If you’re using a high enough resolution printer, it’s great for prototyping.
Past that, not much use.
Ok. Thanks.
I know they can 3d print metal too. What kind I’m not sure but check out shapeways.com. they’re a 3d printing company just send in a CAD to em and they’ll print it up for ya not sure how much though
It’s still 3D printed. A liquid and powder mixed together is still liquid and powder in my mind. Personally, I wouldn’t want to sell a product produced as such because I would have fear of cracking.
I know brass, aluminum (alumide?), gold, titanium, steel, silver, and bronze are all options.
Also we’d run into the price question. One should take into account that these companies are typically considered “rapid prototyping companies.” Sounds fancy right? Costs a boatload usually because of that. Larger companies outside of the yoyo’ing community see it simply as another product. My quote for the yoyo I was looking into was a bit over $2000 for 10 halves from a precision milling company within the U.S.
Prototyping, perhaps.
This thread comes up every few months lately… a simple search will yield more in-depth discussions.
Kyle
Well those 3D metal ones I’m assuming would be a CNC. What annoys me is my school invested in one and I’m a senior so I can’t take the manufacturing class sadly. but atleast the college I’m going to has one so maybe I can make a cheap yoyo for myself.
This is a direct copy of a post I made on another board a couple years ago. It discusses how it is “possible” to make a quality 3d printed yoyo… and how incredibly difficult it is.
The short version is that 3d printing is good for making shapes… but if you want precision you need to rely on other tools like lathes.
I don’t recommend trying to do something like this, but it can be done… and with tolerances held as well… and a decent surface finish 
I never really gave many details as to how this was done, so I will now since it’s been a couple [now 4+] years
The model was created in SolidWorks after somewhere around 350 hours of modeling and design work. The design is extremely complicated, modeled after the “Bird’s Nest” stadium in China that was built for the Olympics. The problem of course is not only the intricate modeling work, but actually keeping it actually balanced and spinning true as well.
The body is 3d printed on a fairly specialized machine that holds better tolerance than your typical printer. The body was printed with tolerances in mind, and was ‘over-sized’ very slightly.
It was then machine down to spec on a lathe, by hand.
Then, you can ‘polish’ certain 3d printing plastics by essentially melting the surface. You can do this with a yoyo by spinning it with a lathe and polishing it with a cloth soaked in a solvent like acetone. You have to be -very- careful to not screw it up, and you obviously want to wear chemical resistant gloves and probably a respirator in a WELL ventilated area.
Then, a steel hub was machined along with steel weight rings. The plastic body is actually 2 parts on each half… one is the body, one is the rim… that’s how the steel rings are ‘captured’ inside the yoyo.
The yoyo uses a nut/bolt system… the ends of which are captured under a 3rd body piece that snaps over the ends of the nut/bolt.
http://kyostoys.com/mods/bnest1.jpg
http://kyostoys.com/mods/bnest2.jpg
http://kyostoys.com/mods/bnest3.jpg
http://kyostoys.com/mods/bnest4.jpg
All the benefits of a 3d printer, and as few of the downfalls as possible.
Hope some of this can help you in your projects.
Kyle
CNC=lathe
3D printer=printer
They aren’t the same… I’m pretty sure there aren’t CNC lathe printers…
It’s a different process… A lathe wouldn’t be able to be called a 3D printer, becuase the material is already there.
An answer to your questions about Cleveland. Half of High Speed YoYo lives in Cleveland… the other half in Columbus. The Cleveland YoYo club is fun, I have only had a chance to make it up once and hang with some of them but I had a blast talking to Perry and some of the Duncan crew who drop in from time to time. There is also the Loraine County YoYo Club headed up by Jake Willis. Not as big as the Cleveland Club but you will be hard pressed to find a greater group of kids eager to learn and show off what they know.
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A lot of CNC is more like routing than lathing… unless there’s another definition of lathe that I don’t know about.
For a yoyo, you’d probably be better served with CNC lathes… since they’re circular… standard CNC (NOT lathe) could still do the job, and with good machining you wouldn’t even need to correct any or many burrs. Overall, if you plan on doing more than yoyos (or other circular things), a stylus (?) style CNC is better for most other applications.
I do believe he was replying to my example of terribly outrageous pricing on CNC work outside of the yoyo community. But meh, this shouldn’t have been necro’d :-X