3D Printed Winch - Team 2359

[Ghost_Pack]

Originally Posted by SpaceOsc

Wow thats amazing, great to see you guys pushing this to the limit! as for plastics i hear that you can print in nylon (on the Rep2) which i hear is considerably stronger. check out some discussion about it here.
http://www.reddit.com/r/3Dprinting/c..._replicator_2/

can you guys upload your CAD Assembly? id love to see it!

did you guys have any revision to your design due to parts that failed? how did you insure the durability of your parts?

Team 801 has been using Taulman 618 Nylon for the past few months on our Replicator 2. I must say it's wonderful stuff! By adjusting layer thickness and printing temperature you can adjust the softness of the material making anything from CIM motor mounts to soft, squishy bumpers (used for preventing our gatherer assembly from hitting and damaging our frame). As far as durability goes, we have broken probably half of all 3D printed parts we've made with PLA but have yet to break a single Nylon part (most people seem to think the yeild strength is about 3-4 times that of PLA).

The only drawback of using the Nylon is that it requires modification to the printer in order to get it to stick to the build plate. We bonded 1/16" Garolite LE plating (http://www.mcmaster.com/#garolite/=r3k3b4) to our build plate and sprayed on Aqua Net (specifically this brand) hairspray on our printing surface. It also needs to be stored in a sealed bag with desiccants, as it rapidly absorbs moisture if left out, which can cause printing problems.

We really love the Garolite and hairspray combination, and it works great for PLA as well, allowing us to print complicated objects, and even supports, without using a raft (dramatically reducing print time for small parts). It also allows us to reduce the frequency of re-leveling the build plate to about once every 25+ prints, as a loose leveling job allows the printer head to cut lightly into the layer of hairspray rather than the build plate.

Overall the Taulman Nylon and Garolite are definitely worth a look, and we plan to make many more parts with them in the future!