3D printed bumpstops!

Hey yall! Wanted to share a cool bumpstop alternative. I was in a sister forum for Lexus GX GXOR and one of the members there started to produce 3D printed bumpstops. His name is Patrick and is a pretty cool down to earth guy. Anyways I reach out to see if the GX front bumpstops would work for my Tacoma and he was pretty cool to send me a pair for testing with full refund if they did not work. And lucky for me they did!

After a few months he started expanding his product to other Toyota vehicles and I reached out to him since I was in the lookout for rear bumps also. I have the Wheelers/All Pro u-flip kit and I still had the regular square u bolts. He wanted to see if he could create a product that could be used both by u-flip kits and stock square u bolts.

After sending him one of each of my set ups he was able to come up with a prototype that I was happy to test out for him! And now he is ready to go live into production for more folks looking into this alternative.

The benefits of the 3D printed material is the variable rigidity of the material that allows a progressive compression. I am not good with the science behind it so please feel free to check out his page where it goes into details. His feedback and satisfaction are outstanding in the GXOR community!

**I am not affiliated with him or his company just a pretty happy camper that wanted to spread the word on this.

1 Pair AeroBumps AB2F Front Bumpstops | PerryParts
1 Pair AeroBumps AB3R Rear Bumpstops | PerryParts

 

I have printed a decent amount of flexible TPU parts, and I don’t think that these will last very long in all honesty.

I guess that time will tell.

 

he does offer no question replacement warranty, and he is encouraging ppl to beat up on them to test the limits

 

Interesting. Where do they ship from?

 

he is in California

 

Only a 1 year warranty and does not cover damages from the bump stops failing.

 

could you tell me of an aftermarket company that covers the damages of anything outside of their products? asking for a friend

 

So, which is it?

 

The difference is that 3D printed parts are typically not as strong as other common manufacturing methods. For example, but not limited to this example, the weakest part is typically the Z axis. Being that they are new on the market (2 months based on the owner's Reddit post), there is no data to show how well they work at all. Hell, they don't even state the specs, or any details actually, of the material used. I have two different types of flexible materials for my 3D printer, and they're both completely different in how well they would work as finalized parts and they both break down differently based on the environments they are exposed to (UV, heat, etc). I could fabricate a set similar right now. Would you be willing to accept the liability if you used a set from me without any details or specs? I believe an experimental part should cover damages caused from the items failing, especially when asking buyers to "test the limits". Now, if they do prove to hold up over time, then I would be more of an agreement with you. But I still think it's odd they don't even say what material is being used or the manufacturer of said material (the same 3D printing filament/material can and usually do have varying specs between manufacturers). Only info I can find is that they use an "industrial printer in a temperature controlled environment".

I do want to add that I do not think the owner has malicious intent and these may very well be a quality product. Regardless, my opinion above still stands.

 

What type of flexible materials do you print with? Sounds interesting. PM if you prefer.
@ktbell444

 

I cannot disclose that information.

I kid, lol.
I have NinjaFlex in black and another filament from Ultimaker that I do not believe is available anymore.

 

Thanks! Looks like cool stuff to try out. I’d be concerned about the thickness of those bump stops and the compression stress it would incur- seems like it would crack and separate along the filament layers.

 

I imagine they affect the firmness based on the infill amount. So I would assume the weaker parts overall would also be where the walls are thinnest and the material is the softest. They could be using some material that is strong and durable in most any environment, but personally I'd use that as a selling point. Maybe they're concerned with others stealing the idea?

 

I have only limited experience printing with flexible stuff like TPU, but I have not been able to tear the prints apart unless it was very, very open fills.

 

The warranty is on the bumpstop itself, no questions asked replacement if the bumpstop fails within a year. The vendor doesn't cover consequential damages. e.g. if the bumpstop fails and your tire cracks your inner fender, the vendor won't pay for repairs. Fairly normal practice.

@CaygeonRunner bought them. The material feels fairly rigid in hand (feels like typical ABS hard plastic), which is counterintuitive. I don't know how well they ride.

 

I will relay the feedback to him. I have no idea what material he uses.

 

Thanks, , you got the point of my question. The example I had in mind was if a shock fails, and makes my tire bounce like a basketball, is the manufacture responsible for the new tire i will need, the bad bushings I will have to replace, the UCA or LCA possible deterioration... etc... I have not read about that type of coverage before.

 

There are a variety of groups dedicated to functional and automotive 3D printing. A large number of members have printed items like sway bar bushings, shock bushings, sub-frame mounts, motor mounts, and other high impact high stress items. Frankly, they seem to work VERY well with many of the guys running them for years with no apparent degradation.

The quality of prints can vary greatly and subtle setup errors in printing can dramatically change the overall strength of a product so inspect carefully. That said, I wouldn't be concerned with something like a bumpstop or other non-critical component, at least for average user use cases.

What might be interesting is to try some of the new filaments that change their rigidity based upon the temp that they are printed. With these items you can continuously vary the print temp throughout the printing process and have parts that are rock hard on one end and slowly transition to super soft on the other. I have not seen these used for automotive use yet however.

 

But you don't have the strength of a 4,000 lb vehicle.

This example I would not expect the liability to be on the manufacturer of these bump stops. You are correct there.