[dataway]

Latest project was rehousing my home-made vacuum pump. It comes in very handy for testing any vacuum related system without having to run the engine. Hooks up to the battery. Great for diagnosing Hideaway problems.

I need to add a check valve downstream of the pump, upstream of the gauge to see if a system is holding vacuum. The cheapo pump doesn't hold vacuum well when it's not running.

Feel free to add any of your 3d printing projects to the thread.

[Shiny]

Nicely done!

Those inserts, labels, and handle turned out great.

I have no reason to print this one but recently burned many hours generating a model of our camper so we could communicate dimensions to a cover fabricator.

Keep sharing, it is a good motivator to learn.

Mike

[dataway]

At least half the CAD I do are for just such uses as you have posted. I'll model an item, or a space based on real measurements and then I can sit at the desk and eyeball things for a solution. Even with the vacuum pump, I modeled the little pump, the gauge, the switch to see how I could arrange them in the box.

Next I'll be modeling some racks I need to weld up to hold long metal stock in the shop. Beats my former method of just starting to cut and weld on the fly

Back when I was serious about vintage motorcycle racing I was considering reproducing a four leading shoe drum brake and modeled up this example. Lot of hours invested at my limited skill level. It "functions" too, all the pivots and such. Unfortunately all lost as it was done in AutoDesk Inventor which I no longer have access to.

[Radman]

I don't have pictures but. 3 members of the Little Indians chapter of the POCI are 3D printing parts for our cars that are not manufactured by anyone. The Little Indians are the club for the 1961 to 1963 Pontiac Tempest and LeMans. The first member is printing the turn signal cancel cam for the 61 and 62 cars. The second member is printing the turn signal cancel cam for the 63 cars. The third is printing the rear taillights for the 63 LeMans. When no manufacturer is making the parts you get creative.

[72projectbird]

I've been exploring having the correct clock knob for a 70 Trans Am 3D printed.

I've been really wanting to get into printing, so maybe I'll use that as an excuse lol

[FoundSoul]

Man I need to upgrade my 3D Printer. I'm still using an ancient Dremel 3D20, but it keeps doing what I need so I'm well, still using it. I know the newer stuff has come a long way. One of these days I'll make a step up.....

[dataway]

While my type of 3d printing (FDM) is marginal for things like knobs or lenses, I'd love to see someone use a Resin 3d printer for something like knobs or lenses, in general they have WAY more detail and use materials that might be more suitable for things like knobs and lenses.

FDM 3d printing is great for covers, dash panels, internal components, bumpers, non-engine gaskets or seals, broken tabs and pins etc.

Resin printing is considerably slower and messier, but I bet you could print some real nice radio knobs etc. with one.

[72projectbird]

Originally Posted by dataway

While my type of 3d printing (FDM) is marginal for things like knobs or lenses, I'd love to see someone use a Resin 3d printer for something like knobs or lenses, in general they have WAY more detail and use materials that might be more suitable for things like knobs and lenses.

FDM 3d printing is great for covers, dash panels, internal components, bumpers, non-engine gaskets or seals, broken tabs and pins etc.

Resin printing is considerably slower and messier, but I bet you could print some real nice radio knobs etc. with one.

Speaking of resin, I see there's a guy on ebay selling a 70 clock knob. It's expensive, but I'm wondering if I could make a mold off of it and make new knobs? I've done it for model car parts before, and they came out good.

If I can pull it off, I'll make a bunch and give them to guys needing one.

[dataway]

I've always wanted to try resin molding a part, with the new two-part silicon mixes for the molds it seems more straightforward than in the past.

I've watched videos of some guy that replicates old taillight lenses by molding them and using some kind of resin or plastic for the lens.

[Shiny]

Originally Posted by dataway

I've always wanted to try resin molding a part, with the new two-part silicon mixes for the molds it seems more straightforward than in the past.

I've watched videos of some guy that replicates old taillight lenses by molding them and using some kind of resin or plastic for the lens.

And you can de-gas with your 12V vac pump!

[dataway]

Latest project.

I decided to create something to determine rear/front tread width accurately, or more precisely the difference in tread width from front to rear.

I 3d printed a Picatinny rail, mounted a couple of pistol lasers on it (only needs one really), printed an adapter to very precisely slide it on 1" steel tube.

3d printed a couple of adjustable magnetic mounts to attach the laser mounting bar to the bead portion of the rim, good for probably 12" - 16" steel wheels.

It can be mounted in any position, vertical, horizontal etc. So the metal bar can also mount a magnetic level/angle finder for camber/castor adjustments.

The whole thing can be reconfigured for aligning other things, or I can 3d print any type of adapter for special purposes. It's NOT a level, it's for broadcasting a laser in two directions. The pistol laser sights are adjustable so the pair of them on the same Picatinny rail can be calibrated to be in perfect alignment (well, close enough to perfect).

[Shiny]

Nicely done! Looks like some stout parts. Were the threaded inserts and magnets printed in place or bonded after? What material... and if you bonded, what adhesive did you use and how did that affect your choice of material?

Will be interesting to hear how repeatable your measurements end up...

Great idea!

