Does anyone have a 3D printer on their boat?

[Lasivian]

Originally Posted by NPCampbell

I imagine PLA has a lifetime of days in a hot marine environment. ABS and PET probably do pretty well.

ASA (Acrylonitirle Styrene Acrylate) would probably be my choice. It's highly UV resistant.

[Boatwithnoname]

Originally Posted by Lasivian

I'm curious if anyone has managed to adapt one to run solely on 12v power.

Just plug your printers 12v systems directly into the 12v supply. Done.

Originally Posted by Lasivian

I can make any plastic part you can think of. I have also made some plastic parts that temporarily substituted for metal ones. I've been in 3D printing and design for 10 years.

• No you cannot make anything with 3D printer, not even close.
• Additive manufactured parts are weak. They are not stronger than traditional equivalents.
• Solid 3D CAD skills and software are essential to create parts. (Which means you need a computer and so you already have AC supplied.)

[Lasivian]

Originally Posted by Boatwithnoname

Just plug your printers 12v systems directly into the 12v supply. Done.

• No you cannot make anything with 3D printer, not even close.
• Additive manufactured parts are weak. They are not stronger than traditional equivalents.
• Solid 3D CAD skills and software are essential to create parts. (Which means you need a computer and so you already have AC supplied.)

#1 You underestimate my design ability. I have run into very little that could not be designed and printed. Now "direct reproduction" is often not possible, but also often not desirable. It's better in engineering to start a design from the point of view of "solving a problem", not cloning a part.
#2 It depends a great deal on how you print it. And it also depends on what quality of traditional part we're talking about, what material you're printing with, and how you design it to handle the intended load. A part designed and printed properly is far stronger than you think. Of course if it's printed badly the layers don't adhere properly and it's weaker. Like most things skill and knowledge makes a massive difference. Also as i've mentioned before a part can be designed, printed in plastic, then taken to someone with a basic foundry and turned into an aluminum part.
#3 You do need a computer for design, and i'm actually working on putting together a computer I can fully run off a DC source, heh. The internals of a computer don't need AC at all, the power supply is only there to convert AC into DC.

[Linwood4]

Just posting for future reference as I'm a bit late to the party. Just wanted to show my 3d printed batten car slide inserts. They are obsolete...and no the ronstan 25 clips don't fit. These are the prototype in PLA the next set will be nylon. 30 min print time...I did these at home but now I'm looking into a smaller unit to take on the boat.

[hafa]

I thought I'd resurrect this thread to make a few comments. Delta printers are a bit smaller than their cartesian equivalents and I'd bet that they can withstand a bit more bouncing, as the bed is stationary and the "leveling" is virtual.

Modern 3d modeling and processing software, like Blender, Meshmixer and Cura are absurdly easy to use. The learning curve is quite low. PLA seems to hold up just fine here in the tropics; I've printed replacement battery covers and other small non-structural bits for those that have broken on gadgets that live on deck and they're still in one piece. If they fall apart, it's 20 minutes to make a new one...

A tuperware container with a 3d printed carriage and feeder keeps PLA filament in fine shape. Just toss a few desiccant packs into the container; that keeps the humidity at bay. Exchange them once a week or so for a second set that you heat up to chase out the moisture.

In terms of voltage, I'd run it off an inverter. Too much work for too little return to run it off 12V direct; I'm a lazy ba**ard...

[ProjectManaia]

Well, have read this fred a while back and forgot about it....
Now we do have a 3D printer on board (actually printing PET from bottles we find on every beach sadly)
Anyways, already printed plumbing pieces, stancion tops and many other pieces that were needed on the boat, so until now VERY happy with the performance. Not working in a roll, but on anchor or in the Marina no issue.
Also the Ender 3 (Model we got) runs on 24V which is perfect for the boat, as it also runs on 24v

[Linwood4]

Originally Posted by ProjectManaia

Well, have read this fred a while back and forgot about it....
Now we do have a 3D printer on board (actually printing PET from bottles we find on every beach sadly)
Anyways, already printed plumbing pieces, stancion tops and many other pieces that were needed on the boat, so until now VERY happy with the performance. Not working in a roll, but on anchor or in the Marina no issue.
Also the Ender 3 (Model we got) runs on 24V which is perfect for the boat, as it also runs on 24v

How are you recycling the PET and making filament? do you have it in a box to control temp and humidity?

