Brain Climbing Hold

thingiverse

I am designing a climbing wall system with holds that utilize 3d printing technology. Directly printing holds is possible but not optimal due to several reasons. Holds would need to be printed using high strength materials like ABS, nylon, or PET and at 100% infill to achieve the necessary strength. However, these materials are challenging to print in large quantities with high infills, making the process extremely time-consuming and expensive. Climbing walls require numerous holds, making direct printing one at a time impractical. Manufacturers of climbing holds produce their holds by casting resin typically using polyurethane. An alternative method is to 3d print a master mold, which could then be used for molding the final hold. However, the process involves purchasing mold rubber, which is expensive, and investing time in creating the mold. Fortunately, clever use of 3d printing technology can avoid this complex process altogether. By converting the digital master into a mold and printing it using flexible material like Ninjaflex or TPU filament, one can easily replicate the molds. TPU filament stands out as a more suitable option for this application due to its increased printability and availability from multiple suppliers at a lower cost compared to Ninjaflex. Moreover, TPU is stiffer than Ninjaflex which makes it easier to handle in printing operations. In terms of designing the mold, it is simpler to omit printing the central part where the 3/8" round rod resides as the round cross section makes it prone to tearing during casting processes. This process involves converting a medical brain scan model into an optimized mold. As seen from the photo, this design can create high strength fiber-reinforced industrial grout holds for climbing walls with impressive results. The material proves useful especially when working with larger designs that don't demand significant tensile strength like industrial-grade adhesives used to hold heavy items together in construction. However, when designing smaller holds requiring better durability against pulling and stretching forces such as a casted plastic part made out of high quality Alumilite RC-3 is a good choice due to its excellent speed setting. We recently talked about this idea along with many others during an interview on the popular podcast called 'The 3D Printing Today' podcast that you can stream using any number of music players like itunes or through radio apps, also we discussed and more, all available information is found here: http://www.threedprintingtoday.com/