Our team has a Week 1 event, and only the single note so were looking for some alternate options. Released here is a 3D printable mold for a Crescendo Note. It is designed to work with Smooth-On FlexFoam series expanding foams. Took a chance and printed the mold parts in PLA and haven’t seen any issues from heat generation during the casting process.
The mold itself works very well, though you need to apply a wax release agent like Ease Release 2831 to avoid any sticking of the foam. If you’ve ever used expanding foam from the home improvement store, this is of similar stickiness until it cures. On Bambu printers this should take about 30 hours of machine time, printable without supports.
The performance of the “note” is still being dialed in. My first tests were with FlexFoam iT-X, but it is much more flexible than the actual note. The skin of the foam feels similar, and testing intakes is probably still viable. Shooters will not have similar performance since that’s a lot more sensitive to compression/stiffness/weight. I did also mold an orange one, so color is an option.
Posting this a while in case anyone else wants to make their own molds while attempting to find a good castable foam option. FlexFoam has some other densities, and mixing in modifiers may be a good option too. Open to suggestions!
Starting a print now at work. We have been doing foam for various robot spacer parts. I’m gonna be picking some brains today to see what they suggest for exact materials. There’s a materials supply company right across our parking lot so we tend to go bug them.
Creality 10s5 I can do 4 parts at a time comfortably. Over a day print, but under 30 hours. Could do more if I tried but then it’d be getting close on my current filament rolls and then have to gamble someone would be here to swap it.
There’s definitely overlap but I thought this was unique enough to focus just on the molded version, and act as a guide. I did change the title to call out the specifics just now.
Definitely be interested. If anyone know or arrived at a Foam that works best please post in here with a link to where to buy for those of us who’s not familiar that would be great.
We were able to order 4 from AM before they become out of stock. But we know that 2 of them already have some wear from just the shooting testing so far so wanted to be prepared to make on our own if needed.
Hey, I’ve got some FlexFoam-iT V lying around, I think I’ll give it a shot.
For those interested, you can buy this stuff at arts and crafts stores - the type that sell canvas and acrylic paint, not a Michael’s.
Just a disclaimer, this stuff can give you cancer, it will irritate whatever it touches, don’t screw around with it. It should be handled with care and only ever used in a well prepared environment.
but as an unofficial source and a way to help team funds we could be willing to make unofficial spares. Can’t make any guarantees on color, but we can stick to the tolerances Andymark posted otherwise.
I want to try them out for our team use first, but we have the ability to do something like that on a small scale. Definitely would help FIM teams as the shipping time is minimal.
Also don’t know how @theworkshope would feel about that as I’m using their mold design. Currently it’s CC but not for commerical use based on the printables webpage
Still would be a couple of weeks to get to a scale of any sort to sell if all went well.
this is true, I simply wanted to avoid having the 15 threads on the same matter that tends to happen during the season, but this is fine in my book. This is super cool and much better than some other DIY notes i’ve seen.
I’m a little surprised that the FlexFoam-X was more flexible than the real thing. By my math the note has a density of around 7.6 lb/cu-ft (8.3 oz / 118 cu-in). Flex-Foam-X is listed by the manufacturer as having a density of 10 lbs per cubic foot, so I would expect it to be less flexible than a real note. Then again, I get that there is not a 1:1 correlation between density and rigidity. Is there some additive that can increase the stiffness of the foam? or some manufacturing technique to make the skin thicker perhaps?
Skin would be a bigger factor I think as well as if the coloring plays a factor. People were noticing the various colors from Gopher had different physical properties. Could be too small of a sample size or the dye makes a difference too. I’m hesitant to cut our ONLY official piece to get a skin thickness measurement and check like a slice essentially for how it behaves with our mixtures.
If a team with more than 1 official one would be able to do some of that after it breaks or is unusable that would be helpful
This is what I love about this particular community – it’s full of people who solve problems. I can’t think of another group I belong to which would even think to do this.
We are going to do a whole bottom and top mold I think in the end because we have the room on these printers, but definitely wanted to try the original one first. Upper finished!
I can confirm that the mold fits the official game piece like a glove. We’re just waiting on some flex foam. Do you have any updates on the ideal formulation or required volume of material?
Awesome! The material usage depends on the formulation chosen, plus you should overestimate by a bit (even though it expands).
Calculator - choose “casting estimator”
For the note mold use 119 in^3 as your starting point. For FlexFoam X it gives 342 grams, I mixed closer to 400 grams. Supposedly if you whip more air in you’ll get more expansion, so may not need to overestimate so high. Unfortunately to me that also sounds like material property variability on the final note.
We have some decently sized layer lines on our mold. We plan to sand these down, but also maybe apply a wood filler to get a good consistent finish. Like DAP Plast-X. I’ve also had good luck with bondo before. Any suggestions or you printed it at a lower layer height? I believe I had it at 0.32 layer height which works well for our normal parts, but they are noticable. Pictures aren’t ever gonna be easy to see it
I printed at 0.2mm, didn’t have to sand the print at all but did fill the voids generously one time with Bondo glazing and spot putty. Let that set up for at least 30 minutes, then lightly sand to knock off any high spots. Follow up with a few coats of wax sealer and should be good.
