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Post by Oatking on Oct 29, 2021 20:58:52 GMT -6
It was talked about in our local news that organized crime is 3-d printing components for assorted guns. With this technology available and cheap printers have any guys started printing there own agricultural parts. This would solve the problem for waiting for a plastic part coming from who knows wear. Heard they can use different forms of materials to form objects.
As the technology gets cheaper I could sure see an opportunity here? what do you guys think
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Post by torriem on Oct 29, 2021 21:49:53 GMT -6
I've always been skeptical of the 3D printed gun arguments. As for 3D printing, I do some printing of farm parts myself. I've mostly been using PLA but that doesn't stand up real well to weather, so for real-life farm parts, PETG isn't too bad to work with and is quite durable. I've only recently started printing a few parts with PETG. Mostly I print little brackets and things I need. For example, I wanted a cell phone holder in the sprayer, so I did a quick little design which I printed and screwed to the side console. Works well, except that the latest batch of phones we got are now bigger and so I need to make a new one. Other practical prints involved making large handles for my sprayer boom cleanout valves. The Wilger ones are just too small and I had to use a pair of pliers to turn them. Now it's quite easy with large handles. PLA held up pretty good for two years. Recent broke a couple so I printed replacements in PETG. I've also printed up little pipe fittings (I think they can hold some pressure even). Amazing that I can print threads right into the plastic and they work. I have an old Atlas 12" lathe that I'm trying to learn to use. One issue it has is that the slowest speed on the lead screw is still too fast so you can't get good finishes using automatic feed. The solution is to make some new gears to go in the quick change gearbox to drop the speed in half, which I did, thanks to some pre-made designs on Thingiverse. I used PLA and it's working pretty well for now. Doesn't get much torque on it, so it should be good for a while. A better plastic would be nylon, but I don't have a printer capable of that (yet). Right now my printer is cranking out test piece, which is a bulkhead electrical fitting that's compatible with a special 40-pin connector Case uses on their NAV II controller, with the aim of allowing people with autosteer-ready Case tractors to use AgOpenGPS plugging into the existing wiring harness to control the steering valve, read steering pressure (to cancel the autosteer by turning the wheel), and to read the built-in wheel angle sensor. Printing electrical shoes the limit of the detail my printer can do. Forty accurate 2mm holes is just a bit of a stretch for it, but it's doing pretty well. Other farmers in the AOG community are doing a lot of printing of enclosures for the AOG electronics, steering wheel motor mounts, gears, etc. 3D printing is a neat technology full of potential. There are lots of different methods of 3D printing as well. My printer is a cheap Ender 3 and it's a "filament deposition modeling." I'd like to buy a resin printer too, which is "stereo lithography" where a UV light hardens resin one layer at a time. I don't see it replacing traditional manufacturing, though. Injection molding, for example, is orders of magnitude faster and cheaper than 3D printing, and plastic is manufactured locally here in Canada. But it will augment and assist traditional means of manufacture. Here's a nice little summary of the state of the art in industrial use of 3D printing: www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLKLBL4JgbOp6TvBIXpkDCP58Gyizgs7rK3D printing has never been easier to explore. A Creality Ender 3 printer can be purchased for around $300 CAD, and prints pretty well out of the box with no tweaking. But of course a 3D printer is only half the story. To make your own parts you need to master some kind of CAD software, whether it's the simple but powerful tinkercad online, or something more advanced like Fusion 360 or FreeCAD. |
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Post by bob123 on Oct 29, 2021 23:03:57 GMT -6
There is a guy on kijiji offering custom 3d printed spiral meter rolls for flexicoils. The technology is already pretty well here, for under $300 you can get a very workable printer. The hard part is learning the software to design stuff yourself. I plan on learning that this winter. The female side of 2 of my air filter housing clips broke off, and even though they are riveted on new holland only sells the whole housing, so I figure with 30 minutes of printing it will have much more then paid for itself in one job
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Post by torriem on Oct 30, 2021 8:37:58 GMT -6
Interesting! I designed several variations of meter segments for fun but never printed them because of the plastic I'm limited to using right now. I'll check out his segments. do you happen to have a link?
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Post by Oatking on Oct 30, 2021 9:04:53 GMT -6
Nylon printers would be a good durable product. I cant believe you can fire a bullet out of a gun made this way. Thanks torriem for the information on your experience. I thought of trying john deere pick up teeth or reel finger teeth on my headers. So many ag parts are plastic now the possibilities are endless in production. Where Are the nylon printers sold. I wouldnt think it would be at the local best buy but could be wrong.
