Custom 3D Plastic Printing
 

Hey all,

it is random, but our company has a 3D printer that has some down time. We use it to print molds out and for prototyping items before we buy them. If anyone wants anything designed or 3D printed, let me know. Our printer can do prints the size of 11.7in x 10.8in x 9.8in high.

We print in ABS plastic. It is actually very strong stuff. If you are serious, we can get you a quote based on your needs. We can order colors if you need a special color. 25% of the profit we make goes to our nonprofit, the rest goes to our operating cost, living cost, materials, and general wear and tear of the printer. We will have the best price in town, you can shop around but we will be at least 50% cheaper than the cheapest site, and over 125% cheaper than commercial sites.

I will also do any CAD work you need done. I will only charge $20 an hour. Others want 40 - 120 an hour so I hope this is reasonable.

We will do any work, it doesn't need to be car parts. If the item you need is larger than the print area, I can print and design in sections and the part can be glued together. Thanks

Can you print Cali top motor gears? They are Nylon or some other tough plastic material.

I can loan out an example gear if we think the ABS plastic is an appropriate replacement material. I'd guess different members would be interested if the material is suitable which could recover design and material cost plus a profit. :cool:

LOL... that was the first thing I thought of, even before I was finished reading the whole post. The plastic gear in regular sunroof motors would be another similar candidate. They might be the same gear, I don't know.

You might also consider making the plastic posts that connect the door panels to the door. I think someone was making, or going to make some, but I don't recall if that actually happened or not.

I printed plenty of gears in ABS and they are strong. I would say if the original gear is plastic the one I can make should be just as strong. I could definitely give it a try.

I'm not familiar with the gear, is this something everyone wants? If the demand is high, I could eat the cost and design for free and just sell the gears. I can print a gear for way less than postage.

Send me the gear and I'll be happy to help.

As for the door clips, I remember someone made a set of them. They had them on ebay about 1 month ago but I dont see them online anymore. Maybe they sold out of what they had? I will look into them too. My car has a complete set, and I have a 2nd set that is almost complete. It would take me awhile to copy them all to the computer.

Thanks everyone, I will look into both things.

Different gears, I checked. I'll pull a gear out of one of my spare motors and send it off. There are two identical nylon gears in that motor, typically the top (drive) gear is the one that gets stripped. I personally would get 4 gears to repair two motor assemblies.


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No worries, I think both gears should be replaced too. ABS should work fine but if the gear eats itself, I can order up some nylon and print with that. I never tried nylon because it warps easy during production. We can focus on getting the gear perfect first and maybe offer nylon later? Nylon is also much more expensive for me to print with, but we can surly use it later.

- Update.

Actually, I will probably switch to Nylon once we get the gear perfect in ABS. I called up the company I order supplies from and they told me that the strength will far exceed ABS. They actually use Nylon to print custom prosthetic body parts. They said ABS will work fine but nylon will make a better quality gear. Gotta go with quality over quantity

Oh... I thought of one other thing that seems to be popular but hard to find, and could be made out of ABS... M-Tech rear bumpers. heh heh

I could vacuum form them but they would not be as pretty.

Our company uses the 3D printer to make molds for vacuum forming so the idea isn't impossible. We could vacuum form in Plexiglas, polycarbonate or ABS, hmm, clear body parts? that would be different. haha

You have a PM.
LouM...

I would love to have a few sets of gears for my cali-top motor. If this pans out...please keep me posted as I do not subscribe to any posts. Thanks

I too would be a consumer of Cali-top gear sets. ...an interesting idea to ponder.

Thanks LouM, I will def get you the part you want.

TeeTime and Bradestar, I will contact you as soon as I get the part made.

This will happen, I need the cash and the printer has downtime for the next few weeks. Thanks.

Finally found a post office with shipping boxes... :mad:

Mike, I'll ship out the motor tomorrow. Here a pic of the gears and the motor itself. This motor and gear has not been installed, NOS from Germany and my spare motor. Should be a good gear model as it has not been used or worn. You can use the motor to fit and test the new gears.

http://i402.photobucket.com/albums/p...psfnyww5su.jpg

I'll include a Torx screwdriver to open the case. While there are four gears, the two nylon looking ones are the ones that usually fail. There is a rubber union piece in between the gears to hold them together.

Thanks again for attempting this fabrication. Cheers, Rich :cool:

Very awesome, I cant wait to work on these. I will let you know when I get the package. Just dropped some serious money on 2 better quality calipers, higher quality nozzles for the printer, and some nylon filament so we get the best quality part made. I will keep everyone updated on this as we move forward.

Count me in on the Cali- top motor gears.

Was wondering about any updates here. No rush or trouble, just curious.

Hey,

I had a chance to print a few samples in ABS but during the process we moved our office location and our living space. Right now, our machine is not set up so I can't go any further. Tomorrow, we plan to set up the printer, I am hoping I will have these printed in Nylon by this weekend.

Hope that is a great update for everyone. If all goes as planned and we have these printed, we will get them tested and ready to sell in a week or two.

Count me in for 2 sets also

Id be interested in a set of cali top gears as well. Please PM me when complete

Hey,

Just wanted to update everyone.

We are in the process of improving the design of the gear to increase strength.

We are bought the equipment to produce the rubber spacer in between the gears. We ran the machine a few times but will have to make improvements on that due to some air left over in the rubber.

I will get you all some pictures and contact everyone once we have a finalized product. I will also include a warranty for these gears, if anything wears out, i will gladly replace it for you all.

Heard you printing these gears?? If so how can I order some??? Thanks!!

I don't know if my posts posted but I need these gears also!!! Please send me a few!!!

