3-D Printing With Shapeways

I just though I might post a few pictures of a current project that involved 3-D printing some cool parts using Shapeways.

I designed all the parts on Autodesk Inventor, aiming to keep the pieces strong enough to handle being attached to a HPR rocket but as thin/small as I felt safe to minimize the cost to print them.

The rockets design is built upon the MAC Performance 3'' Scorpion with a 38mm MMT. I am adding a slimline ogive tail-cone retainer. It will use the recovery gear and upper payload/AV bay from my MAC Performance Rocketry 3'' Rayzor that has a primary AIM XTRA and backup AIM USB. Essentially, it is an alternate booster section for that rocket.

Here is what I got from Shapeways:



The four brackets are for a pair of dual 24mm outboard motors - a CTI 24mm 6G on the bottom and a 24mm 3G on top. The blue nosecones are hollow and slip over the ends of the bare casings, and are canted inwards for looks.



Motor retention is by a 4-40 rod that slips between the motors and screws into a small-pattern nut that is placed on the opposite side in a hex-cutout that keeps it from spinning.







Overall I'm quite happy with the service - very nice colored parts with fantastic detail, and most importantly very accurately produced. The motors slip in and out perfectly with no slop, and the nosecones are a nice tight friction fit onto the motor casings. It should be a cool rocket to fly - first flight I plan on lighting a central 29mm H or I on the ground, the quickly air starting two 24mm G100 skidmarks, then after those burnout two F79 smokey-sams, all good for about 3K feet.



Not related to this project, but I also printed my 3rd revision of a 38mm nose cone mount for my AIM XTRA unit. It has come along great, it now includes a mount for my 1s 500mah li-po, raised mount for a featherweight screw switch, holes for routing wires, a slot to help align the exterior holes as its slid up inside the NC, and a mount for a Kevlar shock cord loop anchor. It is retained by three 4-40 set screws that are drilled and tapped through the shoulder of the NC into the three tabs.

Can I ask why you chose shapeways and not someone on the forum? I am asking because you have had to pay a lot for those parts.

BLKKROW said:

Can I ask why you chose shapeways and not someone on the forum? I am asking because you have had to pay a lot for those parts.

Click to expand...

Mainly because the FDM machines they use are really excellent and can produce really intricate and accurate parts, and that are just reliable - no support material to worry about, layer bonding problems, ridges and deformations, etc. The parts are far nicer even than some of the parts I made on my high schools pretty expensive Stratasys uPrint SE. Overall I don't see the cost as that expensive considering it's less than the cost of all the cluster reloads for just one flight or the casings for that matter.

Just for knowledge sake, those are not FDM prints. They appear to be gypsum from a Zcorp machine (aka sandstone), or sintered nylon (aka strong and flexible)

If they are the gypsum powder, you should be extremely careful using them in structural applications as they will tend to be very brittle.