Curious if anyone has any experience with 3d modeling/printing and could offer some input as to the feasibility of having a set of the SR5/Sport skinny flares modeled and printed.

I'd be willing to provide some money to get this going if it were possible.

1. If I have a set, can they be used to make the model digitally somehow?

2. Is this stuff stupid expensive?

3. I know there'd be interest if this worked out... So who has a printer and the means to do this? :-)

Hell, I think if someone can make the driver side mud flap for the black textured flares they'd be a hundreaire!

I like the idea though...maybe even make a wider version like the sport, but keep it textured like the SR5s.

That's kinda what I was thinking. I think if anyone could do it it'd be Banditrunner

Would be cool. I'd buy a set.

@MTD

My 3D printer has a pretty large volume available but it's nowhere near the size needed for a full mud flap. The other issue is using a properly flexible material, everything I've seen is a fairly sturdy plastic or metal. It would be cheaper and less time consuming to buy some mats and have a cookie cutter shaped to the mud flap and just pound them out I think. But I could be wrong!

I think our printer would be able to print a flap It could only be about 6 inches long though. Maybe a 2 piece set would be the best bet. IDK I would have to have a sr5 mudflap or a kinect scan of one to start modeling something up though.

In regard to fitting other flares, If I can model up the first one with the SR5 style simple changes could get it to fit any of the other flairs available.

And this is fairly cheap.

I have the flares on my Highlander. They get beat up and knocked off fairly easily if you're wheeling, I usually take mine off for a trip, then put them back on again afterward.

I'd probably be in for a pair if you could make some to fit the Limited flares.

I could do it on mine but the amount of time to print it would be close to 3 days, and the size woukd make the ammount of warping huge and basically make it nearly impossible to print. plus it would need to be made from abs not pla. the way to do this is using vacuum forming. you need to get ahold of one of the mud flaps, then make a negative mold, then cast the piece and get some black polypropelene sheet and vacuum form the sucker. this would take less time and then you could crank them out very quickly.

also i feel bad everytime someone asks if something can be 3d printed and i say no. if you want it to be 3d printed, think small, maybe a cup holder arm or a cap for the hitch reciever, wheel center caps even. the reason you shouldnt print anything larger than basically 8"*8"*8" is because there is some funky thermal expansion going on during the print that makes the print actually want to just curl up and rip itself apart. what needs to be done is the chamber in which you are printing needs to be heated so the plastic is soft enough to stop curling. this technic is patented by stratysys and thats why no commercial printers come with built in heated chambers. i however designed and built my own printer from scratch, it has 18" of travel in all 3 dimensions and i can heat the build chamber if i need to. the second issue is, the machine can only process 1kg of plastic in 24 hours if the extruder never stopped, however it stops frequently so this means realistically it would take 3 or mord days to print something that is large and uses one or more rolls of plastic.

anyways sorry for the rant, look into making a mold and vaccum forming it.

It could be done. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ooVBJbYac_4

This guy is making R/C car bodies, but the principles are about the same. I think the biggest challenge would be finding a large enough sheet of the ABS plastic with the right texture and thickness.

I tried to do it before but the vacuum former at the lab was crap.

We need to crowd fund this and get it moving!!!

Can someone point me to what these look like? Are they rigid or more flexible?

they are quite rigid. if i was going to make a bunch of these id cnc a mold out of wood to use, but id need an accurate cad model of it.

If I purchased a passenger side one and sent it to you, could you mirror it to make the driver side?

I could at the very least make a cad model of it, which id add to the cad thread.

here for getting the right texture. https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&sour...MDo8R9p4eOKTQw