I’ve been talking to a friend & coworker who just got a 3d printer. I helped get him the measurements and he’s been trying to design a reasonable approximation of a Clippard valve for those who wish to 3d print it.
The first draft is up here:
http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:82951
If you download the model you may want to check back periodically as he updates it. The final design will be hollow on the interior, but closed on the bottom. (it’ll have an egg shaped void inside to save print cost)
Which Clippard valve are you going for?
He was working from the R701 from Stefan’s plans.
Clippard has cad files in 29 different formats for the R-701 on their website: http://www.clippard.com/part/R-701
Not to be a downer, but I plugged this file into Shapeways and as is, with their cheapest plastic, it’s going to cost $56 to print; wouldn’t it be cheaper to just buy a real one?
I would strongly recommend modelling from the real thing if you can, as nothing beats having the item in front of you if you can get one.
I actually plopped their models into what I had designed using a real one in front of me, and it was slightly different due to the tolerancing stackups, but I would trust their metadata more than measurements.
I agree with this. Though if you are using like a Makerbot with super cheap plastic, it might not be so bad.
Maybe Mini verions one would be more worth it for Mini packs. Those are not ready available and there is a small market for them!
Here is the first print. There are little “support” bits under the edge of the knob that need cleaned out with an exacto knife. This can be sanded smooth. There is a small seam line that is a guide for the label.
The model was edited to have an egg shaped void inside to save material cost. Plastic cost for this print was below $2. (On a RepRap using PLA) Shapeways costs a lot more because they’re charging for very very high end printers and overhead. If you have a friend with a printer, they’re usually just going to charge for time and plastic.
I’m having a pair of these made for my first draft of the pack and will probably end up using resin or saving up for the real valves later. (One I’m sure the rest of the pack isn’t going to suck)
Also, this design can easily be resized in Blender or depending on your printer in the slicing software to print for 75% or 80% sized packs. I’ll probably use these later on on a pack for my kid.
These feel really tough…you might be able to split it if you dropped it on concrete…but it’s super light and really tough so far.
Why not order a resin cast from a real clippard if price is an issue?
This seems like an unneeded process for a common inexpensive part.
A real clippard is like 35 bucks…you get an “atta boy” for the effort…but the clean up on that part seems like it would be more trouble then its worth when you can just pay 35 dollars…have the genuine item and no time spent on cleanup. It would be cheaper if you just buy a resin cast of a real one too and there would be leas clean up there as well.
I think its too early for this tech to be used on the small parts…it just can’t compete with real or resin cast parts at present
Yeah, as I said above, I’ll probably use resin or real ones on the final pack build.
This was just a fun experiment since the guy just got the printer. It’s still a process of learning modeling, tuning the printer and all that. I just figured some people mind find the model handy at some point and told him I’d share it. Use if if you want, and if you don’t like it…carry on. I’m not trying to say this is the best thing ever. I just wanted to share it with the community.
I think this is a very good idea though for smaller scale parts. Since Macrogeek printed one, I’m going to print a full scale and 1/2 scale to see how they look.
I know the knob pattern isn’t very accurate, and the file actually has some pretty bad line segments for the circle… but we’ll see what happens.
Its always good to have an accurate 3d model on hand…I think in a few more years the 3D printing rage is going to skyrocket as printers become more capable of creating seamless product at lower costs.
I think in a few more years we will see a lot of cheap plug-and-play printers. Figure $200 plug and go USB or memory card printers. Things that can print a Coffee cup sized item cheaply .
I would still like to push for this technology to initially focus on items that CAN’T be obtained any other way.
Like Giga-Meters.
And, it goes without saying, the resonating chamber of a velociraptor.
Alex
Here is my print.
The main body cylinder looks pretty bad as the circle is actually made up of a few straight lines instead of curved… but it doesn’t look too bad.
Here are a pair of Clippards I printed out on my Ultimaker.
They’ve been finished with a little sanding and some paint. One was printed in black and painted silver, the other printed in silver and painted black.
Usually, when 3D printing, it’s the time involved as opposed to the material cost.
Example - with an Ultimaker, you could print one of these clippards for less than $2 worth of plastic. Once you figure in time (about an hour a print) - that’s were the cost comes from.
So, if you have access to a 3D printer, it’s a pretty sweet way to go!
I wished mine was that inexpensive.