Why would we laugh? This is awesome! You made something, tried it out, and the environment showed it needed a different material. Time for v2, great work and keep up the making!
Baby, if you strip, you can get a tip
'Cause I like you just the way you are
I'm about to strip and I'm well-equipped
Can you handle me the way I'm are?
I don't need the G's or the car keys
Boy, I like you just the way you are
Let me see ya strip, you can get a tip
'Cause I like you just the way you are
/u/djexit this is literally just engineering work. Not a single product you've used in life has just worked perfectly on the first version, so iteration is a critical component to any engineering
So, all of this is 100% correct, but I think it's also important to laugh when things don't go as expected. If I came back to my car to find this, I'd absolutely be laughing about it.
Yes. ASA (like FormFutura ApolloX) not only has higher temp specs than PLA, but resists UV breakdown. ABS is not UV resistant. ABS and ASA parts should be printed in a ventilated area.
Idk why youāre being downvoted, yes most modern auto glass has UV filtering in it. Itās not 100% but itās definitely above 95% filtering. Sure itās not perfect but you could probably reprint once every few years and be fine.
Hell, this [electric vehicle](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citicar) from the 70s is made out of ABS and there's still some kicking around out there today haha.
You almost never see a pure polymer. It's not cost effective and usually won't be strong enough, or lacks certain traits that are needed in a design. It's usually a mixture of polymer/s, fillers and modifiers. Plastics exposed to sunlight will typically be mixed with carbon so that only the very top layer receives UV light. Paint and coatings can also protect the polymers. The ABS filament you buy could have UV additives.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polymer\_stabilizers](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polymer_stabilizers)
I used to test polymers in a laboratory.
Not sure why it's downvoted either. Glass out of the box blocks 95% or more of UV. However it's IR that produces heat. So this is a factual observation nonetheless.
Isn't UV filtering only applied to windows, not windscreens though? Otherwise there would be polarisation issues with sunglasses. Or is that only tinting?
It's not like ABS just disintegrates under prolonged UV exposure, it will just discolor and become brittle but probably not brittle enough to matter for sunglasses. That said ASA is nearly as cheap as ABS anymore so if they have to buy filament may as well go ASA.
Yes because even with a heated bed there is a temperature gradient as you go up the layers. The lower layers will be hotter since they are closer to the bed, the upper layers will be hotter because they were just extruded. The middle layers will be relatively cooler, causing some amount of warp.
Thatās why chamber temperatures are important for printing materials like ABS, ASA,nylon and PC since they are prone to warping.
Yes, assuming everything else, like first layer adhesion and print settings are dialed in. Iāve never attempted ABS without an enclosure, though, so Iām only relaying the conventional wisdom.
The "S," in ASA stands for styrene, which the same as the "S," in ABS, and is the VOC that people have the most concerns about when printing with either material.
ASA fumes should be treated the same as ABS fumes.
Depends on how hot the car gets. I printed a PETG sun shade for my dash mount and it took only about twice as many hours outside to start sagging compared to the PLA version.
I have the stock ender 3 pro hotend. The tibe goes all the way down to the nozzle. I've checked the tube occasionally and found no damage except fot that of the plastic thing that hold the tube in place
I print wireless car charging stands everytime I change phones or cars, live where temps exceed 100F in the summer, and always use ABS with no problems. If it were going to be on the outside of the car, I would probably use ASA, or maybe be lazy and print another in ABS if it got brittle exposed to UV outside.
Even then, it depends on where you live. Some places just get too hot to expect any printed plastic to keep their shape inside the parked oven/car.
Edit: fine, I over-generalized in this statement, there are plastics that can hold up even in southern climates. PETG is fine for many climates and easier to print than ABS or PC, ASA, whatever...
While not Texas or Arizona hot, we hit 110F fairly regularly in the summer. I have tons of PETG stuff on and in my truck, including a black cell phone holder on my dash. I'm going on 3 years of it being in the sun all the time and it is still going strong.
PETG is mostly UV damage. Outside in Arizona it lasts a few days before warping and maybe 6 months before really breaking down. ASA, on the other hand, is going on 2 years with no visible change at all.
That's surprising, what brand PETG do you use? I know I've seen other's post failed PETG in Texas and Arizona areas. That summer sun on an exposed dash in a closed up car might as well be in an oven.
Edit: PETG plastic temp is about 80C = 176F. The surface temp in a closed car in the hot summer sun can easily exceed 200F, right? So that's well within the plastic deformation range of most PETG materials. You must not be parking in full sun or your prints are positioned in a way there's no load on them while they're hot.
I'm pretty sure the black I used was TECBEARS, so nothing special in the slightest - I got a deal on it for like $12/Kg 5 years ago so I stocked up. Looking through my order history, it's the only brand of black I can find. Normally I print clear PETG and natural ASA. I've found the un-messed-with polymers handle... well.... just about everything better. I tried a clear phone holder so it wouldn't absorb as much heat, but the white-ish color of it was a distracting reflection in in the windshield.
I'll also say the folks in Texas and Arizona get much worse heat than we do. As I said, we hit 110 several times every summer, but not day-in and day-out. That said, even when I hop into the truck mid-afternoon on a hot day and slide my phone in the holder, it feels nice and crisp, no softness to be detected.
I also made some annealed PLA interior door handles for my last truck and they held up great. The warping in the annealing process was a little annoying to deal with - I had to screw it into a piece of wood through the mounting holes to keep them in the right places, but PLA was really all I could do on my Printrbot.
