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Hi,

I am a newbie in the field of 3D printing. I have been trying to assemble a piece of mechanism I designed using conventional methods but it takes a lot of time and energy to do it. Hence I am looking at the possibilities in 3D printing to do it.

I have attached my model in this post. This is basically a scaled up version of what I want to print. The actual requirement is to get this down to 1/3 scale.

As you can see in the file, there is one ball joint in the mechanism and a few revolute joints. From what I could infer from various 3d printing guides, it seems to me that a clearance of 0.5mm between all moving parts should be sufficient to get this thing printed. I have done the same.

However, I wanted some advice as to select the best process to print this and the one that is the most cost effective while still retaining enough strength and flexibility in the mechanism for it to be driven by a motor operating at 600 rpm.

PS: For making the revolute joints, I have made shafts of diameter 3mm that sit inside concentric hollow cylinders with inner diameter of 4mm so there is a play of 1mm to prevent the parts from fusing and enabling smooth rotation.

You can use a 3D slicer to view the clearances in the file in case you want to have a better look at parts that are hidden.

I have considered printing it on SLA and Polyjet printers with 100 micron layer thickness.

Will castable black resin be good enough or is it too soft? I have seen a few materials on 3DHub labelled as HD materials but I am not sure if they are available in India yet since they are relatively newer in the market.

Please answer the questions keeping in mind that this mechanism needs to be further scaled down.

Any advice would be highly appreciated.

Thanks!
Assembly1.stl (3.18 MB)

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Are you looking for someone to print this for you or advice on how to print this yourself? If the former: https://www.3dhubs.com/miami/hubs/mindfull

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I think you’ll have to turn to SLS printing to keep the costs manageable @anuj_agrawal08 .
Here’s a hub that can do it locally for you : https://www.3dhubs.com/new-delhi/hubs/myobjectify