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Thread: I just built a 3D printer.

  1. #1
    Boolit Master dikman's Avatar
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    I just built a 3D printer.

    And what, you're probably thinking, has that got to do with reloading gear? Well, I've found quite a few bits and pieces to print out for my Lee presses, including a case collator (I needed a second one). There's also stuff for Dillon. Some very nice people are designing these and making the files available via thingiverse.com.

    When you live in Australia, where these common parts aren't easily available, this is very handy.

  2. #2
    Boolit Grand Master OS OK's Avatar
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    I'd like to see one of those gadgets print lead boolits!
    I can imagine it printing them 100 at a time...heck, get that gizmo to PC them while your at it! . . .

    Might be a joke now but in the future...who knows!
    a m e r i c a n p r a v d a

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  3. #3
    Boolit Master
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    yep. I have a friend that has one. I use OpenScad to create a few parts for my Lee powder scales to make some change and work on a project I have going.
    "What makes you think I care" ........High Plains Drifter

    Rick C.

  4. #4
    Boolit Grand Master In Remembrance
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    Thingiverse wouldn't at one time, at least, allow many firearm-related files to stay on there; May have ended up just being design files for 3d printed guns. For a lot of accessories, it's a good resource, there are other file repositories that are similar. I'm an OpenSCAD user too, need to regenerate my files as some were lost (backup failed, and this machine's Windows had a stroke or something, oh well I can remake them - probably better than the first time.)

  5. #5
    Boolit Master



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    I bought a 3D printer kit for a late-Christmas present this year and am enjoying learning to use and improve it and making things for around the home and garage. I also print out small things to give as presents or party favors. The ability to print a small plastic toy as a present for a young child, knowing anything I give will never last long, is a nice option to buying gifts for the many birthday parties my grade-schooler gets invited to.

    I work on the printer and on learning simple CAD software when I can make time or need a part for something. Haven't made any reloading bits, but I have printed (and designed) small parts for home and auto, as well as a few small runs of a few hundred keychains that I sold at work and to another office with logos and such on them.

    It's pretty cool what they can do, though they are limited to thermoplastics in the less expensive setups one gets for under $1000+.

    Printing a lead boolit would be a challenge, as the current hot end technology peters out around 300C or so. It would be hard to get hot enough to print lead alloy well, not including devising a way to feed the alloy into the hot end. I suppose it's possible, but I wouldn't want to be working in that area or get my pinkies anywhere near it. Also the print bed would have to have some serious heating capabilities to keep the printing boolits stable, I would think.

    Laser sintering is a viable alternative, and is use to today print overly-complex aerospace parts out of titanium alloy powder. Laser sinternig can print parts that cannot be machined due to interior complexity. Lead powder might be sintered as exotic metal alloys are today, but I wouldn't want that dust floating around on air currents in the home. In an industrial setting, it could be managed, but in the end I suspect the cost and technical needs will not surpass the convenience and ease of hand casting.

    One could print plastic boolits for indoor range practice. No reason why ABS or nylon couldn't be used, and they might be easier to make, load and use than wax boolits for instance. They might be very susceptible to air currents outdoors, so very limited range, but they might make decent tiny varmint rounds for close range work much as cat sneeze loads are used today.

    Dangit, now I have to experiment with indoor range practice with ABS boolits!

    Just when I was starting to get ahead on my projects list...

    Bulldogger

  6. #6
    Boolit Master flashhole's Avatar
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    A buddy of mine has his PhD in 3-D printing materials. I asked him if he could make a statement about strength of 3-D printed materials compared to their atomic counterparts. He said as a general rule 3-D printed materials are about 60% the strength of the real deal but they are getting better all the time.
    ,,, stupidity comes to some people very easily. 8/22/2017 Pat Lengyel (my wife) in a discussion about Liberals.

  7. #7
    Boolit Bub EddieZoom's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Bulldogger View Post
    I also print out small things to give as presents or party favors. The ability to print a small plastic toy as a present for a young child, knowing anything I give will never last long, is a nice option to buying gifts for the many birthday parties my grade-schooler gets invited to. Bulldogger
    Very cool use of this tech.

