Interest in new Carbon Fiber stand?

[03SVTCobra]

First stang was a 94 cobra with some minor mods then I picked up an 03 cobra and basically did everything to it. Over 500hp to the wheels! Then I sold it and bought a house and a lot of revos!!!

Back on topic!

[ReVoRabbit]

3000 strands of carbon per string:

At 17 threads per inch...

Each roll is 2.55 million strands of carbon wide.

[ReVoRabbit]

So I built a base for the stand out of 110# card stock a pen, and a ruler. I tested it... it works the way I would like.

I was going to use this to start my molding process, but unfortunately it felt too sloppy. So I went out and found me a 3D program and then struggled for about 3 hours trying to get an asymmetrical bevel. I had wanted it to be 5mm tall by 10mm wide, but the program insisted it be 5x5 or 10x10. I finally got it figured out.

My next hurdle was exporting it in a usable file type. I went with .stl and uploaded it into a second program which allowed me to "unfold" it.

With a little more editing and lying to the program,

I've got the base design I want.

I'll be printing, cutting and assembling it later today.

[ReVoRabbit]

So i got the model put together

Gave it a quick coat of resin to help seal it and keep its shape.

next i covered it with a thin coat of petroleum jelly and then a coat of plastic


I still need to throw on a second coat. maybe tonight. then pull out the master and see if i can make a fiberglass version from it.

If this works well, it'll all end up in the trash an d a more complex stand will be made for the actual mold. i'm in the process of designing and acquiring the parts for a 3D printer. my first project will be the stand.

[ReVoRabbit]

When it comes to 3D printers, they are huge, slow, and have a tiny pint area. So between my friend and myself we are taking current open source designs and significantly modifying them to fit our needs. it should be "huge" by 3D printer standards and will have nearly a 2' cubed printing area. Currently we are in SolidWorks making all the parts (not including motors and rods)

[Rdroege]

Sounds awesome, I would be interested in a documentation / pics of the build process. Have you looked at a MakerBot? And why the huge print area. My brother regularly prints boat design models 3-5ft long, just broken up into sections. So wondering why the need for a 2ft area?

[ReVoRabbit]

why make the model in 10 or 20 pieces when you could make it in one or two? Especially when i can make it for considerably less than anything out there half the size. I spend most of my free time making replica props and costumes. when you have people wanting a screen accurate Darth Vader helmet, you don't want to be making 35 or 40 parts and gluing them all together just to have to sand and fill and get everything perfect. i want to design it in SW, click print, wake up the next morning, grab it off the printer, and drop it in the mail on my way to work or on my lunch.

i do plan on documenting everything, however you might have to wait before i publish it. first of all the printer calibration has to be reliably accurate over the life of the printer. also, if we make one this big, the goal is to have a foot print that is only slightly larger than the print area, which is relativity unheard of. and lastly, we are going big... lets just say this is the small printer. others we design will have multiple print heads printing at the same time to increase speed of the print. eventually, we hope to sell these to large corporations so a patent is in order. if you see how engineers create cars these days, its with a huge slab of clay... what if they took the design in the computer, hit print, went home and came back the next morning and had a life-sized Audi R8 printed in one shot, sitting in the show room... Big my friend, Think Big!

[maztec]

I'd rather use an SLS printer combined with a CNC. Now, if they could just be built into one machine!

[ReVoRabbit]

they could, but i think it would be way more useful to just have the two machines separate, yet available.

MakerBot just released it new 37% larger printer for $2200 or $2800, today. its print volume: 11x6x6.
The reason i'm making my own: cost ~$600, print volume 24x24x24 (32 times larger; 1/4 the cost).

[maztec]

Isn't that 34.9 times larger?