What have you 3D printed today.

[Amos Malone]

My attempt to try to get Givi tankbag to fit CRF250 Rally. Jury is still out if it works realistically.

For Honda owners that have 3D printers. Honda has issued takedown notice to all 3D STL file repositories and want all parts that even mention Honda and their brands removed. Printables has already removed everything and the other big ones confirm having received that notice.
So download today anything you wish to print for Honda. And write to your Honda dealer and complain.

 

[JohnQ]

Give it 6 months.
All those files will be back with a new name. The files are being tagged because nobody had the good fuking sense to misname these things to begin with.
H0nda, not Honda. Do folks not realize names are trademarked?

Honda is really gonna struggle with making 3D printed anything go away.
The stl files are not Honda IP, only the name.

 

[Amos Malone]

The problem with H0nda, and other forms of leetspeak, is that it makes the part invisible to search engines. I changed descriptions for my parts, and renamed the files with "andoH", but that is just a delaying tactic until this has been figured out.
It's a complicated case and lot of it is in a grey area. There are 3 very different laws covering the issue. Patent law, trademark law and copyright law. You are allowed to design a part (your IP) and refer to Honda in the description of the part. "will fit Honda(tm)". You are not allowed to refer to it in a way that implies said part comes from Honda. "Honda part".
You are (usually) allowed to design a part that has similar function. You are (usually) not allowed to copy a part directly unless it is patented and the patent has expired.
Honda can trademark "CRF 250 Rally" but they cannot strictly speaking trademark "CRF", "250" or "Rally" without being challenged. 2 trademarks for the same name are allowed as long as they are not competing with each other. The Apple (computer company) vs. Apple (music publishing company) was an interesting case. No conflict until Apple (computer company) started to sell music online. Then the older Apple (music publishing company) sued and demanded Apple (computer company) stopped trading under that name. Then iTunes came into existence (more or less, I'm certain I'm not remembering some parts correctly).
Printables decided to comply with the letter from Honda lawyers and not challenge it. Thingiverse still hasn't deleted the files. It's not known if that is because they haven't gotten around to it, or if they plan to do something so they don't have to.
As I understand it the takedown notice from Honda lawyers is too broad and in that sense not legal. But the case could drag on for a long time and the only people who'd profit are the lawyers.

 

[Amos Malone]

Memory-station for work. Full already. That can only mean it's too small.

 

[Pupsocket]

A few years ago I bought a DJI Osmo Action camera, similar to the GoPro line.

After searching for 3rd party chin mounts, I decided to design my own. Here's how I went about it, from measuring the helmet to CAD design to printing options and finishing.

I used a contour gauge to capture vertical and horizontal sections of the chin of my helmet. I captured the curves, then took carefully aligned pictures that included the gauge's ruler for later scaling in CAD.

I use Autodesk Inventor, software I work with every day doing that what puts motorcycles on me dinner table.

I inserted a photo into CAD, scaled to actual size, created a spline curve of 1/2 of the profile, then mirrored it. The curve doesn't quite match the contour gauge, as I had to fine-tune the shape until the fit was good enough.

Created the helmet mating surface by sweeping the curve above, here shown in red, along the vertical arc, shown in green:

Created a shell of the mating surface 1/8" thick:

Trimmed so the front view of the mount is an oval:

This short riser...

... provides a base for a loft, which blends the mount into a stronger shape in the center:

The beginnings of the GoPro-style clamp:

Blending makes it purdy but also stronger:

Clamp features complete:

Some final tweaks and the CAD work is complete:

I initially printed a few prototypes using a typical FDM consumer-type 3d printer, used to adjust the fit.

I ended up getting the model professionally printed in an SLS process: selective laser sintering, where a bed of powdered glass-reinforced nylon is melted with a laser layer by layer. This produces a very strong part, though the surface is a bit rough and porous. After finish-sanding with cloth backed 220 grit, I went straight to rattle-can white enamel paint, letting it dry 24 hours before sanding and recoating. I gave it four coats and let it dry a few days.

