Dude I think my 3D printer might just be my single best purchase ever. It's a toss up between that and my paraglider. I know this won't be the experience of basically anyone else, but purchasing a 3D printer directly led to me getting an incredible new job that perfectly matches my interests and skills designing robotics toys. I was a teacher before that. Even if that doesn't happen, 3D printers are incredible tools. I used to think they were just for printing flexible dragons and iron man helmets, but they're quite possibly the single most versatile tool humans have ever created. This channel really showcases that fact. Just do yourself a favor and don't go cheap. There are a bunch of great mid range options out there now that are absolutely reliable workhorses. I know people love their Ender 3s for whatever reason, but I've never seen someone use one of those without immediately spending the price of the printer all over again on upgrades just to make it usable. Personally I love Prusa. They are more expensive, but we use them at work to prototype injection molded parts. They have thousands of hours of print time on them, and never once have we had to do repairs on them. I just keep the beds clean and the filament dry. Also they're FOSS/OSHW, and that kicks ass. We also have Bambus, and they are faster, but they're a bit less reliable. We've had some break down already. They also aren't as dimensionally accurate, but I think that won't matter as much for most use cases. Good luck on your printer adventures! It's a super fun world to get into.
Printers are only as good as the effort put into tuning them. I was given an old CR-10 mini that had issues. I took it apart, cleaned everything, reassembled, and tightened a few things that had been loose when I got it. Added a couple washers to space the z lead screw a bit better. The original build plate had issues on almost all of them, so I replaced that with a mirror tile for a few bucks. Replaced a few of the roller wheels that had flat spots in them. All total, I have about 20$ into "upgrades", and it prints as dimensionally accurate as I'll ever practically need after a few adjustments from calibration prints. Like press fit parts accurate. Mind you, the rollers were the only thing that needed replacement on a machine with several thousand hours on it. I still want a Ratrig or Voron at some point, but there's a reason people like their ender3's and clones of them. They're inexpensive, and after tuning, they just work.
@@mid88night I sometimes joke that I used to have an Ender 3, but now I have an Ender 3 frame with a completely different printer on it. But in comparison, I have a Magneto X now, and that thing required no tuning besides setting a bed mesh. I actually went through all the standard stuff and ended up pretty much the same as how it started. I think the Bambu printers generally have an experience like that too, although they're a bit more proprietary when they don't need to be. Personally I think 3d printing is getting into a pretty great place where pretty much anyone can just pick up a well tuned printer and immediately start printing with cheap engineering-grade materials like PETG-CF that are commonly only $25/kilo. Even PET-CF is getting down there and giving polycarbonate a run for its money.
@@widget5963 I want to build the CR-10 mini into a switchwire, so I get that sentiment haha. I don't NEED to, but I like modifying stuff, so there's that.
you should consider with putting the lever gear behind the rack. that way you will push down on the lever instead of up, helping the press body not fail. awesome design too. maybe if the rack was a bit thicker, the forces would be greater. keep up the awesome work
Yup this. Both behind and wider rack. And awesome work, concrete as a filler is pretty novel. Chicken wire is easier to install but still provides some flex compared to something like grid wire. It probably doesn't make a difference now but if you get into the higher torsion it would.
Love the ending where you say "not everything makes sense to 3d print" It seems like such a no brainer to so many problems, but there are often better solutions.
Have you considered using a CSA based concrete? Here in the states we have "RapidSet" and they even sell additives to increase flow. You may also want to look into "plasticizers" for cement. They are additives that allow you to use less water. Then you can add stuff like glass fibers without ruining ratios.
Nice video. With respect to the concrete, it seems like it's normally in tension and shear (while the press is pressing). Concrete is strongest in compression and worst in tension, so it seems like it'd be useful to post tension the concrete to preload the structure. That way it'd be in compression until you overcome the preload force of the post-tensioning. Granted it's moot since the concrete isn't the weak point of the press.
So at this rate I am going to furnish a shop using your designs. Thank you kindly. I just started printing with ABS to make myself a VORON, and after that I want to try making some of your tools. Thank you kindly for all your work.
I would love to see the limit of the other parts of the design by you iterating a few more times on the rack teeth until they’re not the failure point. In principle if you have high strength concrete shaped in relatively favorable triangles of the given inner dimensions providing a strong base for a lot of leverage. It’s not that surprising the thinnest plastic feature is the first to go, for sure. You are a great toolmaker and craftsman, excellent work!
Figured I'd compile some of the most useful tips on your hardening process: Use a higher alloy steel. These can be commonly found as "Grade 8", "12.9 metric" or "Alloy steel" bolts. These have more 'potential' for hardening than mild steels, which most cheap bolts will be made out of. Use a stirred ice/salt water quench instead of an oil quench. Oil quench is most common on tools where it is useful to trade a small amount of hardness for increased ductility. Your punch will not need ductility to resist impact, so try to make your quench as harsh as possible. If you can enclose your part while you are heating it, even between a few common bricks, you will find that you can reach orange-hot temperatures much easier. The camera can be deceiving, but it seems that what you reached was red-hot, which is below the heat treatment temperature for many grades of steel. Best of luck!