[dataway]

Threaded inserts and magnets were done post printing. I used PETG for most of the parts. Used CA glue to join major parts. I went through three iterations and I wanted to recover some of the magnets to reuse, no way, I was flabbergasted how well the glue held the magnets and parts together and the PETG was almost indestructible. (printed with 3 walls and 25% infill.

Will be interesting to see how the cheapo pistol lasers perform ($17 each). I did look down the metal tube (like a gun barrel) and the dot was perfectly centered but a tad high, which I would expect with the laser mounted to the top of the tube.

The calibration will be a bit tedious, I'll use a surface plate and a Starrett master level, and a construction laser as a reference.

I figure it will work much like using a string for alignment, but referenced off the rim bead profile and not the tire.

I'll be making another one (single laser) so both sides of the car can be checked at the same time.

[Shiny]

Thanks for the detail. Noted on the PETG and CA! Cool to find laser pointers with mounts for so little!

Will you project from each wheel onto one surface like a wall? or from one wheel to another? To a wall would make measuring easy but would open it up to angular and run-out errors.

Should be very useful for other stuff.. wheel run-out, toe-in, front-to-rear alignment, maybe even caster and camber by projecting a "line" onto a wall and measuring angles ???

[dataway]

My first use for it would be to align the front wheels with the rear. So stick it to the rear wheel, project past the front and measure beam to bead surface at the front and rear of front wheel.

Other use I imagined was for camber, remove the laser, stick the bar mount to the wheel, use a good magnetic digital level on the square tube ... mostly because I got tired of trying to hold something against the wheel while reading the angle. I think I could use it for caster the same way.

If a person got fancy they could put up targets like 10' in front of the car, do the trig to very accurately measure toe.

For the most part, the main purpose, to be able to stick a steel tube accurately on the center line of the wheel, on the bead surface and stick a digital level on it. No lasers required, but you know, why not

I also have other uses for it around the shop to help check for flatness, alignment .. various things where you DON'T want a level doing it's "self leveling" thing. Sometimes you just need to accurately know where a surface points, not if it's level. I have a nice Starrett master bubble level that I use to calibrate everything, thing is amazing, put a piece of notebook paper under one end and it's pretty much full swing in one direction. I also use a self leveling Nikon optical transit, and they claim it is +/- 2.5mm in 1 kilometer, so across my 60' shop it's pretty accurate

They do sell devices like that, machinery alignment lasers, but they run about $400 each.

Next I'll print up some Picatinny rails with magnets on the bottom so you can stick a laser to any flat metal surface, each one would have to be calibrated so the laser parallels the bottom of the rail perfectly. Still working on how to do that

[dataway]

And for another side project

I always wanted to build a laser flatness indicator. The hard part is getting the laser beam flush with the measured surface that it sits on top of. A mirror is required, that ideally splits the beam at the surface and projects it along the top of the surface showing up any highs, lows, flaws etc. Another hard part is getting the angle of mirror to laser exactly 90 degrees, very exactly.

Here is my prototype using a cheapo .02 cent conventional mirror, a pistol laser and some 3d printed parts to hold it all together with some provisions for adjustment. Tolerances were not very tight on this build, and I have a "first surface" optical mirror on the way (9mm x 9mm). This mirror won't distort the beam by going through cheap glass on the way in, and out like a conventional mirror.

Lasers don't photograph well, but it's working fairly well right out of the box. Tested it on the glass coffee table and grains of salt showed up like little red stars. These photos are on my work table, pebbly plastic, so not great.

I've got my 4' x 8' welding table down to about 0.020" of flat on average. I'd like to use this when it's perfected to get it down to about 0.010". Why? You know, just to see if it can be done

[dataway]

Got around to trying out my alignment tool today.

Using it here to check camber. The magnets seat well on the bead portion of the rim. I have to make sure to position the wheel so the weights aren't in the way.

Obviously this wheel is a bit out, I've never checked or adjusted it before, just eyeballed it during assembly and put in the shims.

Next is to get the lasers calibrated (seen attached to the square bar) and use them to get toe-in correct.

Project going slow, in the middle of building a new house.

[Shiny]

Originally Posted by dataway

And for another side project .....

I've got my 4' x 8' welding table down to about 0.020" of flat on average. I'd like to use this when it's perfected to get it down to about 0.010". Why? You know, just to see if it can be done ...

How do you machine a 4'x8' table to achieve 0.010" flatness?

Originally Posted by dataway

Got around to trying out my alignment tool today.

...

Project going slow, in the middle of building a new house.

That's excellent! Must have some serious magnets to hold all that!

Hope you are making good progress on the house and property.

[dataway]

I've got three 20mm x 10mm x 5mm rare earth magnets in each end. Takes a good yank to remove it.


On the welding table, no machining, I used the method seen in the photos below. The surface sits on a pattern of 1/2" bolt stand-offs that allow me to force up, or down, any portion of the 4 x 8 foot plate.

The advantage of this is that the base of the table doesn't have to be absolutely perfect, once you set the 600 lb sheet on the support frame you can adjust it to compensate for any imperfections.

It's almost perfect, but I probably should have added a few more stand-offs and moved some closer to the edges of the sheet, since these sheets are no where close to flat from the "factory".

As time goes on you can check the table and make adjustments to keep it as flat as you want.

[Shiny]

That's very clever. Well done. I'm surprised the plate would allow even close to that. Cold-rolled?