3D - Printing - new possibilities - replacement - construction - new Water guns - data bank

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GJIV
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3D - Printing - new possibilities - replacement - construction - new Water guns - data bank

Post by GJIV » Sat Feb 27, 2016 4:19 pm

Hi my friends :)

It is funny that you start thinking about this now, while I was thinking about this about 1-2 years ago. I have read the other post, but decided to start a new one, as we should discuss this as a community projekt. I would like to build up a data-bank for member access to 3D design files for each better gun (mostly CPS as they are the best, strongest and most expensive ones).

I have 3 x 3D Printers myself, standing next to me. I also started to print out some useful replacement parts. Triggers are fine, as also some cases parts

I also think about pump-grips, pump-rods(filled with a special structure inside to have much more stability and more durability, especially with Super Soakers like the CPS 2700, 1500,1000, 1200...where people tend to break the rods).

You could also print out whole pip-systems. To be able to cope with the water pressure, assuming CPS, it is more a question about the wall-thickness of the pipe. A pipe with 10mm wall thickness should be able to stand quite all the pressure, usually occouring inside a CPS gun.

You can also print out thicker pressure chamber casings, to increase the volume of the CPS pressure chambers, using transparent PLA, PA or ABS.

Another possibility is to print out new nozzle selectors with perfect centered holes; This way you can creat totally new blasters with great nozzles, whatever you want.

Printing out new tank designs is also possible and should work quite good, as there is about zero pressure inside the tank/reservoir.

In the end you can just print out most of the gun. Only problem are the valves, checkvalves, pump-seals and the bladder/pressure chamber itself.

I am working on building up a big 3 D printing machine, size: 1000 x 1000 x 1000 mm building size.

I have access to a big 3D Scanning System. As there is some free time and the machine is not in use, I will try to 3D Scan a total Casing of a CPS 2000, outside and inside, transform this to a useable file and then let it be printed out.

Maybe with quite much effort and time, it is possible to build / recall the production of CPS guns. At least the casing and simple parts. For checkvalves and pull-valves, something else must be thought about. Should not be that big problem in the end, but I cannot say how much effort this will be.

I have everything with me in the end. We could start mass production of parts, every day you want :D There is only one problem for now:

We need 3D models of the parts you want to be printed out. I can dissamble guns and draw the parts with CAD programs. This will need time, but will work. Complex parts can be modelled and 3D scanned. This way we can build up a big data-bank for all the guns and their parts.

It is quite much work and it will take quite much time. In the end we could provide nearly all parts as replacements. This is a thought I had about 4 years ago, as I started with my study for polymer engineering-

In the meanwhile I finished my Bachelor and Master-Thesis and I am on my way to PHD. I am dealing with 3D printing and therefore I have access to such a great 3D Scanner and some strong CAD softwares. Big 3D Printers are not available for the moment, so I have to build one myself for my big applications. Not finished yet, but should be done in some days.

Who would be interested in this project ? Who would like to help ? Who of you is able to use CAD-Software, so we get 3D files of each part ? THe more people we find , the faster we can build up something big.

We would also need kind of server or someone, catching datafiles and provide them to other members within the data-bank or something like that.

I am happy to discuss this. I am happy to print things out, and also ship them to you then, In the end, it would be necessarry to order several parts from me, shipped in one package, so we save useless shipping costs. I have 3x 3D printers myself, and I have access to several more if necessarry. I have several materials, ABS, PLA, PA, PVA(for building construction, solved in water after printing was completed), POM,...no Rubber though, so CPS rubber chamber is still a problem.

ok, tell me what you think my lovely guys :) I might be back early or in some days, as I am quite busy with the PHD, just startet two weeks ago ;)

Yours, GjiV :cps3000: :cps3000: :cps3000: :cool:

TheSoaker
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Re: 3D - Printing - new possibilities - replacement - construction - new Water guns - data bank

Post by TheSoaker » Sat Feb 27, 2016 4:35 pm

LOL When you finish your 3D printer you should print a whole CPS 2000 MK-1 and put it on youtube. You would have to use LRT to power it though.
super soaker cps 2000......SUPER SOAKER CPS 2000!!!!!!!!!1!!!1!!one

SSCBen
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Re: 3D - Printing - new possibilities - replacement - construction - new Water guns - data bank

Post by SSCBen » Sat Mar 05, 2016 3:23 pm

GJIV, I'd be interested in seeing the replacement parts you've started printing.

I'm still skeptical of 3D printing's applications to this hobby. It'll be nice for some parts, but I would doubt 3D printed parts would work well for nozzles or any thing under pressure. The surface finish is far too bad to be used as a nozzle as-is. And I'm skeptical that the parts would hold up to pressure very well without making them thicker than the originals. But, I'm open minded, so I'd be happy to be proved wrong. I assume you know more about 3D printing than I do, so let me know if I'm wrong.

HBWW
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Re: 3D - Printing - new possibilities - replacement - construction - new Water guns - data bank

Post by HBWW » Sun Mar 06, 2016 12:05 am

3D printing can be used to create mockups and prototypes, as well as for creating resin cast molds. Using them directly for water wars will result in disaster as the parts are heinously weak and not always perfectly constructed. The technology has a long way to go to produce parts of sufficient quality for many hobbies. Until then, I'd look into resin casting, CNC, and injection molding depending on the use case. Getting our water blasters into a computer would be beneficial, although we need to do away with giant shell pieces in favor of modularized smaller components. Think of a paintball marker or rifle; no specific part is all that large, and manufacturing large parts like CPS shells gets expensive. (Plus, traditional half-split shells just plain suck in general, in terms of the time it takes to open up the blaster for routine maintenance or repairs.)

3D scanning should be very useful for some cases if it has enough precision, and if you can get the insides of parts.

Anyway, don't want to discourage anyone from doing what they want. Just be aware that 3D printed parts in general are extremely weak no matter how they're done on the inside. If you're doing structural analysis, definitely make sure you're accounting for realistic amounts of force/pressure that the parts will go through.

I might be able to find a way to host the files. Technically, the webhost prohibits this, so I'm not sure what route we'll take. If we can find a good solution to hosting our war footage however, we should be able to piggyback off of that for CAD files.
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SSCBen
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Re: 3D - Printing - new possibilities - replacement - construction - new Water guns - data bank

Post by SSCBen » Mon Mar 07, 2016 9:14 pm

Why would the host prohibit CAD files? They don't usually take up that much space and very rarely violate copyright or anything similar.

HBWW
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Re: 3D - Printing - new possibilities - replacement - construction - new Water guns - data bank

Post by HBWW » Tue Mar 08, 2016 4:07 pm

The host prohibits use of online storage (typically shitty vague webhost ToS so they can claim to offer "unlimited" storage), but if the file repo doesn't grow too large, no one will bat an eye.

Not sure what software to use. I'm not exactly comfortable with relying on forum attachments, but it'd be the fastest way to get going. Installing Owncloud is another option as well, but the accounts won't integrate easily.
HydroBrawl Water Warfare

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