Friday 4 December 2009

Quality control

I RepRapped a doorstop for our new bathroom shower: -



It has a 10mm hole most of the way down and a countersink to take a ~5mm wood screw.



A 2mm self adhesive felt pad covers the screw hole and acts as a shock absorber.

It has a rim around the bottom to prevent it rocking if the base warps or the wall is not flat. To support the bottom of the hole there is a one layer membrane: -



I removed it with a 5mm drill: -



I was quite proud of it but my wife had something more like this in mind: -

I can't print chrome yet, so I will have to go out and buy one, and it has three screws which have to be drilled through the tiles into the wall.

The files are on Thingiverse if you prefer function over form.

8 comments:

  1. Just finish with some filler and increasingly fine sandpaper, then spray paint with some chrome spray paint. Who wants to see three ugly screws? :-)

    -Geert

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  2. ABS slurry trick to make it smooth, 1 coat of rustolium primer, 2 coats of rustolium metalic chrome, and a rubber stopeer at the end.

    She will never know the difference :)

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  3. My guess is that your wife has not cracked one of those rather special looking tiles after drilling the third small hole. Or found that the wall behind does not have the anticipated consistency such that the rawlplug won't hold or the drill won't get past that tough bit ;)

    If the chrome thing is from the local DIY store (ex China) my bet is it will rust and stain that lovely grout in less than 12 months. Corrosion stains never come off, even from ceramic tiles.

    Unfortunatly I imagine the finer technical points may be lost.... as they are on my wife. "..... you now hear sound of drill making holes in very, very expensive Italian natural stone tiles in background for cheap Chinese chrome fittings". Think bubble 'Wish I had a Reprap'!

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  4. That last pic of the thing your wife wants looks like a... erm... male reproductive organ. I'm sorry, I just had to say it.

    lol.

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  5. Ya, I've got a demented mind like yours Cyrozap, hehe.
    Good to see practical application for your machine. Most seem to get their jollies from just building the machine. Maybe a future improvement will be cosmetic methods for finish products. As environmental as possible of course. Just throwing one thought out there to get the ball rolling......shrink wrap like skin.

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  6. Over on the MakerBot google group I asked about various surface finishing techniques. Its now a point on the makerbot Tips & Tricks wiki page (http://wiki.makerbot.com/tips-and-tricks). I'll add Neil's suggestion about ABS slurry & paint

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  7. We did some prototyping on a Uni course I was doing. The technique for getting a smooth finish on ABS RP parts was.

    1. Spray with high build primer.
    2. Smooth with Wet n Dry grades to get desired finish. Iff too many indents goto 1.
    3. Spray with prefered choice of finish.

    The results looked good but lacked durability.

    Hope this helps

    AKA47

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  8. Hi Andy,
    Yes it does help because I never knew there was such a thing as high build primer, thanks.

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