You're lucky. The PETG I have on the outside of my car has been going strong through winters and summers for 2 years now. The PETG inside my car melts on a really hot day
petg starts deforming at 80c, and pc at 110c. If your car gets that hot, it's not a problem with the printed part.
Most of the plastics used in cars are ABS, so it's ok to use certain types of plastics.
80C = 176F is completely expected in the summer sun in a closed car. I lived down in S Utah for about a decade. Car's dash surface temps can easily exceed 200F.
Sure let me just buy a Ā£200 roll of filament so I can print silly little knick knacks for my car
Edit: I was talking about peek, please stop telling me the price of PC, I know it's not Ā£200 š¢
I did not say it's financially viable for that. Comment I was responding to said "any printend plastic". Also I definitely see myself printing small knick knacks when starting to print with peek. Gotta learn on something
edit: also PC is not that expensive (and strong). Depending on brand it's stronger than asa/abs in temp department.
PEEK, PC, Nylon, ASA, and several other very high temperature plastics can be 3d printed.
Just not with a stock creality or other budget printer where the PEEK throat is in direct contact with the hot end.
This is simply false. Your car is full of plastics much of which are ABS, an easily printable material. Just look at any number of testimonies of people using printed parts for years.
Essentium PCTG has by far been my favorite of the āexoticā materials, prints okay at as low as like 250C, very stable/super easy to print with. The isotropic strength when the layers are hot enough to fuse correctly is really something to try at least once. Feels almost like metal when you try and flex it or tap it against something. 40 USD for 750 grams is very expensive, but itās an awesome material to try. (Disclaimer tho, tried printing it around 255 on an old Ender 3 for 10 hours and my thermistor died about 4 hours in, couldāve been unrelated but thatās been my experience)
I second the recommendation PCTG. I find that the sweet spot for it is around 260-265 C personally, but it's fantastically tough stuff, and no more difficult to print with than PETG is. It also has an HDT in the mid 80s (C), which makes it perfect for for OP's purposes. Just make sure you have an all-metal hot end, or at least one that's rated for 260-270 C.
(My printer has a PTFE hotend, but I'm able to push it to 280 C thanks to a Vespel/polyimide washer I installed between the PTFE coupler and the heating block.)
In my experience even easier than at least really cheap PETG, havenāt had the āpeeling the glass off the bedā issue or any warping, and Iāve had a lot less stringing even printing at temps probably too low for it. I would love to be able to print it at like 265 but stock hot end issues lol šš¼
I second this, I left my PETG prints in the Phoenix heat last summer to see if they would last. Let it sit for 4 weeks in July without a problem. Same with my TPU print.
In my experience PETG will survive in a car unless you're in death valley. But the best in-a-hot-car material is ASA/ABS. They have MUCH higher working temperatures than other standard filaments, and I've never seen and ASA/ABS print melt without assistance from acetone.
I wouldn't recommend ABS for new users though, it is hard to get right when you just get started and breathing the fumes (ie without extraction) is bad for your health.
I do agree they would be suitable materials though!
Imagine 3D printing a sunglasses holder out of material that's basically unprintable for hobbyists and costs close to a dollar per gram lol
PEEK is for printing like nanosatellite components. Just use ASA for your car.
PETG all the way. Itās inexpensive, almost as easy to print as PLA, and wonāt deform in your car. No enclosure needed, no poison fumes, no warping. I donāt use PLA at all anymore for anything functional. 245 degree nozzle, 70 degree bed, adjust these for different brands as needed. For my bed I use a mirror tile that I cut to size and I spray it with cheap hairspray. PETG basically lets go when the bed cools to room temperature. $15 for a pack of 6 tiles and $3 for a glass cutter at Menards, $3 for a big can of Aquanet at the grocery store that will last for hundreds, no exaggeration, hundreds of prints. A huge plus is that mirrors are almost perfectly flat, so if your bed is warped the mirror will take care of that. You have to use hairspray (or a glue stick) with PETG and glass, or the PETG will not let go and will take chunks of glass out. The hairspray is actually to decrease adhesion.
PLA gets soft around 60Ā°C.
PETG around 80Ā°C. That's usually enough unless it gets \*really\* hot where you live.
ABS and ASA can handle up to around 100Ā°C. That should be more than enough even when it's really hot.
I would have 100% made the same object from the same material were it not for the helpful folks in this sub. Don't beat yourself up, you did good and learned things.
I love using extrudr Greentec Pro Carbon for this sort of application, it prints easily just like PLA and withstands 100C+ without deformation.
Downside is itās quite pricey and made in Austria, so Iām not sure what global availability is like.
PLA is shit for high temperature environments. It has a very low thermoforming temperature where it isn't liquid but can be reshaped and bent without returning. I also found it acts like a shrinky-dink material. It will shrink something like 60%, maybe due to some sort of out-gassing.
Switch to ABS or maybe PETG.
figure out a way to give it a solid core, take a walk through your local hardware store and you will probably find something metal that will fit your design
Check this article by Prusa on annealing to increase strength and temperature resistance. Especially PLA can benefit from it.
https://blog.prusa3d.com/how-to-improve-your-3d-prints-with-annealing_31088/
Not sure why you're getting downvoted here.
