3D Printing for Suckers

[Joules]

Oh this has to class as a Mad Mod....   14hr delay in hoovering the stairs !!!

My other half bought a new Dyson from Aldi, she loves her bargains.  So muggins job was to hoover the stairs with new light weight model than the old upright.  Break out the stair tool and join !!!  NOT.

Thank You Mr Dyson for changing the fitting size.   So  3D print time.



Couple of hours measuring parts resulted in above CAD model, including O ring...  Oooh getting fancy now.  5hrs later I had a print.



This would be 1:30am I finished the print, and join.....   NOT !!!   WTF....

My measurement of the stair tool internal bore was wrong by 1mm.  In all honestly it wasn't where I could reach with the calipers, thats my excuse.  Out to the workshop and fire up the lathe for some very gentle boring to open out the larger end by 1mm.  Bye bye to my O ring, so that was broken away to get at the bore.  Slow machining cut and sealed the surface as I went, the end result was the bore to size and no ragged internal surface as the plastic rewelded into a thin skin, as seen below the step.



This time "click" it fits and the other end also fits a treat.  I had spent some extra time reverse engineering Dysons locking lug, before realising I only needed the central part and not the rest, oh well I have the design for any other fitting I may design for this vac.



Just goes to show traditional machining still has a place.  I modifed my 3D model to correct for the bore and take out the O ring.  All finished by 3:00am, isn't insomnia great...

Stairs got done this morning, the look on my other half's face       Priceless.

To state the obvious I could have just used the upright vac    Wouldn't be a MadModder if I did that.

[SteveT]

Nice work Joules, very satisfying to make a component that joins new and old parts  , and also impresses the wife 

[awemawson]

  Bonkers

And I thought it was only me doing silly things like that 

[nrml]

Thanks for writing that up. Loved it! It is very satisfying to get one up on commercial giants who unfairly (IMO) try to force you to buy more of their stuff. I would be raising my glass to you if i had a drink in hand .

[RobWilson]

Nice one Joules   


Next you will be printing the complete hoover 



Rob

[Manxmodder]

Bonkers

And I thought it was only me doing silly things like that 

Nah! We're all guilty of it in varying degrees 

OZ.

[Arbalist]

That's the first truly useful thing I've seen printed    but will it last? 

[AdeV]

Cracking work Gromit Joules, and further proof that 3D printing has a definite niche to fill in the machining world - short of making a fancy die and casting your plastic, 3D printing must be about the only way to get that sort of shape.

Time to start saving the pennies & casting my eye around the workshop for some (any!) spare space to put such a machine...

[Joules]

Cheers guys,

                   good question Arbalist, they last a lot longer than I initially ever thought they would.  I picked up a cnc router several years ago and it had been used for cutting carbon fibre.  The CF had worked its way into the Delrin leadscrew nuts and since the leadscrews are 1m long they sag and this had helped eat out the lower part of the nut.  This in turn meant I could only run the machine in that axis at a couple of hundred mm/min before the leadscrews started bouncing and resonating.  Along came the first 3D printer and I started looking at what my options might be.  Can't removed the Delrin nuts, flushed them out when I got the machine as best I could.



I looked at making some dampers to push the leadscrews back up into the not so worn area of the nuts.  It worked    I can now run the machine at 1500mm/min if needed and no resonance.



I just checked the date I printed these and it was end of May 2014, the parts are as good now as when I fitted them.  We also printed some spares to leave around in oil and other stuff, a year later they were also fine.  This is of course my favoured PLA, that you hear all the myths about it being prone to bio-degrading, hygroscopic etc.  Nope, not had an issue, my thinking was I would just print new ones every few months.  Never needed too and they show virtually no wear or scoring on the leadscrews, that was one of my early success projects in printing.

So how long do printed parts last, depends how well you design and print them.

[Arbalist]

Nice job on the dampers, clever idea.

[Joules]

Arbalist, I have this vague idea of making a Quorn tool and cutter grinder using 3D printed parts for the castings, but making the bearing surfaces and shafts out of metal.  Since a tool and cutter grinder is generally very lightly loaded, the printed parts should perform quite adequately.

[awemawson]

Design mountings for bellows into your parts holding the bars and holder assembly , as the grinding dust otherwise will embed into the soft(ish) plastic

[nrml]

Arbalist, I have this vague idea of making a Quorn tool and cutter grinder using 3D printed parts for the castings, but making the bearing surfaces and shafts out of metal.  Since a tool and cutter grinder is generally very lightly loaded, the printed parts should perform quite adequately.

