3D printed suspension parts?

[KidAgain]

What kind of abuse can these things handle, 3D printed arms, shock towers and bulkheads?

Looking at shapeways for these parts just curious on experience before I commit...

Thanks

[THEYTOOKMYTHUMB]

What kind of abuse can these things handle

Well, if they're married I'm sure they can take plenty of verbal abuse.

Bah-dump-dump...

[Incredible_Serious]

What kind of abuse can these things handle

Well, if they're married I'm sure they can take plenty of verbal abuse.

Bah-dump-dump...

Thumbs has been at the good drinkin' moonshine again....

[THEYTOOKMYTHUMB]

Meh, only cheap light beer. Easy to handle. Gave up the hard stuff 15 years ago.

[KidAgain]

Love the peanut gallery

[jwscab]

Most of these parts would only be 30-70% as strong depending on how it's made and where it is.

If you can get a real injection molded piece, I would advise to get it. If you are a really good driver with smooth lines and not much traffic they would hold up. I would not suggest printed shock towers, but properly designed parts in other places could be strong enough, especially low stress parts like a batter cup or similar

I do have to say I have been using a heavy duty printed inline bellcrank set and they have been holding up nicely

[Dadio]

I have a printed part on my Vaterra Twin Hammers , its the mount on top of the rear diff that the two top arms connect to the live rear axle , I never expected it to last long and was planning on using it as a pattern to mill one out of ally , I've bashed seven bells out of that car , massive jumps , cartwheels and all kinds of crashes and its taken it all for years , in the right place and well designed then they can work well .

[JK Racing]

I've broken a few printed front arms and rear arm mounts. Other items, I havent broken....yet. Give me time and a good track, I'll try

[Jim85IROC]

Printed parts can be very strong if they're designed properly, printed properly, and use good materials. Unfortunately, that's a lot of variables. Parts that are a visual copy of injection molded parts won't be as strong, but parts that are designed to be 3D printed can incorporate additional material in stress points to help strengthen it. Where this becomes a problem is in items that don't have the space for additional material... like A Arms. There's only so much material that you can put around the hinge pin in an A Arm, so that's going to be an inherently weak spot in that type of item. For something like a shock tower, you can thicken it in weak areas to make it stronger.

For example, this is a bulkhead for a Twin Hammers clone that I designed and printed:



That piece has held up very well, even being printed out of low strength PLA because I designed it to be very robust in the high stress areas. The only spot that's proven to be vulnerable is the very front of it where it had to be thin. That part needed to be made thicker, and even then, it's the weakest point of the design.

[KidAgain]

Thanks for the info guys, I ordered my parts from Shapeways for my other RC10DS which will be more of a shelfer then a runner, I was looking for white parts and this is my only choice but if I do run it I would like to know how well the suspension components do.

Parts should be here soon and I'll post up pictures.........................