  8. #8
    Boolit Master
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    Interesting, i was looking at a few 3d printed things for a lee 1000 that titian reloading had.

    I hope you take pictures and share them of what you make

  9. #9
    Boolit Master dikman's Avatar
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    I'll see if I can get a couple of photos organised, I've made a couple of the clamps for the case/bullet tubes and the collator. The collator needed a bit of work as the two parts didn't quite fit, and it's not as big as the Lee version but it works fine for my needs.
    It took me two weeks to get the kit so it's printing reliably, and like everything has needed modding a bit. The instructions were somewhat lacking, to say the least, and I now know something about using Arduino (which I knew nothing about before!), plus I've had to learn about slicing software and how the settings affect printing. There were times when I wondered just what I'd gotten myself in to!!

  10. #10
    Boolit Master



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    Quote Originally Posted by dikman View Post
    I'll see if I can get a couple of photos organised, I've made a couple of the clamps for the case/bullet tubes and the collator. The collator needed a bit of work as the two parts didn't quite fit, and it's not as big as the Lee version but it works fine for my needs.
    It took me two weeks to get the kit so it's printing reliably, and like everything has needed modding a bit. The instructions were somewhat lacking, to say the least, and I now know something about using Arduino (which I knew nothing about before!), plus I've had to learn about slicing software and how the settings affect printing. There were times when I wondered just what I'd gotten myself in to!!
    Keep at it! There is a learning curve as you dial in your printer's physical quirks, the software settings and your choice of material. In my experience, every filament material supplier has a little different recipe, so different spools differ in terms of their sweet spot.

    I strongly recommend keeping a log of some sort. I started written notes, but it seemed a little too analog, and it occurred to me I could take a screen capture of my slicer settings and paste it into a word file. I name the file after the filament in question, and can then pull up the temperature and other print settings visually, as well as my notes about how well it printed, came off the bed, etc.
    You don't need a log when you have one spool of material, as the settings won't change, but as soon as you add a second, the opportunity to make mistakes increases. It's only a few pennies worth of material typically, but it adds up and there is also the factor of time spent waiting for the print to finish.

    Once you get good repeatable results, you can start gaining the confidence to print larger objects, in quantity, and even start walking away from the printer and do other things while it does its job. Depending on the item printing and my choice of filament, I have gone on errands and left my machine running for up to 3-4 hours. More interesting files can take overnight to print. At that point, careful choice of filament and well-wound spools are important, as well as good setup and so on.

    Another thing you might consider is adding a UPS, sized to your needed wattage. Mine doesn't have enough battery power to keep my printer going long, but it does provide SURGE protection, which is a good idea for the Arduino controller.

    Once you get dialed in you can do a lot of fun stuff. The strength of the printed objects is not the same as injection molded, I don't care what the big Pro-3D websites claim, but it is close and if you print with high infill and careful orientation of the part to maximize strength in the direction needed, you can get good use out of the parts.

    My next run of experimenting will be to move into Nylon, which can print stronger items, to be subjected to real world use. I won't be ready to try for a while, until I can pay the $40-50 for some trial spools, probably Taulman or an equivalent. For PLA and ABS I've bought the cheapest Amazon had. For Nylon and exotics, I will probably pony up for a reputable brand so I can expect better performance and repeatability.

    Bulldogger

  11. #11
    Boolit Master dikman's Avatar
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    Thanks for the comments, Bulldogger. The bowl of the collator took five hours and it didn't miss a beat, so I'm pretty sure I've got it running reliably, now I have to start tweaking the settings a bit. I'm used to steep learning curves whenever I get interested in something new, but this was something else!! It's a Tevo Tarantula, and I found references to joining a dedicated facebook group which supposedly is full of knowledgeable people - it may very well be, but I HATE facebook groups as a source of information, the format is unstructured and illogical, and trying to find information is frustrating! I much prefer conventional forums. Most of my issues I had to sort out myself. I've updated (and modified) the firmware - I'm running Jim Brown's modified Marlin firmware - which is easy now that I have a basic understanding of working with Arduino. I intend to try ABS later, but for now I'm happy with PLA.
    Tazza, a couple of photos for you. The bowl works, but the outer few layers, at the edge, are only a single thickness so are pretty flimsy. I don't know why the guy who designed it did that , so I coated it with some two-part stuff I used on my fishing rod bindings (supposed to be flexible and tough) to stiffen it up. Looks a bit rough but that doesn't matter. The white tube holder isn't quite as good as the Titan design, in my opinion, but it works fine. Have a look at thingiverse.com (type in Lee) to see what other stuff is available. I think I'll make the primer collector base for my Pro1000 next.
    Click image for larger version. 

