3-D Printed Enlarger Parts

[tom williams]

I haven't printed photographic parts specifically yet, but I've printed all types of dodads and useful things that I use around the house. I use an Ender 3. I paid $150 for and makes good enough prints for me.

If you're going to do much of this, it makes economic sense to buy a low-end filament printer (under $200) and apply a couple basic upgrades (glass bed surface is IMO the most important one you can't print for yourself). My Ender 3 (not the Pro or 2.0) has long since paid for itself in parts I either couldn't buy at a reasonable price, or couldn't buy at all because I had to design them myself.

I've just about made up my mind to follow the path Donald suggests, with the Ender 3. Glass bed - noted. Are there any other necessary upgrades you'd recommend for printing proto-gears, in particular? FreeCAD seems like a workable bit of software, for my purposes. Eventualy, I'll seek out one of VincelnMT's "guys on ebay", or other printing house, to print in nylon.

 

[Donald Qualls]

Might want to get a few packs of replacement nozzles in the original 0.4 mm size as well as 0.2 and 0.6. Prints are a lot faster with the bigger nozzle (and slicer settings adjusted for it) but you can get a lot smoother and more precise parts (at the cost of taking longer) with the fine nozzle. I'd suggest an inexpensive set of hex-drive metric sockets that cover 6-10 mm as well; don't need a driver, you can print one that looks like a knurled knob. It makes changing nozzles vastly easier. Spray bottle for 91% isopropyl. An aerosol package of PTFE super lube (for lubing the Z-axis screw). A small box of paper clamps, one size bigger than the ones that come with the Ender 3 (the originals won't quite hold the 4 mm thick glass).

Also, get the blue PTFE Bowden tube upgrade package -- not to replace the main tube (it's fine), but to cut a small piece to install in the hot end. Look up "ender 3 hot end upgrade ptfe" on YouTube to see what I'm talking about; it virtually eliminates filament material clogging between the end of the stock tube setup and the nozzle.

Any Ender 3 you buy now will have the 32-bit motherboard, and the firmware will include thermal runaway detection, so you don't need to worry about that as an upgrade. You might want to get a couple spare microSD storage cards -- they're easy to lose and can become write locked, requiring you to reformat. And make a copy of the microSD to your hard disk as soon as you unbox; there were files on mine (test print .stl files) that I couldn't download from the Creality site when I had to reformat my microSD.

 

[Luckless]

3D printed gears can work 'mostly okay', but if you're aiming to do any amount of projects that need quality gears then I think it is worth investing the time into building a gear cutting jig. Additive processes are great for a whole host of things, but small high stress precision parts are not really one of them. And you don't need a huge machine shop setup if all you're working with are small gears and such in low production volumes.

 

[tom williams]

Might want to get a few packs of replacement nozzles in the original 0.4 mm size as well as 0.2 and 0.6. Prints are a lot faster with the bigger nozzle (and slicer settings adjusted for it) but you can get a lot smoother and more precise parts (at the cost of taking longer) with the fine nozzle. I'd suggest an inexpensive set of hex-drive metric sockets that cover 6-10 mm as well; don't need a driver, you can print one that looks like a knurled knob. It makes changing nozzles vastly easier. Spray bottle for 91% isopropyl. An aerosol package of PTFE super lube (for lubing the Z-axis screw). A small box of paper clamps, one size bigger than the ones that come with the Ender 3 (the originals won't quite hold the 4 mm thick glass).

Also, get the blue PTFE Bowden tube upgrade package -- not to replace the main tube (it's fine), but to cut a small piece to install in the hot end. Look up "ender 3 hot end upgrade ptfe" on YouTube to see what I'm talking about; it virtually eliminates filament material clogging between the end of the stock tube setup and the nozzle.

Any Ender 3 you buy now will have the 32-bit motherboard, and the firmware will include thermal runaway detection, so you don't need to worry about that as an upgrade. You might want to get a couple spare microSD storage cards -- they're easy to lose and can become write locked, requiring you to reformat. And make a copy of the microSD to your hard disk as soon as you unbox; there were files on mine (test print .stl files) that I couldn't download from the Creality site when I had to reformat my microSD.

That's very helpful - thank you Donald.

 

[Donald Qualls]

You're very welcome.

Oh, and I'd also recommend putting your order in well ahead for at least two, preferably up to eight additional hours in the day. You'll need them, and it doesn't work well to take them from sleep time.

 

[Individual One]

I'm using a Pulse (Prusa style) machine to print typical filament and carbon filled nylon. It is a pretty good machine for home use but cannot handle continuous carbon fiber as would be necessary for more serious structural parts. It has been useful and entertaining to print stuff for photo purposes as well as general household items. Perhaps my proudest achievement is a prism adapter for my Rolleiflex. I use Onshape, a free online CAD tool for design.
Bruce

 

[tom williams]

3D printed gears can work 'mostly okay', but if you're aiming to do any amount of projects that need quality gears then I think it is worth investing the time into building a gear cutting jig. Additive processes are great for a whole host of things, but small high stress precision parts are not really one of them. And you don't need a huge machine shop setup if all you're working with are small gears and such in low production volumes.

