Personalized Vinyls and 3D printed accessories

[mikejsmith1985]

If you can make that to replace the rear emblem I may be interested! And by replace, I mean with the tabs and whatever else holds the original emblem in place.

It will have to be slim enough to fit within the trunklid when the emblem is pressed to open the trunk, though.

I love the idea of this! It would take several days minimum to do the design work, but I'm not sure how well the printer would handle those tiny tabs, it would need a lot of support material for the main structure as well since it wouldn't rest flat on the print bed. Best bet would be a single color. I just picked up some disoveable filament that can be used as a support structure that is easily (but slowly) removed. I'll look into it for sure though.

 

[mikejsmith1985]

Didn't get to print the new badge yet but here is the original version at night with the red backlight.

** ~ 9:00 PM est, I've got the issues I was having with the printer resolved and I'm starting the black and red badge right now fingers crossed no new issues arise :-D

 

[mikejsmith1985]

Here is the first finished print. I used black and red ABS. There was some oozing of the black filament in the red ring but it was minimal. Next time I'll turn the extrusion temperature down a ~5* and see if that takes care of it. I'm really happy with the outcome and will probably vapor polish this today because I don't like that the tool paths in the black seemed to go astray of rectilinear on the left side of the T.

 

[GoodTimesIndeed]

^ Pretty cool man! Is that material something you can just wet sand or whatever? A real fine grit might get rid of all of those lines.

 

[mikejsmith1985]

^ Pretty cool man! Is that material something you can just wet sand or whatever? A real fine grit might get rid of all of those lines.

Vapor polishing is the easiest solution but sanding is also an option. Vapor polishing will use acetone vapors to chemically react with the ABS, it liquifies the outer layer and it sort of self levels smoothing out the ripples. This is after 1 hour of vapor polishing. I'm going to do a 2nd round but I think this is much improved.

After 2nd treatment:

One cool thing with this (it's the largest object I've vapor polished) it's able to be handled within about an hour of finishing the process. The smaller stuff takes closer to 3-4 hours. It's still best practice to give it a full 24 hours to cure, But I think I'm going to install this after work today.

 

[mikejsmith1985]

I had a break in my meetings and installed this, I'm happier but the T gets lost now. Do to the aspect ratio I'm struggling with what I want to do which is essentially make a T that is 1mm thicker than the t that is there and print that border in red also.

Installed:

Version 3.0 design problems:

I start with the blue T and scale it up uniformly but that doesn't creat a perfect border around it like it would with a square. Does anyone have a suggestion on how to resolve this?

Inverting the colors would be an obvious one but it's not what I'm going for. I could just print the T in red and have no hole which would be great for anyone interested in purchasing one, however since I have the LED backlights which I want to shine through that hole it's still not an ideal solution.

Let me hear your thoughts though!

 

[bart2278]

I don't like the look of this at all. I have been reluctant to comment bc I hate to be negative with no alternative. So here is is:

I like the light idea, in regard to lighting up the T. You could make a normal vw badge with the exception of keeping the T behind it. The T would be the only part of the plastic that would be thin enough to let the green light from the back show through.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-N910A using Tapatalk

 

[mikejsmith1985]

I don't like the look of this at all. I have been reluctant to comment bc I hate to be negative with no alternative. So here is is:

I like the light idea, in regard to lighting up the T. You could make a normal vw badge with the exception of keeping the T behind it. The T would be the only part of the plastic that would be thin enough to let the green light from the back show through.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-N910A using Tapatalk

Thanks for the suggestion!

I did finally find a solution to the issue by using another tool.

What are your thoughts about this?

 

[brobst]

That is what I was thinking. It just needs a color border around the cut out to accent it in the bright sun.

Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk

 

[mikejsmith1985]

I think this is the solution for me, however I do like Bart's idea of combining this with the VW logo.

 

[bart2278]

I def like the addition of the border

 

[Turb02]

Agreed, the border is nice. Now HMU when you get teh rear emblem squared away!

BTW, I got the larger T's I ordered. One appears to be slightly twisted at the bottom of the T. I can take pics when I get home and PM you.

Other than that, they look great. Now I gotta decide on a location for them.

 

[mikejsmith1985]

Agreed, the border is nice. Now HMU when you get teh rear emblem squared away!

BTW, I got the larger T's I ordered. One appears to be slightly twisted at the bottom of the T. I can take pics when I get home and PM you.

Other than that, they look great. Now I gotta decide on a location for them.

Sorry about that! You can try heating it up just a bit with a hair dryer and then twisting it to get it straightened out, but I'd be happy to get you another one mailed out this week.

 

[mikejsmith1985]

Picture at night

 

[GoodTimesIndeed]

Picture at night

I think the backlit LED is a neat effect. If you drive with that "on" just be sure that red light is legal to have on the front of your car. I know its a tiny bit of light but a cop may disagree. I think your new design with the red border around the T could be cool for the daytime.

To me, my eye is immediately drawn to the outer ring and stays there for some reason. Maybe the border needs to be thinner or maybe its just because the color is off?

Personally I'm not sure if the green GTI emblem is helping much either but if you like it then I suppose that's all that matters. Black or maybe red for the GTI emblem might look good though.

Do you have the word FrankenTurbo on your car somewhere? I think you do if I recall but just mentioning because to 99% of the population a weird shaped "T" means nothing, let alone having it front and center lit up on your grill. Unless that is what you were after. I just think it would tie the T in better if you had the name on your car somewhere.

Just my .02.