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PostPosted: August 28, 2020, 11:10 am 
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I've been playing with the 3D printer getting good enough results.

I think it's time to press print on the tail light housing and see what happens.
Attachment:
tail light v3.jpg

Attachment:
tail light v3a.jpg

Attachment:
tail light v3b.jpg


Housing will mount vertical on the rear fender and hold a pair of 4" round 2 way lights
bottom will be running light brake and top will be turn brake


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PostPosted: August 28, 2020, 11:41 pm 
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That housing looks deeper than it needs to be for rear clearance.... For LED truck lights.

You must have something else in mind.

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PostPosted: August 29, 2020, 8:19 am 
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Hey Tommy, nice work. Are you mounting the lights from the outside with screws? Is there a possibility to create plastic posts in place of the light mounting holes? Then you could insert the lights from the rear and secure with some press nuts or plastic nuts. This would get a cleaner look and you could create a nice rim-like feature around the hole. Just an idea.

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PostPosted: August 29, 2020, 7:26 pm 
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The lights came with snazzy rubber grommets to mount them to sheetmetal. I printed one last night and it's ok, but too industrial looking for my taste.
Still quite a good learning experience in Fusion360, the Creality 3D slicer and the CURA slicer.

I tried it up against the rear fender and then suddenly remembered that I didn't put big flat tails at the bottoms of the fender. It's pretty much a 27 1/2 to 28 inch diameter circle. I deviate some at the front, but not at the rear.

So this afternoon, I whipped up Oval tail light housing version 1.

No more space for the big rubber grommets. Instead the light snaps into the housing from the back side. The overall is 1" shorter and narrower than the original.
It's also a nice tapered section more inline with the flow of the car.
Attachment:
oval top.jpg


Attachment:
oval side.jpg


Attachment:
oval ortho.jpg


I still need to extrude a few stiffening rib structures on the interior before I set to print.

estimated print time 18 hours, estimated weight 186 grams

I have the 4 lugs that I can drill for self tapping #8 screws with fender washers on the inside of the fenders.

When the light snaps in the lens is flush with the face and the lens has a gentle convex shape.
Waiting on my larger extruder nozzle to see if I can cut the print time by 30 or 40 percent.


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PostPosted: August 31, 2020, 12:12 am 
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Nice!

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PostPosted: August 31, 2020, 10:29 am 
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The first tail light housing came off the 3d printer this morning.
Attachment:
oval t1.jpg

Attachment:
oval t2.jpg



I couple of key learnings from this print.
1 extruder temp can go down a few degrees to improve appearance.
2 my slicer turns circles into 28 segments of straight lines. That means I either have to file them round or make the holes 0.3mm oversized.
It took about 10 minutes with the file and sander to get the lights to mate up with the housing. I filed the holes round and sanded a bit of clearance on the light housing.

Attachment:
oval t2a.jpg

Attachment:
oval t2b.jpg


3 getting a perfect first layer is tough. You have to play with settings and/or start sequence to get the first little bit of filament to stick.
4 and by far most important; bed leveling is critical. Forget the paper method, use a feeler gauge.

I'm pretty dang happy with the results.

Attachment:
oval t3.jpg

Attachment:
oval t4.jpg


This one will get a little sanding, then primer, more sanding, and paint.

Number two is printing now


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PostPosted: August 31, 2020, 10:58 am 
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That looks clean. :cheers:

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PostPosted: August 31, 2020, 11:07 am 
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rx7locost wrote:
That looks clean. :cheers:


Thanks Chuck. And knowing what I know now, I can make a much better version if I want to.

There is plenty of room to make the spacing around the tail lights smaller, plus I can make the shell wall thinner.
I made these pretty robust. I could drop the shell thickness to about 3mm and it still be plenty stiff.

It's a learning game.

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PostPosted: August 31, 2020, 11:36 am 
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Housings look great!

18 hours does seem a little bit high, even given that volume. What were your layer height, infills, perimeter, and print speed?
I'd probably go 0.3mm layers, 3 perimeters, 45mm/s speed, and 25-30% infill, off the top of my head in PET-G. Adjust print speed for PLA.

TooBusy wrote:
2 my slicer turns circles into 28 segments of straight lines. That means I either have to file them round or make the holes 0.3mm oversized.
It took about 10 minutes with the file and sander to get the lights to mate up with the housing. I filed the holes round and sanded a bit of clearance on the light housing.
It might not be your slicer, check your .stl export settings in CAD and make sure the accuracy is high enough.
I've ran into that with Inventor before.

