Thoughts on 3D printing Legos?

[metalgeekzy]

I was thinking about mostly harder to come by bricks or discontinued bricks. I guess you could 3D print like 2x4 bricks or whatever. But would you consider 3D printing needed bricks. Or is it more of, If its not from TLG its not going into a build? A lego purist kinda thing? 

And im not saying i am going to be doing this. Just random thoughts ive been having. 

Like ive seen people talk about this part/set being discontinued. Recreating a 1990s set to have as your own. Or if you have some specific MOC in mind but it will take 150 of a specific brick thats kinda hard to come by. Or liking a older discontinued piece that you cant get anymore. 

Now i feel like im rambling. Basically, what are your thoughts on 3D printing Legos? 

[1963maniac]

My experience with 3D printed parts isn't so good. The quality of the print just isn't there. I certainly would not print very many of anything.

[koalayummies]

I think its pretty cool. Check this guy out for example: František Hajdekr, and some of his CAD Lego parts. He regularly designs and prints brand new parts based around both the regular system and Technic and its really fascinating to see what he creates and the world of new possibilities each part opens. Personally I stick to genuine Lego pieces but I very much enjoy seeing builders dramatically push the envelope of creativity with their own printed parts.

[dr_spock]

3D printing is not a fast process. A large quantity can take days.  Another challenge is finding filaments that match the desired LEGO color.  You could grind up LEGO bricks of the desired color and make into filament to use with the 3D printer.  3D printing ABS can be tricky if you can't keep the ambient temperature around the print high enough to prevent warping.  Nonetheless, it is fun to design your own custom compatible parts in CAD and 3D print them out.

[Mylenium]

14 hours ago, koalayummies said:

I think its pretty cool. Check this guy out for example: František Hajdekr, and some of his CAD Lego parts. He regularly designs and prints brand new parts based around both the regular system and Technic and its really fascinating to see what he creates and the world of new possibilities each part opens. Personally I stick to genuine Lego pieces but I very much enjoy seeing builders dramatically push the envelope of creativity with their own printed parts.

Some cool stuff, for sure. A lot of the slopes are very reminiscent of Mega Construx, though, even more so since they introduced more new shapes for the Hot Wheels Minis this year.

16 hours ago, metalgeekzy said:

Basically, what are your thoughts on 3D printing Legos? 

At the moment the technology isn't there yet. It's way too convoluted to print even relatively simple stuff and the precision is not good, either, especially with the more affordable FDM printers. Point in case: Printing larger quantities of bricks would only make sense (to me at least) if the bricks came out of the printer ready to use without having to remove supports, edge bleed and other artifacts as well as having to drill out holes for the necessary precision and that sort of thing. If one is willing to go this route for a few unique custom parts or replacing a broken legacy peice then I guess it would be okay, but to me it pretty much comes down to the much-touted 3D printing revolution that was promised ten years ago has yet to happen, if it ever happens. Maybe we can talk about this a few years down the line, but currently even large industrial 3D printers simply are not up to the task, at least when we're talking the specific requirements associated with brick building.

Mylenium

[Faefrost]

Here's the biggest issues with 3d printed lego, FDM printers are nowhere near precise enough for regular lego pieces. But they are the only ones that can do durable ABS. Resin printers have reached where modern consumer 6k monochrome printers have more than enough precision. But you get resin parts. Plus mess cleaning and curing. 

Right now 3d printing is good for certain types of limited connection accesory pieces. Monorail track. Minifig accesories etc. It's not really there yet for print your own lego set. 

[JaBaCaDaBra]

On 12/15/2021 at 12:25 AM, metalgeekzy said:

Legos

[LegoDW]

I read 3d printed bricks cannot maintain their clutch.  

[dr_spock]

29 minutes ago, LegoDW said:

I read 3d printed bricks cannot maintain their clutch.  

I think that depends on the elasticity of the type of plastic you used to make the part.  Read the property info sheets and choose wisely. 

