJ?

A 3D printer is something I've been meaning to buy for a long time. I've been waiting for the technology to evolve more, but I'm also waiting until I have a bit more free time, because I will no doubt become completely engrossed by it just as soon as I get one.

Have you seen Carbon's 3D printing technology? I think it's only a matter of time before this level of 3D printing becomes affordable and commonplace:

https://www.carbon3d.com/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zXE-icw28n8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O2thSsQrZUM

I don't have a scanner yet, but I'm planning to contrive one from an Xbox kinect +++

The Carbon stuff is very very cool indeed. I was using resin stereolithography 25 years ago to make prototypes of injection moulded parts. They were brittle and fragile, and took many days to make anything useful. No one had even thought of the term '3D printing' at the time. Now you can make production parts using essentially the same technique.

Thanks to open source software to drive them, the technology has evolved to the point where a desktop FDM printer is <£200 (mine was £350) and can make entirely usable things of remarkable quality. I printed this from wood - essentially MDF filament:

http://forum.a8parts.co.uk/attachmen...1&d=1541152709

It is totally engrossing too. I can sit there watching it make things, listening to the stepper motors singing, for far longer than necessary!

Very cool stuff MJ +++

Looking through the list of items you have made so far. I would guess you will be able to make the headlight bracket arms too?

https://www.ecstuning.com/b-genuine-...d0998121a~oee/

Ok the brake master cylinder brace that a few of you guys have been waiting for :)

http://forum.a8parts.co.uk/attachmen...1&d=1541184279

I had noticed when working on the manual swap that the brake fluid reservoir moved around an alarming amount when I stood on the brake pedal. It seems from the 'brake block' thread that I wasn't the only one, but there's nothing on the market for this any more so I decided to make my own.

Vid of the unsupported master cylinder here

Started off with a cad model in Fusion 360:

http://forum.a8parts.co.uk/attachmen...1&d=1541184279

Printed it in the aubergine filament

http://forum.a8parts.co.uk/attachmen...1&d=1541184279
http://forum.a8parts.co.uk/attachmen...1&d=1541184279

Installed:

http://forum.a8parts.co.uk/attachmen...1&d=1541184279

I took a video of this one installed and it didn't actually do much because the whole assembly is mostly rotating around the top bulkhead where the pedal box is mounted rather than pushing forwards. This brace stopped it moving forwards, but didn't prevent the master cylinder lifting up. So, a few modifications to the model resulted in this:

http://forum.a8parts.co.uk/attachmen...1&d=1541184279

Printed one in some cheap red PLA

http://forum.a8parts.co.uk/attachmen...1&d=1541184279

Tolerances weren't good on this so I tweaked the dimensions slightly and printed in some better material

http://forum.a8parts.co.uk/attachmen...1&d=1541184279

http://forum.a8parts.co.uk/attachmen...1&d=1541184279

http://forum.a8parts.co.uk/attachmen...1&d=1541184279

This one works pretty well as you can see here

Those are on the list +++