Pretty impressed how well that one turned out. Used SUNLU TPU in yellow with 200/50 degrees Celsius at 20mm/s speed on my Voxelab Aquila (upgraded PEI bed and DirectDrive, also used Filament drybox).
This filament to be exact:
Angebot: SUNLU TPU Filament, 1KG Flexibles 95A TPU 3D Drucker Filament 1.75mm Maßgenauigkeit +/- 0.03 mm, Hohe Liquidität und Elastizität, 1KG(2.2Lbs) Spule, TPU Filament für FDM 3D Drucker,TPU Gelb https://amzn.eu/d/7H5TLjr
Thanks!
Fiberology 30D?! Never heard of that, but I assume that’s very soft? I am pretty sure my Extruder would just eat that :D
What were your problems?
Thank you! To be honest it was a bit of work to get my printer ready for TPU, but it’s absolutely worth it. Being able to print this material gives so much additional usecases for 3D printing. Absolutely recommend this!
What use cases for example? I can print TPU and have some lying around, but I have no idea what to use it for. The only useful thing I printed with it so far was new endcaps for a ladder.
I made a TPU phone case a while back as well with some neat custom cutouts on the back. I really liked it, but the heavy use/touching made the case get off-color and dirty looking, especially on the edges, with no way to clean it off.
Nice tip, I didn't try that. Just used regular soaps, elbow grease, and I think I tried some rubbing alcohol as well. Those didn't make much of a difference.
I assume that this will happen to this one too. Especially because of the bright yellow I used. The question is how long will the case be usable without looking disgusting. If that’s as long as some cheap silicone/TPU cases you can get from Amazon I am fine. How long did it take for you to get to the point of „uuuaahahhhrrggg… I need a new case…“?
I'd say it was maybe 6 months? Mine was a bright-ish teal color too so it started to look bad fairly quickly. Unfortunately the cheap silicone ones do last longer for me. But you really can't beat the level of customization you can do on your own print. I'd wager you can probably get a lot longer out of it if you did a black or darker color filament.
Would it be possible to embed harder plastic bumpers/reinforcements from PETG or PLA inside the walls? I feel like that could make something like this even more useful
Probably. You would have to design a model like that before printing. I would leave some space in the corners and design some pieces that fit exactly in there. Then print these PETG pieces at first and the TPU case right after. When it reaches the point where the gaps would be closed the print needs to be paused and the cornerpieces inserted. Then resume the print until ready.
Very nice. Did you model this yourself? If so, did you also have to model your phone or were you able to find a dimensionally accurate model somewhere else?
Thanks for the follow up/link. I don't have an iPhone 13 mini, but I am going to have a bunch of spare TPU soon and you got me thinking. As you said, it can take a bunch of iterations to get a great fit. I was curious if you had a secret sauce, but hearing that we follow a similar process was comforting.
Not this one, but today I made one for my iPhone 13 Mini. I just measured the hell out of my phone, directly started with the case model and hope it will fit once I print it (probably tonight, as I am currently printing a new fan shroud I designed around a standard Satsana). For easier things I often manage to fit on the first try, but as it gets more complex, there are more prototypes.
If you drop I that often I probably wouldn’t use this model and since it came off the printer yesterday evening I unfortunately can’t tell you how resistant it will be. It’s for my wife’s phone, she doesn’t drop it much, it’s gonna be more to protect the phone against other things in her purse.