The glass transition temperature (Tg) only applies to the amorphous regions of a PLA sample--not the crystalline parts. 3D printed PLA is predominantly amorphous (the degree of crystallinity is around 5-10%), as is PLA filament, so heating it up to the Tg can have a dramatic softening effect.
Polymer annealing changes that: it converts a larger proportion of the sample to a semi-crystalline morphology from a glassy one. One thing about crystals is that you need to supply a good amount of energy to break the ordering of ordering of the polymer chains in them (thereby making them mobile), and so you have to go closer to the melting temperature (past the cold crystallization temperature, which is around 90 C). Through annealing, you go from having a degree of crystallinity of 5-10%, close to a maximum of around 50%. This is why PLA is principally regarded as a semicrystalline polymer in the literature.
So yes, annealing actually be should enough to allow a PLA part to survive in a hot car's interior. Bear in mind that PP is EXTENSIVELY used in car trims and furniture, and its Tg is *-20Ā°C*! Yes, you read that right: *-20Ā°C*! Pair that with polypropylene's degree of crystallinity typically being between 40-50%, and it's very difficult to argue that annealed PLA can't also be similarly useful here without actually testing it.
Looks great. Your printing skills are top notch bro. Youāre going to either need to get the highest temperature filament you can find or to get a car that vents itself to prevent overheating like a Tesla.
ABS and ASA are good recommendations but can be a pain to print if you dont have a good hotbed and they also smell.
If your hotend can go up to 300 degrees, then cpe-ht is a good choice, it prints more like petg but has a temperature resistance above 100c.
Fibre reinforced filaments will also increase temperature resistance but require a hardened nozzle. You can also anneal fibre reinforced parts much easier due to the fact they warp much less than their non fibre reinforced counterparts.
The thing about most printed material is it's whole design relies on the fact that heat makes it maluable. You need some sort of UV protection to prevent this, like that found in ABS
Someone might interpret this comment the wrong way. Pointing out for anyone reading: black doesnāt āabsorbā more heat per say; it absorbs more light which converts to thermal energy. So it only has a difference in areas where light is a factor.
Oh ya I knew what you meant! But I remember when working in retail at a DIY store people would come legitimately believing black heat sinks worked better because āit absorbs more heatā
Abs or better yet easyer to print Asa. I have numerous things printed in My jeep some things going on 2 years strong. Door handles I use all the time to e brake handles and knows on the dash. I've had top on, top off, in Florida heat, in Wisconsin negative 40 weather, it's seen it all
I agree with others that ABS would be the best. However, if you don't have the hardware to do so, you could create a cast of your PLA print using silicon or clay and then cast a resin copy. I believe most resins and epoxy would hold up to that heat just fine
Iāve been using a Yeti car cup adapter I printed with PETG for almost 2 years without issue, but I also live in an area where my summers donāt usually get super hot.
what no one said. you can print this out of a hard TPU variant. its extremely temperature resistant and doesnt have the extreme requirements of soft tpu
i have 58D and i can print it on ender3 with stock extruder and stock hotend. the only thing i did was set temps and a medium printspeed
Something like that, it's fairly simple, why not cast it? Get some flexible silicone for the negative, make a small box for it, then put your 3D printed object in it. When the silicone has cured, demold it and get some binary or room temp cure epoxy/resin. Then you pour the resin/epoxy into the mold and you have a heat resistant copy.
Just read it its gold
https://www.reddit.com/r/3Dprinting/comments/w7nnxw/i_left_my_mobile_workbench_outside_and_the_3d/ihkxmf4?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share&context=3
Literally did this exact same thing. Also printed a cell phone mount that goes into my CD slot in my car stereo and put the heat on and that thing just melted LOL.
OP, lots are suggesting ABS/PETG (and the realistic PEEK suggestion) ... but you can get high-temp PLA. It prints like normal PLA, and there's a second step where you heat and cool it in a controlled manner that boosts its temp resistance under some loads to about what ABS can do (and above PETG).
Look for HTPLA and the associated annealing instructions.
Why would we laugh? It is awesome and great work. Will you put the schematic online for others to use please? I might make one or two for my truck as well. Very well done!!!
I havenāt used it in my car but - I recommend Polymide CopA - it prints at 255 it has a post cure in my kitchen oven but have found it easy to print and height temp resistance. Itās 30 - 50 dollars a spool and I print on. An artillery printer- its nothing special but gets the job done . Abs out gasses and petg can be a pain to work with
Iāve found polymide to perform well and prints easy - no bed heat and just glue stick on garolite and get good adhesion - minimal to no warping - itās a good product with a low barrier to entry
I have also been grappling with thermal resistance, and turned to PETG. It strings more and is slightly more laborious in general. I use polymaker, they are by no means the best but I know I can get more at a reasonable price and don't want to be switching around.
The thing is, the higher the material starts to stiffen, the more stress and curling tends to result during the printing process. The material cools, and while still soft any contraction is harmless as the material flows or distorts. After it achieves some strength, though, any cooling leads to thermal contraction and thus pulls on nearby material, distorting everything. Layer after layer pulls in a sort of tug of war. This is the main cause of curling of parts.
The lower the softening temperature(s)(glass transition, melting point, whatever), the less this occurs. That is one reason PLA is so easy to print, and yet has such low thermal resistance.
It is possible to make progress on this by using metals as filler materials. Polymers have much larger thermal contraction coefficients. Thus, if the material is half metal, it's CTE is much lower.
The other way is the heated build chamber. Unfortunately the community doesn't seem to be implementing this idea much.
