Hello everyone!

It has been too cold recently for me to go out in the freezing garage and work on my wiring harness, but I have made some progress on my XJS. The sun visor clips were both broken, and it bothered me to have the visors hanging down all the time.

I was bored the other day so instead of buying a set, I made my own!









I had pieces of an old one that were still in the car, so I modeled them in SolidWorks (my CAD program) and printed them on the 3D printer that I run at work.

It wasn't until after I printed them that I realized you can buy a set pretty cheaply, but I had more fun doing it this way anyway.

Just thought I would share!

 

Very cool!

I'm curious to hear how durable they are. Keep us updated.

.

 

Nice job.

 

Thanks, guys! I like them, they're working out great. It's nice to get those visors up and out of the way.

 

They came out looking really nice. that 3D cad system is an amazing tool

 

That Rocks!

I just had to repair one of mine...

I had bought a pair and placed one in the car then the other one broke replaced it

out of them... another one broke so I repaired it with epoxy...

would you be interested in posting that file? 3D printers have really come down in price...

 

If I sent you a picture of a V12, do you think it will work?
Snowball

 

I'll be glad to post the file, Johnathan! I will throw it up when I get home. If someone else can use it, that's great! Only took an hour or so to model. They are actually a little tight in the radius I am finding, so I'll probably enlarge it a few thousandths for more clearance. My factory part that I used to model these from didn't have the top on it because it was broken, so I kind of had to create my own geometry there haha.

I'm sure we could print a V12 emblem, snowball. The finish would be different than factory of course, but it would still look good, I've thought about doing that myself. I've got one on the car I can use for a picture of course, but if you have one that isn't mounted that you could use and can take a picture straight down on a white background, it makes modeling it very easy!

 

Could you do a full Lister body kit?

 

The build area of the printer is 10" X 10" X 12", so unfortunately no body kits.

The primary function of the printer is for prototyping. It doesn't do fine detail as well as some others. It just occurred to me that you might have meant an actual V12 motor, Snowball. To print it small enough to fit on the print bed it wouldn't be able to print in that type of detail, let alone the time it would take for me to get it in the computer! It can't print from pictures alone.

 

Yes, it was in jest. Will the printer hold the weight?
But what a great job you did, it is amazing.
Snowball

 

haha I figured as much, Snowball, but didn't want to assume. I actually thought about printing a scale model if I could find the part file somewhere, but the detail would be too fine for it.

The forum won't let me upload a SolidWorks Part or STL file, so here's a link to Grabcad where I upload the files that I want to share:

XJ-S Sunvisor Clip Grabcad

Anyone is more than welcome to use it, I am happy to share it. I made it for myself, but if anyone else can get some use out of it that's fine by me!

 

Once again You ROCK!

 

There are some monster 3-d printers in use in the aerospace industry.
They can print an entire wing frame if needed. They can use plastic or
metal for the printing agent.
There are units that are being used to print human body parts and organs
for research. Prosthetic limbs are already being produced for actual use !
No. I don't think printing the latest Sports Illustrated cover model would
work. Yet.

 

SO, how are they holding up...?

 

WOW, I am impressed. The clips in my Jaguar are fine. the ones in my Jeep not so much,busted. But, the swivels are tight, so I don't miss them much. I've though of making some. No 3d or CAD here. But, a chunk of plastic or alloy. I have suitable chunks of each.


Carl

 

I downloaded FreeCad


learning it...

 

So, if I wanted to design a Manifold

I should find a 3d printer that prints with ABS?

or something I could use as a core for casting...

 

Well, I'm currently in the process of getting the car running again. Pulling the fuel tank and coating the inside because of rust, new plugs, cleaning the injectors, re-wiring the ignition harness, etc. So all that I can say right now is that they haven't broken while the car has been sitting in the garage.

They should hold up pretty well though, I haven't had any problem with the other parts that I have made.

Funny that you should say that about the intake manifold...

I've got a couple other projects going in my spare time with some work people. I have spent a lot of hours so far on this design (so I can't share the SW file or the STL, sorry gents! ) but the short story is we're designing a replica that will be receiving the Ford 5.0 Coyote as a power plant, and said car would look a LOT better with a cross-8 stack. And it isn't the cobra in the background of the third picture.







...It's still in progress, but I think it will be pretty dang cool when I'm finished! Haven't decided at this point whether or not we're going to try and run it as an ABS manifold, or if I'm going to modify it further and have it cast. Regardless though, 3D printers are fun!

It's too bad that you're in Florida, Jonathan. I would be happy to give you a little CAD tutorial if you were in the KC area. It just takes practice and more practice but if you devote enough time to it, it will become second nature. Then again, I guess that's true of a lot of things!

 

that would be nice, since then drawing experience that I have is all triangles and T-squares... (Clean drawings...) ( that clean does not mean anything any more does it...)
been a while....