anybody here familiar with 3D printers from ALDI/office works?

I have a auto. coffee machine with a busted Gear & was wondering if it was possible to replace the gear by 3D printing it.

It is a significant piece as it compresses the ground coffee with plunger before hot water forced through.

with age/ over-use/misalignment? the teeth on the gears have broken off (as it is made of plastic )

Is it possible to make a solid gear able to withstand the above forces or is the method of 3D printing (i.e built up droplets at a time) make it structurally week, not as strong as "injection moulding"?

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Reply to
Taupe
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Don't know about the 3D printing, but the failures of the teeth may be due to bad design. It's not uncommon to see plastic parts with sharp corners where loading occurs. Such parts invariably fail by cracking. If that's the case with yours, then a properly designed gear without that problem could last well even if it's made from an intrinsically weaker material.

Sylvia.

Reply to
Sylvia Else

Or deliberate design. I've been informed that many modern sewing machines include plastic gears so they wear out and render the machine useless, thus forcing an upgrade,

Reply to
news18

I'm not familiar with them as I rarely have a reason to consider them worth purchasing*. howeverm I do follow developments in general

Probably not, but you can give it a try and see what happens. You've hit on the reason why may 3D printed items fail, the droplets don't merge before they solify. so the suggestions is to use the fastest

3D printer you can source to encourage droplet merging.
  • The offering in 3D printers are one of those periphrals that can only improve over time.
Reply to
news18

Maybe design of machine (not enough protective sensors) rather than gears, as It has made 1000's coffees without problem.

I suspect cause of problem was amount of coffee dropped in chamber was 'two loads' (because of failed attempt not ejecting unused coffee).

Therefore the plunger (moved by this gear) was under excessive pressure to compress excess coffee thus the gears sheared off.

If not by 3D printing, who else makes custom replacement gears?

Reply to
Taupe

A while back I read they managed to 3D print a jet engine (all metal), so it is possible to do quality intricate things.

The available consumer printers may not be up to this quality, just introductory device to tinker with & print chess pieces?

Reply to
Taupe

Well, all machines work until they break. How long it takes for a badly designed gear to fail depends on the loading.

Assuming you're in Australia, unless it's a particularly old machine, the manufacturer or importer is required to ensure that spare parts are available, and that includes gears.

Sylvia.

Reply to
Sylvia Else

Have a look here for replacement gears:-

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I have bought from them in the past to replace broken gears on my HP 8640B Sig Gen

Colin

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Reply to
Colin Horsley

If you a hundred thousand dolars or so. Was it just because "we can" as a model or did it fly? They have been able to orint ICE engines for40 years, but not one that run like real engine. that was the old powder and resin printers.

FWI seen, exactly.

Reply to
news18

Thanks, looks like they've got every gear under the sun, I'll ask for quote.

Reply to
Taupe

to prove it could be done.

formatting link

Reply to
Taupe

It's not new (not under warranty), the way manufacturers go through consumer products cycle my model is a 'dinosaur' to what they produce now.

The "selling point" of 3D printing was that it would enable customers to print their own broken parts.

Reply to
Taupe

The obligation to make spare parts available extends well beyond the warranty period.

Reply to
Sylvia Else

It would actually be Delrin or something akin to it.

Unlikely given the way the 3D printers *layer* the objects.

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Reply to
Xeno

Hmm, lots of answers here from people who have obviously never had anything to do with a 3D printer.

Keeping it short:

3D printers can print gears well. There are two key types for home use. One sucks up plastic "filament", melts it, then squirts it onto a build platform in a pattern that, layer-by-layer, builds up a 3D shape. Another shines light onto a vat of light-curable resin (the light can be from a laser beam directed by a mirror, a projector, or most recently an LED display panel (possibly still attached to a smart phone)). The former is what ALDI are selling, and is also better suited to printing gears and other strong objects than the latter. I think OfficeWorks have Makerbot ones, which are also of that type, but I haven't actually seen them in the branch that I go to.

Ideally use ABS instead of PLA because it is less brittle. ABS is slightly more difficult to print with and requires a slightly higher temperature to print with, so some models, I think including the ALDI ones, don't support its use.

The issue of layer separation, which I think you're getting at, is only significant where force is in the opposite plane to that where the layers were built up. That is to say horizontal with the object in the same orientation that it was in when it was printed on the

3D printer's build platform. For a gear, this would be as you would normally print such an object. So it will be as strong as a solid object, as long as the infill setting is set to "solid" or "100%", otherwise gaps are left inside the object to save time and plastic.

There are countless examples of gears on thingiverse.com, including software to automatically generate gears to particular specifications. Sorry, I don't have time to find links. I don't actually remember printing gears with mine, I have a whole bunch from old printers and toner cartridges used for DIY projects. I have printed pulleys, which worked well. Though last time I decided it was quicker to just make some small ones out of wood with a round file and hole saw.

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Reply to
Computer Nerd Kev

My understanding is that they now can "print metal" and that some of the motor companies as well as others are doing so. Mainly prototypes I believe.

First we will see them used to produce the "moulds" to shape metal as 3D printing is a relatively inefficent production method compared to some other methods.

Reply to
news18

For gear subject to any degree of loading, you need to use an ACETAL plastic of which Delrin is a type. You can also use nylon but the plastic supplied with the Aldi 3D printer is adequate only for low loadings. As to a gear made from it, it just won't cut the mustard.

If you want to print *gears*, you would be well advised to seek out the services of a professional 3D printer equipped with something more than a *toy* 3D printer - which is all the Aldi printer is. These enterprises are well established in the commercial space for all types of 3D printing but the cost will far exceed that of a manufacturer supplied spare part.

If the resultant 3D gear requires any post production machining, then you would be better advised to fully machine one from scratch from an appropriate Delrin material.

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Xeno 


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Reply to
Xeno

I suspected as much. It'd be cheaper finding a spare form manufacturer.

Reply to
Taupe

A good decision, not only wold the product produced by the toy printers sold by Aldi and others be not very likely to stand the strain, but you'd have to write a definition file to feed to the printer to make it. Do you have any idea how to do that.

Reply to
keithr0

I daresay the person writing the definition file would need a reasonable understanding of gear design and that's not a trivial aspect of engineering. The gear and tooth systems section of my Bosch Automotive handbook gives me the impression that it isn't a trivial task to design gear drive systems. Wouldn't be beyond the capabilities of a first class machinist. Years ago a friend used to make up custom chain sprockets as a business in his workshop at home - not quite as complex as some gear systems.

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Xeno

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