3D printing and super 8 repair

Stewart McLain · June 3, 2013

So I just want to toss this out and see what people with more smarts than me have to say.

One of the problems facing Super 8 shooters is that replacement parts are no longer manufactured and there is a finite amount of original stock floating around out there to pull from. Are the internal elements that tend to fail due to age of the kind that might be remade using a 3D printer?

Andries Molenaar · June 3, 2013

Well, currently forget to print 3D anything that needs to be precise or to take or project force. I.e. cogs, levers, tight fiting parts. Or anything made of metal. :)

Also, anything will be extremely expensive.

Edited June 3, 2013 by Andries Molenaar

Zac Fettig · June 7, 2013

You can get 3d printed parts in metal using Selective Laser Sintering (SLS). Shapeways or i.Materialise will be able to provide those.

The high end machines (not a cheap extruder) can give you very good tolerances. Especially with photolithography. They can't give you really tight tolearnces, but standard machining tolerances (+/- 0.005") aren't unheard of.

But Andreas is right. Forget about any strength. The parts don't have any. If the part sees any real load, don't even try it.

The prices aren't bad though. I designed a replacement power plug for an Arri 16SB, and had the shell printed for $8.94 in Nylon. It cost me about $12 finished. It's tough, and able to handle the job. But the part doesn't see any load.

And luckily, Super 8 cameras were mostly built with cheap commodity injection molded plastic parts in the 60s and 70s. Replacement parts don't have to meet tight tolerances or high strength requirements; for the most part; just OE tolerances.

So, if you have a good CAD package, and know how to use it, it's certainly possible to build replacement parts for most Super 8 cameras.

Edited June 7, 2013 by Zac Fettig