3D Print Plastic Pieces....

Following this thread with interest
Initially you may wish to offer both options.....see what the demand is for the OCD option but really.....the 'back side' finish, may not really be relevant to most.
But your costs & subsequent final retail cost may decide this.

 

Thanks for the encouragement guys! Admittedly I am a little burned out and sick this weekend so I haven't made much progress on this. I'll probably do more this week though.

 

R&D - very impressive research and work so far. I'm wondering if, for some plastic and metal interior pieces, trim, and badges, a consumer 3d laser cutter like http://glowforge.com could be a high-quality, low-effort solution. Given the right material spec and plans, this seems like it could render high quality results with a combination of cutting and engraving.

Full disclosure: I'm a Glowforge pre-order customer and I know the CEO and CPO there well, so I'm a fan. I've been thinking that it'll be helpful for occasional restoration projects for both my 355 and my old, 70's-vintage Cessna, which has some absolutely hideous interior bakelite plastic parts.

 

Well I got my first part today. Insane quality, especially for a first try without really any specific setup. Pics to come later. Also this weekend I modeled up another interior part for printing that I'm thinking a lot of people may want. Pics and info coming soon...

 

mshobe,

I am familiar with Glowforge, although I've not used one myself. I believe that there probably are parts in this car that could be made on one, but I am discovering that almost everything in my car is not as it first appears. Surfaces that appear 90 degrees apart are actually slightly off, and not by accident. Many surfaces have a subtle curve or fillet to them as well. I think that overall the production of these parts will favor more standard 3D printing techniques.

 

Okay so the first part is in my hands and installed. It's cool to think that I now have the only 348 with a clear center vent (Ferrari Tailor-Made eat your heart out!). In all seriousness the part came out great. I was too hasty and sloppy with my post processing and I kind of messed up the surface finish on the part though. This is easily remedied by me being less like a kid at Christmas and taking my time to follow the directions in the future. A link to the video follows:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-NK8mrs0ak&feature=youtu.be

The first part of the video is the unprocessed part straight off the printer. In the picture and video you can see the thin layer lines, but in real life they are not that visible and completely smooth. Regardless, with a light sand/tumble the lines will completely disappear and the part will look molded. The vendor only did a basic post print wash to get the extra goo off of it in this case. The second part of the video shows the part installed in the OEM center vent. It fits and feels factory, all the way down to the finger grooves (I did radius the tops of the grooves more to match the OEM part, but unfortunately it was after I sent the model for printing). This part was printed in clear at only half of the best possible quality with this machine. I will print the real parts in black at full quality. Overall this whole process is going to work. In the meantime I decided to model up something else this weekend that I need because mine is all gouged up. Can you guess what it is from the pic? The next step for me is to continue modeling these parts on my computer while I figure out how to set up an LLC (Two business owner friends advised me that LLC is the way to go) and then start selling parts. I plan to eventually do basically the entire 348 interior (and, by extension, the 355) as well as one-offs and super rare stuff for people that broke their original or want a spare (broke your F50 part? Contact me and we can fix the problem). I'll have more updates when I have more progress. I do have a day job so this is going somewhat slower than I want it to but I will press on as small business ownership is one of my dreams, second to Ferrari ownership of course
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Setting up an LLC is super-easy.

Incorporate Or Form an LLC Online, Incorporation Filing Services, LLC, Trademark & Copyrights | MyCorporation®

 

For the LLC for a previous venture with some other guys, we went through one of the online LLC places like 'Incoporate.com. They charged a fortune. When I did an LLC for my current company I downloaded the paperwork from the state and did submittion by myself. It was very easy and saved a bunch of money.

 

This is very interesting. Great job !

 

Fascinating stuff

Id be interested to see if you ca make the outer body of the vent as the little grips that hold the fin in place break :-(

 

I got some pics back from the vendor on the first vent print in black. The pics aren't great, but the part looks really good from the two snaps of the back I got. I should receive it in the next few days at which time I can post better pics. I took a big risk by printing it in low quality and with no support structure (I wanted to test how sensitive these prints are to settings). I'm working on modeling up the vent surround/flow open and close thumb wheel now. I may also print the throttle pedal surround I modeled up last weekend.
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Those parts look great.