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Post by torriem on Oct 30, 2021 13:16:40 GMT -6
Oh I'm sure you can fire a bullet out of a nylon gun. Maybe once if you're lucky. Probably not in the direction you are aiming. And probably not without personal injury. www.simplify3d.com/support/materials-guide/nylon/ has information on printing with nylon. Looks like my printer could do it actually but I'd want to put the printer in an enclosure to keep the heat in. Printing a finger like you propose might work. FDM printers that lay down a layer at a time are typically stronger in the horizontal dimension than the vertical, due to the fact that the layers of plastic don't completely merge. So you have to take that into consideration when thinking about how to print something mechanical. 3D prints are typically not solid, using a patterned infill for strength and to save plastic and weight. Something like a pickup finger would probably need to be done at 100% solid. Also voids and overhangs are a problem. melted plastic does not want to stay where you put it without something to hold it up while it cools. For little voids and overhangs, I typically do nothing special. For bigger ones, supports have to be printed that are removed when the print is done and thrown away. On my printer, I think a pickup tooth would take at least 6 hours to print, or more. I might model one just to see what the slicer says. Not quite sure how one would position the piece on the printer to minimize supports. Personally I would choose ABS plastic to make teeth out of. A resin printer may be good for printing a pickup tooth, but resins might not be appropriate materials. |
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Post by torriem on Oct 30, 2021 18:43:57 GMT -6
For kicks I modeled up a pair of pickup teeth. With PLA and my standard settings, it will take 4 hours and 45 minutes to print one set, total of 42 grams of plastic including throw-away support material. ABS would probably be similar time. This is an impossible part to print without a lot of supports. At least if it's anything like the Case teeth with the extra bit at the end that's turned up.
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bigal
Junior Member
Posts: 63
Likes: 42
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Post by bigal on Oct 30, 2021 19:18:34 GMT -6
Have a couple ender 3s myself. They're a great printer for the money, and a few cheap upgrades can increase their cababilities significantly. Only thing I've ever printed for the farm was a two way radio holder for the combine that I whipped up using fusion 360. This article about a farmer printing his own planter meters has intrigued me though. www.farmshow.com/a_article.php?aid=35908 I wonder how often he would need new plates? |
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Post by torriem on Oct 30, 2021 21:32:33 GMT -6
If he used ABS, ASA, or even PETG I'd think the plates would hold up just fine indefinitely.
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Post by bob123 on Nov 1, 2021 6:42:52 GMT -6
It looks like the ad is gone, I had seen it in spring
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Post by bob123 on Dec 12, 2021 17:46:38 GMT -6
 Turns out I had a picture saved of the 3d printed roller_ |
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Post by Beerwiser on Dec 12, 2021 19:37:19 GMT -6
Interesting machining technique here. I heard of this years ago but a 3d printer makes this much easier. I am tempted to try this for machining inside splines.
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Post by kevlar on Dec 12, 2021 19:58:29 GMT -6
So what's the quality of stuff made with a printer? Would that roller be as good as a manufacturer's? I assume it can only do plastics, or is there a way of doing metals?
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Post by bob123 on Dec 12, 2021 20:12:20 GMT -6
maybe not quite as good as factory but I think they would last quite a while. Those guns will do thousands of rounds before wearing out. Complete guess but with the stuff I've printed I would think it was atleast 80-90% strength of conventional molded plastic
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Post by torriem on Dec 13, 2021 19:41:33 GMT -6
The rollers in my drill are made of a hard rubber. The closest thing to that that can be 3d printed is TPU. If I had a printer capable of printing TPU I would certainly give it a try. I am tempted to make up a roller out of PETG and see how it works. PETG is quite rigid, but might hold up. Probably would need to play with infill densities. I think PETG would work fine for a fine or medium meter segment. Not sure how it would hold up to fertilizer.
Actually that 3D printed segment in the picture sure looks like PETG to me. I bet it would take 6-8 hours to print that. That's the downside to 3D printing. But if you were experimenting with a new meter design, this would be a good way to test it.
3D printing tends to be quite strong in the direction of the layers, but between the layers it's not nearly as strong as a molded part. So if you could 3D print the same plastic as a molded part, the 3D printed part would be nearly as strong.
There are several technologies for 3d printing metals, including laser sintering of powder. There are probably hundreds of companies trying out different methods of 3D printing plastics, wood, composites, and metals. It's pretty interesting to see.
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