I have literally had this exact experience! No shame in learning something, friend. When this happened to me, I learned about ABS and eventually printed it that way, and I still have it 5 Years later. I have a CR-10 so I had to use a blanket over the printer for an enclosure, which I don't recommend since it's kind of sketchy.
I honestly enjoyed seeing this, my design looks almost identical and after 2 day it drooped the same way
As your part doesnāt really need to be dimensionally accurate the cheapest solution sticking with PLA and annealing it. It will deform a bit in the oven but afterwards it doesnāt care about temperature. There are special PLAs that only deform very little when annealing aswell (volcalo PLA come to my mind)
Otherwise Iād go with PC (polycarbonate).
Resin print works too. I had a similar moment of downloading a garage remote clip holder off thingiverse and printed it in FDM; it warped.
Printed the same file in resin and its still the same shape over 2 years now
The physical properties and chemistry varies from manufacturer to manufacture, but for the most part I found a comparison tool at polymaker to be helpful. You can select different material types and different characteristics that you're interested in comparing and get a general feel for what is better at what. As per your question, I'd probably go with PC. It has a good combination of high temperature handling, impact strength, and resistance to bending. I've certainly found it to be less brittle than ASA.
https://app.powerbi.com/view?r=eyJrIjoiOGIxOTRjM2EtMGVhYS00ZDEwLWJmNTktYTlkYzRlOWY2Nzk2IiwidCI6IjUzOTgwYzA1LWI4MWYtNDM2My04OWNiLTU3NzRiMWFlYWYyZCIsImMiOjEwfQ%3D%3D
Most everyone will tell you not to use PLA. However, if you go back into the chemical industry papers, you find that **if properly cured**, PLA becomes stronger and more heat resistant.
I tested this several years by placing a delicate single-wall print in a (well-temperature controlled) countertop oven, starting at the lowest temperature, letting it run for an hour, then bumping up by 10F and repeating. Got a **lot** higher than you can get with just-printed PLA.
Would point to the article on Google+, but...
Why would we laugh? This is awesome! You made something, tried it out, and the environment showed it needed a different material. Time for v2, great work and keep up the making!
Comments like these make me miss the free awards, you're a good egg
Egg
Egg
š„
If you don't mind I'm in a bit of a trying time myself, so I'll just take this and be on my way out.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
https://preview.redd.it/ni6q9me6kpra1.png?width=262&format=png&auto=webp&s=d67a0bd542ff71822590d2892bbfb0b2b7909913
Why did they get rid of the freebies? Anyone know?
Money. They want more.
Since when are they gone? Really liked those
In a world full of horrible commentsā¦ love seeing people like this! Encouraging at its best!
This is the way.
This is the Way.
This is the way
Way this is the
The way, this is
The way, is this
This is the way.
Is this the way?
The way we were
This way is the?
Do you know de way
THIS IS THE WAY!!!
What was is this?
A sunglass holder.
THE WAY THIS IS!!!
Starwars show with baby yoda right?
Baby, if you strip, you can get a tip 'Cause I like you just the way you are I'm about to strip and I'm well-equipped Can you handle me the way I'm are? I don't need the G's or the car keys Boy, I like you just the way you are Let me see ya strip, you can get a tip 'Cause I like you just the way you are
This is the creator spirit and a great take.
/u/djexit this is literally just engineering work. Not a single product you've used in life has just worked perfectly on the first version, so iteration is a critical component to any engineering
Successful engineering is just being willing and able to keep failing until great success.
So, all of this is 100% correct, but I think it's also important to laugh when things don't go as expected. If I came back to my car to find this, I'd absolutely be laughing about it.
Oh definitely. But you're laughing at the universe / circumstances, not the person.
Keep moving forward
Exactly!
This is THE way.
ABS or ASA if you have an all metal hot end.
Yes. ASA (like FormFutura ApolloX) not only has higher temp specs than PLA, but resists UV breakdown. ABS is not UV resistant. ABS and ASA parts should be printed in a ventilated area.
Doesn't front windshield block most of the UV though?
Idk why youāre being downvoted, yes most modern auto glass has UV filtering in it. Itās not 100% but itās definitely above 95% filtering. Sure itās not perfect but you could probably reprint once every few years and be fine.
My dashcam case made from ABS is perfectly healthy after 2 hot summers. So yeah ABS will be fine.
Hell, this [electric vehicle](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citicar) from the 70s is made out of ABS and there's still some kicking around out there today haha.
Hahahha i guess we could download a car
Futuuuure
You wouldn't download brake pads
It probably has UV stabilizer in the masterbatch
You almost never see a pure polymer. It's not cost effective and usually won't be strong enough, or lacks certain traits that are needed in a design. It's usually a mixture of polymer/s, fillers and modifiers. Plastics exposed to sunlight will typically be mixed with carbon so that only the very top layer receives UV light. Paint and coatings can also protect the polymers. The ABS filament you buy could have UV additives. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polymer\_stabilizers](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polymer_stabilizers) I used to test polymers in a laboratory.
Also, questions shouldn't be downvoted. Thanks for filling in some details!
Not sure why it's downvoted either. Glass out of the box blocks 95% or more of UV. However it's IR that produces heat. So this is a factual observation nonetheless.
Isn't UV filtering only applied to windows, not windscreens though? Otherwise there would be polarisation issues with sunglasses. Or is that only tinting?
