The print probably won't be as good as the injection method, but it is more readily available for use.
If you can find a nearby hacker space they'd probably have equipment and personnel to help you with it. You can try really basic but available methods like using an app on your phone to take pictures of the phone and it tries to make a printable model file.
Otherwise the general idea is to have the bottom part of the mouse scanned then import it and fix the sides using a modeling program.
I think its easier than designing a bottom shell in CAD and 3D printing, because it'll be so hard to mate it with the top shell. It might work if you can get it scanned by a high res 3D scanner, but it'll need to be recreated in CAD using it as a reference, so its probably never going to be as accurate as you'd really want it.
How's that compare to ABS plastic in terms of minimum thickness and by extension weight? I'm just thinking there could be a pretty big weight reduction mod with that (or for that matter, a fibreglass mouse in general could be extremely light if much more expensive, could it not?).
How's that compare to ABS plastic in terms of minimum thickness and by extension weight? I'm just thinking there could be a pretty big weight reduction mod with that (or for that matter, a fibreglass mouse in general could be extremely light if much more expensive, could it not?).
I don't know for sure. But my instinct tells me it'd be heavier, weaker, less precise, and more difficult to make.
I think ABS is the best for lightness and strength. There are some new materials which are stronger and lighter, but extremely expensive and cutting edge.
3D printing is pretty bad for such small sized parts. Because 3D printing has resolution too and most of machine we can see has a very low resolution.
A lot depends the print technology used and the specific printer being used. I printed a mouse shell for a project a few years back on a lower end printer a few years back and it didn't turn out bad at all. Printers have only gotten better and with my knowledge of printing now I would have printed it significantly better.
You will need to measure and scan the original shell you want to replace. Then, you need Solid Works and probably alias for the re-design. The hard prt though would be importing the scans in SolidWorks and making sure that the cloud meshes and tesselation is correct. Then you need to assign material so that the properties of the material you are goign to use are applied to your design. After that you can start re-designing. After you are done you need to redo half, the process and hopefully start printing. In other words you need to reverse engineer it which can be really tricky. The initial scaning will be hard to do as well if the material is reflective, because you will need to coat it with powder or some anti-reflective spray in order to scan it as accurately as possible. Plus you will need a very-very capable computer for rendering and storring the scans.
Just use some other method, instead of printing your own, unless you can find a re-designed shell of the internet and use that.
It wouldnt be very hard. especially since its a symmetrical shape,its mostly a matter of taking correct measurements and plotting them in a cad program and then upload the resulting file to a online 3d print service. there are lots of different sites that lets you order a small quantity or single item in a number of different materials and finishes. the quality of the printers isnt really the limiting factor in this case, wallet is. 3d printing something vs casting it in a mold is hugely expensive. 3d printing is great if you need to experiment, prototype or make one object but the material is fairly expensive and the process is very time consuming.
To answer your question in a more tl;dr manner: No, it wouldnt be hard, all you need are good refrences and a free cad program like sketchUp
Depends on material. The only reasonable thing that's not extremely expensive and has decent (0.15 mm error) accuracy is SLS with PA2200 (nylon-12 based material) aka "white strong and flexible" how shapeways calls it. But still, 0.15mm can be way too high. Photopolymers have much better accuracy but they're much more expensive, i guess it'll yield $100+ for whole shell, maybe around $40 for the bottom alone.
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