Gallery, Projects and General > The Design Shop
3D Printed Quorn Tool & Cutter Grinder
Joules:
Andrew, I don't fault your logic. I have no doubt this thing will be "Bouncy" how much ? Not sure and if needed I can print supports for under the workhead casting or bars to bring it back up. If you don't try, you won't know, and its a good test of my CAD, design and printing skills. I suspect it will work in a fashion, if nothing else for the reason Norman commented, the cuts taken are "VERY" light, I won't be trying large cutters on it, but will play up to 6mm end mills and 1/4" HSS tool bits. Long term we shall find out what its limitations are, and how much of an impact they have on getting a job done. It's not a SERIOUS tool, for those :scratch: their heads at this mad man building plastic tools. However, we shall see where the technology takes us, and how it progresses over time, just get those creative juices flowing guy's. This has so far all been designed and printed from the comfort of a nice warm room. Only the bar you see has required any machine work. YES, it really squeaked as I pressed it in on the drill press and it took more force than I expected. The bar has also pulled the two part base print into alignment, which is nice.
Progress, but the next bar is going to be more of a problem as I need to make some form of honing tool for all the printed parts that go on the front bar. :lol: It's precision Norman.
awemawson:
Don't read me wrong Jules. I think that this is a very creditable job, and I am envious of your obvious 3D modeling and printing skills, and it is very good to see something potentially very useful being made this way.
So far I've baulked at setting myself up to 3D print as most of the kits and plans seem to produce toy sized stuff to a limited accuracy tediously slowly.
sparky961:
I should add too that although I've been throwing in the odd sarcastic comment from time to time that I've been actively watching this with interest. I'm on the side of the fence that says 3D printing is still very much in its infancy.... maybe not even born yet. But I'm rooting for it as it comes into mainstream.
I'm wishing you and your project be a success despite my healthy skepticism.
Joules:
Andrew, not a problem. The machine I am using isn't in the same league as the home built jobs, even though it was a cheap printer. It did take some work to get the results I have now and it is slow to print in comparison to a large CNC setup. BUT, slow is not a problem as it just gets on with the job, whilst I do other things. Once you have the parts on file, they can be duplicated in just a few hours or modified and tweaked as needed. It's the speed for prototyping and relative low cost of materials, before committing to more expensive materials/processes. A lot of my work, gets sent out for injection moulding abroad, a 3D print just gives the guy's paying the bill a little more confidence about what they expect to get from my 3D model and their moulding company.
Thanks for the compliment on the design work, it means a lot.
Norman, I'll do my best, and if that isn't good enough, I'll bodge it till it works. :thumbup:
Joules:
Ahhh, good and bad news today. The bad, my two part base casting has changed shape due to the bed bar being pressed in. The good news, I incorporated a 3 point fixing from the start so I will be able to shim and clamp this down to get things lined up. I should also be able to tweak as things change over time. The vertical bar will be threaded at the base end so it too can be bolted down to help keep it true. So not unduly worried over the changing shape as that early change in fixings looks like it will pay off.
Today I completed a couple more parts of the workhead casting set.
Still a lot that could be tweaked on parts here. I have NOW decided that all my cotter pins should be 10mm as standard, so have gone back and redrawn the right hand base casting as that still had an 8mm bore, and bulked up the casting outside around the bore. I won't reprint it for this try, as my play time window is starting to close, so more eager to get something working. Can revisit tweaks and mods later.
Starting to get interesting now as we get more of the castings completed. Looking through my plastics stock I found some 10mm Delrin bar that looks like it will be cotter pin material. Another job completed whilst the printer was busy, I made up the 30mm vertical Perspex bar and started thinking about how I will do the spiral. Having looked at the lathe, I can gear the cross slide 5:1 to get a 1/2" pitch. Looking online I found a gear generator that allowed me to produce the intended gear train.
My choices here are print the gears or get them laser cut out of Perspex. I will start doodling the cross slide mounts to take the bar at centre height with the gear train mounted at hand wheel side and work out how I will drive it (1:1 toothed belt straight off the hand wheel)
Been a productive day.
The front bar is going to wait till I have the base clamped and lined up with the rear and vertical bar in place. I have a plan to ease the bore on the front once things are something like lined up and held in place. This is no metal casting !!!
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