Hey man, definitely. I'm finishing up the testing tonight. The first set was strong but I could get the motor to eat up the gear under intense pressure. I am trying a new material but had to buy special parts for our machine. I will keep you updated. Thanks for the interest.

HEY EVERYONE!!

I just finished up the gears and will have BlackBMWs test the gears for me. I did all of the testing I could here with the spare motor he sent me and was unable to cause any damage to the gears.

I will also get one other person to do detailed testing for me. If both people say they work well and are okay for sale, I will get gears to everyone who needs them!> sorry about the wait everyone, just in time for spring!

--


I am looking for one member with over 50 post to do a second set of testing for me. You will have to give me a deposit on the gears, but once you do the testing for me, and prove it with either a video or detailed pictures, i will refund all of your money and you keep the gears as a thank you for your time and commitment. You would have to be able to install the gears ASAP, take pictures of the install, and give feedback to me on how they work, how they hold up after opening and closing the roof multiple times, ect.

If you are interested in doing testing for me, let me know.

I only have three posts so far (very new here ) however I am a nurse and very trustworthy!! I replaced the sun roof motor 2 years ago and the gears already wore out. I really need these gears :). Lori

Still time to post 48 more posts!

Thanks Mike for working this for the Cali Community. I know hasn't been cheap or easy to produce these but having our tops letting in the sun again is worth the wait.

Thanks soooo much!

I would remind folks to ensure the tracks and sliders are clean and dry lubed so everything operates smoothly. A binding top will create extra stresses on the new gears. I wonder how many tops have been maintained as some are 19 years old.

I'll test the new gears in my existing motor to simulate our well used motors. What's cool is this could revive a bunch of "broken" motors to get available working supplies back up.

Thanks again Mike!


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Black BMW - Thanks again for helping me with this. I am happy to help the community.

Lori - Don't worry, I will make these available very soon at a discounted price to everyone on the 318ti website. I will also make them available on eBay but at a much steeper price.

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Because dealing with plastic is not a perfect art yet (unless you have expensive equipment) some gears looks flawless and some have cosmetic blemishes on the bottom (where they are in contact with a surface). I will be selling both on this website at fair prices. The best looking ones will get sent to ebay.

I will keep you all updated.

Bump. Have you got a second taker yet?

I MIGHT be up for this.

I would have to do research on the process, as I've never been into mine. Works great right now and would hate for that to change, but I'm down to support the cause if there are no other takers or more competent hands.

Not yet, I would certainly send you a set to test. I will PM you the details.

Received my motor and the new set of test gears. I put them in one of my motors that has stripped gears, install and test this weekend. I can test operation and will at highway speed multiple times. What I can't test so much is temperature variance. It about 70-80 degrees out here. If tester #2 was in a hot climate that would be a good thing. In a few months, it will climb to 100-110 degrees, but that's later.

Thanks Mike, I'll send you the retrofit video and top operation at idle and at highways speed.

Rich. [emoji41]


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Temperature should not change anything, the material is okay to use up to 350°F / 177° C. I dont have information on the rubber, but most rubbers are heat resistive. Thanks again for testing, I am excited to see the results.

How is the gear testing going??


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Hey,

As of now, it is on hold. The last gear failed after some heavy use. I am talking to some people about stronger plastics I can buy. I also have a contact that does injection molding but I haven't talked to him yet. Sorry guys, I will update you all once I figure it out.

If anyone has anything else they want, let me know. Doesn't have to be car related.

im in need
 

I have two cali top cars one with skipping gear other works great but im in for two sets if you get these done mine are not heavly used they are my Daughter's cars one 96 one 97 im ready when you are

Hey hotmilk400, did you ever get the ti roof gear made in better plastic? I checked your ebay page but didn't find anything. Also how much is "heavy use"?

Is this dead in the water? I just bought a 318ti w/ california top yesterday. Gears are dead though, of course. Would love to spend less than $400 to fix it.

I could do it with "real nylon" and make a 1 to 1 copy of the original gear with the material, but it would cost me about $2k to start up, maybe $3k. I would need to do a pre-order to raise the money. The cost would roughly be:

50 People: $40 for a set of two
100 People: $20 for a set
500 People: $4 for a set.
1000 people: $2 a set.


You get the idea. I would do it for "free" for the pre-orders since I would make money later selling them on eBay / Amazon, but I would need people to back it up front first before I went forward. If people show enough interest, I would try it. I know I could sell a few but maybe not 50 at $40 so I do not want to take the risk. I am also financially drained at the moment.

Let me know if you guys are serious and want to do it. At this moment, it is really up to everyone to show me a demand that exceeds 50 people willing to spend $40. haha

I would consider getting my friends company (he is the owner) to injection mold these (in the USA of course!) I could also set up a kickstarter so that if it fails, no one pays for anything. If it hits the goal, everyone gets charged and gets a gear. I would need everyone to promote it since otherwise no one will see it. haha

We are switching our company's plastic products to his company to be made. I have a close enough business relationship with him to get him to do a small production run on a weekend. We also got him a few a new client, so he owes me.

Anyway, yeah, about 2k is a road block. Might even be $3K, i would need to send the engineer the designs for a quote and talk to them about it.

I'm in, if we can make it happen. The market for this does seem to be pretty small though unfortunately. Kickstarter might not be a bad idea.

Hey hey! I just bought my first ti today and it has the California top with stripped gears. Has this gone anywhere else? I'm with everyone else here; I don't want to buy a new motor that will only last a few years.

I would even happily buy a set of the lesser quality gears just to get my top going for the time being if it would help along the process to better ones