<VV> Plastic parts

Bruce Johannesson cc_devilbiss at hotmail.com
Sun Oct 30 20:56:24 EDT 2011


Hello Guy,


I've worked with Penn State a few times getting 3D plastic parts made on their printers.  The parts I have purchased have been "printed" in white nylon.  The strength is OK, but not great.  The resolution of the printer limits how fine of a detail can be reproduced.  The parts that I had made were for visualization purposes and weren't really intended to be used for any structural purposes, but I don't see why they couldn't be used in a low stress application.  The expense, however, would probably be cost-prohibitive for an individual.


That being said, I ran across this service a few months back, and it may fit the bill.  I have no experience with this company.  There are probably other companies that do the same thing, but I'm not familiar with any.  


http://www.shapeways.com/


The price per cubic centimeter (about sugar cube size) for white nylon is $1.40.  They also have a Stainless Steel material available for $8.00 per cc.  The SS seems to be polishable, and you could probably chrome plate it if you wanted to.   


I'm not really sure what parts of the mirror that you are trying to reproduce.  Volume wise, how big are they? Are they structural pieces like mounts, moving pieces like gears, or visible pieces like bezels?  All of these factors would affect what material you choose.


Hope this is of help.  If you would like help reverse engineering any parts, let me know.  


CC






------------------------------

> 
> Message: 5
> Date: Sun, 30 Oct 2011 06:34:25 -0400 (EDT)
> From: Guy Brandes <vair140 at aol.com>
> Subject: <VV> Plastic parts
> To: VirtualVairs at corvair.org
> Message-ID: <8CE6506A11FB4C6-F44-F6DDC at webmail-m139.sysops.aol.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
> 
> 
> Hi All,
> 
> I was wondering if anyone out there has experience with plastic printers and if so could they be used to make those plastic parts for the 64-66 remote mirror that would be strong enough and cheap enough to make it worth while doing small quantities with out the huge expense of injection molding??
> 
> Regards,
> 
> Guy Brandes
> 65 VAIR 140

 		 	   		  


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