Printing plastic car parts?

Question

Do it yourself

Gentlemen, appealing to the experience of people who worked with budget printers and ABS plastic, tk. I don't have one myself, but I would like to buy one.
The question is: is it possible to print various plastic things for a car on RepRap 3D printers: housings for side mirrors, headlight washer covers on the bumper, headlight housings for modular optics, etc.
As for dimensions: on paper, the MendelMax 2.0 printable area should be enough.
With the quality of the surface, thanks to this method , there should also be no problems.
We do not consider the question of how to obtain models for printing now. Something to draw, something to scan with a 3d scanner. But for simplicity, let's imagine that we have a network of models.
What other difficulties may await along the way?

Answer 1

Will ABS plastic withstand mechanical and thermal stress? the car can easily heat up to 70-80 degrees in the sun, and cool down to -35 in winter. I don't think plastic is designed for that.

Answer 2

The difficulty will be in the cost of the finished product. Even taking into account the "free" time and bargain prices for consumables. But such a service will occupy its niche, at least due to the efficiency of the type “Let's make a plug instead of a knocked-out foglight for the period of delivery of a normal spare part”

Answer 3

Yes, you can print. The strength and reliability of printed parts is not inferior, for example, to Lego parts. That is, if you step on it, you won't crush it. In general, it turns out the most standard full-fledged plastic. In the settings, you can change the internal filling, thereby setting the strength.
The problem is different: it prints very slowly, the quality is unstable: the same project can be printed in different ways. So, you can indulge, but hardly seriously. In addition, it is difficult to print large parts on it. If you want to print a car mirror cover, it will take half a day, if not all day.
I have a Makerbot, I ordered an extruder separately from the USA quite recently, and it works very well, unlike my own. By the way, do not forget that you will have to spend time servicing the printer itself: sometimes the head may become clogged, or the mechanism may be warped. That is, it is more of a scientific experiment than a printing process. Imagine that you bought an ordinary paper printer not ready-made, but assembled it yourself. How will it work? :) Problems arise periodically with the XYZ mechanism itself, the precision of which greatly affects the quality of printed models.
And yet, the quality of small details still leaves much to be desired. I could not get an accuracy higher than 1mm. Also, 1mm is the minimum thickness that I can print. An elementary mold gives much greater accuracy.
In principle, you can print gears, brackets, etc., etc.
If you want to trade washer plugs (which are often stolen), it's better to just order them and trade, trust me, there will be more sense. :)

Answer 4

Here, a whole car (all body panels) is already being printed ...
www.cadpoint.ru/news/1-latest-news/672-presented-the-first-car-designed-by-3d-printer.html
bottlenecks - fastening ears. With our temperature differences, it may not withstand, tk. significant vibrations occur in the attachment points. Indeed, when printing, the microstructure of plastic is different than when casting ... Perhaps the printed material should be subjected to heat treatment ... To improve the microstructure ... It is necessary to set up an experiment.

Answer 5

Mechanical parts made of ABS plastic for cars are optimally used.
Here is a comparison of ABS and PLA:
phoenix-auction.ru/stati/2014-03-09/sravnitelnaya-...
I have a Chinese printer based on MakerBot Replicator2. I was surprised by the accuracy of the print. the accuracy of my particular one is 0.05 mm (!) I
have been typing for 5 months already - no problems! They also printed gears for the worm gears of the glass cleaner ("janitors") and figurines, and logos - there were no complaints.
The printing itself really depends on the care of the printer and the correct settings.
And I also want to add that the cost of the final part is affected to a greater extent by the complexity of modeling.