3D Printing SR5 mudflaps?

A.Wilson013

New member
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? :-)
 
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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.
 
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.
 
[MENTION=94545]MTD[/MENTION]

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.
 
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.

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.
 
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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.
 
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.
 
Okay so the title says mud flaps, post says flares? Two different parts. Flares could work but you would a big 3d printer. Flaps would be solid and not flexible. Also our printers at work can take a day to do a small figure. After playing with different 3d printers I dont think the tech is quite there yet to be feasible to replace parts on anything. The time it takes to print. The time it takes to clean it up and the strength is not quite there yet. Also we had figures melt in lets say a window of a car when its super hot outside. We can put the printed parts in hot water and they become malleable.
 
May be some confusion on what part we're talking about. This is referring to the SR5 mud guards. The same material as the flares, it extends down like a mudflap of you don't have running boards. Lots of guys who take their boards off want them. It was an OE toyota part but they've been out of production for years.
 

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