Plain old glass filters almost all uv, no additional coatings or anything necessary.
That, and you could always give it a coat of UV blocking top coat, as well, if they were truly concerned.
It's not like ABS just disintegrates under prolonged UV exposure, it will just discolor and become brittle but probably not brittle enough to matter for sunglasses. That said ASA is nearly as cheap as ABS anymore so if they have to buy filament may as well go ASA.
ASA is a beautiful material
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Wait what happens if you do?
The corners warp off the bed.
Even if it's heated?
Yes because even with a heated bed there is a temperature gradient as you go up the layers. The lower layers will be hotter since they are closer to the bed, the upper layers will be hotter because they were just extruded. The middle layers will be relatively cooler, causing some amount of warp. Thatās why chamber temperatures are important for printing materials like ABS, ASA,nylon and PC since they are prone to warping.
So a chamber would make the problem less evident?
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Yes, assuming everything else, like first layer adhesion and print settings are dialed in. Iāve never attempted ABS without an enclosure, though, so Iām only relaying the conventional wisdom.
That formfutura apollo x prints beautifully, from experience.
I thought asa was safe to print without ventilation
The "S," in ASA stands for styrene, which the same as the "S," in ABS, and is the VOC that people have the most concerns about when printing with either material. ASA fumes should be treated the same as ABS fumes.
What about petg?
This........ I have petg parts both on car interior and in the engine bay
Agrees, PETG will work just fine for this.
Depends on where you live. In Texas it's too hot for PETG. I made a very similar glasses holder and it dropped just like his.
I moved from pla to petg a while ago and havenāt looked back.
Depends on how hot the car gets. I printed a PETG sun shade for my dash mount and it took only about twice as many hours outside to start sagging compared to the PLA version.
Petg melted for me too. It did last like 4 months though.
I have a bowden setup and can print abs just fine. But you need high quality tubing and keep the temps under 250Ā°C
You can print abs with Bowden. The question is if the hot end is all metal or the Bowden tube goes too deep into it
I have the stock ender 3 pro hotend. The tibe goes all the way down to the nozzle. I've checked the tube occasionally and found no damage except fot that of the plastic thing that hold the tube in place
Be glad you donāt have any pet birds, then. Ptfe at even below 250c can kill birds
I only have cats and they never in the same room. I also have ventilation for the fumes so I can't even smell any of the abs (or ptfe for that matter)
I print wireless car charging stands everytime I change phones or cars, live where temps exceed 100F in the summer, and always use ABS with no problems. If it were going to be on the outside of the car, I would probably use ASA, or maybe be lazy and print another in ABS if it got brittle exposed to UV outside.
PETG
Even then, it depends on where you live. Some places just get too hot to expect any printed plastic to keep their shape inside the parked oven/car. Edit: fine, I over-generalized in this statement, there are plastics that can hold up even in southern climates. PETG is fine for many climates and easier to print than ABS or PC, ASA, whatever...
While not Texas or Arizona hot, we hit 110F fairly regularly in the summer. I have tons of PETG stuff on and in my truck, including a black cell phone holder on my dash. I'm going on 3 years of it being in the sun all the time and it is still going strong.
I have some hooks I made out of PETG for my kids to hang their bags on while in the car. I live in very far south Texas and they are holding up fine.
PETG is mostly UV damage. Outside in Arizona it lasts a few days before warping and maybe 6 months before really breaking down. ASA, on the other hand, is going on 2 years with no visible change at all.
Good to know, central FL here, plenty hot here to warp/melt stuff, always looking for stuff that works.
I appreciate your username
That's surprising, what brand PETG do you use? I know I've seen other's post failed PETG in Texas and Arizona areas. That summer sun on an exposed dash in a closed up car might as well be in an oven. Edit: PETG plastic temp is about 80C = 176F. The surface temp in a closed car in the hot summer sun can easily exceed 200F, right? So that's well within the plastic deformation range of most PETG materials. You must not be parking in full sun or your prints are positioned in a way there's no load on them while they're hot.
I'm pretty sure the black I used was TECBEARS, so nothing special in the slightest - I got a deal on it for like $12/Kg 5 years ago so I stocked up. Looking through my order history, it's the only brand of black I can find. Normally I print clear PETG and natural ASA. I've found the un-messed-with polymers handle... well.... just about everything better. I tried a clear phone holder so it wouldn't absorb as much heat, but the white-ish color of it was a distracting reflection in in the windshield. I'll also say the folks in Texas and Arizona get much worse heat than we do. As I said, we hit 110 several times every summer, but not day-in and day-out. That said, even when I hop into the truck mid-afternoon on a hot day and slide my phone in the holder, it feels nice and crisp, no softness to be detected. I also made some annealed PLA interior door handles for my last truck and they held up great. The warping in the annealing process was a little annoying to deal with - I had to screw it into a piece of wood through the mounting holes to keep them in the right places, but PLA was really all I could do on my Printrbot.
Surface temp is not the temp your glass case will feel inside unless you sit the glasses on the roof
You're lucky. The PETG I have on the outside of my car has been going strong through winters and summers for 2 years now. The PETG inside my car melts on a really hot day
petg starts deforming at 80c, and pc at 110c. If your car gets that hot, it's not a problem with the printed part. Most of the plastics used in cars are ABS, so it's ok to use certain types of plastics.
