3D-printed negative carriers?

I see an eBay vendor who is selling 3D-printed negative carriers for the Beseler Print Maker. Does anyone have experience with 3D-printed carriers? I'd be using them with my Besler 67XL.

I've seen that too. Here's the big question: how warm do your negative carriers get during a printing session? PLA starts to soften at about 120F, as I recall (could be off on the exact figure, but not on the idea -- 3D printing works by melting and extruding the plastic, like a CNC hot glue gun only tiny). I don't recall mine getting that hot, but I had a cold light, which I'm in process of replacing with a condenser lamp house. Might be a big difference there.

I believe 3D printing metal is available.

Pieter12 said:

I believe 3D printing metal is available.

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Yes, but it's still incredibly expensive and would be impractical to make negative carriers.

cramej said:

Yes, but it's still incredibly expensive and would be impractical to make negative carriers.

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I bought a 3D printed aluminum cam for my Linhof Technika a few years ago through Shapeways. It wasn't incredibly expensive then, I would think prices might have come down since then for 3D printed metal. I don't know what the Beseler carrier looks like, size and complexity. Maybe CNC would be more practical.

That flat parts of Besler and Omega carriers are large enough to push the limits of the workspace on common 3D printers -- so you're getting into the more premium machines before you can print big enough. That pushes the price up.

Further, 3D printing in metal is a whole different thing from 3D printing in plastic. Filament that will process down to a metal final part (a process similar to Metal Injection Molding) is brand new, and as far as I've seen only comes in stainless steel. The sintering process wouldn't work with aluminum. Even with laser sintering, few 3D printers if any can print in aluminum alloys because the oxide coating on the metal prevents the particles from welding together. Printing for "lost PLA casting" or similar is the most practical way to make aluminum parts via 3D printing -- and that wouildn't work well for negative carriers.

The cam is small, but is is aluminum and available in bronze. Shapeways seems to be able to make large parts. http://shapeways.com/partnership/exone

The Shapeways page you linked is for parts that are 60% steel and 40% bronze. Both of those metals sinter well.

Thanks for the input. I ordered one to see how it does. It's only $19, so not much to lose.

The carriers for the Beseler 67 series are relatively small. This is a 6x6 version.

When I was using mine, I don't recall having a lot of problem with heat at the negative stage with either the condenser or dichroic heads.

ABS or PETG would probably work as well-- I hate printing ABS, but if you're printing something relatively thin in an enclosed box, it's not too bad.

PETG would work very well, although it's slightly more flexible than PLA. It's heat resistance is fairly high.

Neither ABS nor PETG are dimensionally stable, so would be a bad choice of material. You need something that stays reliably flat. I've had good luck with copper-sandwiched phenolic PC board - very flat, stable, affordable, and easily machined, CNC or otherwise. Rocket booster engines are being 3D printed near here. You might apply for a job with Elon Musk and ask if you can borrow the printer for personal use after hours, although you might have to wait awhile. It allegedly takes several months to print a single engine; but unlike ordinary rocket boosters, they're reusable. For flat sheet products like neg carriers, CNC makes way more sense.

Well, it just arrived. I'll try to give it a go this weekend. The cut-out is smaller than a frame from my Bronica RF646, so there will be a little cropping no matter what.

MattKing said:

When I was using mine, I don't recall having a lot of problem with heat at the negative stage with either the condenser or dichroic heads.

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I only have a dichroic head, so hopefully it will be fine.