3D Printers are awesome!

"RallyDarkstrike - Fan of 2-cyl FIATs, Eastern Bloc & Kei cars" (rallydarkstrike)
04/25/2016 at 20:54 • Filed to: None

In 2013, I bought my Hyundai Accent, at the end of that winter in 2014, I thought...”It would be great to have somewhere to store my snow brush when not in use for the summer!”

Enter....the local library where I work / their 3D Printer / Sketchup! :D

I figured out a nice, hidden place to mount my snowbrush up and under the rear parcel shelf which wouldn’t interfere with me flipping down the seats or flipping the shelf up, 3D modeled a clip in Sketchup (and cap for the screws used to secure them) and then test-printed them on the library’s MakerBot Replicator 2 in PLA plastic!

All was sunshine and rainbows...they worked great, looked decent, and left my brush conveniently accessible and out of the way! The downside came when summer hit...PLA plastic does not like higher temps, and it gets very hot in cars in the summer with no windows down, as we all know. The PLA didn’t MELT, but it warped enough to render the clips useless and they would no longer hold the brush.

A little awhile ago, Oppo user ‘Santiago has successfully Sno-Drifted’ offered to try printing my clips in ABS plastic (much more durable!) and to mail them to me for a fair price.

Here are the results! So far so good! Thanks Santiago! :D

The clip design as it looks in Sketchup!

Brush in stowed position locked into clips - clips barely visible as yellow bits near the back seats! :)

Brush stowed in clips, with parcel shelf flipped up! :)

Close-up of the 3D printed clip in ABS (thanks Santiago!), showing the plastic 3D-printed cap for the pointy end of the screws. Clips are secured to the parcel shelf using standard wood screws with these caps on the pointy ends.

Clip from below, showing the screw head!

We’ll see how all goes once summer rolls around, but hopefully the heat won’t affect these! :D

DISCUSSION (8)

S62B50daily > RallyDarkstrike - Fan of 2-cyl FIATs, Eastern Bloc & Kei cars
04/25/2016 at 21:19

This is a great idea! You should think about selling them. The design looks universal enough to fit most hatchbacks parcel shelves, maybe worth to try a few to see if the design needs to be tweaked

Boxer_4 > RallyDarkstrike - Fan of 2-cyl FIATs, Eastern Bloc & Kei cars
04/25/2016 at 21:39

You should have much better luck with ABS in regards with elevated temperatures. The property you experienced is the Glass Transition temperature (Tg). The Tg is the temperature where a thermoplastic material such as PLA or ABS begins to soften, which reduces the material’s strength and ability to hold its shape. ABS has a significantly higher Tg (176F to 257F depending on the grade of ABS) compared to PLA (135F). Car interior temperatures can easily reach 150F on a hot day.

Santiago of Escuderia Boricua > RallyDarkstrike - Fan of 2-cyl FIATs, Eastern Bloc & Kei cars
04/26/2016 at 00:02

Thanks! Were you able to put the center caps in without them breaking?

RallyDarkstrike - Fan of 2-cyl FIATs, Eastern Bloc & Kei cars > Santiago of Escuderia Boricua
04/26/2016 at 06:47

I was! I think there was a little crack in the end of one of the clips from putting the screw through, but that could be fixed by just enlarging the holes a little bit I would think! :)

RallyDarkstrike - Fan of 2-cyl FIATs, Eastern Bloc & Kei cars > Boxer_4
04/26/2016 at 06:50

Yup, I know all about the Tg, that’s why I jumped at the chance for Santiago to print some clips for me! :D

I do most of the 3D Printer work at our local library - the ones I did in PLA were more a proof of concept than anything and to see how long they would lost, but none of our library printers can print in ABS (some are capable of it) because we don’t have the heated build plates for them, so PLA was all I had! :P

Oddly, I had printed some center caps for my rims in PLA as well and they held up much longer because, of course, even on hot days, they were outside in the ambient air, so they stayed much cooler! :)

RallyDarkstrike - Fan of 2-cyl FIATs, Eastern Bloc & Kei cars > S62B50daily
04/26/2016 at 07:15

Maybe! I’d have to get a few sent to other folks with different model cars and see how they do!

Boxer_4 > RallyDarkstrike - Fan of 2-cyl FIATs, Eastern Bloc & Kei cars
04/26/2016 at 09:51

I couldn’t help myself; I was a plastics engineering major for two years!

That’s awesome seeing your work with 3D printing! You and a few others (on OPPO and LALD) are doing some interesting stuff. It's making me want to finally look into 3D printing. There are some things I’d like to try, but I just haven’t had the time.

RallyDarkstrike - Fan of 2-cyl FIATs, Eastern Bloc & Kei cars > Boxer_4
04/26/2016 at 16:30

Go for it man! Check your local library, some of them even have publicly-usable 3D Printers! :)