Is there a possibility you could print the Black gear/ white plastic clutch assembly from the seat potentiometer but make it one solid piece. This would be a great permanent solution to the seat pot failures in 355 spiders. I just glued mine but would prefer a solid piece to prevent future failure. Definitely a marketable piece that is not available.
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Hey LmnsBlu355,
That is definitely a piece that could be printed. If it was one piece it would lack the "clutching" action you speak of though, right?

 

That is correct. All of the fixes eliminate the clutch and make it solid anyway. The clutch is only necessary if you don't set the proper resistance at the extreme forward position when you install it. A solid one piece replacement with the Pot set to 4.4k ohm at the most forward position would be a permanent fix. And the original parts are NLA and the replacement pot from Ricambi is $375.

 

I'm just about finished modeling the thumb wheel that controls flow for the 2 center vents (few fillets left to add). It had a surprising amount of complexity to model for such a small part. Next up is the vent surround. My first vent print should arrive Tuesday afternoon. I'll post better pics of that then. In other news I think I'm going to meet with a lawyer this week about setting up an S-Corp. In addition to this little venture of Ferrari parts, I plan on doing engineering consulting, and that may include manufacturing equipment that companies use in their factories. I spoke with a business owner in a similar field and he said that the LLC won't provide enough personal liability protection for that sort of consulting. He said in that scenario the S-Corp makes more sense. Does anybody have thoughts?
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Hey LmnsBlu355,

Do you know the part number of this assembly? I'd like to look it up in the exploded diagrams for the parts catalog on Ricambi's website to see how the whole seat assembly works.

 

I may have gotten a bit of a freebie just now. My power windows aren't working (yet again), so I went to pull the switches out of the door to figure out what's wrong this time. In doing so, I was reminded that the clip on the back of my bezel is broken and I had carefully set it in the door so it wouldn't fall back out. It jogged my memory about some files I had in my extra hard drive. Back in May (the first time I had window problems) I had carefully measured and solid modeled the bezel in anticipation of CNCing one out of aluminum, but never got around to it. I just found that file in my hard drive, along with a solid model file for the door lock knobs from back in July-ish when I was going to turn a set of those out of titanium. I got busy shortly after and totally forgot about the work I had put into them. The good news is that the files are already finished, and now that I'm doing this whole 3D printing thing, I'm gonna go ahead and have a few of each printed to see how they turn out. If they work, I'll probably throw the extras up on the for sale section. Pretty excited I found that stuff just now
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I'm sure there are others more knowledgeable than me so please correct me if I'm wrong BUT an LLC and S-Corp provide the same type of liability protection. The only difference is some IRS related stuff?

 

Part number for the potentiometer is 64978300. The part needed is internal and does not have its own part number.

 

Nice work R&D! I setup a multi-million dollar prototyping capability for the Navy up in DC a couple years ago (CAD & CAM packages, 6 3D printers with associated post processing equipment, FARO CMM w/ Laser Scanner, Wire EDM, WaterJet, 3 CNC Mills, 2 CNC Lathes, Welders, etc.) and thought about doing something like this with my new found knowledge (back then) but didn't have any Ferrari parts to work with. The technology has certainly gotten better over the past couple years also. The machines I worked with had similar tolerances to the ones you're working with and many different material options as well as colors.

There are actually touchless processes you can follow to actually make a 3D printed part look more like an injection molded piece (smooths out the layering) and you have the option of it having a glossy or matte/satin finish too by adjusting the process. The equipment we had worked well at concealing the layers.

If you want to know more about that, send me a PM. Might give the parts an even more authentic look/feel.

 

Great job ...

 

Okay so as an aside to an earlier comment, I have a busted window switch bezel and realized I had already modeled it earlier in 2015. I just went ahead and added a few fillets to the "clip" parts of it. I want to send this out to print tomorrow. Basically every dimension is bone stock (measured with the calipers) with the exception of those extra fillets on the clips. I plan on printing a few of these at once since they're small and I think my guy will give me a little discount to do multiples in one batch. Does anybody have a wish list of mods for this before I print them? I want to send the files out for printing tomorrow evening, so let me know before then. I'll probably only make 3 or 4 to start since it isn't cheap to print and I don't know how many people need these at the moment.

On another note my vent print arrives tomorrow according to the post tracker. Super excited to see the quality up close and try fitting in the OEM vent surround... I'll post pics/vids when that happens.
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