3D printing an AR lower receiver
From Barnacules Nerdgasm:
Doesn’t work too well.
3 Responses to “3D printing an AR lower receiver”
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June 5th, 2014 at 7:31 pm
Meh, they work just fine, the first part to break on these is the buffer tube attachment area, which is why it’s so reinforced on that model and why the rear take down pin is non standard.
He’s right about having to compensate for shrinkage and requiring some hand fitting with a file.
His Ultimaker should be printing just fine if he has it tuned properly, the DD guys have an expensive machine, but it’s still just an FDM machine.
He’s overly protesting because he’s being a bit defensive, but the reality is that printing AR lowers is a solved problem, people have moved on to more interesting problems.
Actually even durable polymer lowers are pretty much a solved problem at this point, see http://www.tnarmsco.com/ for some really solid injection molded AR lowers. Their trick was to include brass inserts at the points that needed threading. They are even working on a clear lower right now, it might be a bit less durable though as clear polymers tend to be a bit more brittle.
June 5th, 2014 at 9:01 pm
Let me tear this apart…
First, use something like meshmixer so you don’t have to remove all those wasted supports. You would end up with a much better / closer print.
Second, you dont print out of PLA. You print out of ABS at minimum, and use a solvent to fuse layers better.
And if he read the defcad forums (where they are using similar printers to what he is using) they talk about proper scaling for different materials.
This guy is in kindergarden, an the defcad guys are in Princton. And his video is about 10 minutes too long. Very annoying.
June 6th, 2014 at 6:39 pm
Yes, we are working on a clear lower. But the problem wasn’t that it was too brittle, just the opposite. It wasn’t rigid enough. Plus we have to deal with shrinkage rates as well. We are still trying to find the Goldilocks material that is clear AND has the correct shrinkage rate