Hi everyone,
My team and I are in the process of procuring the Center and Output pulleys, as well as the Codewheel Mount for the Solo 8 and we were hoping we could get some input on the parts’ print material. We know that the parts are supposed to be printed with Accura Xtreme, but would it be possible (or advisable) to print the parts with a cheaper material?
My team and I are a group of college students so money is a bit of a factor for us. Our school has FDM printers which we have been using to print the other components, but we do not have access to a SLA printer and need to outsource the prints. If we could save money by printing the parts with another, cheaper material we would like to do so. I have been looking into maybe printing the parts with Formlabs Rigid Resin because it would cut the price roughly in half. However, I’m unsure if the material is a suitable for the given application. If anyone has any advice, or has tried to print the parts with another material, we would love your help.
Thanks,
damuzila
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I am assembling the 12DoF version and my calculated aprox. total cost is around USD2,000.00. Lets see how much will be the actual cost.
I am using a Ender 3 printer, with PLA. PLA is pretty good, you can make all the parts, even the machined parts, there is no need anything fancy.
There are lots of little modifications that reduce the cost. Hopefully after my final exams I will post with detail what I am planning to reduce the costs and also eliminate the requirements for tools or anything that is not accessible to the regular Maker.
Hi Damuzila,
true - the Accura Xtreme Gray parts from 3D Systems are rather expensive.
We use our inhouse Projet Multijet printer to produce the pulleys.
Printing the pulleys on a Formlabs printer should also work.
We did some test prints on a Form2 a while ago. (pictures below)
You might need to experiment with the printer settings, the material and the part orientation.
The Formlabs printers typically print the parts under an angle and use a tree-like support structure. That leads to support features on the teeth of the pulleys which might need to be removed manually.
We also tried printing the parts horizontally - in that case the back side of the parts was deformed and needed to be corrected on a lathe.
Best wishes. Felix
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