My attempt at 3D printing racks (2 Viewers)

First, that rack is awesome!


I'm curious to know the electric use (and cost) of running the machine. Can you look up the nameplate rating(s) of the machine in watts?

I'm guessing the motor load shouldn't use that many watts, but if there's a heating element for the plastic that would probably use the most watts.

For example, let's say the average power draw for the 13 hours is around 250 Watts for the entire time, then the cost of electricity used will be around $0.50 [assuming $0.15 per kilowatt-hour (KWh), which may be a little high for some areas.] 0.25 kw x 13 hours x $0.15 = $0.49.
I haven't put a meter on it, but I found this discussion about my printer, the Ender 3:
https://3dprinting.stackexchange.com/questions/8616/creality-ender-3-printer-power-consumption
 
I haven't put a meter on it, but I found this discussion about my printer, the Ender 3:
https://3dprinting.stackexchange.com/questions/8616/creality-ender-3-printer-power-consumption
Cool. Thanks. Found some key info below. It's a fairly low power usage. If 4 hours uses 0.5 kWh, that's only 7 cents of electricity total over those 4 hours.
  • The Ender 3 has a 360W power supply. This is the maximum power the printer can use. It will use the most power during initial warm up, which is a relatively short amount of time. Then the average power consumption will drop considerably once at temperature.
  • I'm currently measuring the power usage of my Ender 3. It used about 0.5 kWh for 4 hours of printing. With 2 heat ups (about 280 W each). So approximately 120 W average
 
I made some adjustments to the model last night, and I'm printing another test today, this time at a finer resolution. Estimated print time is 18 hours on this one. I had the timelapses turned off, so I made sure to turn them on for this print. If it works out I'll post the video too. Here's the current progress.

status1.JPG
 
I would love to get four racks that hold 5xstarting stacks of 29 chips.
I sort of did this, I wanted 25 chips per slot so combined my technology. Happy to share whatever format files people might want
C281F11D-F468-4B5A-81F6-441B1A49EB11.jpeg

the worry I had with printing like @oneeyeddollar is the ribs from the layers wearing on the clay Chips because it’s very small abrasive layers. The ability to have fancy end plates was a nice plus though. I also have the laser so it’s easy for me to cheat like that :p
 
Group buy incoming?????? Can we send you specs and you print them!??? How are the tolerances?

Is it possible to 3D print clear plastic? I like seeing my full chippy.
 
Probably a market for 50mm chip racks.
I had been very disappointed by BCC's 'so called' 50mm racks sent along with these chips.
Bottom line was that they just did not fit the chips by the barrel and were so shitty they broke if you sneezed on them.
I went into some crazy research and found a chip accessory site in vegas that actually communicated with me saying they had something (perhaps), and I dropped the ball being on the end of my online presense (sorry, I had lots of distractions at the time). So sorry I did not folow up.; all that was just on the verge of one email.
My best bet at this point is hiring a good woodworker for some wood racks --but this 3d printing looks very awesome :tup:
 
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Group buy incoming?????? Can we send you specs and you print them!??? How are the tolerances?

Is it possible to 3D print clear plastic? I like seeing my full chippy.
They make clear PLA filament, but I haven't tried it. The results I've seen online looked pretty lame. It's translucent at best, and you can see some of the internal fill and joints. It's nothing like the clear acrylic racks unfortunately. Resin printers are better for clear prints.

I don't plan on doing any big group buys because the print takes so long. I'd be running my printer 24/7 making racks, and I have lots of other things I want to print. Also it doesn't make sense to have me printing things and shipping them all over when people might have their own printer or a local friend with a printer. There are also commercial services that will print things for you. I've given it some thought, and I think this is what I will do:

- I'll make another thread and post the STL files for different racks as I make them. Anybody can download and use them. If you use the models and like them, I'd be glad to accept a donation of a buck or whatever via PayPal and I'll put it in my filament fund.

- I'll keep this thread going for general discussion, requests for custom rack designs, etc. The other thread will just be for sharing models to keep it uncluttered.

- If people want me to make small batches of racks or other stuff like the Catan borders, I'm happy to take small orders like that.

Thanks for all the interest! I look forward to making more models. :tup:
 
yea my 3d printer is pretty much full time making 18xx tile organizers for several months now... not great for getting personal projects done lol
 
They make clear PLA filament, but I haven't tried it. The results I've seen online looked pretty lame. It's translucent at best, and you can see some of the internal fill and joints. It's nothing like the clear acrylic racks unfortunately. Resin printers are better for clear prints.