[ProjectManaia]

Originally Posted by Linwood4

How are you recycling the PET and making filament? do you have it in a box to control temp and humidity?

The bottles get cut down into stripes and melted into filament. That again can then be converted into anything :-)
As we don't store it, we can just use it right away...

[JebLostInSpace]

I have a few thoughts from reading this thread. They're listed below in the order they occurred to me:

1) I worked in GE's additive shop where they make the fuel injector parts for jet engines. It's pretty cool. The machines to additively manufacture metal cost millions of dollars and are about as big as my boat. At least the ones they were using ~5 years ago were that big. Maybe they've gotten better, but regardless, you're not going to be printing in metal on your boat any time soon.

2) Lots of people get really excited about the flexibility of 3D printing. And it's true, you can print just about anything that fits in the print envelope, and that's pretty fun. However, most people print stuff that could be made drastically better and cheaper with traditional manufacturing methods. If you're not printing stuff with complex internal geometries, you are probably making stuff less efficiently than you could be with traditional methods.

3) If you're not in the manufacturing game, you probably don't care that printing is less efficient. If you only need to print 1 or 2 or 10 of something, it's not worth it to build an injection mold and get a shop to make a million of them.

4) Particularly on a boat, you very often need one of something, and often that something is a pain in the ass to get from a manufacturer, so maybe a printer would come in super handy.

5) Designing and printing both take longer than a lot of people realize. If you're new to it, you're probably going to spend a week trying to get something simple like a stanchion cap printed. If you're good at it, it might take a day.

6) Having the whole printer move as the boat rocks would be catastrophic for the high-precision parts I'm used to working with. But for most parts people have mentioned on this thread a millimeter variance is not a huge deal. The bigger issue is if that motion would cause the print to fail entirely. On parts with significant overhangs that might be fairly likely. On the simple stanchion cap example, you're probably fine.

7) Fire on a boat is terrifying and 3D printers do get hot. I wouldn't want to let a print run while I was not on board. Since prints take a long time, that might be a pain in the ass to deal with for some people.

8) I haven't worked with hobby sized printers much. But I wonder about the total power consumption. We can talk about whether it's worthwhile to wire one up to run straight off DC, but you're still going to have to provide the juice to run it. No big deal in a marina, but presumably you want to use this thing at anchor as well. Like I said, I'm not very familiar with the power consumption of small printers, but I would almost certainly need a good deal more solar to run a several-hours long print without the generator.

9) 3D printers are just plain fun, even if they're inefficient in many ways. Reading this thread has me thinking I should see how cheap the small ones have gotten.

10) I'm wondering also about the different materials that you can print with now. When I worked in the additive lab we had some plastic printers that made pretty pliable plastic parts. I wonder if you could print impellers? I'm tired of paying through the nose for those suckers! (This thought brought to you by a frustrating trip to West Marine) Or what about gaskets? Those would be really fast to print, they'd only be a few layers tall.

11) Overall, I can't actually think of very many useful boat things I would print if I had a printer. Sure, clips and little plastic covers and crap that break could be replaced. And maybe newer printers could do a bit more. But really, I don't go through all that many plastic parts in general.

[Djarid]

A bit more thread necromancy but it makes sense to keep this discussion going


I have a Prusa Mk3s that I intend to take with me when I move onboard (I think I can store it efficiently by disassembling the uprights). I will definitely be running it DC-DC but I have 48v onboard so dropping it to 24 will be simple.


Just my views on a few of the previous comments.