Final attachment was using clear Gorilla mounting tape. It's not perfect, but for a kid who never liked to paint his plastic model cars, it didn't turn out too bad.

 

[oldschool]

Do folks not realize names are trademarked?

Sadly, there's a lot that people don't know these days. Remember, common sense is not so common anymore.

 

[Pupsocket]

This is a nice design.

I like the DJI Osmo. A friend from Hong Kong was using a handheld one when visiting. That gimbal system is amazing in stabilization. She just waved the camera around and the videos were rock steady. Have you looked at the Action 2 version? It looks pretty good on paper.

My software of choice is OpenSCAD. It seems to be the only 3D modeling software I can get to work without having to fight it all the time.

I haven't yet looked at the Action 2 camera. 4k@120fps is 2x the framerate.

I'm fortunate to have access to full-fledged 3d software, just wish it was Solidworks

Latest widget is a mount for a small thermometer. It bolts to where a suction cup for a window mount went. The first version was not offset, and the mount blocked the see-through portion, making it hard to read.

 

[gots_a_sol]

Have this gate we use to keep the dogs out of the bedrooms. Well between 3 dogs and kids the original hinges got busted. Drew up new ones on tinkercad and printed them off. They seem to last about 6 months or so before getting busted again.

I used some 3/8 rod for the pivots. I print the holes a little undersized, heat up the pins, and press them in.

 

[Punkinhead]

A replacement clip for my Torx socket rail.

 

[DesmoDog]

I put a smaller battery in my Super Light but still wanted to use the stock battery hold downs, so I printed up this.

I tried to figure out how to cut down a stock license plate bracket to work with smaller USA plates, but gave up and printed this out instead. It's hidden by the plate in use. I think I'll mod it to hold an allen wrench to remove the tail section at some point.

But the bestest thing I've printed so far? We have a bin for dog food that had a rubber handle that was cracked and about to break. Someone who took care of our dog wrapped tape around it and turned it into a sticky mess, so I drew up this and printed it out in TPU so it's flexible. I am shocked by how much better it feels than the old broken down handle. Seriously. It's the little things in life.

And now I'm working on a TPU adapter/pad thingie to mount a tail light on a fender it was never intended to be on. Multiple curves on different angles... it's taking me a while to figre it all out but I'm getting there.

 

[DesmoDog]

Oh yeah, I also printed out a points cover for a Ducati narrowcase. It's another TPU part - the stock part uses an O-ring but that's included in this design so it's all one piece. Forgive the red material - it's some cheap stuff I use to print out test parts. The real one will be black. Yeah yeah yeah, I know it doesn't look anything like a stock part but it's going on to a bike that's being built out of (mainly) stuff I have sitting around, as in no money spent. And the bike isn't going to look like anything Ducati ever built either so whatever.

 

[DesmoDog]

I'm trying to get a tail light to fit one of my projects. The contour of the light I wanted to use didn't fit the contour of the fender I'm using, so I printed an adapter to go between them.

I thought I was happy with it, but when I go away for a while and then come back to it, I think it's too massive. Bad photo but you get the idea. I've been playing around modifying the pad for way too long and have printed too many versions only to keep coming to the same conclusion so I figured what the heck, why not print the whole light?

This was really a proof of concept print, now that I've done it I want to change prettty much everything about it. Except that it uses holes that are already in the fender. When I come up with something I like I'll still have to sand and paint it but now I know it could work!

 

[Earache]

DesmoDog Could you use the printed light housing as a mold buck to have one cast in aluminum? That'd be cool.

 

[EuroMoto]

Lost TPU casting works really well if you can spare the money for a bucket of the ceramic slurry!

Edit: I actually meant lost PLA, but had TPU on my mind from a project apparently.

 

[Earache]

Lost TPU casting works really well if you can spare the money for a bucket of the ceramic slurry!

