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

[MikkiJayne]

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

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



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



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



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.





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

[MikkiJayne]

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.



Laying the design down



Done





Took apart a USB cig lighter charger



Took apart the D2 cig lighter



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







USB charging points instead of a cig lighter

[MikkiJayne]

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



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



and these plugs fill in the bolt holes



A bit of adhesive for extra security



Fitted in place

[steamship]

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?

[MikkiJayne]

Originally Posted by steamship

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

[moltuae]

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