3D Printing frag racks and frag plugs.. Is ABS reef safe?

TheReefNinja

TheReefNinja

Imagination superfreak
Hey everyone I recently built a 3D printer and I currently only have ABS plastic for it and was wondering if it is reef safe.. I dont see why it isnt. I found egg crate brackets and frag plugs for egg crate on thingiverse and will print a set to try out if ABS is safe.

Suction cup eggcrate bracket
http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:21942

Frag plugs
http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:16959
http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:230487

Here is a picture of my printer



And a few timelapse videos of it in action

Printing a Raspberry Pi case

<iframe width="420" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/TyDwh2f4syY" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Printing a octopus

<iframe width="420" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/Uo9ffWfwAus" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Printing a case for my Galaxy S3

<iframe width="420" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/g9mxltXM_2k" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
 
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it costs me about $0.045 a gram for my good ABS plus power I cant imagine the brackets weighing more than 10 grams each so maybe a buck or 2 in plastic at most. the real savings is me not having to drive at $3+ a gal to a LFS and spending buttloads of money on stuff lol

If I print it in my cheaper ABS the cost comes down to $0.027 a gram only difference is the better ABS prints just a little bit better quality as there is less moisture in it.
 
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The kit is from Ultibots it is a modified Mendel Max they now sell the kit to make the printer I had custom ordered it costs $1250 for the kit and takes about 15-20 hours to assemble and the darn thing comes in like 1000 pieces.

http://www.ultibots.com/ultimax-3d-printer-diy-kit/

I wanted to be able to control the printer while away from home as prints can and do take hours depending on the size of the part you are making. I bought a Raspberry Pi mini computer ($40)

http://www.adafruit.com/products/998?gclid=CKyr0aTV0bwCFa5DMgodwC8AwQ

Its the size of a credit card and pretty powerful for its size. I have a 2nd Pi velcrod to the back of my TV running XBMC to stream movies off my PC they have HDMI out, 2 USB ports, ethernet, plus more and are powered by a usb phone charger. It uses a SD card for a hard drive and there is a print server named Octoprint which is a web controller for the printer. The best part is the Pi has GPIO pins and I hooked a relay to the printers power supply so octoprint can turn on or kill power to the printer from the web interface, so if I go out while printing I can check on the print through a webcam thats mounted to the printer and if its done I can shut everything down. These printers heat up to over 400F for the print head and being able to shut it down remotely was a must.

All in all I have about $1500 in mine as I snake skinned all the wiring on the printer for a nice clean look, upgraded a few parts off the bat, and added the Pi for remote access.

This is also the first 3D printer setup in the world that mines bitcoins with the use of 2 usb hubs and 10 ASIC BTC Block Erupter Miners. I figured the Pi was going to be powered on 24/7 and I got a hell of a deal on the ASIC's for under $8 each so with this printer setup mining BTC I have already made over $1000 back in the last 4 months. If BTC continues to rise I will make my investment back in no time.
 
wow, all that to make some frag plugs? No wonder guys want $100 per polyp! LOL Joking aside, pretty cool! I'd be interested in seeing some other things you make with it once you're used to working with it. Keep it coming.
 
taylor t said:
wow, all that to make some frag plugs? No wonder guys want $100 per polyp! LOL Joking aside, pretty cool! I'd be interested in seeing some other things you make with it once you're used to working with it. Keep it coming.
Click to expand...

I can print 100 frag plugs at a time I dont care so much about the frag plug but I am printing some brackets right now that will mount egg crate to the side of the tank with a suction cup

Once I renew my domain name that expired last week ill send ya the link to my blog
 
Hey Dre how is AZ treating you?

Well guys here are the printed brackets. I didnt stop for egg crate today maybe tomorrow. The 2 weigh 6.5 grams for a total cost of $0.29 and took about 30 min to print these. I printed slow because I lost my clips to hold the glass tight. I could have printed these in about 15 min if I had my clips.





You can see the movement of the glass by the lines not being totally even. I need to get to office depot for some binder clips tomorrow. all in all I'm pretty happy with these now I need to find some old suction cups or look when I goto menards for some stuff for work tomorrow.

EDIT: I printed these at .3mm layer height like most stuff that I dont care how the finish is. If I need a smoother wall surface I print at .1mm and the lines are almost non existant.
 
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here are a some of the other things I have made.

Needed a moveable fan mount and printed this. It has a threaded tightening thumb screw, move to position you need and tighten.



Made these cable holders so my phone charger and usb cables dont fall behind my desk



My mom wanted to a toilet for my sisters 21st b day cake





My buddy wanted found this stand for his droid it even has a built in speaker horn that works amazingly well



This was my first real item I printed after printing a few test cubes

 
This is beyond awesome. Especially the toilet. Just makes me laugh that all that amazing technology was used to make a silly (awesome) cake topper.
 
chicagoreefer20 said:
This is beyond awesome. Especially the toilet. Just makes me laugh that all that amazing technology was used to make a silly (awesome) cake topper.
Click to expand...

Imagine getting a call from your mom saying she needs you to make a small barbie toilet..... that was a new one for me lol.
 
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