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

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

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 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

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.

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

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.

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.