3D Printed Pool Objects

Your drawing of tip/ball contact shows that you might have a misconception about the miscue limit: it depends on your cue's angle of approach to the CB.

Your "horizontal miscue limit" is theoretically correct (red line halfway from center ball to edge), but the cue must be angled to hit that low (as you show), and with the cue angled like that the actual miscue limit (blue line) is also angled the same amount.

So your diagram shows a tip/ball contact that would almost certainly miscue.

Maybe it's just the drawing and not how you really picture the miscue limit...?

pj
chgo

iusedtoberich said:

Ok, thanks. To make sure I'm understanding you, the miscue limit should be measured perpendicular to the centerline of the stick, and account for the stick's angle?

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Yes, and if you use a striped ball to show you the visible miscue limit (just about at the edges of a Centennial's stripe) for "target practice", be sure to tilt it the same way.

I'm also going to adjust it a hair above the miscue limit, as that would be more practical for a real player.

Click to expand...

Good idea. Even if you want to try to hit exactly on the miscue limit the top of your shaft has to be slightly above that (as your drawing shows).

pj
chgo

iusedtoberich said:

Ok I made the adjustment. 0.563” is the miscue limit. Do you think 0.500” is a reasonable offset for a good draw stroke by a real player?

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If you mean 0.500" to the actual tip/ball contact point (1/16" or so above max offset), that's safe enough - if your stroke is actually good enough to hit that consistently without straying much. Here's another drawing (I got a million of 'em) showing what I mean by that...

Nobody hits exactly where they want to every time, so we learn to aim at the center of our usual "shot group" so our tip doesn't stray too often outside the limit. The shot group on the left is of an OK player - the one on the right is of a better player.

pj
chgo

From the slicer, I'm going to assume it's an FDM printer and you're using PLA.

If you made the pedestal its own piece, that would drastically simplify things. What does your supports look like on the main body?

If you printed the body mostly rectangular, you could probably lower print times, decrease material usage and will decrease the chances of skipped steps cause 100% failure.

Did you test those threads first? It's hard telling, but it doesn't look like you added tolerances (typically, this is .5mm). Threads: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1nhcKn7Kt8w

Also, if you hollow out your own bodies you can control the infill slightly better as you can use overly meshes to change area and pattern. Definitely watch this simple mesh tutorial, meshes work for many things: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PUwf79wySUY

iusedtoberich said:

View attachment 546100
This is the printer software and how they will be arranged. Total time will be 5 hours. Material consumption will be 63 grams. Material cost is $1.26.

View attachment 546101
This shows all the support structure needed while printing. It will be flaked off when finished.

View attachment 546102
The printer.

View attachment 546103
The first few layers.

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Pretty cool stuff.

I'm holding out for the cranial implant that prints whatever I imagine out of air (you know it's coming).

pj
chgo

iusedtoberich said:

View attachment 546089
I had to add this webbing below the tip or the cue ball and the stick would separate.

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If the shaft is connected rigidly to its support and everything is mounted to a rigid base they shouldn't separate unless made to...?

pj
chgo

iusedtoberich said:

This was very helpful. Thank you. I'm impressed by fusion more and more. That press/pull command works so well.

I was also looking for a helical sweep (that's what its called in Creo), and this video showed a way to do that. Thank again.

Click to expand...

Great. Hopefully you watch the mesh video as well. That by itself solves a lot of CAD work.

I'm not a mechanical engineer so I don't use any of these programs outside of 3D printing. I wish I was because I use 3D printing almost exclusively for mechanical things. Printing pool related objects became one of my 3D printing hobbies because of extensions and right now I doddle with printing "LD" shafts. In doing that, stress testing became a focus of mine, and while I wish I could say I went all the way down the rabbit hole with that, I just stopped. You just don't need a lot for shafts. However, the first video I watched (I've only seen about 10 total) was this one...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q0YsC53mFvY

NOTE: The above video demonstrates meshes too. I guess if you were a CAD/CAM whiz you might find all that easy to do without meshes, but for me the meshes just seem easiest (and is probably almost always cleaner).

!! RANT related to 3D printing billiard parts !!

*IF* you _OWN_ a 3D printer, my belief (at 95% now) is that if you print _DISPOSABLE_ parts, you can print a shaft at least as good as anything you can buy. While I suspected I would eventually discover that I was still against it on the basis of recycling. However, with the advancements on recycling 3D materials becoming a hot topic, it's just a matter of time until it won't be a concern. So the ability to have the part in a matter of hours, tweaked how you like, the parts being repeatable and the low cost, this just becomes a "no brainer" _IF_ you own a 3D printer.

To end the specificity of pool shafts, right now I'm nearly certain that the butt should just be the lowest possible weight made of wood and the shaft should be made in 2 pieces. I'm going to rework my designs into 2 pieces because that way I will only have to print an object at most in 15" lengths (hopefully like 10"). I haven't done any stress testing yet on the effects of this, but it seems like the best approach as the shorter the printed piece, the faster and cheaper it becomes. I don't know, it's all a guess based on playing around at this point, so I'm very open to opinions.

Anyways, if you ever want a CoreXY printer or a printer of some fashion where the build surface doesn't move (or at least one axis is stationary), I _HIGHLY_ recommend building your own. I did _NOT_ do this and wish _VERY_ much that I did as the costs are way, way lower. The best part is that to learn how to get up and started in building your own printer isn't hard at all as you can just use assembly manuals from dozens of other printers to learn the concepts and mechanical goals.

What an excellent thread.

Thank you very much, sir. I find it fascinating.