 

[DesmoDog]

DesmoDog Could you use the printed light housing as a mold buck to have one cast in aluminum? That'd be cool.

Yeah that was in the back of my mind when I was doing it. In fact it's one of the reasons I wanted a 3D printer to begin with...

There are filaments available which are intended for doing just that. I wouldn't attempt it with PLA or TPU (both of which I print pretty often). Or maybe I would? I didn't know it was a thing...

PolyMaker PolyCast Filament - 1.75mm (0.75kg)

Polycast 3D printing filament by PolyMaker is developed to produce high-quality investment patterns for investment casting applications. By 3D printing with the PolyMaker Polycast, you will save on costs and lead time by eliminating the tooling process. This filament is also super easy to print...

www.matterhackers.com

I spent a metric shit ton of time last might redesigning the light to use an LED panel I have for another project and to make it easier to print. It seems I kept going backwards though, I'm still learning to use Fusion 360 and do NOT understand why a lot of tings work the way they do (or don't) in that program. Things I've created simply dissappear. Other things don't work the same way simlar details did previously, etc... and I'm doing it all on a laptop with a touchpad instead of a mouse... not the best set up...

My dad used to do some sandcasting but I have no idea how he melted the aluminum at home? He didn't have any sort of furnace in his home shop, I onder if maybe he didn't borrow something from the school he taught at? In any case, it's something I've been casually following. May need to pay more attention to the DIY self built videos or watch the ads for used ones....

A while ago when I was looking into this I found a place that prints the sand mold. Some sort of polymerized(?) sand filament or something. It was a while ago that I saw it, and it was a little too far removed from what I could do at home with a cheap printer.

Great, now I'll be wasting the day looking for sand casting info... I wonder if there's a jeweler or artistic type around who would cast something for me if I had the pattern... hmm...

 

[Earache]

Y

My dad used to do some sandcasting but I have no idea how he melted the aluminum at home? He didn't have any sort of furnace in his home shop, I onder if maybe he didn't borrow something from the school he taught at? In any case, it's something I've been casually following. May need to pay more attention to the DIY self built videos or watch the ads for used ones....

That's the hard part - making a furnace hot enough to melt stuff and not burn your house down. Might piss off the wife.
Then ya gotta have crucibles, tongs, etc - mo' money.

 

[DesmoDog]

I think it'd make more sense for me to find some artistic type to cast it for me. Considering the area I'm pretty sure I could find someone eventually?

I think I've "finalized" the design though. I decided to go with the LED panel, which aside from less heat allows a shorter/smaller body.

Shorter body on a smaller mount.

Not really a fan... so now the same body but a longer base.

It's a bad photo but here's the basic idea.

The family tree. I ran out of grey filament and switched to a silky silver that I am learning to despise. So I opened up some PLA+ that's been sitting on the shelf for a year or so and tried that out. The white is basically the same as the silver but has a few errors corrected and details added. Of course as soon as it was printing I thought of other changes I'd like to make...

I'll make the changes if/when I print out another one (I already made them on the computer model), but for now I think the white one will be used for mockup. I'm not sure how well PLA takes paint, I could print it using ABS but that would require making an enclosure for the printer.

Don't quote me on this but I think it's time to move on to other things and finalize this after other details are buttoned up.

 

[DesmoDog]

This is the main problem with 3D printing. As soon as you print something you think of some changes that would improve the object.
How about nonfunctional art deco look cooling fins?

I was thinking it would be fun if there was a collection of STLs for motorcyclists. Maybe some forum could host it.

I did think about a rib along the top, but that goes back to when I wanted to use ribbed fenders and a ribbed gas tank, which I'm not using, so I didn't add it.

I've posted a couple things on Thingiverse, it's a pretty horrible site (lots of issues posting things, at least there were last year) but they have a lot of stuff to search for. I've found a few useful motorcycle objects on there.