If you are unable to locate higher grade iron for hardening, see Chris' (Clickspring) video on case hardening as an option. I'm not going to suggest it is better than using pieces of drill rod annealed for shaping and threading, then hardened and tempered, but it's better than not doing anything.
Bruh your tools are so cool. Could easily become reference standards of open source tool design. Use of concrete as reinforcing tool for plastic seems like a niche in the space. I wish you every success and hope you are inspired to create more awesome stuff like this, challenging what "3d printing can't do". Lord knows its entertaining to see happen. Great work
I was a bit surprised you didn’t make the rack and gear wider initially. It would have changed the svelte proportions, but I think the other components could have handled a good bit more force, especially with the threaded rods holding things together.
Very interesting build. The metal in the bolts may be an alloy which cannot be hardened. In the US O1 drill rod is a common alloy which is normally sold in the annealed form and can be machined easily then hardened and tempered.
I found your channel a while ago and I must say that I personally have no use for which to copy your designs BUT I am fascinated by the whole process of what you make.....Garden shed engineering at its finest 👍
I like all of your designs so far - just one question regarding the Arbor Press - is there a reason for lifting the handle up? as most all press's pull down on the handle so theirs no need to fix the base from moving and you should get a better feel of the force needed, I think your design would work better pulling down? Might be worth a try?.
That's all I could think of while watching, it's the wrong way from any press I've used or even seen. Fixing that would make it stronger and nicer to use.
Love to see the creative solutions you come up with for pushing 3d prints to their limits! I'm working on my own concrete CNC lathe at the moment since you gave me the idea. Can't wait to see what you'll produce next! I did however forget to sift the aggregate out of which was a bit of an error on my part as stuff did not flow nearly as well.
Nice! I've made some crude concrete based machines but WOW, yours look better than mine! I have suggestions! You may want to consider is putting the rods through a single metal plate on both ends. The plate will increase the compression on the concrete, tie the allthread together, and give you a stronger part. The way it is now the nut only compresses the concrete directly under the washer and you could crack it in the space between the threaded rods. 2) I started 3d printing funnels to guide the concrete into the form, if you run tape around them it keeps the concrete out of the layer lines and makes it much easier to fill. 3) for the rack, consider tying in another geared rack on the back. More threads will give you a stronger column. SO CLOSE! :)
Good video, just a tip, the press should tighten when lowering the lever on the front. This helps minimize twisting and make the force more vertical. I would move the gear behind
A bit crazy but also very interesting, it looks like with just a couple of cheap metal parts like rack and pinion this would actually be very capable. Would love to see it tested.
Add an idler (or two, one on each side of the head) to transfer motion to another driving gear on the back side of the rack/plunger. That'll cut the load on the gears in half and should allow you to get to the magical 100kg target.
It's so close! You could totally reach it if you change up the gears and rack. Increase the pressure angle for thicker teeth, a larger module fir physically larger teeth, or changing the material for something more durable
I think you might have this backwards. The pinion gear on the shaft from the handle needs to sit behind the rack, with the rack gearing being on the back of the rack. That way, downward movement of the handle translates to downward movement of the rack, which should reverse the load direction the frame is seeing. At least, that seems correct in my mind. The rack/pinion teeth will still be the weakest part, but I’m curious what moving the pinion behind the rack would do. Loved watching this though!
Yeah, with every arbor press I’ve ever used, the gearing on the rack is on the back, and the handle/pinion shaft and gear sit just behind the rack, which translates the movement that way.
Have you considered replacing the rack with a course thread 15-20 mm bolt with 3d printed guides to square the profile up through the press? You are after all, already using an M8 bolt or all thread to compress the layers in the rack, You would need to change the helical gears angle some, and could include extending the threading shape across the square profile the bolt is in to hopefully reduce the stress on the driving helical gears.
it took me longer than I'd like to admit for my brain to realize I shouldn't have been hearing minecraft music. I mean I heard the music and recognized it was minecraft music in like 5 seconds, but it took like 5 minutes for me to realize I wasn't playing minecraft, nor was it open in the background.
The cheapest 1 ton arbor press I can find in the US is at Harbor Freight, for $70. Given that they regularly have coupons that give you 20% off of a single item, if you're patient, you could get it for under $60. The frustration factor involved in the "DIY arbor press" seems to make that purchase an easy decision. :)
Long time enjoyer of your videos, thank you so much for this series. I think I came up with a very interesting idea for a limitation I can tell you fought with. For a press there is a balance between parts accessibility, and the presses core strength. But what if you could have both options depending how it was configured at use? Basically to get down to it, a nice chunky bolt that can be installed right behind the press arbor or at set increments of depth. If increments were used, you could even leave multiple installed all in a row for added tensile strength, until a part dictates a needed clearance. With this idea a lot of the forces generated would be shunted into the metal instead of flexing the concrete and mesh structure (simply having one installed, would turn that force back into a compression load.) Also I wonder if your gears would be more robust in Nylon, ASA, or maybe even PETG.
