Material Recommendation automotive application

Hello,

I'm looking for a material recommendation. If I was going to get shapeways to print a hydraulic reservoir that needs to be water tight and resistance to brake fluid (DOT3, DOT4, and DOT 5) what material would I use?

Thanks

Platinum or gold would be your best bet... What size are we talking about and what kind of pressure and temperature?

DOT3 is on glycol basis,- the others I don´t know.

This means normally, Polyamide resists,- but due to the manufacturing process "Selective Lasersintering", the printed parts are not watertight..

Stainless Steel could be the only watertight 3D printed material to use for Your purposes.






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Just atmospheric pressure (reservoir vented to atmosphere). Temperature would be the normal range of under the hood temps. I'm not planning on mounting it beside the headers but on the fire wall behind the brake booster. -10F to 200F would be a good range.
Rough dimensions are 2.25" long with 1.75" dia, and 1/8" thk. Plus the mounting boss.

Shapeways is listing is Detailed Plastic ( PA2200), and the Frosted Detail Plastic (VisiJet® SR 200 Plastic Material) as watertight but I am unsure of the chemical resistance of these products.

DOT 3 and 4 are polyethylene glycol-based fluids while DOT 5 is a silicone based fluid. The factory made reservoir has HPMI stamped on it. I thought that might have been the type of plastic it was made from but I can't tell. Searching for HPMI hasn't come up with anything.

Your temperature range excludes the detailed and frosted plastics. Leaving Steel as the only relatively affordable option. I have no idea how it would stand up against the vibrations, it might get fatigued quickly.

An important question is: how dangerous would it be if this thing fails while you are cruising down the highway? Shapeways has this in their disclaimer: "Please note that the 3D printed products are intended for decorative purposes."

Its the reservoir for the clutch fluid. If it fails you won't be able to disengage the clutch.

So what is my limiting factor here? Is it the materials just aren't available or is it the printer?

The 200F on temps was a guess. But it needs to stand up to seasonal temperatures across the US

Shapeways had long been logged bankruptcy if they had not secured in this way!

" I´ve eaten a strawberry,- but it was plastic! 1 Million please!" ....

So does shapeways just not use Nylon as an available media?

@kaadesign: true, but it's not just about litigation, it's also a fair warning I think.

@EDSI: You are limited by both:
Detail plastic is heatproof to 48ºC / 118.4ºF degrees.
Frosted detail plastics are heatproof to 80ºC / 176ºF degrees.
So there you are limited by the material. Also the remaining printing support material may contaminate your hydraulic fluid.
The Strong and Flexible Nylon also has 80ºC / 176ºF degrees and isn't watertight because of the way it is printed.

I would just stay away from 3D printing for stuff like this, the 3D prints offered here are meant to be put on a shelf or desk, not under your hood.

It "is" nylon, but it's a sparse matrix that can be brittle. What you are thinking of nylon is where they heat the entire material above the melting point and force it into a mold, and you end up a solid chunk of nylon.

The laser sintering process fuzes individual grains of nylon together - but there are gaps between the grains. Imagine a box of marbles. It can be "full", but they don't fill all the space.. there are gaps between them.

A foot long, half-inch diameter rod of glass is pretty strong, but a foot long section of marbles fuzed together end-to-end would break easily.

Those same gaps are why WSF is not food-safe.. too much open space that can be infiltrated with food and bacteria can live.

PA2200 is WSF, not Detailed Plastic.

The range seems to cover all SF options. PA2200 lists higher temperatures, so probably SW picked the lowest (= dyed).

For all of the answers you got... none is the best I can give.
Some of Shapeways' materials are suitable for decorative use in/on a car,
however, there are no materials that can provide the mechanical stability,
let alone the accuracy for mating the part to wherever it is mounted.

If it were me I'd forget about printing it and I'd go here: https://car-part.com

I assure you numerous dismantlers across the country will have your part. I used to restore old sports cars and I used to use this company nonstop to find and order parts from all over the country.

Is it a Honda?

If you must print it, and have 3D printing bragging rights HAHA, then I'd wait until Shapeways offers their porcelain material here in a month or so. That would probably be the most reliable under the conditions. I'd say steel, but as already mentioned it has a chance of cracking from thermal fatigue. It's composed of stainless steel powder and infused bronze and both of those are going to have different expansion rates, which could eventually cause the problem. Shapeways' plastic materials are wimpy. None of the plastics are going to survive under there very long. Then again, you could always prove us wrong and just print something and run it! In that case I'd try the White Strong and Flexible with a 4 mm wall thickness and see what happens. If it doesn't leak from the porosity then it may work, depending on how much ventilation is in the mounting spot.

stannum I did list that incorrectly the PA2200 should go with the strong flexible plastic. The detailed plastic doesn't have any material specs on the website so I am unsure how they are using.


This part has been long discontinued and falls into the category with hens teeth.

I'll give anything a try, my concern with the Strong and Flexible material is that it is listed a non water tight, and I don't want to leak break fluid all over my paint. Is there some sort of post process that will correct this or would I be better using one of the other materials that is listed as water tight.

What's the make, model and year? How about an after market generic reservoir like this one?

Are you familiar with CAD to model it up, or will you be needing someone to do the modeling for you?

If you don't want to waste money trying 3D printing options, there is always CNC. If you go to a CNC machine shop they will charge you a small fortune, but if you go to a CNC hobbyist forum like CNC Zone you can probably find a hobbyist that will do the work for a small fee or maybe even for free if it's a cool vehicle that others would be interested helping you restore.

As for 3D printing with Shapeways materials, unless you want to spend money doing research and development I don't think it's a good option. That is unless you want to wait for Shapeways porcelain material to become available. It's available now, but you'd have to find one of the Shapeways beta testers to order it for you.

Old range of Polyjet materials for Objet Connex printers (now a Stratasy brand). Anyway, they distort above 48C (give or take). Even the new high temp one can't go beyond 80C.

I found the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TDoR1qylB0w&list=UUhlHz5 WxKTjAk2CFh7i0dwQ