3D printed Periscope guards arrived.
 

The details on these are very fine. I will spray some primer on these as I think that will make the detail stand out more.

http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/atta...mentid=2051989http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/atta...mentid=2051990

My question is how durable are they?

They look rough and bumpy. Easily sanded smooth?
What printer was used, please?

They are brittle and will not stand much rough handling. I believe the guard itself is thinner then it needs to be, I am going to email Mike and tell him to beef these up a bit.

Not sure what kind of printer but I believe it must be the style that has the part in a bath of jellied structure.

They use powder printers

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BTTnaI4EYnY#t=122

How would the output of this part from an extrusion type printer like Makerbot, in tough PLA or ABS, look? Smoother?

I doubt you could make this part on a extrusion type printer.

The soldered brass headlight guard on my JS-2 has broken loose twice so far in battle, I'm not sure that piece would last too long.

i can make that part in visijet M3 clear and it would be pretty tough. I can print down to 16 microns.

Yea extruding something that small would be difficult. If you did and wanted it smooth you would need to go with ABS and vapor bath it, but at such a small part you most likely would deform it. I do like the part though, very nice. What are the dimensions on it?

I have emailed Mike to question him on the options of different more durable material, and also suggested he beef up the guards slightly even if they are out of scale. This are very fine, and there may need to be a trade of between form and function.

Erik. These are built to ordanace drawings and are an exact copy in 1/16 scale.

If you had it printed at Shapeways they have a large selection of different materials to print including metal. It might be a bit pricey but worth it? I think there might be a minimum size for certain things, I haven't had anything printed there yet.

We run jobs for them. I can tell you that metal would not be a good option cost wise. You would be better off just buying the shumo part and adding it to the printed hatch.

Yea they really do charge an arm and a leg! I remember they were wanting to charge my friend $40+ for some 2" movable Minecraft Creepers. I ended up printing them for him for like $2 each and still didn't cost me anything.

You could but you would have to have supports material(I believe Slic3r does this). As for smoothing ABS acetone wash could work.

The cover, hinges and latches are one thing, but if a modeler can't cut, bend and solder a $1 length of brass round stock into that shape, they probably wouldn't be able to install the part itself. ;)

This is a perfect example where 3D printing is a tool to accentuate scratch building, not replace it.

Even an injected molded peri-cover wouldn't last on something that's meant to move. At least not a true to scale one.

An extrusion printer could probably work if you used dual extruders and a dissolving material

an extruder wouldn't produce a detailed enough part and the post processing would be a risk to the rest since it is all very thin.

Agreed. Most likely any kind of vapor bathing (acetone or MEK) would kill the structure and make the piece flimsy at that size. You could always use the 3D printers for reverse molds though.