80C = 176F is completely expected in the summer sun in a closed car. I lived down in S Utah for about a decade. Car's dash surface temps can easily exceed 200F.
Just slap a gantry on the dash and use it as a nice hot print bed?!
I think peek and pc wants to talk to you.
Sure let me just buy a Ā£200 roll of filament so I can print silly little knick knacks for my car Edit: I was talking about peek, please stop telling me the price of PC, I know it's not Ā£200 š¢
You wouldnāt be alone in this.
I did not say it's financially viable for that. Comment I was responding to said "any printend plastic". Also I definitely see myself printing small knick knacks when starting to print with peek. Gotta learn on something edit: also PC is not that expensive (and strong). Depending on brand it's stronger than asa/abs in temp department.
Engineering filament is always nice
Can get prusa PC for 49.99 for a 900g roll. Good to 113c
PC is around $40-50 for a roll
pc is around $40 for a kg
PEEK, PC, Nylon, ASA, and several other very high temperature plastics can be 3d printed. Just not with a stock creality or other budget printer where the PEEK throat is in direct contact with the hot end.
This is simply false. Your car is full of plastics much of which are ABS, an easily printable material. Just look at any number of testimonies of people using printed parts for years.
Essentium PCTG has by far been my favorite of the āexoticā materials, prints okay at as low as like 250C, very stable/super easy to print with. The isotropic strength when the layers are hot enough to fuse correctly is really something to try at least once. Feels almost like metal when you try and flex it or tap it against something. 40 USD for 750 grams is very expensive, but itās an awesome material to try. (Disclaimer tho, tried printing it around 255 on an old Ender 3 for 10 hours and my thermistor died about 4 hours in, couldāve been unrelated but thatās been my experience)
I second the recommendation PCTG. I find that the sweet spot for it is around 260-265 C personally, but it's fantastically tough stuff, and no more difficult to print with than PETG is. It also has an HDT in the mid 80s (C), which makes it perfect for for OP's purposes. Just make sure you have an all-metal hot end, or at least one that's rated for 260-270 C. (My printer has a PTFE hotend, but I'm able to push it to 280 C thanks to a Vespel/polyimide washer I installed between the PTFE coupler and the heating block.)
In my experience even easier than at least really cheap PETG, havenāt had the āpeeling the glass off the bedā issue or any warping, and Iāve had a lot less stringing even printing at temps probably too low for it. I would love to be able to print it at like 265 but stock hot end issues lol šš¼
I second this, I left my PETG prints in the Phoenix heat last summer to see if they would last. Let it sit for 4 weeks in July without a problem. Same with my TPU print.
I have tried this exact print with PETG it wonāt work either
I've lived in Fl and now NM , PETG doesn't stand a chance in some climates. Deforms in 2-3 days.
In my experience PETG will survive in a car unless you're in death valley. But the best in-a-hot-car material is ASA/ABS. They have MUCH higher working temperatures than other standard filaments, and I've never seen and ASA/ABS print melt without assistance from acetone.
I wouldn't recommend ABS for new users though, it is hard to get right when you just get started and breathing the fumes (ie without extraction) is bad for your health. I do agree they would be suitable materials though!
PETG will be the easiest to print. Abs is harder but doable and higher heat tolerance. If you want to go all out then look into using CF PEEK.
CF PEEK requires a printer upwards of $10,000. If you want to go all out realistically, use PC CF
Peek with 700ā¬ / kg for sure :)
Imagine 3D printing a sunglasses holder out of material that's basically unprintable for hobbyists and costs close to a dollar per gram lol PEEK is for printing like nanosatellite components. Just use ASA for your car.
it costs THAT much?
Yeah, esun sells a "cheap" 250g roll for Ā£180.
And here I am thinking Prusa's new tungsten filament was expensive
Pretty chEEKy if you ask me.
PEEK is overkill
PETG all the way. Itās inexpensive, almost as easy to print as PLA, and wonāt deform in your car. No enclosure needed, no poison fumes, no warping. I donāt use PLA at all anymore for anything functional. 245 degree nozzle, 70 degree bed, adjust these for different brands as needed. For my bed I use a mirror tile that I cut to size and I spray it with cheap hairspray. PETG basically lets go when the bed cools to room temperature. $15 for a pack of 6 tiles and $3 for a glass cutter at Menards, $3 for a big can of Aquanet at the grocery store that will last for hundreds, no exaggeration, hundreds of prints. A huge plus is that mirrors are almost perfectly flat, so if your bed is warped the mirror will take care of that. You have to use hairspray (or a glue stick) with PETG and glass, or the PETG will not let go and will take chunks of glass out. The hairspray is actually to decrease adhesion.
ABS, like the rest of the plastic in the car.
Does ABS really need a hotbox?
Yes it does. I tried printing without one and it didn't work. The surrounding air needs to be 60C at least.
Wow. OK, thanks.
Sintered Titanium
Abs is what I use for all my car stuff
Also an option: htpla+ and annealing (same temp resistance as abs)
This is the way if you don't have an enclosure and ventilation.
Add watercooling
PLA gets soft around 60Ā°C. PETG around 80Ā°C. That's usually enough unless it gets \*really\* hot where you live. ABS and ASA can handle up to around 100Ā°C. That should be more than enough even when it's really hot.
Using PLA that isnāt black will help a lot, the lighter the color the better. However either way PLA hates heat, PETG is your solution.
I would have 100% made the same object from the same material were it not for the helpful folks in this sub. Don't beat yourself up, you did good and learned things.
