Brake Wheel Drawing

This brake wheel is not meant to be an accurate representation of any particular prototype wheel but as an exercise to see how well such an item will print.

I drew the wheel shown here using SketchUp (see:  www.Sketchup.com )

The wheel is about 20mm across.  This is a fairly detailed rendering for something that small that is to be printed with a printer that uses FDM,  Fused Deposition Modeling.  For more info on that type of printing see:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fused_deposition_modeling

The print below was done with an Afinia 3D printer using ABS plastic.  The print took about 19 minutes for the two.  I had it print one flat and one standing up.  The vertical print has no support material that needs to be removed.

The material surrounding the wheel in the lower print is called a raft - it supports the print and helps to hold it to the print platform.  It must be carefully removed to expose the wheel.

This photo shows the two wheels.  The one at the left was printed flat.  The material that was removed is at the top.  The vertically printed wheel printed less accurately.

As you can clearly see FDM is not really suited for making small, detail parts.  At least not using the software and hardware that I have available.

Other technologies, especially resin printing, can do extremely accurate prints.  See:  http://formlabs.com/products/our-printer

Unfortunately resin printers are quite expensive at this time.