Anyone gotten into this much?

My 3d printing experience is pretty limited and I'm not really up for a deep dive to figure out how to dial in all the parameters for a printer and whatnot, but I have a friend who's helping me create digital models of some out of production stuff that's otherwise hard to come by. So far just the Tweeter housing for the B&W matrix 803/4/5/htm speakers and the unique tubular mic clip for the Altec lipstick mics are in the works.

Any weird parts you'd like to see given new life this way? Or better yet, anyone know of a 3d printing forum with an audio niche?

I dont know much* but my only experience with such a thing was in searching for a Fender Electric XII style string guide. No one official really makes the replacement part and so the only ones are available are vintage and pricey. Found this through *i think* the offsetguitars forum, but what it seems to be is basically a 3d print house. You can upload your designs and even have them for sale, but people order direct through the site, they print and ship, and maybe kick you a small percentage. Kinda awesome and they do metal stuff as well. The part I got turned out great.

https://www.shapeways.com/product/VWYXZ ... 2&li=shops



*Aaron Neville voice

I tried to print a couple of knobs but failed pretty miserably. Any of the higher-end printers probably have the resolution to make decent parts but my cheapy monoprice one definitely can't.

Also very interested in this topic.

I have a friend who has a pretty interesting 3D printing rig built up.
Multiple extrusion types for different kinds of polymides/polymers/composites.

When you can fabricate all kinds of little things ad-hoc, you start looking at every job around the house a bit differently

WeStartToDrift wrote: Thu Sep 16, 2021 7:00 pm I tried to print a couple of knobs but failed pretty miserably. Any of the higher-end printers probably have the resolution to make decent parts but my cheapy monoprice one definitely can't.

What kinds of knobs did you go for?
I've been wanting to try Marconi style or something like the big old bakelite pultec knobs. Only challenge I was thinking about was getting the little collet with a thread inside of it...

bishopdante wrote: Fri Sep 17, 2021 12:56 am All they need to work out is how to make that fiber an electrically conductive material – copper or titanium wire would be ideal, but carbon fiber being a very good candidate, since carbon can also be copper plated, and is commonly used as a conductor or antenna array in the military aerospace field.

I had considered something similar to this! Extruding little faraday cages, rather than cutting and folding mu metals.

This is all great stuff.

Dr Tony Balls wrote: ... Found this through *i think* the offsetguitars forum, but what it seems to be is basically a 3d print house. You can upload your designs and even have them for sale, but people order direct through the site, they print and ship, and maybe kick you a small percentage. Kinda awesome and they do metal stuff as well. The part I got turned out great.

https://www.shapeways.com/product/VWYXZ ... 2&li=shops
*Aaron Neville voice

I like the idea of shapeways, seems like a cool approach, and ideal for me, as I don't want to go down the rabbit hole of setting up my own 3d printing situation. The material options are great too.

WeStartToDrift wrote: I tried to print a couple of knobs but failed pretty miserably. Any of the higher-end printers probably have the resolution to make decent parts but my cheapy monoprice one definitely can't.

Someone on GroupDIY recently posted about using a resin printer for Pultec knobs. I think they were in the EU, but it might be worth looking into.

bishopdante wrote: The markforged composite thermoplastic + continuous fiber printer is an excellent bit of thinking: https://markforged.com/3d-printers/mark-two ...

This is amazing. Will look into it more closely, but this is a great solution to what I'm sure is a common concern. That said, I'd hope there's a print to order service available too.

brownreasontolive wrote: Fri Sep 17, 2021 6:52 am

WeStartToDrift wrote: Thu Sep 16, 2021 7:00 pm I tried to print a couple of knobs but failed pretty miserably. Any of the higher-end printers probably have the resolution to make decent parts but my cheapy monoprice one definitely can't.

What kinds of knobs did you go for?
I've been wanting to try Marconi style or something like the big old bakelite pultec knobs. Only challenge I was thinking about was getting the little collet with a thread inside of it...

I tried printing a couple different ones but it is really hard to get them to look good as it is difficult to get rid of the "layers" without sanding or painting them.

thecr4ne wrote: Sat Sep 18, 2021 10:36 am This is all great stuff.

WeStartToDrift wrote: I tried to print a couple of knobs but failed pretty miserably. Any of the higher-end printers probably have the resolution to make decent parts but my cheapy monoprice one definitely can't.

Someone on GroupDIY recently posted about using a resin printer for Pultec knobs. I think they were in the EU, but it might be worth looking into.

That could be cool, resin is denser than the PLA that my machine uses so it should be better.

WeStartToDrift wrote: Sun Sep 19, 2021 6:57 pm That could be cool, resin is denser than the PLA that my machine uses so it should be better.

https://groupdiy.com/threads/pultec-sty ... st-1006671

thecr4ne wrote: Thu Sep 23, 2021 11:36 am

WeStartToDrift wrote: Sun Sep 19, 2021 6:57 pm That could be cool, resin is denser than the PLA that my machine uses so it should be better.

https://groupdiy.com/threads/pultec-sty ... st-1006671

This is cool.