I've moved on from this for now and printed out a couple chain guards, When I Was on my 3rd iteration I discovered I can't mount a full chain guard if the fender and chain are already in place. That's not all that helpful so I'll be changing to a two piece guard.

But in the meantime I did up a fake oil tank so I'd have somewhere to hide a breather valve/filter. Turns out it doesn't look like I hoped it would so back to the drawing board.

Someone on another forum asked about videos of prints. I'm not really set up to do timelapse stuff but I turned the feature on and came up with this. Yep, it's a cylinder. Massive excitmeent here, let me tell ya! though making the timelapse consists of my clicking on a digital toggle so no big effort to me anyway...

 

[DesmoDog]

Geez, no one is posting here? WTF? I can't be the only nerd around...

My latest fiasco, er, project.

EvoTech Tail Tidy. When I bought my Street Fighter I said I wouldn't put one on. Eventually I had to admit how silly the stock plate mount looked. So, I ordered a tail tidy. It seemed expensive for a license plate mount, but once it showed up I realized there was more to it than that. In fact I was impressed with the quality of it. Then I went to mount the license plate on it.

Yeah... no. I'm pretty sure it works better with larger plates, but with the size of a Michigan plate and the shape of the EvoTech mounting surface do not play well together. The license plate bolts want to be where the EvoTech frame is, but not by enough you can just drill new holes in the EvoTech part. And the mounting hardware Evotech supplies isn't anywhere near up to the level of the rest of the kit.

But no worries! I've got a lot of stainless fasteners plus a 3D printer and already made a plate mount for my Superlight. All I had to do was move a couple holes and print a new one. I could have printed up a little test template once I moved the holes, but no. It was a simple mod, go for it. Print the final part first shot.

About 4.5 hours later I had my part. Held it up to the bike. Realized I hadn't figured in the size of the plate surround I wanted to use. Won't work. Oops.

Back to the drawing board. Moved the holes again, things started to get more complicated... printed a 15 minute template instead of a final part (I'm not a COMPLETE idiot...) and found out it still wouldn't work.

There were a few details I wanted to change but that would have taken longer, so I left them and came up with version 3. Printed another template. Good to go. Started up the print for version 3. Watched it start, then went upstairs to do other things. Checked in on it occassionally via webcam to make sure it was still printing. By habit I had turned off the lights when I left the room, but I could see well enough to know it was still putting plastic down and wasn't making a big blob of melted plastic.

4.5 hours after I started printing it (around 1am) I went downstairs to see how it turned out.

Well looky there. At some point not long after I left it, the layer shifted. And then shifted again. As in somehow the printer was slipping the belt or something so the layers were getting offset, As in the part was worthless. Well not ENTIRELY worthless as it proved I had the holes in roughly the right places now but it couldn't be used for anything.

Fine. Print another one. But first I was going to do a couple tweaks to the design as long as I had to reprint it.

So now I'm at version 4. Which was actually version 11 if you go buy saved design levels but it was the 4th one to get prepped to be printed.

I went downstairs, did a couple things to avoid having the layers shift again, fired up the printer, started the print. Watched the first few layers to make sure it was going ok. Figured out why it shifted the layers, no issue this time. Started doing other things downstairs, keeping an eye on the print.

About an hour and a half into the print I noticed it working on a detail I had changed in the latest design. But it wasn't changed here? WTF? Check the computer. Yep. I was printing the earlier version again.

Whatever. It'll work, there will just be some details I hope no one notices.

And that's the TMI version of the story of how I spent 16 hours mounting a license plate to an EvoTech tail tidy after the tidy itself was installed.

There's a crappy picture of tail tidy sans plate, which kind of defeats the whole purpose of me rambling on about spending entirely too much time on the mounting plate. Hang on a minute...

Ok, quick shots but you'll get the idea. Small US plate:

Backside details. Pay no attention to the print quality, surface finish wasn't great on this one but who cares, it'll get dirty instantly anyway. You should have seen the first attempt though. Isn't that how it always works?