Re: Practical 3D printed parts
 

We've printed a few things that have come in handy.

First, we printed some brackets designed to hold 4 pneumatic storage tanks on the robot. It was a pretty nice solution overall, and allowed us to stack them much easier than we otherwise would have been able to (half hour to design, then a day worth of printing instead of several hours of manual work to make something similar by hand).

Then one of our students came up with a design for a winch that really looks awesome. We used a winch last year as well, but that was all hand made and had issues occasionally where the strap would jump off and get tangled. I plan to get some pictures of that setup and the new setup for this year to show a comparison - your mind might be blown at how big a difference it is, and again it saves work hours on the robot! The winch last year, for all its simplicity, took a long time to actually get together. This year, all the complexity is designed in half an hour and printed!

Re: Practical 3D printed parts
 

We used ours to print shaft collars... lots and lots of shaft collars... :)

Re: Practical 3D printed parts
 

Us, too. Delicious, lightweight, very very purple hex shaft collars!

Re: Practical 3D printed parts
 

We're printing a radio / camera / sensor tower that mounts onto the corner of our drive frame. We will still probably protect this with an overall polycarbonate shroud once everything is on the robot.

Re: Practical 3D printed parts
 

11's kids printed off what they're calling "Talon Towers," just a simple way to stack Talons for some space savings.

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?f...type=1&theater

http://i.imgur.com/LfiXK5t.jpg

Re: Practical 3D printed parts
 

Slightly off topic, but I had one of our electronics guys ask me about how well that would work without fans. Have you run that setup (or similar) before, and if so, id you notice a performance difference between the Talons with fans or Talons without fans?

(I'm not an electronics guy, so I'm just repeating his questions).

Re: Practical 3D printed parts
 

We printed several hex shaft couplers for the roller intake. Some of them broke, so we made more with tighter tolerances, more flexible material (Nylon) and higher infill. We'll see if the new ones break. We'll move to aluminum eventually, maybe.

We've made several encoder mounts, one of which I posted to CD. The rest could be acquired COTS if desired.

Some of the ideas we've had would require a non-linear profile for a roller to roll through as the launcher did its thing, and we'll 3D print them of the linear concepts ever get around to working at all.

LOTS and LOTS and LOTS of hex spacers for the roller intake.

Thought about making a clevis that would rotate a pneumatic cylinder 90 degrees on the tail so it rotates properly while also re-orienting the ports, but found a simpler solution with angle aluminum. For the roller intake, of course. (Can you tell that I led the roller intake subteam? :D)

Will poke at making pneumatic storage tank mounts since they tuck away nicely at a spot between the rollers (when they're down) and the frame.

Re: Practical 3D printed parts
 

I've heard 0 issues about Talons, regardless of them having fans or not. I don't think our students are concerned, but we will keep an eye out for any issues.

Re: Practical 3D printed parts
 

We ran stacks of 3 talons without fans last year on a 6 cim drivetrain through 3 competitions and eliminations at all of them with minimal time between matches with no issues.

Re: Practical 3D printed parts
 

Our team did this as well -- and it is part of what allows to raise the flag so quickly-- < 1 sec. Can you post a picture of yours?

Re: Practical 3D printed parts
 

Does anybody have a bracket or mount design for a mini-cim? We have a MakerBot 3d printer and would like to print out brackets (for a mock up testing base) for the cims.

Re: Practical 3D printed parts
 

Not exactly sure if this is what you want, but Andymark sells a bracket that mounts CIMs and mini-CIMs.

Re: Practical 3D printed parts
 

we would like to use the 3D printer because this is only a mock up. this will not go on the actual robot.

Re: Practical 3D printed parts
 

How durable are 3D printed parts? Our team doesn't use them.

Durability of 3d prints, as with most materials:

When designed correctly, they can be infinitely durable.

When designed incorrectly, they will fail immediately.


Comparatively, usually less than a comparable machined nylon part.