Will 3D printers change the face of pickup-making?

[Mark Hammer]

I recently bought my son a special issue of MAKE magazine that featured 3d printers. They really are getting cheap these days. Cripes, when you consider inflation, you can buy a decent 3d printer for less than I paid for my Star Micronics Gemini-10 dot matrix printer in 1982.

One of the things about 3d printers is that it allows one to professionally produce items on a one-off basis (or other very small quantities) that would traditionally have required big money contracts to produce a die and production-run for.

So naturally, one begins to wonder about the prospects such setups hold for making pickups. In theory, a person could make custom bobbins for themselves, or customers. Want a PAF-style bobbin that's juuuuussst a little taller? Make yourself a pair. Need a replacement plastic cover for a "staple" P90? Print one off. And just think of the possibilities for custom control knobs or your "dream P90 cover" (initials, insignias, paiseley, bare nekkid gals, etc.) or pickguards that can just be printed, rather than machined.

Now, I say all of this without any awareness of what the limitiations on "printable" materials are. It may be the plastics used for such things do not lend themselves well to guitars, but I imagine even if that's the case, things will change.

Start dreaming now, folks!

[Justwannano]

I asked not long ago if anyone here was printing bobbins yet...

Here's some update. Desktop 3DLPrinter offers high resolution at a high price

[David Schwab]

I asked not long ago if anyone here was printing bobbins yet...

Here's some update. Desktop 3DLPrinter offers high resolution at a high price

That's $6,000. Not what I call afordable. You can get them cheaper than that:

FlashForge 3D printer, dual extruder w/2 ABS spools: Amazon.com: Industrial & Scientific

Not as nicely made, but probably works fine for making bobbins and stuff.

[überfuzz]

I've done some prototyping by printing in 3D. I'm not sure you should keep your hopes up when it comes to part going to be used on/in you guitar etc. The 3D printed items are quite brittle. If you want to use the 3D prints for something you should mould and cast it with better plastic, or what ever you feel like using.

[R.Madgwick]

I have a family member who recently purchased a solidoodle 3d printed and as he's getting the hang of it I'm beginning to bug him but my understanding is they're quite slow at least on the consumer level of things. So one off stuff would be easily doable but his words to me were forget the idea of production.

[David Schwab]

I've done some prototyping by printing in 3D. I'm not sure you should keep your hopes up when it comes to part going to be used on/in you guitar etc. The 3D printed items are quite brittle. If you want to use the 3D prints for something you should mould and cast it with better plastic, or what ever you feel like using.

You can use different types of plastics, depending on the printer.

A friend of mine works at a place with a 3D printer and we made some bobbin flatwork on it some years back.



We also made a pickup cover, but the finish wasn't so great on that with this particular machine.

[Mark Hammer]

Yeah, speed is not their strong suit. And from what Überfuzz notes, the product may not be all that resilient.

On the other hand, one can make a cast of a 3d printed item and use that to produce more resilient copies, I would think. At the very least, with an actual 3d copy, you can turn to a service that does injection moulding and ask them to make you copies. Might save some very expensive steps, I would think.

[David Schwab]

Road-ready 3D-printed car on the way

[Justwannano]

That's $6,000. Not what I call afordable. You can get them cheaper than that:

FlashForge 3D printer, dual extruder w/2 ABS spools: Amazon.com: Industrial & Scientific

Not as nicely made, but probably works fine for making bobbins and stuff.

Not sure why you quoted me but - it's $7,800.00 or 6,000 Euros.

For those interested- if you click on the article at the end there is a list of different units.

[Mark Hammer]

The reason why I picked up the issue of MAKE in the first place is because my younger son wants to go into architecture, and I figured it wouldn't be long - if it hasn't happened already - until scale models will have moved from the small wooden mockups to 3d printed Autocad files.

[David King]

Mark,
I've read articles where they are using large gantries to actually print vertical walls in quick setting, lightened concrete (with a reasonable R factor) without using forms. To me that's where the future is. Set up the gantry, back up the concrete trucks and let-r-rip.

Someone sent me a PU cover from 3D printer to replicate in wood the other day. In the 2 weeks I had the thing it shrank noticeably, warped and then got all sticky on the outside. Not ready for primetime.

[überfuzz]

The reason why I picked up the issue of MAKE in the first place is because my younger son wants to go into architecture, and I figured it wouldn't be long - if it hasn't happened already - until scale models will have moved from the small wooden mockups to 3d printed Autocad files.

Yes and no. Most work is done by aid of some CAD software. 3D printers are not used that much. Get a good CAD software and see if he dazzle you. Youll be amased by what can be done...

Edit, forgot to write, 3D printers have been around for quite some time now. The thing now would be that the prize range soon covers toy prizes.

[SonnyW]

There are many kinds of 3D printers. The place where I used to work was a big defense contractor. The first 3D printer we had cost over a million dollars. It worked by using a laser beam to harden areas on the surface of a tank of liquid plastic in layers, then submerged that layer and did the next one. It worked pretty well and the parts were strong and well formed, but the cost for one part was out of sight. It was also the kind of shared resource where you had to put in a request, send your file, and wait in line to get your part made by the operator. No one else got to run the machine. That machine was called a stereolithography machine, or SLA. Then we tried various other kinds. The last 3D printer we got cost about $50 K. It was from a division of HP in the UK. It worked more like the consumer ones by printing layers of dots like an ink jet but using plastic "ink". The material was a form of ABS. The engineers could run their own parts, but finish on those parts was not very good at all, kind of like microscopically honeycombed, or "almost foamy" (if that can serve to describe it). The machine was also noisy and smelly and slow, so mostly they would start their parts printing at quitting time. That was two years ago. I doubt if the under $10K models sold for consumers are that much better now than the one we had. The subject of using printed parts for any kind of production never even came up. It was strictly for prototyping, and it was good for that. I couldn't see making covers with it, but it might do for bobbins. It would be cheaper and easier IMO to hand make bobbins with a laser cutter, using acrylic, in say three pieces, then CA or solvent glue them and do a little machining on them.

[jonson]

Don't dismiss any of this as it's gonna happen and going to get cheaper. The croc skull in the pics was done about 2 years ago and is not brittle and is very detailed. The broken hinge was my clumsy heavy handedness but it was printed in one go as a working model. It was done in a local research and development department of a big international motor co. but has gone far further than this. A designer can draw up a gear train or whatever at 8 in the morning and rapid prototype it as a cased working model by lunch. The printer lays down a layer of dust and the laser fires and then the next layer goes down and so on. Shake out the dust not lasered and the whole thing works. They are now looking at printing with metal which is already being done on EOS machines and also by NASA who can print parts that are beyond normal machining capabilities. 10 years from now one man walks in the plant and prints fully assembled engines and gearboxes and cars which nobody can buy cus they are all out of work. But injection molds can be printed now so they will get cheaper and the prices of these machines as they are superceeded will come down and present ones which are more than capable for what we need will be junk to be snatched up for nothing. I'm getting to old to be able to say I'll be around to see and use all this but all those that will be part of it good luck and enjoy.

[David King]

That's a lot of well organized teeth. Jonson I hope you won't be leaving us anytime soon. We need your perspective and good humor to go with the wisdom we count on you for. Better bequeath those notebooks now while we're thinking about it.