3D printing gaskets

[theeddies]

[DIYer]

Thanks theeddies! We've added your 3D-Printed Gaskets to our Engine category,
as well as to your builder page: theeddies's Homemade Tools. Your receipt:

3D-Printed Gaskets by theeddies

tags: engine, seal, 3D printing

[marksbug]

looks great, just needs a few hundrad heat cycles with different fuels&oils/lubes & pressure to see how they hold up. also try breakleen!!&carb cleaner too. you may even ba able t make some seals out of it...like old car seals for ac/heater fresh doors. or vent seals as well as many more, like seals used for paint protection on items that are bolted to the car like lights&such or door lock seals etc. and if it comes in different colors thats awesome for "color matched seals" keep up the great work!! I wish I were smert enough to do that stuff, I would probably be printing intake manifolds and much more.

[theeddies]

looks great, just needs a few hundrad heat cycles with different fuels&oils/lubes & pressure to see how they hold up. also try breakleen!!&carb cleaner too. you may even ba able t make some seals out of it...like old car seals for ac/heater fresh doors. or vent seals as well as many more, like seals used for paint protection on items that are bolted to the car like lights&such or door lock seals etc. and if it comes in different colors thats awesome for "color matched seals" keep up the great work!! I wish I were smert enough to do that stuff, I would probably be printing intake manifolds and much more.

I agree with the heat cycles, etc. I am going to run it all mowing season and see how it holds up. I am doing a follow up video in the next day or so with another suggestion of measuring it before and after soaking in fuel. I will also try Brakeclean and Carb cleaner on it.

You gave me a couple ideas for some other parts and pieces as well. The only problem I would see is with exterior seals like around turn lights or etc. I am not sure of the UV resistance of TPU. I know that other thermoplastics like PLA and PETG will fade or may even break down under long exposure to sunlight. Though others like ABS are better. I should also leave a piece out in the weather I guess to test that. It does come in a bunch of colors , I just picked up that blue because it was on sale and I did not want to commit a bunch of money if it was a bust.

Thanks for the kind comments, I will keep exploring it as well as other practical uses of 3D printing, which I find much more interesting than a lot of what others are doing with 3D printing (toys and figures and such).
Best!
Eddie

[marksbug]

also , gaskets "squish out"and thus crack&leek. you can add a aluminum washer about 2/3 the thickness of the gasket so when tightened it seats on the washer, not squishing the gasket to death..premature death from the pressure. most modern ruber & sily cone gaskets have these either molden in the gaskets or nubs on the part that seat at the proper preload...and as far as preload that is somethen you can determine to see what the washer thickness to gsasket ratio needs to be. just leave a gap somewhere where you can masure the amount of gasket squish when torqued . proper tq is for the fastner most of the time, not the gaskets.but your gasket is softer than the paper and will probably compress more. but thats ok as long as your not damaging the gasket.I suppose you could make a jig with big bolts and squeze the **** out of a gasket checking the compression as well as when the gasket is damaged.then you know how much is to much tq. but a press with pressure gauge would be best, but I dont think thats necessary. I would just knotch a gasket&check the amout of compression when torqued and that would probably be the optimum thickness or close to it. most all style gaskets loosen up the fastners after a few heat cycles.with the washers(preload spacers) that is nolonger a issue. to add to that most gaskets can be retorqued 1 time, then they will loosen again some if you keep retightening them thats when the crack& fail prematurly. as you have squished the **** out of them.not a failure in the gasket, but a failure in the tinkeritis persons knolage. good luck and keep comming up with great stuff!!!( I wish you lived next to me, we could come up with all kinds of stuff.

[Frank S]

I really like the concept of a 3d printed gasket, for the thicker ones such as Marksbug mentioned with an embedded aluminum or copper washer, maybe go with a percentage fill with tiny honeycomb cavities between bottom and top layers this would allow for a slight sponginess in the gasket without it being squished out from between the mating surfaces which may or may not extend the heat cycle life of the gasket.
Optimally if one had a printer with multiple nozzles they could be loaded with harder and softer filaments to take the place of the hollow honeycomb cavities and still retain the sponge like quality