That thought has been rattling in my head ever since Fergus mentioned it in another thread a while back. It would make a great project if someone building one could get a printed version up and running quickly and then in the long term slowly upgrade to castings if they choose to. You could have both a functioning tool and a long term project at the same time.

[Joules]

Thanks Andrew, thats very true, but no intention of plastic on plastic bearings and printed parts allows labyrinth seals to try and keep the dust at bay.  I have access to the Bonnelle grinder in 3D format.  For me, not having access or finances for castings 3D printing has been a real eye opener, plus I can get a good surface finish too.  If it needs mass you can always mix sand and epoxy to use as a filler or add metal stiffeners into the design.  Development is RAPID.

Let me see if I can find a 3D model of the Quorn  Might be worth the effort to do a 3D printable model if others are interested.

[efrench]

Here's a model: https://grabcad.com/library/bonelle-tool-and-cutter-grinder

Have you tried printing with nylon or POM (Delrin)?

[Joules]

Cheers efrench,  I have that model and just found a Quorn 3D model in Australia so will have a look at that later.  My friend who got me into 3D printing has tried different materials, the problem for me is cleaning the head of higher and higher temperature materials.  It's probably a good idea to have a printhead for each material.  What I have noticed on the likes of nylon was how much fussier it is to print.  Needing a fairly high bed temperature and you can still get it warping when it all cools down.  I have been tempted by some of the loaded PLA's metal, carbon, wood fibre but using only brass nozzles this really puts some wear on them and then you are back to poor printing due to nozzle erosion not matching extrusion parameters etc etc.

Delrin would be very tempting, being able to print bearing parts, but then I might as well just machine them as they would go into a PLA printed part like my anemometer.

[Joules]

And as this post just popped up being read again.   Look what I still have earning it's keep every few days.  It's out lasted another hoover/Dyson, I do blame the dog.....

[Brass_Machine]

Nice!

[Joules]

   The printed part outlasted the Dyson turbine in this cleaning head.  Very impressed seeing how flimsy it is that the compressor wheel lasted this long.  Now if I have a Pocket NC, a new alloy compressor wheel would be a doddle.   Since vacuum cleaners seem to have had their power reduced in recent years we really only used the small head so my thinking is, compressor transplant from the larger turbine head we don't use.  A resin 3D printed one would be an option, but I don't fancy its life expectancy.  I can still ask Santa for a Pocket NC 

[Joules]

I just can't help myself, Mad Modding....

The other vacuum head didn't use a similar compressor wheel, soooooo can I fix this one ???

First off glue it back together and see how bad it is under a bright light, flood the fractures with cyno and hope it wicked in.  The main load on this wheel is on the front where the splined shaft bites into the plastic, so this end is going to need some reinforcement.  I started with a Delrin ring, it being a tight press fit into the recess on the nose of the wheel.  This on its own wasn't going to hold the wheel together so an external alloy ring was also machined and pressed on to the wheel outer.  This should hold the front end together for a while.

The back of the wheel also need some work to stop it bursting apart.  Having sorted the front I could press the shaft back in and mount the shaft between centres.  Some very careful and light machining removed material to let me fit a machined ring on the rear and flood it and the shaft with cyno.  Thats as good as I can get it, removing anymore of the radial arms risks the outer edge of the wheel coming apart.  Final job, check the wheel balance, yesss a little bit over the top, but many moons ago I used to build small commercial jet engines, the balance isn't great but it is such a light assembly and not many places to take material off. Should have made the rings bigger 

All thats left now is to rebuild the vacuum head and see if the compressor holds together.  Now wasn't that lots more fun than searching for the turbine assembly that Dyson want half the price of a new head for....

Oh, and another story to tell the wife why the vacuuming hasn't been done 

[awemawson]

There's a 3D model on Thingyverse:

https://www.thingiverse.com/make:338210

[Joules]

Yeah, saw those Andrew, but they have to cope with some high rpm and centrifugal force, the blades also tend to be quite chunky.   Just tested the vacuum head, it's a little down on power with a bit more vibration, hardly surprising as it has bits of blade missing.  However it still works and cleans the stair carpets as before.

[awemawson]

I'd hate to think that you couldn't get on with your household chores Jules 

[tom osselton]

I went out yesterday to a shop called Solarbotics here in Calgary and bought some water soluble support material for greater overhangs. They are a great source for any maker!
https://solarbotics.com/