WaterWar.net

Last night at Bible Study I met a guy named Shane who is a GA in the Physics Department. He is in charge of putting together their new workshop and is constructing a 12" by 12" 3D printer that will be printing in ABS, Titanium, and more. He's not from Mississippi so we had a lot to talk about. He said he'd totally be interested in printing 3d parts for homemades, replacement parts, etc. If we can design it in Solid Works that would be a plus, but he can also manage using other programs. He was already familiar with SuperCannon II and some other projects. Actually, I wish Ben would have been the one to meet him, because this guy is a physics genius, or at least he seemed like it to me; so there was only so much that I could add in certain parts of the conversation. Anyway, is anyone good with solid works?

The most useful thing I can think of in the short term would be durable pistons for Linear Water Cannons, just add O rings to it and you're done.

I've got experience in Solidworks! What were you thinking about creating?

I've worked with AutoCAD some 5 years ago.

There's a LOT of parts we'd need and should build, and for me, that ranges across to Nerf as well as water warfare.

- Entirely new CPH design.
- Modular, disassembleable pull valves for all sorts of blasters.
- PC cases.
- Trigger systems.
- Modular shells.

For Nerf, I might be interested in custom barrel components built to attach to certain blasters if the tolerances can be set right. Multi-stage barrels for compatibility with various darts would be nice.

Right now what I really want to fix is my Gorgon firing when it reaches its HPL, but I'm not really sure if 3D printing a new firing valve would be the solution. I won't have the money to start building homemades until I graduate in May, but for now I think I would focus more on modding and repairs. Just gotta think of what needs to be done to my PPBs.

For starters, replacement triggers for certain CPS blasters like the 2000/2500 and 2700 would be sweet. Valves would be awesome but I'm skeptical that they'd be easy to print out.

A valve would have to be printed out in sections and assembled. Connectors here, threads there, all designed for standard seals (o-rings and rubber washers) all about. I think it can be done, just need the right design. The advantage is that such a 3D printed valve could be disassembled again in order to replace the seals, which is required eventually. (After all, we're finding that all Super Soakers go bad not due to the bladder, but the seals.)

This is just for pull valves though. I'm not sure how it'd be done for ball valves, since I'm not completely clear on how they stay sealed. They may need very tight tolerances for that.

3D printed valves would be very useful. I wish we all lived close that way we could look at my Gorgon's valve and figure out what's going on.

3D printing certainly has promise for our hobby. Unfortunately, it is probably not as useful as most of you all imagine. I think there are good possibilities for some replacement parts in stock water guns, but if you want anything that seals or has good surface roughness properties (rougher = more turbulence), then you should look at alternative manufacturing techniques. I used some 3D printed parts for a homemade Nerf gun back in 2009. I found that I could not get a seal with the parts and had to epoxy on a flat polycarbonate sheet where I wanted a seal. I've read you can sand parts to get the right finish, but this would be a fair amount of work for a water gun made largely with 3D printing. I think alternative machining methods are worth considering. CNC milling holds a lot of promise for custom nozzles (the surface would be very smooth). A few spud gunners use epoxy casting to make valves and I think those methods could potentially lead to valves with better ergonomics and good surface roughness. Likely you'll have to match the part with the right machining method.

Another point is that 3D printing is usually very expensive (same for CNC milling, etc.). The small parts I made back in 2009 cost me about $45. I imagine a 3D printed valve would cost more. A 3D printed shell would probably cost hundreds of dollars! If you make parts in bulk, the price could go down, but I'm not sure we'll have enough interest to make much of a dent. Price-wise, 3D printing is probably okay only for small parts like replacement triggers.

In contrast, epoxy casting is relatively cheap. If you could make a mold for a trigger then it would be cheaper than 3D printing. I don't know a whole lot about this, but Google could take you far if you are interested.

One last point I want to make. There are online services that do 3D printing and CNC milling. The advantage to a local shop is that the machinists, technicians, and engineers in shops are really awesome people who can offer great advice. However, in terms of just being able to make your design, you can get the same results for about the same cost (maybe cheaper, but still expensive) with an online service.

I could be wrong about these points, but this has been my experience with 3D printing and I think it's worth sharing.

Thanks for the insights.

It seems that the immediate conclusion for the future is that the tech may not advance quickly enough to meet our needs within a reasonable time frame. Although there are a few workarounds that may be possible with a little clever work.

Shells: Shells can be printed in modular components. Even if threads can't be printed (although the sample model I saw at the store had threads), holes can be, and then tapped with metal screws.

Valves: Can't say much here. There are a lot of possible ideas, but no implementations.

Pressure Chambers: We can make pop can adapters for lighter air pressure PC's. We can print CPS cases, probably in pieces like the actual thing as well.

IMO, we need a different approach to shells; one more along the lines of firearms and paintball markers. What I mean is shells that split at points that make more sense instead of halfway down the middle. I'll have to look into this more though.

Not sure what this is all about but I have bought a good 3 D Printer myself now, and I already printed some spar parts, like triggers, nozzle selectors ( as for the CPS 2500 ). The technologie rises quite fast, happy to see further things and techniques to imrpove the printing technologies^^

oh, and for now I passed my study in polymer technologies ( Bachelor ) and will join the Master in Polymer Technologies and Science with october 2014. MY master Thesis is about 3 D printing and Metal laser building may I can build up some techniques to get parts, that are strong, stable and also cheap in production....let s see

that's great GJIV always glad to get something useful, I wonder if people on here would buy printed parts for repairs/modifications?

Can you take some pics and show us your work? That's awesome Josef!