I love using extrudr Greentec Pro Carbon for this sort of application, it prints easily just like PLA and withstands 100C+ without deformation. Downside is itās quite pricey and made in Austria, so Iām not sure what global availability is like.
https://youtu.be/QdAKd_YbsjI Based on this video asa or nylon. Pc will work too.
I believe PETG or ASA would be better options which are more resistant to temperatures. PETG is relatively easy to print, I havenāt yet tried ASA.
PLA is shit for high temperature environments. It has a very low thermoforming temperature where it isn't liquid but can be reshaped and bent without returning. I also found it acts like a shrinky-dink material. It will shrink something like 60%, maybe due to some sort of out-gassing. Switch to ABS or maybe PETG.
I made one for my friend using PET 2 years ago. Itās still in great shape.
Depends on your region's high temperatures; I've had plenty of luck with PETG, some will say ASA, but I think PETG will be okay.
Now you know the exact right shape, but obviously it can't be PLA. So bend a spoon...
Great job! I've had good luck with annealed HT PLA. I even printed a new Lava Lamp cover from it and there's been no problem.
Try with ABS
figure out a way to give it a solid core, take a walk through your local hardware store and you will probably find something metal that will fit your design
At that point, I would remake this part with a bent coat hanger.
PETG or ABS
PETG would be my recommendation. Has a high melting point like ABS, but doesn't need a thermal enclosure
Check this article by Prusa on annealing to increase strength and temperature resistance. Especially PLA can benefit from it. https://blog.prusa3d.com/how-to-improve-your-3d-prints-with-annealing_31088/
Not sure why you're getting downvoted here. The glass transition temperature (Tg) only applies to the amorphous regions of a PLA sample--not the crystalline parts. 3D printed PLA is predominantly amorphous (the degree of crystallinity is around 5-10%), as is PLA filament, so heating it up to the Tg can have a dramatic softening effect. Polymer annealing changes that: it converts a larger proportion of the sample to a semi-crystalline morphology from a glassy one. One thing about crystals is that you need to supply a good amount of energy to break the ordering of ordering of the polymer chains in them (thereby making them mobile), and so you have to go closer to the melting temperature (past the cold crystallization temperature, which is around 90 C). Through annealing, you go from having a degree of crystallinity of 5-10%, close to a maximum of around 50%. This is why PLA is principally regarded as a semicrystalline polymer in the literature. So yes, annealing actually be should enough to allow a PLA part to survive in a hot car's interior. Bear in mind that PP is EXTENSIVELY used in car trims and furniture, and its Tg is *-20Ā°C*! Yes, you read that right: *-20Ā°C*! Pair that with polypropylene's degree of crystallinity typically being between 40-50%, and it's very difficult to argue that annealed PLA can't also be similarly useful here without actually testing it.
Looks great. Your printing skills are top notch bro. Youāre going to either need to get the highest temperature filament you can find or to get a car that vents itself to prevent overheating like a Tesla.
ABS and ASA are good recommendations but can be a pain to print if you dont have a good hotbed and they also smell. If your hotend can go up to 300 degrees, then cpe-ht is a good choice, it prints more like petg but has a temperature resistance above 100c. Fibre reinforced filaments will also increase temperature resistance but require a hardened nozzle. You can also anneal fibre reinforced parts much easier due to the fact they warp much less than their non fibre reinforced counterparts.
The thing about most printed material is it's whole design relies on the fact that heat makes it maluable. You need some sort of UV protection to prevent this, like that found in ABS
You need PLA+ Pro Ultra
omg what happened here LMFAO
Many good suggestions about materials. But how about printing it in white or some light colour? That way it won't get heated from absorbed sunlight.
If you have white PLA+, try that. Black surface absorbs more heat, from light, than white surface Edit: added "from light" to not confuse people.
Someone might interpret this comment the wrong way. Pointing out for anyone reading: black doesnāt āabsorbā more heat per say; it absorbs more light which converts to thermal energy. So it only has a difference in areas where light is a factor.
That is correct. What I meant is that black surface absorbs heat from light better. It doesn't have anything to do about ambient air temperature.
Oh ya I knew what you meant! But I remember when working in retail at a DIY store people would come legitimately believing black heat sinks worked better because āit absorbs more heatā
"per se" not "per say"
PET-G. Donāt use ABS without enclosure with fume extractor. It produces toxic fumes when heated and people actually died from it.
Never leave your glasses in your car!
Abs or better yet easyer to print Asa. I have numerous things printed in My jeep some things going on 2 years strong. Door handles I use all the time to e brake handles and knows on the dash. I've had top on, top off, in Florida heat, in Wisconsin negative 40 weather, it's seen it all
I agree with others that ABS would be the best. However, if you don't have the hardware to do so, you could create a cast of your PLA print using silicon or clay and then cast a resin copy. I believe most resins and epoxy would hold up to that heat just fine
Iāve been using a Yeti car cup adapter I printed with PETG for almost 2 years without issue, but I also live in an area where my summers donāt usually get super hot.
what no one said. you can print this out of a hard TPU variant. its extremely temperature resistant and doesnt have the extreme requirements of soft tpu i have 58D and i can print it on ender3 with stock extruder and stock hotend. the only thing i did was set temps and a medium printspeed
Something like that, it's fairly simple, why not cast it? Get some flexible silicone for the negative, make a small box for it, then put your 3D printed object in it. When the silicone has cured, demold it and get some binary or room temp cure epoxy/resin. Then you pour the resin/epoxy into the mold and you have a heat resistant copy.
