3D Printed Tachometer Gauge Pod, with 12V / USB Outlets

[Awesomeness]

Just something I've been working on. I still have to sand and paint it (this is straight off my printer), and then finish making the wiring harness. But the mock up looks good. The tach faces the driver, instead of straight back like the winch trucks' tachs do.

I also plan to make some nice 3D printed dome lights eventually. I've already got some good ideas for them.

 

[coachgeo]

Just something I've been working on.

Looks great. hope life lets you offer them to others at reasonable cost..... be it finished and/or unfinished.

 

[Awesomeness]

Looks great. hope life lets you offer them to others at reasonable cost..... be it finished and/or unfinished.

I suppose that depends on what you think "reasonable" is, and it seems like there are a lot of definitions around here. It's about 50 hours of printing, $15 in plastic material, and $10 in fasteners. So the housing would probably be a bit more than the tach and power outlets cost.

This one is made to fit the real Medallion tach, that I found on eBay. I wonder what the supply of those tachs looks like, if there is a similar/compatible/cross-reference tach available that uses the same wiring, or if there is a better universal tach that this could be resized to fit? I wanted to use the real intended tach because the wiring and sender are already there, though I need to make a custom harness to replicate that part of the winch panel harness to tap into it.

 

[1951M1078]

How strong is the printed part ?

 

[Awesomeness]

How strong is the printed part ?

It's quite strong. I printed this one in polyethylene, for the mechanical properties and heat tolerance. I designed it with a healthy 0.120" wall thickness, which makes it about as strong as an injection molded part with maybe a 0.080" wall thickness. 3D printed parts are weakest in the direction that separates the layers, and this is printed with the layers stacked vertically. Basically, unless you tried prying it apart or stabbing a tool through the side, it's not going to break from being bumped/knocked/etc.

 

[coachgeo]

I suppose that depends on what you think "reasonable" is, and it seems like there are a lot of definitions around here. It's about 50 hours of printing, $15 in plastic material, and $10 in fasteners. ....

should say... reasonable price from reasonable buyer... all the time, efforts, and material a reasonable buyer should respect.

 

[Bulldogger]

Well done! I designed and printed a slave port cap/cover for my Hmmwv but nothing so complex as this. My ABS plastic prints are disappointing in terms of strength. I will see about getting my hands on some polyethylene.
Bulldogger

 

[johnz]

A very nice, and functional addition to these trucks... Well done! Hopefully there will be enough interest (from actual buyers) to justify taking this idea into production.I'll look forward to more information regarding performance and pricing.. Thanks for your efforts..

 

[tennmogger]

Well done! A printed housing like this would be ideal for the GPS speedometers on the market that require an RF signal-transparent housing (no metal). Sir, in my mind you have moved "printed parts" from the 'gee that's neat' category to the 'WOW that's great' category.

 

[Awesomeness]

Well done! I designed and printed a slave port cap/cover for my Hmmwv but nothing so complex as this. My ABS plastic prints are disappointing in terms of strength. I will see about getting my hands on some polyethylene.
Bulldogger

What strength problems are you having? Polyethylene is not stronger than ABS. It's close to the mechanical properties of ABS, and way better than PLA, but prints with the quality of PLA and without the warping problems of ABS. So it's close to the best of both worlds... strong, functional parts, with high quality printing.

Orientation of the part during printing is also key, so that you don't have a lot of force being applied to the finished part in a way that wants to separate the layers (where it's weakest), because when applied in a way that pulls along the layers it's quite strong. I also print functional parts like this with high (>70%) infill.

I'm a mechanical engineer and do a lot of prototyping. So I make a lot of stuff this way, and it holds up well. I fully expect this 3D printed part to last 20 years on the dashboard of my truck, barring something catastrophic like leaving something heavy in the seat that falls forward and hits it while lifting the cab (at which point the windshield is probably toast too).

For complex curvy parts like this, 3D printing is a big win. This part could be machined from aluminum as-designed, but it would probably cost $1000.

 

[Bulldogger]

What strength problems are you having? Polyethylene is not stronger than ABS. It's close to the mechanical properties of ABS, and way better than PLA, but prints with the quality of PLA and without the warping problems of ABS. So it's close to the best of both worlds... strong, functional parts, with high quality printing.

Orientation of the part during printing is also key, so that you don't have a lot of force being applied to the finished part in a way that wants to separate the layers (where it's weakest), because when applied in a way that pulls along the layers it's quite strong. I also print functional parts like this with high (>70%) infill.

I'm a mechanical engineer and do a lot of prototyping. So I make a lot of stuff this way, and it holds up well. I fully expect this 3D printed part to last 20 years on the dashboard of my truck, barring something catastrophic like leaving something heavy in the seat that falls forward and hits it while lifting the cab (at which point the windshield is probably toast too).

For complex curvy parts like this, 3D printing is a big win. This part could be machined from aluminum as-designed, but it would probably cost $1000.

I've had a lot of delamination of ABS, especially my black ABS. It could simply be because I bought the least expensive at the time and have a while to go before using it up. It could also be due to water absorption, though I am not getting the popping or spitting I've heard of.

I print on glass on a heated bed, starting at 101C for the bed and 235C for the extruder, no cooling fan on the nozzle (yes on the extruder), the glas is treated with 2 layers of PVA glue stick (not many problems with that). I print at modest speeds, owing to the weight of the glass and heated bed, on a Prusa i3 clone from HICtop. And I usually print at 0.2mm layer height and I use a brim or raft as the situation dictates.

After the first 1-2 layers, I drop down to 225-230C and 95C for the extruder and bed.