I don't plan on doing any big group buys because the print takes so long. I'd be running my printer 24/7 making racks, and I have lots of other things I want to print. Also it doesn't make sense to have me printing things and shipping them all over when people might have their own printer or a local friend with a printer. There are also commercial services that will print things for you. I've given it some thought, and I think this is what I will do:

- I'll make another thread and post the STL files for different racks as I make them. Anybody can download and use them. If you use the models and like them, I'd be glad to accept a donation of a buck or whatever via PayPal and I'll put it in my filament fund.

- I'll keep this thread going for general discussion, requests for custom rack designs, etc. The other thread will just be for sharing models to keep it uncluttered.

- If people want me to make small batches of racks or other stuff like the Catan borders, I'm happy to take small orders like that.

Thanks for all the interest! I look forward to making more models. :tup:
Just curious, what would a 3D printer cost that can make things of like this? My son has a smaller one that I doubt could print larger things. He mainly makes small figurines with it. He made me a dealer button once. Just curious what the cost is to get into something like this.
 
Just curious, what would a 3D printer cost that can make things of like this? My son has a smaller one that I doubt could print larger things. He mainly makes small figurines with it. He made me a dealer button once. Just curious what the cost is to get into something like this.
My printer is an Ender 3 which is a very popular entry level printer that has a good build plate size. It's often on sale for $170-180, but you'll want to spend another $30 or so upgrading some of the parts. It's a good budget printer, but it takes regular maintenance and troubleshooting. I recently had some problems with underextrusion, but I fixed it and it's printing great now. More expensive printers have more features and are more plug and play. The support community for the Ender 3 is very helpful though.
 
Well, that took a long time! My latest print took almost 24 hours. :confused It looks really nice though! I'll take some more pictures, but here's a timelapse video for those who are interested:


This file is almost ready to share. I have 2 things left that I want to change. This version I made the curves for the chips a little shallower, increasing their radius. On the first draft the chips didn't quite touch the bottom and were mostly help up by the two edges. Now they rest on the bottom of the curve. I have to adjust the supports underneath on my next print. The bottom is still too messy.
 
I made two main changes to this version of the model: I rounded the edges some more, and I changed the radius of the curves to match the chips better (exactly 39mm was too tight). Then I printed it at a much better quality. Here are a few more shots:

At the left side of the chip you can see a tiny gap between the chip and the tray now. Before it didn't quite touch at the bottom of the curve.

IMG_20191219_085919333.jpg


Too rough on the bottom. I need to decrease the support angle for my print to clean that up.

IMG_20191219_085950040.jpg


Closeup of the top. It's pretty smooth at this print quality.

IMG_20191219_090009169.jpg
 
Forgot to add: the Paulson rack weighs 130g, the rough prototype weighed 84g, and this print went up to 96g. It's very stout! I think it would hold up very well under normal use.
 
I *think* I have the model finished to my satisfaction now. I'm printing another test to check the changes that I made last night. It's interesting what a difference a change of less than a mm can make sometimes. I found that some larger diameter chips were still hitting the upper sides of the curves and not sitting at the bottom like they do in the Paulson rack. I checked some chips with the caliper and found that my Samurai Palace chips for example are almost 39.7mm in diameter. I bumped the radius of the curves in the rack to 39.8mm to see how that fits. If this print turns out well, I'll post up the STL file tomorrow. :tup:
 
OK, I started a new thread to share the files for each model I create, and I posted the model for the Paulson rack copy over there. Please keep discussion in this thread though, and I'll only use the other one for posting files to keep it clean.

My latest tweaks included increasing the diameter of the curved rows to 39.8mm and adding an imprint of the width of the rows (66.7) on the underside of the rack. That will make it easier to identify different rack sizes. I tried barrels of Paulsons and the wider BCC Samurais in the rack, and they both fit great and just like the Paulson rack.

IMG_20191221_110329679.jpg


Here's the link to the post with the files:
https://www.pokerchipforum.com/threads/oeds-models-for-3d-printing-poker-stuff.50673/#post-955038
 
Ok, I'm gradually getting better at this modeling software... I noticed another mistake in my model, fixed it, and uploaded the corrected files again in the other thread. I should go to bed next time instead of staying up late modeling.

I made my first variation of the Paulson rack and I'm running a test print now. If all is well, I'll upload those files next.

Tagging the people that PMed me about sharing the STL files to make sure they've seen these updates: @arch3r @EasyE
 

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