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  12. #12
    Boolit Buddy fralic76's Avatar
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    I have designed a few things for the Lee presses.
    Here is the link for the first 2 pictures
    https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1972400

    And the 1 for the last picture
    https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2336753


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  13. #13
    Boolit Master dikman's Avatar
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    Thanks mate, I saw them on thingiverse. Guess I'm going to have to learn how to design things myself at some stage.

  14. #14
    Boolit Master
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    Looking good. The OEM collator has straight sides, but as long as it works. I made one years ago from an old plastic bowl and mounted it to the tubes. It was so long ago, the OEM collator wasn't very expensive, even in Australia.

    I'd love to be able to design stuff like that too. These are times i'm glad i have a cousin that is good with modeling software

    I was actually looking at the primer thingo from Titian, it may go on the list next time i order. I want to make a powder baffle. I got the PDF for the cut outs from this forum i believe, i just need to get hold of some light gauge aluminium and make one.

  15. #15
    Boolit Master dikman's Avatar
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    I tried the collator with a few shells thrown in and it seems to work ok. I'm just a bit perplexed as to why he designed it like this as it should have been possible to make it flatter like the original. I just printed out the baseplate that fits under the Pro1000/turret press to redirect the spent primers - one day I might find something that will actually fit (and work) as it's supposed to without a lot of stuffing around!!!

    There is a powder baffle on thingiverse for 3D printing (although I made mine from stiff cardboard but took it out as I wasn't convinced it was much use).

  16. #16
    Boolit Master
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    Seems like you have the same luck as i do with stuffing around to get it right ��

    I like the idea of the baffle but unsure If it does anything too

  17. #17
    Boolit Buddy
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    I built a 3d printer about 3 months ago - just loving it. I was (still am) a complete newbie, I'd never actually seen a 3d printer until the box of bits came from China and had no clue about CAD design, however, slowly getting to grips with it.

    Here's a trigger for a FWB 124 air-rifle I copied from the broken original., using carbon fibre filament:
    Click image for larger version. 

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    Primer catcher
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    Lithophane photo
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  18. #18
    Boolit Master dikman's Avatar
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    Coincidentally a mate has a busted plastic trigger on his air rifle and asked if I could make a new one. Carbon fibre filament? Sounds expensive!! Any chance I could get the .stl file, just to have a look at it? And what do you use for design work?

    I'm even more of a newbie than you

  19. #19
    Boolit Buddy
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    Quote Originally Posted by dikman View Post
    Coincidentally a mate has a busted plastic trigger on his air rifle and asked if I could make a new one. Carbon fibre filament? Sounds expensive!! Any chance I could get the .stl file, just to have a look at it? And what do you use for design work?

    I'm even more of a newbie than you
    No problem - I'll sort it out tomorrow, getting on for midnight here.

  20. #20
    Boolit Master
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    Might i pester you guys as to where you got said printer parts from? I may have to look at this

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Abbreviations used in Reloading

BP Bronze Point IMR Improved Military Rifle PTD Pointed
BR Bench Rest M Magnum RN Round Nose
BT Boat Tail PL Power-Lokt SP Soft Point
C Compressed Charge PR Primer SPCL Soft Point "Core-Lokt"
HP Hollow Point PSPCL Pointed Soft Point "Core Lokt" C.O.L. Cartridge Overall Length
PSP Pointed Soft Point Spz Spitzer Point SBT Spitzer Boat Tail
LRN Lead Round Nose LWC Lead Wad Cutter LSWC Lead Semi Wad Cutter
GC Gas Check