Maybe i just need to buy a better ABS than $14 on Amazon gets me!

I welcome any advice you can share.

Also, while I have you: is the Polyethelene you use food safe? I've read ABS is not. I would like to CAD up some nozzles for my antique sausage press (Enterprise 4 qt). Yes, I can buy them from Chop-Rite, but they are PRICEY!

Bulldogger

 

[Awesomeness]

I've had a lot of delamination of ABS, especially my black ABS. It could simply be because I bought the least expensive at the time and have a while to go before using it up. It could also be due to water absorption, though I am not getting the popping or spitting I've heard of.

I print on glass on a heated bed, starting at 101C for the bed and 235C for the extruder, no cooling fan on the nozzle (yes on the extruder), the glas is treated with 2 layers of PVA glue stick (not many problems with that). I print at modest speeds, owing to the weight of the glass and heated bed, on a Prusa i3 clone from HICtop. And I usually print at 0.2mm layer height and I use a brim or raft as the situation dictates.

After the first 1-2 layers, I drop down to 225-230C and 95C for the extruder and bed.

Maybe i just need to buy a better ABS than $14 on Amazon gets me!

I welcome any advice you can share.

Also, while I have you: is the Polyethelene you use food safe? I've read ABS is not. I would like to CAD up some nozzles for my antique sausage press (Enterprise 4 qt). Yes, I can buy them from Chop-Rite, but they are PRICEY!

Bulldogger

While poor quality or humidity infused filament can be a problem, my first guess would be it's the lack of enclosure causing you problems. I printed these on my Prusa i3 MK3, and it prints ABS quite poorly because of the lack of enclosure. I had an older, much less innovative, and lower quality XYZPrinting Da Vinci 1.0A, and that thing would do a pretty good job using ABS all day long, but it had an enclosure. It would get to about 150 degrees Fahrenheit inside, which made warping almost a non-issue. I've tried putting my MK3 inside a 24" cube popup photo studio tent ($20 on Amazon), which let the inside get to about 100-110 degrees Fahrenheit, which helped some, but still didn't make it reliable, especially with large prints like this. I am actually [slowly] working on a rigid enclosure for these printers, though one of the downsides is that you need to move the power supply outside, or you will significantly shorten its life.

This filament is eSUN PETG, and it doesn't say anything about being food safe. Personally, I would have very little concern about using filaments that weren't even marked food safe, as the contact with it is minimal. However, my bigger concern with any 3D printed part is that it is full of tiny cavities for bacteria to grow in. You could 3D print some, make food safe silicone molds and polyurethane castings, that I would feel much better about. However, at that point you've probably spent $60 to make one nozzle.

 

[Bulldogger]

I neglected to say I do have a homemade enclosure around it. A wood frame with two thicknesses of cardboard stapled to it and a plexiglass door. Perhaps I should aim to keep the bed heat higher? I try to avoid going in, that's why I rigged a 24v LED strip in the frame and used the plexiglass door, and it seems to keep heat fairly well.

I have seen the eSun brand before, they appear to have a decent review history. The black ABS I use the most is from USA Filament, who I did not see available the last couple of times I searched. I haven't printed anything lately but replacement iPhone cases and rectangular grommets for my soft slant backs. There is a knack to using one, especially one made form a kit. I need to invest some more time tuning it, though I spent a fair amount already. I got tired of leveling the bed, which seems to change annoying often, so I bought a BLTouch leveling sensor, but I haven't devised a mount or programmed my offsets yet. It's on the list of projects!

BDGR

 

[Awesomeness]

I would think yes, you need it as warm as you can get it in there. I turn my bed up to 110C, inside the popup tent, to try to reduce warping as much as possible.

 

[Aernan]

You should list it on thingavers and let them print.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G930A using Tapatalk

 

[Carl_in_NH]

What kind of a printer are you using? Home shop, or printed at work?

I have access through work to some nice machines, but unfortunately that lab is 2,660 miles west of me so it makes things a little inconvenient.

 

[Awesomeness]

I printed this on my personal Prusa i3 MK3, in my home prototyping shop. Honestly though, depending on what kinds of printers you have at work, they are often good at creating finer details but the materials are not as robust. For example the Objet brand printers use a UV curable resin that is beautiful but functionally terrible (e.g. fragile, becomes soft in the sun, degrades over time, etc.). The FDM / FFF printers are just melting and extruding real plastics (e.g. ABS, PET, Nylon, etc.) so you maintain the true properties of the materials, even if the result isn't quite as perfect in terms of detail and surface finish.

That said, this part has a pretty good surface finish as it is. I'll probably sand and paint it, to make it smooth, but some people might like the 3D printed surface texture... it's novel.

If I was going to have this printed on an industrial grade printer, I would probably choose an HP MJF printer in nylon, or an SLS nylon printer. Just because I was curious this morning, I got quotes from a number of industrial 3D printing vendors that I use, and prices were $270-850, depending on material and process technology. Material costs probably only make up 10-20% of that.

 

[Strong50]

Looks great. I'd be interested in ordering

 

[aleigh]

I 3D print also and one thing to watch out for is the UV resistance in the PLA. It's not always the same, not always good. And for something that will be on a dash. The housing looks great and if printed in the right plastic I have no doubt it will last a long time. It's amazing how strong the prints can be when properly designed.

 

[Awesomeness]

I 3D print also and one thing to watch out for is the UV resistance in the PLA. It's not always the same, not always good. And for something that will be on a dash. The housing looks great and if printed in the right plastic I have no doubt it will last a long time. It's amazing how strong the prints can be when properly designed.

It's printed in PETG for exactly those reasons. I think it says that in the post, but I'll double check.