Wednesday, July 4, 2012

Fabricating Pilot Truck Wheels

The 3D printer was fired up again to build a set of pilot truck wheels.  Two sets were fabricated on a common raft as shown above.  Printing time was 3hrs 1 minute.  They came out good with no lifting or deformation of the wheel flanges.  The printer had not been in use for a couple of months and there was little effort required to set up the new print.  The platform was cleaned to remove dust that had settled on it and the degree of level for the extruder movement around the platform was checked.  It took less than five minutes to check the printer before the printing was started.  No problems occurred during the print.  The wheels were black ABS while the raft is green ABS.
After printing the wheels were removed from the green raft leaving the usual residue of strips on the back.  Initially strips spanning the distance across the wheel were removed with the model knife shown above.  The opening for the axle was cleared with the knife also.  The remaining green strips were tightly adhered to the wheel. 
The green strips on the flat portions of the wheel around the rim and hub were removed using the small sanding wheel with the Dremel tool.  After that the remaining green support material in the concave portion of the wheel were left as they could not be reached by the sanding wheel.
 The concave portions were cleared of green support material using a small round Dremel cutter tool shown above.  At this point the back of the wheels were free of all support material residue.  The grinding and sanding process resulted in a grey shade due to residue dust.
The front of the wheels are as printed while the backs (grey shaded) required removal of green support material residue using a knife and Dremel sanding and small cutting tools.  The wheels are now ready to use. 

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