IS: Hobby 3D Printing Service

Hey guys, we've decided to start offering some limited 3D printing services for people who are interested in that sort of thing as a side hobby. We have an UP Plus 2 3D printer with red, orange, yellow, green, blue, white, and black ABS plastic. We've been using it to print out 3D cases for the Radiant Electronics LPM and various things found online.

Max print size: ~ 4.5" x 4.5" x 4.5"
Pricing will vary by size but we plan to make it very reasonable. PM me for more details.

Please note this is not a professional service, we do not offer design services and require the STL, UP3, or UPP files.

Quick overview on 3D printing:
Plastic is essentially melted and squeezed through a nozzle and the object is drawn in the 3D plane. Because the printer can only print layers at a time the strongest part is when force is applied perpendicular to the piece. The best analogy I've heard so far is that 3D printing is like making things with legos, it's strong when you push down on it but weak on the sides as the pieces pull apart. The final product is NOT printed as a solid piece like injection molding but made of very fine layers that adhere to each other, in the picture below you can see the horizontal layers. 3D Printing is often used in rapid prototyping for proof of concept pieces and it should be noted that the end printed product should only be considered as a toy.

A great place to look for 3D files is at http://www.thingiverse.com/

Free CAD Software:
http://www.openscad.org/
http://www.sketchup.com/ (choose educational free version)

http://www.youtube.com/embed/uqIelbqKyXc

Printing: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:53451

Nice. I bet I could come up with a few things.

I really want to start designing and printing my own fishing lures. Awesome new toy! This is a very cool service to offer.

I need a 32650 battery holder to use 2 batteries in parallel for a friends hobby charger. I need the holder to keep it simple for him to charge the batteries. PM with details on what I need to do and perceived cost.
I had considered making him one out of kydex, but this looks a lot easier and more professional.

I wish i had the ability to make designs to send for printing, but i have nothing

We don't offer design services, just printing.

EDIT: I did some quick research, here's a parametric battery case: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:5051 it's possible you would be able to edit it to fit your required dimensions.

http://www.sketchup.com/download

Sketchup Make is free to download, just select educational use.

Alternatively people who already have a CAD background can just export as an STL file from SolidWorks, Autodesk, etc.

ABS? I am new to the 3D printing game, but what does the stuff end up as? Hard plastic? Something that would hold up to moderate use? Such as a magazine follower? If so…i am interested

It ends up coming out as hard plastic yes but strength is based on thickness, you can even make threads with it. Another issue is that strength is better on certain planes due to the nature of 3D printing and the orientation of the print. For example, below is an 18650 battery carrier we printed. If you look really closely you can see the layers on how the 3D print was made. The weak point in this particular print is in the neck where the threads are as that is where the walls are thinnest. I threw the carrier around and that was the breaking point, otherwise it is reasonably strong.

People have designed and made all sorts of things from moving gears to flashlight holders: http://www.thingiverse.com/search/page:6?q=flashlight&sa=

make a 3x18650 battery holder and all u would need to have made is copper tabs ?

Basically yes. There are quite a few battery holder designs, but not many in specialized li-ion form: https://www.thingiverse.com/search/page:1?q=battery&sa=

Thank you, i will look into it

http://www.youtube.com/embed/uqIelbqKyXc

Printing: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:53451

If memory serves ABS is what they use to make Lego

radio shack has this kit for $1500

i like this https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:33706

Gear printed and moving.

So how much do you charge? Say I wanted something made up how would I go about doing it? Also I have been messing around and it looks like sketchup saves as .SKP. Can that work or does it need to be converted?

We're kind of making it up as we go along, we'll probably charge based on print material volume. I believe you can export Sketchup files to STL. It's highly experimental since print settings will be different depending on the intended use of the object. We've been testing out different materials mostly for our own product housing and seen good results. The only problem I can foresee is if the design people submit isn't structurally strong enough because the "walls" are too thin, which is why we don't want to offer a design service because we don't have enough experience in structural and material design. This is more of a test hobby service we're offering on the side since we have the machine available and as we pick up more knowledge we may make it more official. The time requirement for 3D printing is pretty high especially if a print doesn't work out. The Radiant Cases we have take over 2 hours to print.

Interesting. Well if you need someone to give you a trial run I did just make my first thing in sketchup haha

Using OpenSCAD I downloaded and modified a parametric battery holder. http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:5079/

I entered in some rough measurement for a dual 32650 holder, this particular design looks like it requires some screws, nuts, and bolts. You can even set the dimensions of the spacing between the batteries, size of the nuts, bolts, and screws using OpenSCAD (free software).

I went and generated a triple 18650 holder as well:

What have you sketched up?

Nearly all the plastic you see on cars and bikes is ABS so you know it’s durable. Welding is about the only way to repair it. Adhesives and epoxies don’t stick to it very well.