Tip. Try to print every thing at a 45 degree angle. Prints often get much harder that way because each layer get a larger area to adhere to the previous layer. Check Slant 3D he talks much about that.
The steel you used for the punch may have been austenitic stainless, which isn't hardenable. It would be better to use high carbon non-stainless steel because it's easier to harden without weakening it. There are lots of stainless steels that will harden up too but they usually have a more involved heat treating process with holding times and are less tolerant of mistakes. For your application you can just hit some carbon steel with a blow torch to a red glow. (not yellow, not orange) and quench in oil. Then if you feel like it you can heat treat at about 175c in your oven for a couple hours to make it less brittle. This will drop the hardness obtained after the quench a little tiny bit, but this will give the part a lot more strength compared to using the steel without doing so.
you have a partial tooth failure because the forces are pushing the rack and pinion apart. the more you push down on the bar the more force is acting against you in friction and in deflection and the deflection is also decreasing your grip. all to say that you made a press with a compliance based cap which would be great if you needed to ensure that can't exert more that 100lbs on a part that is more expensive then the press
Spare car scissor jack, couple metal scraps, cheap welder. Bam, easy 1.5 ton press (or whatever tonnage you want just swap out the acissor jack😂 i use it every day
you should start to think out of the box regarding position your prints, the base should be much more stable when you place it at the corner at the back.
My gut reaction to the title: "But a small arbor press is so _cheap_ and easy to buy, why would you go through all the hassle of making one?" Excited to see what the authors conclusion is.
Ok Chris, ive been following for some time. Enjoy your design choices and skills immensely. I have to ask, watching you spray paint, do you have a couple hundred pounds of orange filament? Aka why dont you simply print the black pieces with black filament? Killin me. Everything else you do makes complete sense to me. This one, boggles my mind… lol, thanks for sharing all your work!
I was going to say use hardware cloth but looks like you did.. You ever try fiber additives for concrete? Should add even more strength to it with minimal investment. It'd be fun to see your press test different samples of its self sorta like C&C kitchen does with 3d prints. Not sure if it interests you but there's some microwave casting videos on youtube that you could probably cast the rack and pinion in bronze or aluminum and pass your 100lbl goal. Not much cost in getting into casting that way as you can get ones with broken lights and carousels things from family, ebay, or dumpsters fairly cheep.
May you allow me the question: Did you ever consider using a geopolymer instead of cement? (Waterglass , Alkali activation, Metakaolin) Alkali activation lye , burned white wood ash Metakaolin (calcinated kaolinit) the mixture in the right way would create granite and should be much better than cement
These kinds of presses are also useful for putting watch cases back together. You tend to need a bunch of different sized plastic dies to keep the glass from being stressed.
Should be pretty simple and cheap to get metal gears. I really wonder what ways there are to achieve higher pressures. What are design techniques used in real presses?
to put a complaint, the handle works opposite of what i would expect and males less sense if you ask me, idk if this was made bcs of some difficulty, but pushing up to push down feels wrong af, and i feel like it makes it less stable, as i said idk if there was any problem, but it was a thing of changing where the rack and the gear is, just turning them around would have give you a down movement for a down push, like a drill press, if this was by choice or preference then cant say anything about it
Let me get in my smart pants and give you some advice. I would print the rack on its side the teeth looking sideways and it would be much stronger. You can force the layers together with some small bolts normal to the layers planes. (4-5 pcs on both sides of the long bolt along the whole length must be enough) PETG rack and pinion would be more tough and have less friction than PLA parts.
Why do you have the wrack gear at the front, such that the lever works against the applied force, needing to be lifted up, rather than down at the hold point?
came to the comments section to ask this same question! I wonder if changing the direction of the lever's force would add that extra little oomph to get the clean 100, since you wouldn't be applying torque in the opposite direction of the main force
yeah buying one but whats the fun of that? nice project. maybe at a serten point it might be worth 3D printing it compared to a store bought one. Stil depending on what you need to Press into stuf this could maybe be a better choice.
"Not everything makes sense to 3D print" I have to disagree in part. If you are wanting to learn how to design your own parts and tools, having a physical model of it is useful so you can understand the methods behind why some designs work and some fail. You also have the case where it may be faster and cheaper to print and do lost PLA casting than ordering the same object. (Aside: That may be something to play around with if you haven't already.) Overall, great video and content, you gained my sub from it.
This is very interesting to stress test 3d prints but like, what would you use a 100 kg arbour press for? Just like step on the thing you are pressing?😂
