One of the best things about 3D printing is it gives people the opportunity to solve everyday problems by making the solution to them. Here’s a case in point – Rent the Sky Films, a mixed media, motion control and animation studio, used their Markforged 3D printer to 3D print a fibreglass camera cable harness for their handheld camera.
The harness is a custom job designed in-house by the team. It consolidates cabling to a single interface point. It keeps the cables neat, tidy and ordered, so that the camera is easier to operate. It allows the team to carry a series of cabling while reducing weight. They now use a handheld 3D camera on jobs rather than a 100lb rig thanks to the extra functionality the cabling offers – in simple terms, it makes life on the job much easier.
RtS 3D printed the camera cable harness using Onyx, a chopped carbon fibre and nylon hybrid material (proprietary to Markforged), and reinforced it with continuous strands of Fibreglass. The result is an exceptionally strong harness that, pound-for-pound, is stronger than 6061 aluminium and less than half the weight.
In addition, fabrication time and costs have been slashed. The team can design and fabricate a new camera harness in around 9-hours with 3D printing, versus 1-week with CNC machining. The cost-per-part has been significantly reduced from an eye-watering $320 per harness to $19.71 per harness. To give you some more figures, it means the team now makes camera harnesses and other holders and casings 15x faster and 16x cheaper – and it’s all thanks to 3D printing.
3D Printers: The following 3D printers support Onyx and Fibreglass: Mark Two, Onyx Pro, X7, X5.
Material used: Onyx, Fibreglass. The Markforged Mark Two can also 3D print Carbon Fibre and Kevlar.
This information was first published on the Markforged website.