Post your questions, opinions and reviews of the MPC1000. This forum is for discussion of the OFFICIAL Akai OS (2.1). If you wish to discuss the JJ OS, please use the dedicated JJ OS forum
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By butternutsquash Tue May 27, 2014 1:26 am
Soon, I will likely have access to a 3D printer and thought today that I could make some new sliders for the 1000 and some new volume knobs maybe just because I'm not a huge fan of their design. I may do it anyway but if anyone is interested, I could maybe make a few for a small price. Another thing though, to take off the sliders, do you just have to pull on them, because the slider on my 2kXL just came right off and these feel sturdier on there. I don't want to break anything so I'm not tugging too hard. Thanks, and just say so if you are interested.

I should be able to get the CAD files done soon enough, and then I will see if I can use the printer in a few months. I'm very open to suggestions on the design of either of them.
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By sciguy Sat May 31, 2014 4:44 am
Yep, the sliders pop right off.


A suggestion, coming from a guy with a 3D printer (though I haven't yet tried any sort of custom MPC knobs/buttons):

Don't expect any precise dimensions to come out right on the printer.
E.g. you'll CAD a 1/4" hole (or whatever) to fit the 1/4" (or whatever) shaft of the volume potentiometers. But the printed part is not gonna fit.
You're going to have to do some experimenting to figure out the tolerance of the printer, how much bigger you have to design the part so that it ends up the right tolerances after printing.

One good solution is to design the part to have some sort of flexible spring-fit.
Something like this, (on the right):
Image
That sort of deal would allow the flexibility of the plastic to account for any inaccuracy between the printed part and the shaft diameter.
There are probably more efficient designs than that one, that's just the first that came to mind.
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By butternutsquash Sat May 31, 2014 9:16 pm
I will definitely take that into consideration, as I do not yet know how precise the printer will be until I use it. It has a generally good resolution on paper but I will have to wait and see when I start printing. I will try to use a more flexible design with the holes and factor in the tolerance once I get some prototypes going. Thanks for your input though, its not often you meet someone with knowledge of both MPC's and 3d Printers