3D design and printing
- Thread starter chrisw
- Start date
sdibbers
Well-Known Member
@chrisw the challenge with the steering wheel centres and 3D printing is that they need to be printed in a clear material. At present there’s only a couple of 3D printing technologies that can produce clear parts:
(1) FDM is a technology that extrudes a filament of plastic in layers to creat the part. You can print in a ‘clear’ plastic, but the finished part is just translucent and not clear. That wouldn’t work for the application.
(2) SLA is a technology that cures a liquid resin using a laser or LCD with a UV wavelength of around 405nm. You can create fully clear parts, normally best to clear coat with 2k lacquer for a truly clear finish. However, because the resin is inherently UV sensitive it will yellow and become brittle on a short time. Great for prototypes but not for final use parts. Again not great for this application.
There is a newer technology known as CLIP that might offer a solution, but parts are still expensive and I have had a chance to evaluate parts from it.
I’ve used SLA parts as patterns to make molds and create UV stable lenses for cars to good success and longevity. (red lens below made a for a Pagaso) I’ve also machined solid acrylic and polished it for others (clear lens below for custom 911 tail lights). However, costs to make these are still too high for the Rover community. I am still looking for a cost effective small batch solution for us (side light lenses would be a good place to start).
As a side note we also make a few other Rover parts using Multijet fusion parts. We should also include the compensator block for the BW35 automatic transmission on the page but haven’t gotten around to it yet.
(1) FDM is a technology that extrudes a filament of plastic in layers to creat the part. You can print in a ‘clear’ plastic, but the finished part is just translucent and not clear. That wouldn’t work for the application.
(2) SLA is a technology that cures a liquid resin using a laser or LCD with a UV wavelength of around 405nm. You can create fully clear parts, normally best to clear coat with 2k lacquer for a truly clear finish. However, because the resin is inherently UV sensitive it will yellow and become brittle on a short time. Great for prototypes but not for final use parts. Again not great for this application.
There is a newer technology known as CLIP that might offer a solution, but parts are still expensive and I have had a chance to evaluate parts from it.
I’ve used SLA parts as patterns to make molds and create UV stable lenses for cars to good success and longevity. (red lens below made a for a Pagaso) I’ve also machined solid acrylic and polished it for others (clear lens below for custom 911 tail lights). However, costs to make these are still too high for the Rover community. I am still looking for a cost effective small batch solution for us (side light lenses would be a good place to start).
As a side note we also make a few other Rover parts using Multijet fusion parts. We should also include the compensator block for the BW35 automatic transmission on the page but haven’t gotten around to it yet.
