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3D printed smartphone holder (and 3D printing generally)

hello,
i have seen the link below for a very nice diy solution it got me inspired for other solution along similar wax of making (tablet, can holder, etc)

http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2195523

fly2000

There should be a market for this sort of aircraft-specific stuff, because the multipurpose mounts I have seen are mostly really tacky.

Incidentally, what is the state of the art in strength of 3D printing? I heard one can print metal which, after sintering in an oven, is quite strong. But the machine for printing it is expensive.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

Some rocket engines are fully 3d printed, so strength should be sufficient to hold your phone in heavy turbulence. But cost of the machine might not justify it ;)

Last Edited by Noe at 05 Apr 20:58

I have access to a 3D printer. It just prints plastic (ABS, PLA, PETG, …), so it won’t work for rocket engines, but If you need a part, let me know.

EDMA, Germany

Noe wrote:

Some rocket engines are fully 3d printed,…

Out of interest I would like to see a reference for that! I know that there are 3D printers which can print in metal, but AFAIK this results in sintered parts which do not have the strength of “real” metal parts.

For this kind of smartphone holder, 3D printed ABS plastic is totally sufficient in strength. I also have a printer which can do that (and a second in the make because 3D printing takes so awfully long that one printer alone will not let you make many parts…) if anyone wants to try.

EDDS - Stuttgart

I don’t believe the rocket engine story either. Well not the combustion chamber or the nozzle. This famous engine had 1000psi in there. Another rocket engine does however run at about 100psi.

One can achieve arbitrary strength by throwing in more material but this is not an application where you want stuff to be heavy. And sintered materials are not strong in tension.

What sort of 3D design software is used these days? It is many years since I messed about with Solid Edge and some other variously impenetrable software.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

Not sure about a rocket engine, but here is a 3D printed small turbojet engine by GE.

LKBU (near Prague), Czech Republic

Thanks for the links, it good to learn something new every day So one needs to have a “direct metal laser sintering printer” ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_metal_laser_sintering ) to make this kind of part. Probably not something I will be able to build at home…

Peter wrote:

What sort of 3D design software is used these days?

There is a vast number of 3D solid modeling progams to choose from (unfortunately once again not for my Macintosh…). From open source to high price commercial products. For a quick start I can recommend “Tinkercad” from Autodesk ( https://www.tinkercad.com/ ). It is a browser-based online tool. I already made some small 3D printed parts with it. It’s completely free but requires online registration – yet will not litter your mailbox with spam like so many other free products.

EDDS - Stuttgart

I do quite a bit of 3D work in sintered nylon, using a well known printing house in the Netherlands. The nylon material has similar strength and ductility to moulded nylon, but a much inferior surface finish. It’s ideal for making smartphone holders and quite affordable. Details down to 1mm dia are sustainable (don’t fall apart under their own weight) and sizes up to about 6" cubed are economically feasible with wall thicknesses down to about 1.2mm.

Not so sintered metal, where resolution is poorer and costs get out of hand almost instantly. However, the actual integrity of the metal components seems good. Of course it’s virtually impossible to know if the sintering process has penetrated the whole volume of the piece, or left invisible soft spots.

Some car companies boast about using sintered metal components in production vehicles, but these claims seem to melt away under scrutiny. The one genuine case I’m aware of involves making sintered metal components for military vehicles, but even then the printing installation was suspiciously quiet on the day of my visit!

I use the ghastly Turbocad, which is infinitely cheap and works for me, and would not change now. But if I was employing people to do this, it would be Solidwerks. This is because of productivity (maybe 3x that of Turbocad) and file compatibility. As soon as you have a printing problem, the printing house will launch a tirade against your CAD if it’s anything but Solidwerks or Inventor, both of which are now only available as a rental (time limited licence).

EGBW / KPRC, United Kingdom
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