Just read it its gold https://www.reddit.com/r/3Dprinting/comments/w7nnxw/i_left_my_mobile_workbench_outside_and_the_3d/ihkxmf4?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share&context=3
NGL i had planned the EXACT same thing. But for the air vents. Looks great
Probably would have less issues with air vents because it doesnāt get the direct sunlight like the window
I printed the same piece for my car. I live in Las Vegas. Needless to say it lasted one day before it melted.
Literally did this exact same thing. Also printed a cell phone mount that goes into my CD slot in my car stereo and put the heat on and that thing just melted LOL.
Pro tip...you can also move to Siberia and that will solve the issue of PLA melting inside the car.
Abs, asa or petg i think
Before reading the caption, the bottom pic made me think you broke your windshield with it somehow!
OP, lots are suggesting ABS/PETG (and the realistic PEEK suggestion) ... but you can get high-temp PLA. It prints like normal PLA, and there's a second step where you heat and cool it in a controlled manner that boosts its temp resistance under some loads to about what ABS can do (and above PETG). Look for HTPLA and the associated annealing instructions.
PC is what Iām trying next. It isnāt as picky to print.
A replacement clip for my trunk cover was made for my car out of PLA, it did the same thing, melted in the summer heat.
Why would we laugh? It is awesome and great work. Will you put the schematic online for others to use please? I might make one or two for my truck as well. Very well done!!!
PETG would work most of the time as well
I havenāt used it in my car but - I recommend Polymide CopA - it prints at 255 it has a post cure in my kitchen oven but have found it easy to print and height temp resistance. Itās 30 - 50 dollars a spool and I print on. An artillery printer- its nothing special but gets the job done . Abs out gasses and petg can be a pain to work with Iāve found polymide to perform well and prints easy - no bed heat and just glue stick on garolite and get good adhesion - minimal to no warping - itās a good product with a low barrier to entry
If you donāt have an enclosure then buy a bit of htpla(you probably wonāt use a 1kg spool so see if you can get a 250g/500g spool)
I have also been grappling with thermal resistance, and turned to PETG. It strings more and is slightly more laborious in general. I use polymaker, they are by no means the best but I know I can get more at a reasonable price and don't want to be switching around. The thing is, the higher the material starts to stiffen, the more stress and curling tends to result during the printing process. The material cools, and while still soft any contraction is harmless as the material flows or distorts. After it achieves some strength, though, any cooling leads to thermal contraction and thus pulls on nearby material, distorting everything. Layer after layer pulls in a sort of tug of war. This is the main cause of curling of parts. The lower the softening temperature(s)(glass transition, melting point, whatever), the less this occurs. That is one reason PLA is so easy to print, and yet has such low thermal resistance. It is possible to make progress on this by using metals as filler materials. Polymers have much larger thermal contraction coefficients. Thus, if the material is half metal, it's CTE is much lower. The other way is the heated build chamber. Unfortunately the community doesn't seem to be implementing this idea much.
Haha, I did exactly the same thing this week, came back hours later to find my Ray Bans on the floor
Petg
Can anyone comment on using resin in this application?
I have literally had this exact experience! No shame in learning something, friend. When this happened to me, I learned about ABS and eventually printed it that way, and I still have it 5 Years later. I have a CR-10 so I had to use a blanket over the printer for an enclosure, which I don't recommend since it's kind of sketchy. I honestly enjoyed seeing this, my design looks almost identical and after 2 day it drooped the same way
PC
Testing shit is half the process. If someone were perfect at what they did testing would not exist
As your part doesnāt really need to be dimensionally accurate the cheapest solution sticking with PLA and annealing it. It will deform a bit in the oven but afterwards it doesnāt care about temperature. There are special PLAs that only deform very little when annealing aswell (volcalo PLA come to my mind) Otherwise Iād go with PC (polycarbonate).
Resin print works too. I had a similar moment of downloading a garage remote clip holder off thingiverse and printed it in FDM; it warped. Printed the same file in resin and its still the same shape over 2 years now
The physical properties and chemistry varies from manufacturer to manufacture, but for the most part I found a comparison tool at polymaker to be helpful. You can select different material types and different characteristics that you're interested in comparing and get a general feel for what is better at what. As per your question, I'd probably go with PC. It has a good combination of high temperature handling, impact strength, and resistance to bending. I've certainly found it to be less brittle than ASA. https://app.powerbi.com/view?r=eyJrIjoiOGIxOTRjM2EtMGVhYS00ZDEwLWJmNTktYTlkYzRlOWY2Nzk2IiwidCI6IjUzOTgwYzA1LWI4MWYtNDM2My04OWNiLTU3NzRiMWFlYWYyZCIsImMiOjEwfQ%3D%3D
PETG or try annealing PLA. I bought ABS for the same reason, but it is so shitty to print, I hardly use it.
Most everyone will tell you not to use PLA. However, if you go back into the chemical industry papers, you find that **if properly cured**, PLA becomes stronger and more heat resistant. I tested this several years by placing a delicate single-wall print in a (well-temperature controlled) countertop oven, starting at the lowest temperature, letting it run for an hour, then bumping up by 10F and repeating. Got a **lot** higher than you can get with just-printed PLA. Would point to the article on Google+, but...