VORON Design
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Question Can you 3d print fasteners?
- Thread starter lcham
- Start date
Can you make working threaded nuts and bolts with a 3D printer? Absolutely.
Can you use those nuts and bolts to hold two pieces of paper together? Sure, if you wanted to.
Can you use those nuts and bolts to hold the bucket onto an excavator? Not a chance.
Whether a 3D print is suitable for the task is entirely dependent on your application.
Can you use those nuts and bolts to hold two pieces of paper together? Sure, if you wanted to.
Can you use those nuts and bolts to hold the bucket onto an excavator? Not a chance.
Whether a 3D print is suitable for the task is entirely dependent on your application.
I'm trying to max out self-reproducibility of voron-0 / avoid supply chain headaches. I was wondering if you could print the fasteners that make up Voron-0. My guess is not anywhere close heated elements (print bed, print head). I'm not sure if it's strong engough for the rest of the printer. Any insight on the subject?
Hi, v0 uses some very small fasteners where threads even can be below resolution of FRM printers, and resin prints have proven to be not suitable for VORON heated chambers.
Some of them bear quite a load, XY joints crack for example with belt tension - and those joints are few mm thick, 3 mm printed stick would definitely not stand a chance.
I strongly recommend you buy good fasteners. There was recently small SNAFU with one of kit manufacturers providing fasteners which were easy to strip - both thread and head, and those were metal. I don't think plastic would stand a chance.
Some of them bear quite a load, XY joints crack for example with belt tension - and those joints are few mm thick, 3 mm printed stick would definitely not stand a chance.
I strongly recommend you buy good fasteners. There was recently small SNAFU with one of kit manufacturers providing fasteners which were easy to strip - both thread and head, and those were metal. I don't think plastic would stand a chance.
You might be able to use thermoplastic rods, with the end(s) melted in-situ, as rivets?
It would then have the same tensile strength as the material used, instead of just the shear strength of the layer bonds of fine printed threads.
But if self-reproducibility is the goal, you really should look into the earlier RepRap designs, where that was a priority throughout.
It would then have the same tensile strength as the material used, instead of just the shear strength of the layer bonds of fine printed threads.
But if self-reproducibility is the goal, you really should look into the earlier RepRap designs, where that was a priority throughout.
PLA is not suitable for VORON structural parts, and additives like Cf or GF do not change properties of basic material, especially temperature resistance.
While there may be some places where other methods could replace fasteners, for example panel clips; or replace some bolts with pins, I don't think this is reasonable to use anything else for structural parts.
Faire enough for PLA, but I didn't mean it as a definitive. Wouldn't ABS CF be suitable for the heated chambers given that ABS glass transition temperature is around 105° C ?
Fair enough, but upgrading the best maintained open source 3D printer still seems like a more reasonable path to me.
ah2049
Well-known member
It's not just about the heat resistance of the material, it's about the mechanical strength. Tensile strength, shear strength, and the rigidity of the fastener also have to be considered. Even making a screw from the expensive PEEK only gets you 25,000psi tensile strength, which is a far cry from the 170,000psi of cheap alloy steel, and I don't think you'd see the same strength from a FDM screw as you would an injection molded screw.
Try making some of those screws and report back to us with your findings.
For the cost of 1 spool of filament, a whole set of screws.
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ChrisA
Well-known member
Guess what I'm printing now on my V0? A few different kinds of fasteners. As it turns or you have to design the fastener, knowing the characteristics of 3D-printed plastic. You can NOT print an M3 capscrew with its head standing on the build plate. Not with a Voron printer.
But I just made some clips that snap into a hole and some drop nuts for My v0 that fit into the 1515 extrusion and then accept normal metal M3 screws. These parts are tiny, a dozen of them only fill the center of the V0's build plate.
On the other end of the scale, look at the nuts on the belt tensioners on the V0 printer. They look like an M20 size or something like that. They obviously work.
One kind of rivet you can print is a thingy to push into a hole then there is a button head that shows, rather than a hex socket you print a 1.75mm hole and then you can push in a bit a filament which spreads the part of the fastener you can't see. These fasteners are used in cars a lot.
You might try to design a pop-rivet-like fastener.
ChrisA
Well-known member
You would have to re-design the printer. it could be done. But the current design assumes there are very strong and tin metal fasteners. A redesign could use much parger printed fasteners. For example a single M3 screw holds maybe 300 pounds of force before the screw itself fails You could print a plastic part that holds 300 pounds of force but it woud be MUCH larger than 3 mm in diameter
A 3D printer make entirely of printed plastic would not look like a Voron printer. A Voron printer is most air. After then there are 2020 extrusions, then a little plastic here and there. But if you did not have metal screws you could not build with 2020 extrusions. You wouild need to print the frame and to get the stregth needed it wouild be more solid with not much air. You would have a holloed out plastic cude.
plastic can be as stromng as metal, if you use enough plastic. one you decide to go 100% plastic you start getting large surface areas, so glue becomes a good fastening option.
My point is that to loose the screws, you have to start from the ground up with a brand new design that is radically different. I would build that fram barrel shaped with curved tapperwd parts that are then glued. The compond curves make the plastic very rigid. All current Vorons are buolt with sticks, then wouild not work at all.
Alomg those lines I'm working on a robotics project. Because I'm using plastic for the structure I choose to design with "stressed skin" like a unibody car. This places the structure as far for the center as possible. And the compound cuves make it strong.
Think of a car hood. It is made of sheet metal that is so thin you could bend it with your hands. But after beinbg pressed to shpae the hood becoome rigid. Your plastic printer woiuld be kind of like that. Like a car, curved organic shapes joined by glue are very stromng and light but WAY-HARD to design.
Yeah I did wonder whether or not the screw heads where printable. I'm trying to figure out some way to support the head during the printing process while minimizing material usage.
Did you try them ?
I don't know, standard screws still seem easier to install and more standard.
I don't have much time to work on this right now unfortunately, but I'll definitely put some time and thinking in a few mounths. I'll detailed my findings then.