TooBusy wrote:
3 getting a perfect first layer is tough. You have to play with settings and/or start sequence to get the first little bit of filament to stick.
On an un-coated glass bed I've had the best luck using a cotton pad/round with rubbing alcohol to clean the bed while hot, or going the total opposite and using a thin film of cheap aerosol hairspray while hot.
The coated glass surfaces all get rubbing alcohol when hot with a cotton round.


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PostPosted: August 31, 2020, 2:44 pm 
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300D50 wrote:
Housings look great!

18 hours does seem a little bit high, even given that volume. What were your layer height, infills, perimeter, and print speed?
I'd probably go 0.3mm layers, 3 perimeters, 45mm/s speed, and 25-30% infill, off the top of my head in PET-G. Adjust print speed for PLA.

TooBusy wrote:
2 my slicer turns circles into 28 segments of straight lines. That means I either have to file them round or make the holes 0.3mm oversized.
It took about 10 minutes with the file and sander to get the lights to mate up with the housing. I filed the holes round and sanded a bit of clearance on the light housing.
It might not be your slicer, check your .stl export settings in CAD and make sure the accuracy is high enough.
I've ran into that with Inventor before.

TooBusy wrote:
3 getting a perfect first layer is tough. You have to play with settings and/or start sequence to get the first little bit of filament to stick.
On an un-coated glass bed I've had the best luck using a cotton pad/round with rubbing alcohol to clean the bed while hot, or going the total opposite and using a thin film of cheap aerosol hairspray while hot.
The coated glass surfaces all get rubbing alcohol when hot with a cotton round.


18 hours was with 0.4 nozzle, .2mm layer, 3 perimeters, 35mm/s print speed, oh and I'd upped the infill to 60%.

Before I printed I changed to 0.6mm nozzle, .28 mm layer, 3 perimeters, 35mm/s print speed, and lowered the infil to 40%. Was done in a few minutes less than 10 hours.

I'll take a look at the export settings. The "model" looks smooth until the slicing is done, but I know that doesn't mean anything.

For these I laid down painters tape after 3 false starts. It worked like magic; but I'd much prefer getting my settings correct so that I can have a repeatable start routine.

Time for more reading...

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PostPosted: August 31, 2020, 2:57 pm 
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A little reading and a little fiddling. It's a combination of things related to how I got the file to the Creality slicer.

I can tell in Fusion 360 that I want to 3D print, tell it what slicer I want to use and tell it how fine a resolution to send to Cura.
I just for kicks selected fine resolution for the export. Cura grabbed the output, I sliced it and no more straight lines on my curves.
Change in print time less than 10 minutes.

Learning something new every day.

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PostPosted: September 1, 2020, 6:19 am 
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TooBusy wrote:
I have the 4 lugs that I can drill for self tapping #8 screws with fender washers on the inside of the fenders.


I have had very limited success with self tapping screws into printed parts lasting for vehicle applications - too much vibration. It is also a pain to get solid areas with FDM as the slicer tends to make everything "fill" that isn't a wall (at least this has been the case with the slicers I've used - only get a wall thickness worth of bite on the screw).

Leaving an empty hole and installing either a heatsert or an expanding brass insert has been much more reliable. McMaster has both options and since you have a lathe you can make the installation tool for the heatsert and use your own soldering iron rather than paying for another tool. ;)

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PostPosted: September 1, 2020, 8:50 am 
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a.moore wrote:
TooBusy wrote:
I have the 4 lugs that I can drill for self tapping #8 screws with fender washers on the inside of the fenders.


I have had very limited success with self tapping screws into printed parts lasting for vehicle applications - too much vibration. It is also a pain to get solid areas with FDM as the slicer tends to make everything "fill" that isn't a wall (at least this has been the case with the slicers I've used - only get a wall thickness worth of bite on the screw).

Leaving an empty hole and installing either a heatsert or an expanding brass insert has been much more reliable. McMaster has both options and since you have a lathe you can make the installation tool for the heatsert and use your own soldering iron rather than paying for another tool. ;)


Thanks for the advice. I think I'll modify these for either inserts or studs using JB Weld epoxy.

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PostPosted: September 2, 2020, 3:55 am 
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I'm sorry, but it looks like a traffic light.

TooBusy wrote:

Attachment:
oval t4.jpg



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PostPosted: September 2, 2020, 8:39 am 
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marafonets wrote:
I'm sorry, but it looks like a traffic light.

TooBusy wrote:

Attachment:
oval t4.jpg




Not nearly as much as the square bottom version did. :lol:

Using big lights I had to decide to look like a traffic light or a school bus or semi trailer. I chose traffic light.

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