 

[62Bricks]

On 12/14/2021 at 7:25 PM, koalayummies said:

I think its pretty cool. Check this guy out for example: František Hajdekr, and some of his CAD Lego parts. He regularly designs and prints brand new parts based around both the regular system and Technic and its really fascinating to see what he creates and the world of new possibilities each part opens. Personally I stick to genuine Lego pieces but I very much enjoy seeing builders dramatically push the envelope of creativity with their own printed parts.

I love his Flickr feed and have been following him for a while. I'm still a purist, but I break that rule vicariously through him. He is usually printing a part to solve a design issue. He likes to make compact, functional models and sometimes needs geometries Lego does not allow. He also is not afraid of using clone brands, especially if they have a unique part.

[jelockwood]

The examples from František Hajdekr are way better than I thought was possible with consumer level 3D printing equipment but I also share the opinion that technology is not yet good enough for this.

I had however thought that Lego should be looking at this themselves as a way of offering a 'print on demand' service for discontinued bricks. Lego would be able to buy industrial level 3D printing systems which should be much better and faster but even there I would still feel technology is not yet advanced enough.

[Febio7]

 

Good Morning I agree with your reflections.

3d printing is getting better but the accuracy is still far from the quality of the original legos.

I did some tests and I was able to match the lego pieces by printing them twice the size, printing the whole lego kit.

Matching the life-size 3d pieces with original legos was very difficult for me.

 

Edited July 17, 2023 by Febio7

[Clara43]

I don't see a problem here, for Lego or anyone who might want to print their own blocks, as long as they don't print the Lego logo on them and try to pass them off as the real thing (in which case they'd be violating the trademark). Patent protection for the basic Lego blocks expired a long time ago, so that's not an issue. And there's no way that printing blocks at home will ever be as time-efficient or cost-effective as injection-molding them, even if costs come down substantially.

Lego expends a lot of effort on quality control, so their blocks are always going to work better than any home-printed copies. While it's certainly possible for people to use these printers and print Lego-compatible parts to customize their own creations, that seems more likely to spur demand for the basic bricks than to supplant it. Lego is a very savvy company, which has pioneered home robotics kits (Mindstorm) and taken advantage of crowd-sourcing to generate new product ideas. It looks like they are more likely to turn the 3D printing craze to their own advantage than to let it harm them. 

[MAB]

For minifigure accessories or specific parts like battery boxes for smaller lipo batteries where LEGO do not make anything similar, I have no objection to using third party moulded parts or 3D printed parts. But for regular system parts, I don't really see the point. LEGO has so many parts these days, if you need to design a new part to get a design to work, then it needs a redesign.

[AFOLguy1970]

I concur that the quality of the 3D printed brick just wont be acceptable for the vast majority of us.  Likely, the technology will at some point allow for a compatible brick with superior quality.  This is probably something that keeps the higher ups at TLG up at night.  I also looked into it due to the difficulty in getting certain parts, but after watching several videos of what was produced, I will wait for technology to improve.  

[Toastie]

On 1/13/2023 at 11:58 PM, AFOLguy1970 said:

Likely, the technology will at some point allow for a compatible brick with superior quality.

I agree - provided that making superb 3D ABS printed pieces be a "target" at all. Mo(u)lding gets ever cheaper these days - so I believe molding will simply be the way to go for the remainder of ABS brick (and such pieces) lifetime.

3D printing is happening in another world, i.e., metal and such materials. ABS is - as of now - better molded for high-end appearance. This technology is mature. We'll see whether there is a market for ABS pieces of highest quality needed to be 3D printed. Would be good for individuals, but maybe not for mass production - who knows.

Best,
Thorsten

[Febio7]

 

3D printong will never replace real lego sets but it may allow for higher scale creating as in the case i shown above.

[EamonnMR]

May become feasible to replace long-gone difficult to obtain parts like Monorail pieces, but you're not going to get the insane tolerances that Lego does.