3D printed quick fix
My continual bending the ear of anyone who would listen about the 3D printed parts of the mobile workshop has started to pay off.
One of my customers who I sharpen knives for runs amoungst other ventures a mill just outside of Laurencekirk which produces organic oats.
They had been a victim of my 3D printing tour and evendentually this had worked.
Earlier this week they contacted me as they had some missing parts of a grain sorter. Nothing complicated or highly stressed but somewhat vital as they are small plastic gates which direct different sizes of grain off the shaking table.
The orginal builder of the table where in Austria and there was little chance of getting the parts in time for the next run.
After a short site visit I felt it was something that Barras3D could do with ease
I took away a sample as well as one of the posts the gates clip onto.
After some work CAD I had a profile which I could print as a test piece. After this worked I moved onto producing a full height one. With this tested on the post i went ahead with printing ten of them over night
These where completed after a 16 hour print and where delivered within 24hours of the first site visit.
Original part
This is the small plastic gate with the piece of metal it clips onto
Test piece
The quick print to test the profile I had drawn up in CAD
First full size
The orginal, the test piece and the first full size
Final Run
The completed order ready to go to the customer
That isn’t the only thing that has been coming off the 3D printer in the past week.
I have been in the habit of leaving my iPad in the trailer charging off the USB sockets in the workbench.
This worked fine when I was charging overnight from the mains. After switching over to solar this was less than ideal as the USB sockets came from the 240V circuit which meant keeping the inverter on. This used quite a bit of power overnight but as I was on free power from the sun I filed this on the “to be fixed” list. My hand was forced when the USB sockets in the benches died.
Instead of replacing the ones in the bench I decided to go from 12DC to the USB sockets as this would be more effiecent and purchased two panel mount USB panels.
Another issue on the “to be fixed” list was the heater control panel was on constantly as I gave it a direct feed from the battery. Seeing that every electron matters this was another waste of power.
The final solution to tie this all together was a small 3D printed panel which let the two USB panels as well as two toggle switches to be mounted in.
This like the gates was printed in recycled PETG
