3d printed bobbins

[rickmorgan2003]

I am trying to figure out the easiest way to make 20 sets of humbuckers for my custom electric ukes. unlike guitar, there are no ready made parts like bobbins, blade, mounting rings etc. I made one set using wood for bobbins and allen head screws for poles but to be honest, I was vexted with problems getting 4 holes lined up in perfect symmetry and then having those 4 holes match up to a custom spacer bar an then through to a base plate. Something always ended up off just enough to make me redo it. I got one set done but 15 hours of work is too much. I thought about blade designs and mocked one up using wood for the flat work and 1/8 barstock for the blade than wrapping the blade with some tape, superglued it to the flat work and then winding it up. Worked OK but was than perplexed by how I was going to mount these all together without a bobbin to screw to. The answer would be to have a plastic bobbin made that I can slide the blade through like a guitar sized one. When I tried this from wood it wasn't stable.
Enter 3d printing. While not the cheapest route I found someone who can work from sketchup plan which I can do and the costs would be $15 a set. he sent me pics of his mock up, I would have them in black. It seams to have some texture and I would probably have to file the edges a bit but what are your all's thoughts
Anyone ever use 3d printing for custom bobbins?

Wood prototype

These will be mailed out soon so I should have a better idea about quality.

[belwar]

wow really nice - i've thought of it but thought they would be too rough.. ie. they would need to be fine sanded inside

[the great waldo]

Hi Rick

3d printed stuff does'nt seem to me to be particularily strong. What might be an idea is to fine finish a 3d printed or other sample, make a silicone mould and cast some with polyeurethane resin There are quite a number of resin manufacturers in the USA Smooth on for example that sell the resin in different grades and qualities.

Cheers

Andrew

I am trying to figure out the easiest way to make 20 sets of humbuckers for my custom electric ukes. unlike guitar, there are no ready made parts like bobbins, blade, mounting rings etc. I made one set using wood for bobbins and allen head screws for poles but to be honest, I was vexted with problems getting 4 holes lined up in perfect symmetry and then having those 4 holes match up to a custom spacer bar an then through to a base plate. Something always ended up off just enough to make me redo it. I got one set done but 15 hours of work is too much. I thought about blade designs and mocked one up using wood for the flat work and 1/8 barstock for the blade than wrapping the blade with some tape, superglued it to the flat work and then winding it up. Worked OK but was than perplexed by how I was going to mount these all together without a bobbin to screw to. The answer would be to have a plastic bobbin made that I can slide the blade through like a guitar sized one. When I tried this from wood it wasn't stable.
Enter 3d printing. While not the cheapest route I found someone who can work from sketchup plan which I can do and the costs would be $15 a set. he sent me pics of his mock up, I would have them in black. It seams to have some texture and I would probably have to file the edges a bit but what are your all's thoughts
Anyone ever use 3d printing for custom bobbins?
[ATTACH=CONFIG]23800[/ATTACH]
Wood prototype

[ATTACH=CONFIG]23801[/ATTACH][ATTACH=CONFIG]23802[/ATTACH] These will be mailed out soon so I should have a better idea about quality.

[the great waldo]

Hi Matt

Can you pm me regarding the scratchplate we spoke on the phone about for Kostas

Cheers

Andrew

[dpm]

I looked into 3d printing not long ago and came to the conclusion that the processes with the necessary strength and finish quality are prohibitively expensive. There's also the issue of heat if you're going to wax pot them.

[Stealth]

Don't most printers use ABS as printing material? ABS should be thermostable up to 80°C, doesn't a 20/80 wax/paraffin mix go liquid even below that temperature, around 60°C?

[Mark Hammer]

http://music-electronics-forum.com/t32894/

[ken]

I bought some 3D printed parts awhile back, and right now the parts don't have the 'resolution' we need to use them right now. Nice to look at, just not usable as finished parts yet. I'm sure they will be very soon though.

Just wait though... in twenty years corquesniffers will be pontificating on websites about butyrate powders for 'their' 3D printed bobbins, and how you can tell them apart from the 'common' styrene 3D printed ones.

ken

[Stratz]

Just wait though... in twenty years corquesniffers will be pontificating on websites about butyrate powders for 'their' 3D printed bobbins, and how you can tell them apart from the 'common' styrene 3D printed ones.

ken

Nah, the the cork sniffers will probably be saying how good the "old" PVC bobbins sound compared to the new styrene bobbins.

I wonder if I can find someone with a 3D printer to print me a 3D printer

[Hugh Evans]

The surface finish of printed parts is lackluster and they are not particularly durable compared to injection molded parts. I'm getting ready to do a short production run of about 75 custom P90 style bobbins using my CNC router. Details are still being worked out, but the cost is generally a few dollars over the price of materials when all is said and done. I'm also willing to make assembly fixtures to simplify final assembly for those who prefer to do it themselves. Even if your design called for some exotic variety of expensive plastic there's no way the price would even approach $15 per unit. The machining process is pretty quick, fixturing is typically simple, and the end result is professional.



To give you some idea of the surface finish, this is a custom made cover plate for the spindle of our CNC router as part of a new speed controller upgrade. The clear plastic is plexi and the while is polyethylene. All of the edges have nothing more than a finishing pass, because we weren't even trying to make it look extra pretty.

[David Schwab]

The surface finish of printed parts is lackluster and they are not particularly durable compared to injection molded parts.

This was my experience with some parts my friend made where he works. Then he showed me some parts they made after they upgraded the machine and the surface was much nicer. He also showed me other parts done elsewhere on a different more expensive machine and it looked as good as injection molded parts.

[big_teee]

This was my experience with some parts my friend made where he works. Then he showed me some parts they made after they upgraded the machine and the surface was much nicer. He also showed me other parts done elsewhere on a different more expensive machine and it looked as good as injection molded parts.

What is the Definition of a more Expensive Machine?
Thousands, Tens of thousands, Hundreds of thousands???
T

[rickmorgan2003]

Nah, the the cork sniffers will probably be saying how good the "old" PVC bobbins sound compared to the new styrene bobbins.

I wonder if I can find someone with a 3D printer to print me a 3D printer

Here you go:
The 3D Printer That Prints Itself - Tech Europe - WSJ

[Stratz]

Here you go:
The 3D Printer That Prints Itself - Tech Europe - WSJ

Nice, $19.97 at Walmart next month

[dpm]

Don't most printers use ABS as printing material? ABS should be thermostable up to 80°C, doesn't a 20/80 wax/paraffin mix go liquid even below that temperature, around 60°C?

Depends on what thermostable means. You'd have to consider the actual wax temperature to be higher than the melting point to avoid it skinning on the top surface, and to be at a higher temperature closer to the heating element. So you've probably got a minimum working wax temperature above the actual melting point of 60-70 degrees C (I've never measured my wax temp). I would imagine ABS starts getting a little flexible below the 80 degree mark, and I'm not confident in the bond strength between layers in 3d printed ABS, at least with the affordable machines. If the plastic gets flexible or the layer bond is weak the wire tension will deform or break the bobbin.

It was a while ago now (months, not years), but IIRC quotes per bobbin for 3d printing in a material with higher working temperature and better resolution were ranging from $40 - $400.

At this stage CNC machining is the most effective way to make custom bobbins in small batches. If it's only one bobbin design I can imagine it would also be possible to use a series of jigs with a pin router setup. That wouldn't be too hard to get working IMO.