I'll let the EM gurus tell us if the part is available or not, but if it's not...

If you can spare the time without the part, and want to mail it to me, I'll draw the part and print one for you.

We can see how well it works. Then we can upload the file to Shapeways so others can order it.

PM me and I'll get you my address. We can get this knocked out pretty quick.

Been working on the part for the past little bit.

part.jpg

just wanted to say that your rock wolf!

^^^^that.

Heh, thanks guys. Just excited I can finally help someone with a pinball related problem.

I made some more progress with the model, I'm gonna run the first one off the printer this evening and then make any adjustments based on the print.

Here is the progress I made this morning:

part_v2.jpg

What printer do you have, and curious as to what material you've printed with? Would be great to maybe have a small guide concerning 3d printing

I've got a Printrbot Simple Metal with a heated bed. It's on the lower end of cost, but I've come to learn the only things you really sacrifice are speed and max print volume.

http://printrbot.com/shop/simple-metal-kit-with-heated-bed/

The guide sounds neat, I'll see what I can put together. I'm by no means an expert on 3D printing, so I'll put what I know out there, and maybe some others can chime in too. I'll make a thread for it.

Thanks, its something I've been looking into, as I'm sure a few others have. A guide would really be useful, I've seen some pinball related files on thingiverse, including something made by you?

http://www.thingiverse.com/search?q=pinball&sa=

Most useful item you've made with yours? Pinball or non-pinball related?

Thanks for the idea, I ran with it and threw something together:

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/wolfs-beginner-guide-to-3d-printing-and-pinball

Yeah, the Wolfmarsh on thingiverse is me. swinks also makes some good pinball stuff.

I've made a couple really useful items with mine. One was a set of brackets to hang a movie screen on the inside of my garage door, but still allow the door to go up and down.

They use one continuous rope of elastic, and the way I designed the route for the elastic is such that as the door shakes as it goes up and down, the elastic will retension itself. The screen fabric is stretched tight.

In these pics, the side and bottom brackets aren't installed, so its not fully taught yet.

10253914_10153447665453569_2711914165631781361_n.jpg

10604516_10153452984678569_5770639064236840176_o.jpg

How strong/durable are 3d printed components like this vs the original?

That's actually a pretty hard question to answer.

So much of the strength comes from how it's modeled and what settings are used to print it. Even a 10 degree celsius difference in extruder temperature can mean the difference between a strong part and one that crumbles.

Assuming the part was printed well, I'm estimating an ABS printed part has 90% the strength of an ABS molded part. Knowing that, when I redraw parts like this, I always try to consider how I will be printing it, and if I need to add any other structural enhancements to it.

The way this specific original part failed, I'm wanting to add some extra reinforcement around the area it failed at, hopefully preventing it from happening again.

Another example is the long tube that comes up off the center of the part. The wall on that is only 0.7mm thick, and my extruder diameter is 0.4mm. When the printer lays down a layer, it usually squishes out a bead of filament that is 0.6mm wide. What I will do for this model is force it to extrude 0.7mm wide, giving me the wall thickness I want with one "pass" around the circle. That will also force it to "squish" the filament harder into the layer below it, hopefully making it strong enough.

It also comes down to material choice. PLA filament would probably snap right off, but ABS has more "give" to it, so it will be able to bend a little without snapping.

That's one reason I offered to do it for free, because I'm also not sure the new part will hold up. I'm gonna send him a couple to test, and we can go from there.

Sorry the answer got so long, but I enjoy talking about this stuff.

Thanks for posting! We also enjoy hearing about this type of stuff.

Thanks. I'm thinking of retiring and getting into something completely different and have been intrigued with 3D printing but not sure if there is any money to made to make it worth the effort...beyond a hobby.

Unless you were going to invest the money to set up a shop like Shapeways with some high dollar printers, I don't think there is a pile of money to be made.

I think the money in 3D printing right now is the next level of software. The company that figures out how to put out some fool-proof software is going to be the catalyst that puts a printer in every home.

Right now, there are just so many nuances that you have to decide yourself.

I PM'd chad to mail these back, but here is a pic of what I was able to come up with.

The 2 purples are the previous revision, the placement of one of the pieces was a few degrees off, so I fixed that for the final revision test, the pink one. Since I was happy with the pink, I printed off 4 black ones.

This was an interesting exercise for me, and I still don't know if they will be strong enough. The long center tube had thinner walls than I was expecting, which turned it into a bitch to print and be sturdy. I couldn't get an ABS print to come out without either being brittle or melted.

I ended up using a Black PLA that I'm really happy with, quality-wise. I've now tried filament from like 6 different vendors, and the Hatchbox is some of the best that I've used.

DSC01362 (Medium).JPG

I'm very interested to see if these parts are strong enough. My experience with FDM style 3D printing for wall sections less than 0.060" or so results in typically weak parts particularly across the build layers. Thin walls like the main vertical cylinder seems especially susceptible to me, but possibly if there's room you could really just beef that area up to get it to hold or radius the heck out of the base...

That's exactly the problem. The layers are separating on the poorer prints. I suggested to chad that if these fail we can upload the model to Shapeways and have it printed on a SLS printer.

Shameless self promotion...

Staubinc.com

We quote for free, if you are interested in pricing.

By no means can i compete with someone with their own fdm machine, But I would be surprised if I can't beat Shapeways pricing.

Wolf -

Has anyone asked about trying to print the light shields from Stern, Williams or Mid-80s Bally backboxes? These are the little plastic shields aroung the lamps for things light "Same Player Shoots Again" and the like...

They might be good candidates as almost every one I have come across will crack and break if you look at it wrong...

Still trying to get a trip down to Charleston from the upstate, by the way. The conference I usually go to with the wife in Feb. was moved to Columbia this year.

-scott

I have files for light shields ready to go, just haven't had much luck with printing them.
Just switched to a new set of software and was going to try them again today.

-Hans

Hmm, my Allied liesure flipper yokes look similar, and apparently break often. If these hold, then I may send you one of my yokes for printing.
And a drop target base. I just broke two where the switch screws into the base. Arghh!

Oh, one thing about the light shields. The plastic used on original pieces is soft enough you can just staple through them. Almost any of the 3D printer friendly plastics wouldn't be able to do that, you'd have to put in holes and mount with screws. Not that it's a bad thing, just something to be aware of.

The good thing is you've also got choices in plastic colors. Natural ABS would be closest to original in looks and translucence, but you could also go with black and get much better control over light location.

A lot of options for colored light shields with filaments such as Taulman's T-Glase, for any place you can think of in a machine.

nice work wolf and good on you for helping.

agree some designs are better suited for shapeways because of the binding process they use. With the models I have uploaded there I have added U versions. U signifies an upgrade in the design to strengthen the design where possible. Checked out the model images and simply adding a small radius in corners helps add strength to the design and reducing shear (fail) points.

Hope that helps

below is the bally ball launch arm standard and U version
https://www.shapeways.com/search?q=bally+ball+launch

I did these for a restorer in Aus

https://www.shapeways.com/search?q=bally+light+shroud

This is great to see! Wolf, you may want to try and print these in Nylon. That would hold up extremely well to friction and impact.

--Scott

If you guys need help printing in some experimental materials, hit me up.

--Scott

chad, if these don't hold up, you should definitely hit TheNoTrashCougar up if you want to try the nylon. He has way more experience with it than I do.

I'd be glad to share the model as well, I'll put it up on thingiverse tonight when I get home.

Definitely try PLA first though. I am pretty sure this will hold up just fine!
--Scott

Swinks store has some

http://www.shapeways.com/shops/Dutch-Orange