[theeddies]

also , gaskets "squish out"and thus crack&leek. you can add a aluminum washer about 2/3 the thickness of the gasket so when tightened it seats on the washer, not squishing the gasket to death..premature death from the pressure. most modern ruber & sily cone gaskets have these either molden in the gaskets or nubs on the part that seat at the proper preload...and as far as preload that is somethen you can determine to see what the washer thickness to gsasket ratio needs to be. just leave a gap somewhere where you can masure the amount of gasket squish when torqued . proper tq is for the fastner most of the time, not the gaskets.but your gasket is softer than the paper and will probably compress more. but thats ok as long as your not damaging the gasket.I suppose you could make a jig with big bolts and squeze the **** out of a gasket checking the compression as well as when the gasket is damaged.then you know how much is to much tq. but a press with pressure gauge would be best, but I dont think thats necessary. I would just knotch a gasket&check the amout of compression when torqued and that would probably be the optimum thickness or close to it. most all style gaskets loosen up the fastners after a few heat cycles.with the washers(preload spacers) that is nolonger a issue. to add to that most gaskets can be retorqued 1 time, then they will loosen again some if you keep retightening them thats when the crack& fail prematurly. as you have squished the **** out of them.not a failure in the gasket, but a failure in the tinkeritis persons knolage. good luck and keep comming up with great stuff!!!( I wish you lived next to me, we could come up with all kinds of stuff.

Excellent ideas. An inserted washer would be a piece of cake printing wise. I have inserted magnets just but leaving a pocket, and using the g-code to stop at that level, insert magnet and restart the print. Gasket stiffening is something I had not even thought about yet but it would certainly be a consideration in certain applications. With the carb I just tightened what I normally would for a paper gasket which I have done a 1000 times and it worked as expected but continuing on more scientific types of experiments would be necessary to really determine how viable this is or if it is just a stopgap type solution for certain applications

Thanks,
Eddie

[theeddies]

I really like the concept of a 3d printed gasket, for the thicker ones such as Marksbug mentioned with an embedded aluminum or copper washer, maybe go with a percentage fill with tiny honeycomb cavities between bottom and top layers this would allow for a slight sponginess in the gasket without it being squished out from between the mating surfaces which may or may not extend the heat cycle life of the gasket.
Optimally if one had a printer with multiple nozzles they could be loaded with harder and softer filaments to take the place of the hollow honeycomb cavities and still retain the sponge like quality

Another interesting idea. You would not need multiple nozzles. You can just tell the g-code to pause at a height, change the filament, restart and do that again to cover the top. I do it all the time with different colors but different materials would not be much harder, might have to adjust print temperature or other minor tweaks.
Great idea, this might be a n easier solution than using inserts.
Thanks,
Eddie

[marksbug]

no holes needed in washer, it could be ribed at edges or pocket for it. some thick silycone gadgets use a sleve the right length instead of washer.so silycony gadgets used a thin steel/stainless/aluminum incert between the gasket to stiffen the enitre hasket up so it did not squish out or suck un. I think those are almost gone as many did not work as the silycone could still be over tightened and squish it off the center support sheet.thats when they started encapsulating the gaskets in the parts they were made to fit.a few nubs to hold them in place and a total soround of the part on each edge keeps the soft gasket in plase so it can do it's one job.seal!!! but you dont have that so you need the gasket to have a solid seat(washer at each bolt/screw/fastner location) I suppose for some applications it may not even need that where the load is spread over a large area like timing covers on engines,chevy,ford,mopar and more.and the best part is your gasket would be reusable .witch is great for performance guys. wow, this kinda makes me wish I wasent getting out of the perfromance end of things....keep up the great work!!!

what part of GA are you in?

[theeddies]

no holes needed in washer, it could be ribed at edges or pocket for it. some thick silycone gadgets use a sleve the right length instead of washer.so silycony gadgets used a thin steel/stainless/aluminum incert between the gasket to stiffen the enitre hasket up so it did not squish out or suck un. I think those are almost gone as many did not work as the silycone could still be over tightened and squish it off the center support sheet.thats when they started encapsulating the gaskets in the parts they were made to fit.a few nubs to hold them in place and a total soround of the part on each edge keeps the soft gasket in plase so it can do it's one job.seal!!! but you dont have that so you need the gasket to have a solid seat(washer at each bolt/screw/fastner location) I suppose for some applications it may not even need that where the load is spread over a large area like timing covers on engines,chevy,ford,mopar and more.and the best part is your gasket would be reusable .witch is great for performance guys. wow, this kinda makes me wish I wasent getting out of the perfromance end of things....keep up the great work!!!

what part of GA are you in?

I would need to do more research on gasket tech but another option could be what was suggested by another commenter. You could you a use second stiffer filament and print it right into the gasket by changing filaments as you print. So you could add a harder nub anywhere you want, in any orientation. You could make some real specialty application gaskets like that with reinforcement exactly where needed.

What do you think the max temp of a timing cover for instance would be? I actually misspoke in the video when i said the max temp was 200c, that is the print temp so it is molten at that point. The glass transition is actually more like 80-100c or 176-212F depending on manufacturer so that would be the max operating temp. So obviously there will not be any TPU head gaskets but valve cover, timing cover, maybe. I believe the forum I heard about this was talking about valve cover.

I am just outside Atlanta, in Marietta.
Thanks!