Luckless, I hadn't thought of that. It might be worth making a jig if my future held a need for more than one gear project, which I don't think it does. Which I hope it doesn't.

I am pretty much in the "making a guess" regime as I evaluate the possible durability of a printed part for my enlarger elevation gears. The load is actually not too substantial, given that, when the machine is balanced, modest finger pressure will move the enlarger head up and down. Once positioned, the head doesn't drift up or down without application of an external force. It takes very little force on the hand crank to raise or lower the head. Althought the gears are small, I'm optimistic that a printed nylon, or a fiber-reinforced material, will be up to the job. An imprecise and weakly supported optimism, I admit.

 

[Donald Qualls]

One way you might be able to make your own enlarger gears is to 3D print a mold and then cast the gears from a slightly flexible resin or epoxy formula. This would likely require smoothing the mold (to fill in the layer lines), which would in turn require printing with an allowance for the thickness of the smoothing material (since PLA can't be solvent smoothed the way ABS can -- and I don't recommend ABS for anything at this time).

 

[tom williams]

One way you might be able to make your own enlarger gears is to 3D print a mold and then cast the gears from a slightly flexible resin or epoxy formula. This would likely require smoothing the mold (to fill in the layer lines), which would in turn require printing with an allowance for the thickness of the smoothing material (since PLA can't be solvent smoothed the way ABS can -- and I don't recommend ABS for anything at this time).

Excellent idea!

 

[Donald Qualls]

Oh, one more thing to know -- a 3D print is only rarely liquid tight unless printed in "vase mode" -- but there's nothing to prevent printing your mold in vase mode, then reinforcing it on the outside with plaster or similar so it holds shape when filled. If you need to pour more than one part, you could even print two mold halves with alignment pins.

 

[Luckless]

Most PLA formulations respond well to reflow smoothing/sealing with a heat gun from my understanding [The internet says so, and so far all the filaments I've worked with have behaved well], but it is a bit of a skill in and of itself. Rather easy to get heavy handed on things and burn or blister stuff if you go too hard. Having a pair of heat guns can come in handy - Large one for the broader strokes, and one of the smaller 'pen/mini heat guns' to touch up finer details.


Another option for gears from 3D printers: 3D print a division plate and file the gear itself from sheet stock.
Similar concept to how this YouTuber is doing in brass,

Or explore the option of plotters/scribers/engravers and skip the division plate.

Not hard to extend the concept to a cutting jig you can 3D print if you have a Dremel like rotary tool. I find that one of the cooler parts of getting into the 3D printing hobby isn't just 'making parts', but extending on things so you can build better tools to make specific parts.

A 3D printer isn't really a single tool offering the same basic solution to all problems - "3D printer > Prints Finished Part" as an analogue to "Hammer > Drive in a Nail" - but rather it becomes kind of a tool box of solution potentials. "3D Printer > Prints Finished Part [or] Prints Part to use in making Finished Part [or] Make entire tool to use in making Finished Part"

If you come up with a problem that needs a part, there are whole ranges of ways you can go about solving them with a 3D printer. And I find that pretty neat.

 

[Donald Qualls]

A 3D printer isn't really a single tool offering the same basic solution to all problems - "3D printer > Prints Finished Part" as an analogue to "Hammer > Drive in a Nail" - but rather it becomes kind of a tool box of solution potentials.

This is why I decided last year that I needed to own one rather than trying to learn how to make use of one I pay to use or pay someone else to run.

 

[tom williams]

Oh, one more thing to know -- a 3D print is only rarely liquid tight unless printed in "vase mode" -- but there's nothing to prevent printing your mold in vase mode, then reinforcing it on the outside with plaster or similar so it holds shape when filled. If you need to pour more than one part, you could even print two mold halves with alignment pins.

Another good tip - thanks.

 

[eli griggs]

I am of the opinion that a block of HDPE would be fairly simple to make a gear out of, and stand up to the stresses of such a large enlarger.

A printed pair of , and , a drill, jewelers saw or coping saw or scroll saw to cut out the teeth, after the bottom of each tooth is drilled out and a file or Abrasive paper to finish up the new gear, should be a good fit.

IMO.

3D printed gears can work 'mostly okay', but if you're aiming to do any amount of projects that need quality gears then I think it is worth investing the time into building a gear cutting jig. Additive processes are great for a whole host of things, but small high stress precision parts are not really one of them. And you don't need a huge machine shop setup if all you're working with are small gears and such in low production volumes.