tskaze

Awesome, glad you actually followed through and printed this. I was reading a blog post someone had written about printed nerf guns which reminded me to check back here. I saw this thread and posted it to makerblock's blog. He posted the files to thingiverse, giving you credit of course. Just thought I'd let you know. You can probably claim the thingiverse entry somehow if you want, or ask for it to be taken down of course (which would be lame).

If you could design slightly smaller parts and used cheap ABS (~$40 per pound) on a hobby printer like the makerbot you could probably make this economical. Maybe not for a kit business, but I'd pay a premium for a custom built nerf gun. The potential for innovation is more important to me though. Sick of having all nerf guns designed in confusing and modder unfriendly ways? This is one cure. There's already people in the comments talking about making it modular or double barreled, so I wouldn't be surprised if a derivative was uploaded soon.

Strength is definitely an issue in any FDM part, but there's always a solution. I know metal FDM parts can has extra liquid metal wicked into the spaces. I'm wondering if some kind of resin could be used in an ABS part that could reinforce the air spaces. It's a theory, but it might be worth looking into if that's the direction you're going. I'm not too familiar with FDM, so I don't know what the options are.

What were you considering in terms of capacity, barrel arrangement, trigger placement, and overall shape? If you have some kind of baseline design, I can throw together something in SolidWorks and email it to you.

One last thought: have you considered putting joints at the points where individual parts connect? I feel like gluing the surfaces in the mock-up you showed alone wouldn't hold up under any half-decent spring, but even a simple joint just to increase the glued surface area would improve the strength of the blaster significantly, assuming the part itself can handle the stress.

I'm not quite sure how the final design is going to function, but I'm moving toward a pretty simple "box shape with a pressure chamber and a clothespin like trigger" design. If airtightness becomes an issue I probably will use resin or some other kind of finishing method. But if I use PVC for the barrel and the pressure chamber I don't think I'll have too many issues.

As for the connections, my current design does have a joint connecting the two parts of the body. It may need some redesigning, but I'll have to see what kind of stress its under when I get a working prototype put together.

Well I'm printing out my first few prototypes now. It's ugly and probably nonfunctional, I'm just working on getting the sizes right so everything fits together. If I get time to work on it this week I should have some idea of whether or not this is going to work by the weekend.

Do you really want this setup?

nope, that was just my original concept, I'm interested in anything that works and can be printed.

edit: just saw the post with your design. Though I'm not 100% sure how its supposed to work, I kind of get the idea and I like it so far. It seems different than the concept I'm working from, but thats why I posted here; I just want a working printable dart gun, and I'm interested in trying as many ways to reach that goal as possible.

Good luck printing parts that are air tight, don't curl up on the sides, have overhangs, or are actually as tall as 6". I could see using one of these to print a trigger, or a catch plate, or part of a handle. Maybe a rail or a sight attachment, if you've got it printing really well. But printing out a whole nerf gun or even large portions of a nerf gun is very difficult/unlikely. I've found that it's really only good for printing junky plastic toys and puzzles. Oh, and expect to have to drop some more cash on their heated build platform.

Here's an example of something you can print on one:
http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3249
Note the problems with leakage, and the simplicity of the desgin (and how easy it would be to make the same thing with some pvc and a little polycarbonate sheet) That design probably took hours and hours to print. Also, because of the way the plastic is deposited, the barrels will be ribbed for her pleasure.

If you do have any luck with it, let me know. It would give me something to do with this damned thing other than printing out starfleet comm badges.

well printing the housing, trigger, slide, etc would be a pretty good start, even if I have to use pvc for the parts that need to be airtight (only the barrel and air chamber as far as I know). It would let me make some cool custom guns, and for people with an automated build platfrom, it would allow easy mass production of nerf guns.

But I think the airtightness problem might be solvable. These instructions for finishing parts with enamel paint might help, and I think I've seen some other ways to make things water tight kicking around the internet.

Ah the Rapid prototyper built nerf gun, one of many dreams. Just a tip: don't bother. I have tried and even go to the point of assembly, with lost, and lots of troubles on the way. The RP machine at my school can make anything out of ABS as long as it fits in a 8"x8"x12" area. I used strong materals for things such as the shell, plunger tube, etc. It doesn't work. The way the parts are made make them very weak. the layers of plastic seperate and snap very easily. Its just a waste of money to even attempt this.

glad to see someone has the same dream as me

fortunately, since I already own the printer and the plastic for it is cheap as dirt, I'm only wasting time working on this and not money.

could you elaborate on what didn't work for you? I've found makerbot and reprap parts to be remarkably strong if you print them the right way with regard to the kind of force they're going to be put under.

What are those? Your not talking about the things where you pull the string, it pops, and confetti flies out, cause i think thats explosives.