FDM (Fused Deposition Modelling) will never be as strong as injection molding given the same base material due to the limitations in layer adhesion, but this can be mitigated using design and material strategies.
This is a good site for strength analysis on 3D printed parts https://www.youtube.com/cnckitchen



Modern laptops no longer need AC power if they are capable of charging from USB-C PD. There are both USB-C trigger and supply assemblies that allow USB-C to be wired into the power infrastructure.


Our local sail loft use FDM (Ender 10's iirc) to make quite a few of the components in their retail sails using Carbon infused Nylon such as Nylon X which are UV, weather and wear resistant. You can watch their bank for printers busy printing away when you enter their shop.


Jase

[ProjectManaia]

So we are now about 2 years into having a printer on board - Ender 3V2, which also runs on 24V (like the boat) but I generally still run the inverter for it. But even a 100W panel is plenty to cover the consumption generally.
Anyhow, we originally bought it for workshops (Environmental NGO running the boat) and we found a Method to recycle PET Bottles collected on beaches (can be found in the hundreds) into Filament with very little effort.
So after beach cleanups we can show the kids that the trash is in fact useful stuff!
That being said, for the helpers we usually print keychains and stuff like that. However I also printed lots of bits and pieces for our plumbing, most recently the sliders for the shower curtain (Turns out there is about a million different sizes eventually I gave up and just printed them) - so there was plenty of occasions where I just "made" the piece I needed, also keeping a roll of flexible filmanent is good, as one can quickly print a seal (admittedly not food grade or super long lasting, but it will do the trick for some time (generally enough to find the proper spare part - wouldn't risk it on the engine though...)
So jeah, it did come in handy plenty times, by now it got its own designated spot on board and is working most days....

[gs41escapade]

As said above, there are two key issues: Vibration/shaking. I don't see a solution for that one. I have mine in a shop on a heavy duty bench. If I bump into it during a print, I get a glitch, and sometimes the layer detaches and your print becomes a wasted rat's nest. Printing speeds are generally really slow, so parts of any appreciable size take hours if not days.

The second issue is moisture. You would definitely need to get or make a heater to dry out the stock. This is a solvable problem, and generally you need that on land as well.

[geekoman]

I've had a Prusa MK3S+ on board and have been making prints as needed. The boat movement is not an issue with printing. I printed some vibration isolators but that was mostly for noise abatement when printing overnight.

I've printed the support for my Starlink dish, adapters for mounting 115 volt sockets into the original 220V on-board plates, new covers for the external water spigots that had cracked, mounts for my refrigerator's new digital controls, storage for our Dyson vacuum tubes, clips for our sun shades, mounts for two B&G triton displays at our Nav station, a mount for the external gas filter for the dingy and a cover so the sun doesn't beat the clear filter cover, mounts for our dinghy, a mount for my router box, fishing pole holders (with boat name), covers for my Yanmar motor control panels, a new bezel and cover for our helm's Quick anchor counter, mounts for water pressure sensors, a rat trap. Off the top of my head.

Most important, for our grandson I printed a T-rex skull, a Spinosaurus skull, an articulating snake (24" long!), a folding insect collection box, a 3d map of the Mt. Everest route via Nepal, a model of the Bell Huey helicopter his father manages, a 3D printed gear bearing.

All of the work done for our vessel are custom designed by me using Solidworks. The print time is easy. The design time is significant. Definitely a labor of love. But, if you have the desire, it is doable and effective.

[s/v Jedi]

Open your mind, imagine printing plugs to use for fiberglassing parts. The possibilities!

[sailingunity]

Originally Posted by Tenedos

How practical is it to use 3D printers to actually create boat parts?

I love the idea, and I can see this being the "future" in space and maybe for commercial container ships and tankers. Trying to assess the practicality on sailboats. Any experience?

A friend of mine made new scupper grates for my boa when the old ones deteriorated.

The problem was they floated when it rained. So we made a mold from the 3D printed part and casted them, worked out grate, I mean great.