Plastic material | makexyz.com

Email yourself a 10% off coupon

Send

Coupon sent! Check your email

Plastic material

posted in Community by aeauto

We reman alternators, and are looking into printing replacements for some plastic parts on alternators (covers, regulators harness, insulators, etc). These plastic parts are sometimes a large expense to replace. For example covers that are broken have to be thrown away and new ones purchased. Sometimes our suppliers do not have new parts in stock, so we have delays in completing orders.

If we were able to print parts, it will help us out with cost and order times. The problem is, the parts will be exposed to the heat from an engine. We have considered using ABS plastic since it has a little bit higher heat tolerance than PLA. Does anyone else have experience with 3D printed material and how it reacts to heat? Thanks in advance!

9 years, 6 months ago

ashley@3dprintvancouver.com - ABS:
Melts at around ~200C
Glass transition at ~105C
Heat deflection temp at 1.8MPa: 85C

Polycarbonate:
Melts at around ~290C
Glass transition at ~150C
Heat deflection temp at 1.8MPa: ~125C

9 years, 6 months ago

aeauto - Thank you for that information. What printer would you recommend for polycarbonate? We are looking at models less than 6"x6"

9 years, 6 months ago

ashley@3dprintvancouver.com - The specific printer doesn't matter provided it has a heated bed and is well designed. The key is that you have an all metal hotend. The standard J-Head hotend, while a superb hotend, contains PEEK and PTFE which will fail above 250C. The most popular all metal hotend is definitely the E3D v6. Another option is the Spitfire from Deezmaker. You can mount these hotends on any printer which uses the standard groove mount. Everyone on this forum will have their favourite printers. I use Mendel90s because they are open source and rock solid. Some people love Deltas (e.g. DeltaMaker, Rostock, 3DR). And if you're feeling adventurous, you can custom build something. Ingentis / Eustathios are great new designs based on an aluminum extrusion frame that can be scaled however you require.

9 years, 6 months ago

ashley@3dprintvancouver.com - I should also mention that polycarbonate is tricky to print with so expect a learning curve. It can be difficult to control warp so you probably want to enclose the printer to keep the heat in and possibly even build an extractor system because PC can emit fumes.

9 years, 6 months ago

aeauto - This is great information, thank you! Would you recommend starting out with ABS since I am new to 3D printing? I have been considering the Makerbot Replicator 2x. I will also look at the printers that you have mentioned.

9 years, 6 months ago

we3du - Another option might be to find a rigid Silicone material and use a Discov3ry extruder to lay it down at room temperature.

150 degrees is pretty hot for any thermoplastic except some specialist materials.
You could also try tackling the problem from the other direction and find a thermoplastic that's designed to tolerate 150C, then work with a manufacturer to produce filament. A low-cost way of doing this might be to buy a small filament extruder, for instance the Strooder and produce your own filament from samples of granulated material. Of course, the extruder might need to be modified to operate at higher temperature.

9 years, 6 months ago

ashley@3dprintvancouver.com - I'm not a big fan of Makerbot but that's largely because of their predatory business practices of late. Plus their new line of printers are not getting great reviews (http://www.amazon.com/MakerBot-Replicator-Desktop-Printer-Generation/dp/B00KISW4LM). The Replicator 2 series is a decent printer but then I would suggest looking at the Flashforge Creator which is basically a clone for half the price. I can't say for certain that you can swap hotends on these printers though, I've never used them. They are more on the proprietary side of the fence. Another machine I suggest is the Bukobot by Deezmaker. They are a small company in California but the design is exceptional and easy modifiable. It comes with an all metal hotend and you will get access to an exceptional team with tons of experience in all areas and all materials. Seriously, Rich Cameron (whosa whatsis) is one of the top 3D printer engineers around - there's probably not much he hasn't tried.

9 years, 6 months ago

ashley@3dprintvancouver.com - I like we3du's thinking outside the box. Just a few additional comments. Paste extrusion, which is what he's referring to with the Discov3ry, is very new and experimental. You'd be breaking ground using it in a production setting. As for other filaments, I suggest emailing Tom at Taulman3D. He's an expert in new materials and could provide much better advice than I can. http://taulman3d.com/contact-us.html

9 years, 6 months ago

n23d - Nylon could be a possible choice and filament is commercially available. Many under hood parts are made from nylon because of its thermal and chemical resistance. ABS and Polycarbonate would not do well in under hood applications due to poor chemical resistance. It should be possible to determine what material the covers are made from. It would be best to make the replacements from the same material. Those parts go through lots of testing to make sure they will hold up in use. Switching to a different material without testing could be a real disservice to your customers.

9 years, 6 months ago

vinnie90 - I would suggest to get someone on here to print just some small objects or sheets of different types of plastics. then put it under the hood.

See what happens and then you can then make a better choice on material and machine.

9 years, 6 months ago

aeauto - Excellent suggestions. Thank you all. I will be contacting other members for printing samples of these materials to see how they hold up. We are extremely driven to produce quality products, therefore we want to make sure that the printed parts hold up just as well as the originals, if not even better.

9 years, 6 months ago

vinnie90 - Good Luck. Lots of great people on here!

9 years, 6 months ago

bmmal - You should really be looking to get these parts manufactured in small volume using cast urethane. You may also want to look into using SLA or SLS rather than FDM. I can't say I would feel confident in using FDM parts in a retailed automotive component. Especially when considering how thin some of these parts will be.

9 years, 6 months ago

aeauto - Someone else mentioned that to me this weekend. Since then I have looked into SLA some, but honestly I had not even heard of it before he mentioned it. I can see where SLA would have advantages over FDM, especially in the strength of the print.

9 years, 6 months ago

show 13 more comments

bmmal - SLA is actually the oldest form of "3D printing." The reason it hasn't become as well known as FDM/FFF is that it is a little more difficult and messier in some aspects. I have an excellent source for SLA in the Madison WI area. At a professional/commercial additive mfg level SLA or even FDM are going to be expensive. This is where you have an SLA version made which can then be used to make molds for cast urethane, a process you may be able to take in-house if you invest in some learning and equipment.

SLS (selective laser sintering) is the process where powdered materials (commonly nylon, sometimes metals, etc) are sintered using a laser or electron beam.

9 years, 6 months ago

intservo - Guys I am getting some PETG here in a few days. PETG is supposed to have advantage of both PLA and ABS and is very tough. Contact me if interested in a sample. In a few days I will also look for recommendation for a small model which I can test print with PETG and test out its characteristics. Below is the announcement and details of PETG:
http://www.intservo.com/blogs/news/17937971-esun-s-new-product-petg-with-high-toughness-and-impact-strength

9 years, 5 months ago

ashley@3dprintvancouver.com - PETG will not handle the temperatures. It is only marginally better than PLA and significantly worse than ABS when it comes to heat. Don't get me wrong, it's a great material and I use it all the time, but it is not suitable for high temp environments. Heat Deflection Temperature, not melting temperature or glass transition, is the metric you need when assessing a material for use in warm environments.

9 years, 5 months ago