3D printed cart....new paths ?

[KanedaFr]

Hi,

Since the 3D printing industry evolves every month, does someone know if it's now interesting to print cartdrige/shell ?
Are we still talking about easy to break 3D printed cart ? I read recently about plastic-w-carbon and resin, so I expected the 3D printed objects are now more and more difficult to break, no ?
if yes, what about the cost ? did it finally drop down ?

note: i'm not talking about Genny cart of course, but for others sys which haven't the chance to be massively china-cloned

[TmEE co.(TM)]

For small scale stuff it does make sense to 3D print things. Mechanically they can be good but you got to design things appropriately. If you need hundreds of cartridges then 3D printing is gonna be on the verge of not cheap plus it also takes a long time to make those carts. For thousands you can definitely forget 3D printing.

[cero]

Resin printers produce high quality, and when properly handled the product isn't easy to break. Cost for a printer is a couple hundred.

If you need bigger runs, hire a professional 3d printer company like shapeways with your files.

[Boyfinn]

My FDM printer prints ABS plastic just fine, which is the same plastic used to make most cartridges.
I havent yet seen any weaknesses by delamination, and i reckon the parts can be stronger than some injection molded ones lenghtwise.
Also, Printing artifacts and layer lines are easy to remove from ABS with acetone.
I also have printed some nylon, which is a little bit harder to get right. But a test M10 bolt&nut i made from nylon proved to bee too tought to break by hand so theres that.
I could test print a MD cart tomorrow with black ABS if you wish?

[KanedaFr]

Which software would be the more useful to "draw" cartdrige, and compatible with 3D printing ?
I saw db use tinkercad... Is it basic enough ?
also I would like to avoid the mm vs inch problem

[Boyfinn]

For most people, tinkercad is enough. For more flexible features Autodesk's "Fusion" is free for people that generate less than 100k of yearly revenue from their product. However if you have money to burn, the best solution would "Solidworks" by Dassault systèmes.

There is also Blender, which is free, and you can get a few CAD-tools for it.
I recommend that you take a look at Fusion, and if you're interested in more organic/artistic 3d designs, then take a look at blender.

Basically, Any software that can export the model in: STL, OBJ, FBX is compatible with most slicers and toolpath generators.

If you need help with any 3D modelling/CAD-CAM software then feel free to contact me.

[Hik]

I did some experiments with this before, I used sketchup to make parts of carts which I then glued together
Its easy to do a lot better than that since the printer I used was a pretty low end model and sketchup is probably the worst 3d program one can use to make the models with. So since I was able to do it, anyone with a decent printer should be able to.
I still have the stl's if anyone's interested. I measured out all the dimensions of the carts and know they fitted to bought carts.



Here are the details I measured;
Length : 10,8 cm
Height : 6,9 cm
Width : 1,6 cm (Front : 1 cm , Back : 0,6)
From side to label indent : 1,6 cm
Bottom corner outside indent side : 4 mm & Back face : 5 mm
From side to cylinder indent : 1,3 cm
Cylinder indent length : 8,2 cm
Cylinder indent height : 1 cm (Depth may be 3 mm or 4 mm)
From corner indent to screw hole : 9 mm
From screw hole to screw hole : 6,3 cm
From bottom to screw hole : 3,1 cm
Between screw holes and info : 3 mm
Between bottom and info : 3 mm
Between corner side and info : 7 mm
Between info and sega/made-in : 2mm
Between sega/made-in and cylinder indent : 2mm
Screwhole radius : 7 mm
Thickness of shell : 2 mm
Interlock shell seam : 1 mm
Cartridge separator : 1 mm
From bottom to cartridge separator : 9 mm
Inner screw holder : 6 mm (2 mm thick screw)
Outer screw holder : 9 mm (on the back part)
From cartridge separator to first small protrusion : 1,4 cm
Between small protrusions : 2,4 cm
Between the side and top protrusion : 2,8 cm
Between top protrusions : 4,9 cm
Back end cart slot 4 mm the first 5 mm and then the rest is 5 mm
Front end :2 mm gap (1 mm deep) then 8 mm for 9 mm and 5 mm for the rest
Pcb height : 6 cm
Pcb length : 8,4 cm
Pcb width : 1 mm
Between pcb side and hole : 4 mm
Between pcb top and hole : 2,4 cm

http://www.sega-16.com/forum/showthread ... -resources

For the curved front part it would be a good idea to use scaffolding, but it should be made to come off easy.

[Stef]

I don't have any 3D printer but thanks a lot for sharing your model
I hope that will help people to build their own MD cart !