Can You 3d Print Vinyl Records? 3d Printing Vinyl Record

Can You 3d Print Vinyl Records? The answer to this question is yes, but it’s not as easy as printing a picture.

The process of 3D printing vinyl records requires an understanding of the equipment and software that are needed for this task.

It also involves some basic knowledge about vinyl record production.

This blog post will break down what you need to know in order to successfully 3D print your own vinyl records at home or in the studio!

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Can you 3d print vinyl records? Check your printed record

Theoretically, you can. In reality, the process becomes a bit complicated, and actually making a record from it is not advised. For that reason, we do not sell 3D printable vinyl records at Shapeways, but there are some other products that have been made with 3D printed molds:

All of these were machined from large wax parts, which might be a reasonable approach if you want to produce a lot of these records or already have access to a machine shop or milling equipment.

There are several tutorials online about how to build your own wax duplicator so this might be an interesting project for someone who wants to delve into the world of recording their own music on vinyl. We would advise against trying to buy one of our larger waxes and attempting this process since the mold is optimized for the injection-molding process.

Finally, you can always apply to own a 3D printer yourself so that you can experiment with your own 3D printable records!

While it might not be cheap at first to buy a 3D printer, it would allow you the freedom of trying out all sorts of interesting techniques.

To give just one example, that may or may not have been already attempted by others: printing actual records in resin and actually playing them on a record player… if anyone attempts this we’d love to hear about it in the Shapeways community!

Can You 3d Print Vinyl Records?(cre: wired)

3D print Vinyl material – Desktop metal zone

3D print Vinyl material is getting more and more popular in the 3D printing industry. This material is durable, versatile, lightweight, impact-resistant, and perfect for rapid prototyping. With its special glossy finish, it will give your object a nice look.

Before you begin to print with this material make sure that your 3D printer can use it.

Not all machines are compatible with this new material. If your machine is not able to extrude this material make sure to upgrade it or contact us for an upgrade!

We have done several tests on DLP printers but most of our customers are using FDM printers like Ultimaker2 or Makerbot Replicator 2/2X/2S/2GO etc. For these types of printers, you will need to use special photo-curable material.

The standard PLA cartridge will not work with this new material, so the first thing to do is to get an empty PLA cartridge to be able to print with it using your existing machine!

Vinyl 3D printing materials are considered DLP resins in our industry meaning that they cure when the light passes through the liquid resin. To achieve this you need a projector that can project images on your object in order for them to harden layer by layer until your objects are done.

You can also take off the protective cap of the cartridge and then expose it in any other way but projecting an image on it. It is possible to buy UV lamps or make one yourself.

When it comes to the light, you need to use a UV light with a 365 nm wavelength.

This is completely different from regular 3D printer filaments which are using 405 nm or even worse 488nm lights.

The reason why you have to use the right one is because of so-called photoinitiators which are added to vinyl resins themselves.

If your project requires exposure time longer than 30 seconds it’s impossible to do that on 405nm lights since they cannot pass enough energy through layers in order for them to harden properly.

So you will end up having an object which looks OK at first glance but when you start sanding it down, polishing it, etc some details will be lost forever!

Vinyl materials are not completely transparent so you will have to use a projector with good lights in order for your objects to look nice.

One more thing which is important to remember, especially during the production process of vinyl material, is that you need to reduce the amount of UV light drastically since it tends to break down the molecules of the liquid even further!

The optimal exposure time for our materials is around 2-5 seconds using a 365nm wavelength.

However, depending on your 3D printing machine this might not be enough to harden your object properly, and then you will end up with an unfinished print.

We recommend our customers not to go over 8-10 seconds per layer maximum otherwise you will end up having a non-printable filament due to its quality dropping so much that it will refuse to print.

Another tip is that since the light exposure time is reduced, it’s good to increase your layers as well. Since we do not have a proper safety data sheet we cannot tell you what we recommend but usually, we make prints with 15-20% more layers than usual and slower speeds (around 40 mm/s) and this seems like a reasonable compromise between quality and speed.

Can You 3d Print Vinyl Records?(cre: instructables)

3D printed vinyl record wall mounting brackets – Laser cut records – Follow printer data

3D printed vinyl record wall mounting brackets. Straight from the spaghetti head, I present to you the latest in my 3D printing experiments: a set of (2) laser cut and engraved adjustable 3D printed vinyl record wall mounting brackets.

These are currently on sale at Shapeways for $29.99 and ship worldwide if you can find someone with a big enough printer to print them out for you locally.

They’re easy to install and will work for “Ikea” and other flat-pack floating wall shelf systems as well as standard 5/8″ plaster or drywall anchors.

You may remember my earlier post about making these same objects using traditional digital sculpting tools such as Pixologic’s ZBrush and The Foundry’s Mari. But I’m a big believer in using the right tool for the job and 3D printing is a great way to quickly prototype an idea you have been kicking around or just let your imagination run wild with.

Conclusion

Vinyl records are making a comeback. But, did you know that they can be 3d printed? If not, read on to learn more about how vinyl is being reinvented for the digital age.

Many people have begun collecting these vintage pieces of music history and some artists even release new songs in this format exclusively! We hope you find our insights useful as you enjoy all the wonderful things that come along with playing old-school vinyl albums again! As always, we’re happy to answer any questions or concerns in the comments section if needed. Thanks for reading!

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