I am not sure this counts as a garage tool but I have been eyeing up some 3D printers. We have them at work and use them all the time to make custom stuff for the production line. Over the holiday I noticed they have dropped in price. Borders had one for $250 but it was pretty small and you had to buy certain spool to work with it. The more I look into it the more I am thinking of a 3D printer Kit. Anyone doing anything with 3d printers?

Acrylic Geeetech I3 pro B 3D Printer kit [800-001-0189] - $278.00 : General Electronics-Tech

 

This is the one I ordered, my first job will be new center caps for my rims.

https://www.monoprice.com/product?p_id=13860

 

Still a work in progress, I am learning. It takes about 8 hours to print one of these so to try different setting can take awhile. I did a 1/8" X 1" X 1" square to check accuracy. It measures .997 in both X and Y axis.

My original Design


A couple pictures, I think this was my 3rd or 4th attempt

 

That's cool. How big of a piece can you make? Is there a rough time per square inch to know how long a certain part would take to print? How about the software, is that difficult to learn? I presume you already had that nailed down from using 3-D at work.

 

Yes designing is the easy part for me since I do that all the time. The above model is 5 minutes to make once I measured the original part. There is also 1000's of models you can down load from https://www.thingiverse.com/ .

The print time varies so much based on your setting. The prints are not 100% solid. You decide how thick the outer layers are and how dense the inner honey comb is. On my center I did 1.2 MM thick wall and 50% honey comb. That was about 8 hours and 11 meters of 1.75 MM PLA plastic. Drop the honey comb to 35% it might drop the time 20 minutes. Drop the shell to .8MM it could drop the time an hour. You also set the print speed. Slower = better. For mechanical thing you need stronger, My son in-law was excited because he can print his D&D guys with the correct armor and weapons. LOL I am not burning a lot of plastic for that.

I posted the link for the machine above. It is a 8" X 8" X 7" machine.

Software is VERY easy to use. Open your model, rotate is around and move it where you want it, start with the default settings and you are 95% there. When you buy the above printer it ships with the Cura software already setup for this machine so most of the settings in the below video come already set.

 

Finish Rim