3d Printed Parts

[skeletonghost]

Recently I've had regular access to a 3D printer at my job. It's a Makerbot 2, and can fab parts out of PLA, which is a kind of low density plastic. In some of my off time my mind immediately wandered to how I could use this for pedal and synth building. I've tested a few ideas so far, but I'm looking to experiment more.

I've attached a picture of a couple of prints: a resistor lead bender, pot insulator, a few different kinds of standoffs, and unrelated but a drone I am also building  I'm just curious has anyone else had a chance to mess around with this technology? Or if you have 3d designs for pedal parts let me know and I can print them off and show the results here.

 

[IvIark]

Awesome.  I wanted one of these but decided that I'd just end up playing with it like a toy to make nonsense things.  I thought that something using similar technology like a CNC which could etch PCBs would be much more useful for me to actually come up with something I would use frequently in the hobby.  You've definitely come up with a few cool uses for it there though.

[inefficiency]

That's really cool.

Reckon you could make custom knobs for pedals?

[skeletonghost]

Yeah custom knobs are something I've definitely considered trying out. There are a few interesting parametric (here) knob designs that can easily be remixed. It's simple enough to add any kind of 3D shape to the top using a CAD program like Solidworks, or 123Design (which is free!) A friend of mine wants a LOTR themed booster, and I'm planning to print out an Eye of Sauron  knob. This foot knob looks interesting/useful as well.

One thing I am personally experimenting with is stacked stand offs. For projects that have a couple daughter-boards for say charge pumps or tone controls. I would like to model a strata to hang them off of near the main board, instead of them floating around on power wires and pots in the enclosure.

Here's another project that caught my eye. 3D printed "circuit boards" They are kind of like solder-less tagboards. I think the idea has potential.

I'll post what I come up with here. In the mean time help me brainstorm ideas and I will print off whatever you guys come up with.

[rocket88]

that last knob that looks like the van halen logo is freaking nuts, and that printed circuit board is pretty cool too. did you see that there is a company that has developed a printer that can actually print circuit traces that's thinner than a piece of paper?

[skeletonghost]

Do you mean this one? I've seen a couple interesting methods for printing DIY circuit boards. This one is pretty clever. Essentially a channel is printed where the traces would be, and then filed with conductive paint completing all the connections.

I think like IvIark mentioned, CNC's are at the moment more useful for PCB design but I am keeping my eyes open for new ideas.

[rocket88]

yea, the first one is the one i saw. i think its really crazy that they can do that already. i forget who mentioned it that they tried using conductive paint to make a circuit and solder to it, but it really didn't work out too well, so i'm not sure how well the second one would work.

[skeletonghost]

Here's a quick soldering jig I've designed for wiring pots. It's a bit of an upgrade from the scraps of cardboard I've been using to do this previously. Actually now that I've printed this I can see a potential to use this as a front panel. It might be cool to add some text or a bas relief image.

[rocket88]

dude. i really love that. i see real potential in that as a tool.

[IvIark]

I'd be playing with it for weeks and have a house full of unusual but innovative green plastic things