Parts for French Cars 3D Printed

[The Gonz]

Hi, all. I've been 3D printing a bunch of things and some have been replacement plastic parts for specific model cars.
Hop over to Thingiverse, for instance, and search using words such as Renault, Citroen and Peugeot and you'll see a lot of free designs for printing.
After the first few weeks of owning my kit-built printer, I found much more enjoyment in designing my own solutions.
If anyone is having trouble getting bits'n'bobs, let me know and it might be something I can design if it's not already available.
If you're curious, I have a site at Cults 3D where you can see some examples of my designs.
This is not an ad, just an offer to help.

 

[matara]

Hi there,

I don't have a 3D printer, but am interested in getting one of these printed for our 205 Si.

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4285405

Do you know of any service that offers 3D printing services that will print this design?

I just bought a set of steel wheel hub caps from the UK, and noticed that the design for these are also up on this website too

Thanks

Steve

 

[The Gonz]

I've downloaded the STL and will check its size in my CAD soon.
I've done jobs like this for the cost of filament, power and postage.

 

[The Gonz]

OK, dimensions are challenging but may work on the diagonal on my printer's bed.

If this panel holds 5 buttons, they must be huge - retro styling indeed!

 

[The Gonz]

Here's my currrent 3D print project.

My i30 has a relatively useless mini glovebox in the centre of the dash board. In the past I've used it to hold a hardwired aftermarket GPS unit but eventually these give out, so I've decided to go old-school.

As for when I was using the GPS, I'm having a go at locking the rise of the lid to just 7cm and adding some extra panelling.

The top hole is a cutout for this digital voltmeter:

The bottom cutout is for the really old-school idea.

This is supported top and bottom by a couple of brackets to serve as an armature or cage for a vertical spindle, which will allow a neodymium button magnet to direct a dial toward north.

Attached to the edge of the dial is this strip of graduations:

The net effect should be this aircraft style heading indication.

Oh, and I've already designed in the 8 degrees magnetic deviation for this part of the globe.

Apologies to flatearthers for the confusion caused by this. It must be devastating.

 

[Steven King]

Watching this thread adds fuel to another of my pipe-dreams… in hope this is not an unwelcome digression:
is there an industry standard format for a pattern for sheet metal that can be given to a shop equipped to make up repair sections - and is there an app. or device that can scan, digitise and output this data from either pieces or a on a good example of a car? LIDAR, maybe?

 

[seasink]

Large industrial 3D scanners to output for a printer are $$$. There are many small ones, including at the bottom end, smartphones. There are many proprietary file formats and some open. Some of these are used in 3D CAD.

 

[The Gonz]

One of my favourite sites is McMaster-Carr, which holds a dizzying amount of design data on all sorts of hardware, most of which provides CAD files (of several industry standard types) that can be used to 3D print them.

As @seasink said, 3D scanners at the budget end consist of smartphone apps using sequential photography of a turntable based subject, which should come as no surprise is a popular thing to 3D print as well.

 

[The Gonz]

Here's a little science for the uninitiated: these two images show floating ball compasses, a design using a fluid to provide very low friction triaxial freedom to (presumably) point to magnetic north.

Spot the difference?

One has the arrow aligning with the north symbol on the dial, while the other has it aligning with the south symbol.

Which is correct?

On a conventional compass that is viewed from above, the arrow indicates magnetic north, so when you stand facing north and you look down on the ball, the arrow should be pointing away from you. So far that would suggest that either design may be correct.
However, the dial is designed to be read from the side. This means that raising the compass to eye level, you should be seeing the N, not the S. This makes the first image the correct design.

But wait, there's more!

I ordered a ball magnet to incorporate into some nostalgic custom automotive instrumentation, an excuse to fire up the CAD and 3D printer.
I got one matching the second image. The arrow pointed north just fine but so did the N, meaning I would see an S when driving north, so I hit the 'return' button, got a refund and could keep the item (gee, thanks).

Next, I ordered one matching the first image, but when it arrived its arrow pointed south, so I'm stuck with precisely the same outcome. Yep, hit 'return', get the refund, gee thanks again.

I can't get a break, can I? How can millions of these ball magnets be manufactured completely useless? Do you have one of these in the house? Are you wondering whether yours points north or south?

So as an alternative, I designed my own compass to rotate on a spindle in a fixed horizontal plane, but friction is proving a major challenge.

The answer?

I'm about to do some surgery on one of these ball compasses. If I can manage to separate the clear plastic hemispheres neatly, I may be able to get to the magnet in the float and reinsert it 180 degrees out, then refill and rejoin the hemispheres. With proper quality control in manufacturing, this really shouldn't be necessary.

Wish me luck!
_____________

OK, so I managed to pry the hemispheres apart and the fluid appears to be an extremely light machine oil. The float consists of a black plastic platform housing a rectangular magnet at its centre, all trapped in an air bubble by a glued-on painted aluminium dome.

After prying the ball apart, trying to pry the dome from the platform, I noticed the craft knife's blade had punched through instead, so I used the blade to slice away the dome from the platform, leaving a wafer-thin remnant of aluminium still glued in its track. This was easily pulled off.

The edge of the dome was somewhat deformed by the knife strokes but was reformed by pressing it onto the surface of an automotive globe of a slightly larger diameter.

The dome has been reattached at 180 degrees using high temperature silicone sealant and is setting while I consider how to refill the ball before rejoining it.

 

[Kim Luck]

Here's a little science for the uninitiated: these two images show floating ball compasses, a design using a fluid to provide very low friction triaxial freedom to (presumably) point to magnetic north.

