Would love to see some of your prints on here! When I was younger my dad and I built a 3D printer, and I loved it. Since then I haven’t had the funds/time/space to get back into it but as that was like 12 years ago, I know 3D printing has gotten much higher tech.
I can imagine - I used a Printrbot LC back in the day and it was so difficult to get consistent results. Great learning experience but sometimes it was more frustrating than rewarding hahah. Seeing some of these newer models that work right out the box make me excited! (Although building one yourself is always more fun if you’ve got the time)
You can have a bit of both! Build a Voron and wind up with a pretty darn reliable printer. I posted about mine here.
As promised earlier, here are some prints:
Do tell about the speaker. Did you design it yourself? What does it sound like?
Sorry for the delay. Yes, I did design it myself. I made a small post about it here that includes some frequency response curves. It sounds much better than the sun of its parts, which weren’t that intentionally chosen, but it also makes it obvious how much DSP modern wireless speakers have - especially in the bottom octive. I personally like making things vs buying, so this is right up my alley. I will (eventually) get around to making an updated design with better components, but it’s doing just fine so far.
The print itself have proven to be very resilient. It’s been knocked off a counter and fallen to the floor more than once. It also frequently serves as a step stool.
Printed enclosures have a bad rap for not being “dead”, but the rounded design without large flat surfaces is pretty dead. Yeah, the top and bottom aren’t flat but they’re not a uniform thickness to give them a bit more strength. The walls are “only” two perimeters, but the extrusion width was something like 0.8mm on a 0.6mm nozzle. I think the print has ~18% infill but it’s been a while now.
Let me know if you would like any more information!
Awesome, thanks for the reply. I’ve been curious about printing speakers myself, but it seems like a daunting task.
No problem! If you’re already designing speakers, printing vs making them out of something else will come down to your CAD skills/speed vs how long it would take you to make a finished enclosure out of a different material like wood.
I wouldn’t call anything about the process hard, but it can be a bit time consuming if you’re not a CAD ninja already. Either way, doing this will probably improve your CAD skills.
If you’ve never designed a speaker before, you could purchase a kit for one of the many DIY speakers out there and print the enclosure. My first DIY bluetooth speaker was an Overnight Sensation MTM stuffed in a very undersized, and ported, wood enclosure with a built in bluetooth board, basic BMS, and amplifier. Parts-Express, Madisound, and a number of players make getting a complete DIY kit easy.
I never designed a speaker. I have been looking for designs a few weeks ago, and there’s too much stuff out there and too little to go on if it’s actually worth it/better than HiFi speakers I already have. Maybe some day, if I find a good bookshelf speaker project that seems achievable.
Those are some nice prints, well done!
Thanks!