Spot the difference?

One has the arrow aligning with the north symbol on the dial, while the other has it aligning with the south symbol.

Which is correct?

On a conventional compass that is viewed from above, the arrow indicates magnetic north, so when you stand facing north and you look down on the ball, the arrow should be pointing away from you. So far that would suggest that either design may be correct.
However, the dial is designed to be read from the side. This means that raising the compass to eye level, you should be seeing the N, not the S. This makes the first image the correct design.

But wait, there's more!

I ordered a ball magnet to incorporate into some nostalgic custom automotive instrumentation, an excuse to fire up the CAD and 3D printer.
I got one matching the second image. The arrow pointed north just fine but so did the N, meaning I would see an S when driving north, so I hit the 'return' button, got a refund and could keep the item (gee, thanks).

Next, I ordered one matching the first image, but when it arrived its arrow pointed south, so I'm stuck with precisely the same outcome. Yep, hit 'return', get the refund, gee thanks again.

I can't get a break, can I? How can millions of these ball magnets be manufactured completely useless? Do you have one of these in the house? Are you wondering whether yours points north or south?

So as an alternative, I designed my own compass to rotate on a spindle in a fixed horizontal plane, but friction is proving a major challenge.

The answer?

I'm about to do some surgery on one of these ball compasses. If I can manage to separate the clear plastic hemispheres neatly, I may be able to get to the magnet in the float and reinsert it 180 degrees out, then refill and rejoin the hemispheres. With proper quality control in manufacturing, this really shouldn't be necessary.

Wish me luck!
_____________

OK, so I managed to pry the hemispheres apart and the fluid appears to be an extremely light machine oil. The float consists of a black plastic platform housing a rectangular magnet at its centre, all trapped in an air bubble by a glued-on painted aluminium dome.

After prying the ball apart, trying to pry the dome from the platform, I noticed the craft knife's blade had punched through instead, so I used the blade to slice away the dome from the platform, leaving a wafer-thin remnant of aluminium still glued in its track. This was easily pulled off.

The edge of the dome was somewhat deformed by the knife strokes but was reformed by pressing it onto the surface of an automotive globe of a slightly larger diameter.

The dome has been reattached at 180 degrees using high temperature silicone sealant and is setting while I consider how to refill the ball before rejoining it.

Best of luck with refilling your compass fluid. There used to be specialised compass repairers who could do this and yet another mob were compass adjusters who were tasked with ensuring things like ship's compasses pointed in the right direction. Factor in that northern hemisphere compasses don't work in the southern hemisphere and vice versa and that some manufacturers have six or so different compass zones and I reckon you'd be better of displaying north on a device powered by a GPS rather than magnetism, which is expected to completely reverse the poles in the future.

 

[The Gonz]

Best of luck with refilling your compass fluid. There used to be specialised compass repairers who could do this and yet another mob were compass adjusters who were tasked with ensuring things like ship's compasses pointed in the right direction. Factor in that northern hemisphere compasses don't work in the southern hemisphere and vice versa and that some manufacturers have six or so different compass zones and I reckon you'd be better of displaying north on a device powered by a GPS rather than magnetism, which is expected to completely reverse the poles in the future.

LOL, when the magnetic field flips we'll all have bigger things on our minds than compasses.

I might be able to get away with using water. My plan is to seal the ball with the floater in it while dunked in a bucket of water.
All I need is to ensure it floats free. I've already lined up the dome taking into account the 8 degree deviation.

It's a $2 compass I ended up getting for free. The pleasure is in achieving a solution on the cheap - call it my cheap thrill!

 

[Kim Luck]

LOL, when the magnetic field flips we'll all have bigger things on our minds than compasses.

I might be able to get away with using water. My plan is to seal the ball with the floater in it while dunked in a bucket of water.
All I need is to ensure it floats free. I've already lined up the dome taking into account the 8 degree deviation.

It's a $2 compass I ended up getting for free. The pleasure is in achieving a solution on the cheap - call it my cheap thrill!

I think you'll find the reason a light oil is used is to dampen the compass oscillations.......

 

[The Gonz]

Yes, I agree, but I can live with it unless I suddenly find a can of sewing machine oil in the shed this week.

 

[The Gonz]

3D printing isn't just for replacement parts.
Here's a relatively small sample of French car models freely available:

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2752729

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4206943

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3242805

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4565467

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4721654

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4568998

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4216341

I'm partial to printing the Fuego just for a 'memoire'.

 

[GRAHAM WALLIS]

Hi there,

I don't have a 3D printer, but am interested in getting one of these printed for our 205 Si.

View attachment 134430

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4285405

Do you know of any service that offers 3D printing services that will print this design?

I just bought a set of steel wheel hub caps from the UK, and noticed that the design for these are also up on this website too

View attachment 134431

Thanks

Steve

I may have one, will check tomorrow.

 

[The Gonz]

I did download the button panel and found it was a tight squeeze for my 22cm square printer bed, achievable but with a bit of trial and error, and I do have black PLA/ABS filament. There's a whole community of 3D enthusiasts happy to cut a deal with you, but if Graham has one, there's your best option. Let's see what he finds.

 

[The Gonz]

On my i30 dashboard project, the compass ball has been rebuilt, filled with water and sealed with silicone through a hole drilled just big enough to let the water in. When the digital voltmeter arrives, I'll take final measurements and begin printing the panel.

 

[The Gonz]

@peuter, for the Peugeot 505 wiper arm cap request:
Front or rear, or are they the same?

 

[GRAHAM WALLIS]

I may have one, will check tomorrow.

Found one.