jim_s

@Mark Jeangerard - Overall, I think the print quality on these looks pretty good. (I like the red, too! ) The banding on the underside is expected - the printer can only print in flat planes, so it has to approximate a sloped surface by making a series of stepped planes. A low layer height will result in smoother steps, but some studies have been done that show lower layer heights can actually result in weaker materials, as regards elongation, bending, etc. (Now, in our case, the part is primarily in compression, so a denser/lower layer height might be more beneficial than if the part were being stretched and bent, but I haven't done any comparative tests on that...) If you look at the attached photos, the layer height on that print was .1575mm - so, smoother sloped surface (my print has 25 bands across the bottom, whereas his has 10 bands), but I can't say whether that has any real world positive effect, beyond aesthetics. I'm impressed with the detail he achieved on the labeling (I'd love to know his surface prep secrets!), but on the other hand, I tend to run my extruder and bed on the hot side, and I tend to over-extrude (ie, the rate at which the filament is fed through the hot end that melts and applies it), and run a low layer height - I joke that I like it hot, wet, and sloppy! ? - as a result, though, I tend to get little gaps and spaces filled in quite solidly (by contrast, you can see the individual filament beads on his print, and there are some areas that don't fill all the way in, such as the little void between the bolt hole and the edge of the shim). I tend to believe that the 'hot, wet and sloppy' approach will result in a more solid part, but again, I've not done any comparative testing to see if the end result is physically stronger, or not. As regards infill percentage, I'd be wary of something as low as 15% - for a decorative print, that would be fine, but for something structural, I'd definitely recommend making the infill about as high as you can. (I've read various articles that seem to indicate there are diminishing returns above around 60-70% infill, though 100% will almost certainly still be stronger than 70% - just likely not by as much as the difference between 70% and 40%, for instance.) I also adjust my 'shells' setting, so that the walls of the shim come out 100% solid ('shells' dictates how many top, bottom and side layers are made solid, before infill starts being used - I adjust my shells so that the vertical walls don't end up using any infill, but are instead just solid material). All these various settings are a means of managing trade-offs in the final print and the time and material it takes to achieve the final print. You're basically shuffling around various quantities such as time, material usage, print quality (aesthetic) and strength. If you're willing to sacrifice time and material (ie, cost goes up), your quality and strength can go up. If you're more interested in cutting time and/or material, then your quality and strength will likely go down. For something structural like this, I think the trade-off should definitely be maximized to prefer strength. There are a few informative articles and discussion on this out there. Ones I've found particularly informative include: http://my3dmatter.com/influence-infill-layer-height-pattern/ https://revistas.unal.edu.co/index.php/ingeinv/article/view/56610/58902

Agreed, and given that a set of stock wedges (ie, buying both lift and cant stock sets for one foot) will run about $24 per foot, $30 isn't far off of that for exactly the settings you want, down to whatever nth of a degree you desire. But, one would hope that it could be even cheaper than that. (And, it is if you go with an FDM service - you're then talking about $10 per foot, but the SLS is likely to be far more of a worry-free, long-term/permanent solution, I suspect.) Truth be told, despite the fact that I have a perfectly good FDM machine at home, I'm inclined to order a set printed in nylon via SLS, just because I think it would be a better long-term result.

Yeah, I think its all about material volume. (I don't know if maybe print time plays into it, as well, or not.) The F2 shims are pretty low volume, but even then, $60 for a full set (ie, both feet, in the nice SLS Nylon) is pretty expensive - and that's for a 'reasonable' set - something in the 3-4 degree range for lift and cant, and minimal base depth. The following set would be double the price (I checked! ), though I'd probably pay it...

If you're working directly in OpenSCAD, you can turn on the axes and scale markers to see ruler-like marks on the axes ( icons in OpenSCAD), but you have to be zoomed in pretty far for them to get down to the unit (mm) level, and you have to be looking directly from the side view, and in Orthogonal view ( are the left and right side view icons, is the Orthogonal view icon) to get an accurate view, and even then, some squinting is required. I'll play with the numbers a bit this weekend - I should be able to calculate the base depth needed to achieve a minimum edge thickness and/or groove/ridge wall thickness, and then either output that in the console window, or as you suggest, include some reference in the "Preview" layout.

Yeah, just always be sure to take a good look at the thin edge of the shim, to be sure that both the edge and the ridge/groove wall thicknesses are sufficiently thick for your purposes. (And confirm this before you send it to print! Changes to lift and/or cant will often require a little experimentation and adjustment of the base depth value, to be sure that things are sufficiently thick.

@piusthedrcarve - I should probably have named (or maybe should rename) that parameter 'Base Height' so it is more clear. If you consider a setup with just heel lift, and no cant, and no base depth (ie, Base Depth = 0), then looking at it from the side, the toe piece would look like a right triangle laying on its side, such as below. (This is ignoring the ridge that is usually on the bottom, to lock into the base binding piece...) The problem with this is that the front edge is razor-thin, which #1 is weak, and #2, the little groove in the top surface (and the ridge on the bottom, if it was shown here) doesn't extend all the way to the front edge, because it thins out too much. Here's the same toe piece (with no base depth) viewed from an overhead angle: So, if you add base depth, you're just adding a block onto the bottom of the wedge - this serves 2 purposes - first and foremost, it makes that front edge thick enough to have some structural strength, and second, it provides enough thickness at the thin edge that the ridge and groove will extend all the way to the front edge. (3rd, if you you want a little extra height on your bindings, it will also elevate the bindings by that Base Depth amount...) Here is the same toe piece, but with the 'Base Depth' parameter set to 3. (that's 3mm) And here it is with the little bottom ridge added back in. (I just hid it above so the side views would be clearer...) So, you need some minimum value for Base Depth, so that you get a structurally sound thin edge (toe edge if using heel lift, heel edge if using toe lift), and so that you've got enough material that the little groove/ridge feature is fully formed, and thick enough to be useful. Here is an example where there's some base depth, but not really enough - notice that the front edge of the shim is reasonably thick (I have Base Depth = 1mm on this one), but that the wall thickness of the little groove/ridge feature at the front is paper-thin. So, this would be better off with a base depth of 1.5 or 2mm. Note that this example doesn't have any cant. If you had some cant in there, then you could probably get away with 0.5 to 1mm of base depth, because the higher edge due to the cant would make that front area at the groove/ridge feature a little thicker, like this: (this version has a base depth of only 0.5mm - which wouldn't work without the cant, but since it has cant, the cant ends up making the front edge thicker, because the one edge is lifted up higher to actually provide the cant. Does that all make sense?

BTW, for the geekily-inclined, the .scad file is also available in the following BitBucket Git repository. Feel free to fork, submit and vote on issues, etc. https://bitbucket.org/12amtools/f2-binding-lift-cant-shims

Special Thanks go out to @Carvin' Marvin, too - he took a bunch of measurements for me, and actually loaned me a complete set of stock size M lift and cant wedges, so I was able to get needed dimensions on them! Great bunch of folks on here!!

I'd checked on prices for your SB risers back when you were working on them, and IIRC, it was around $550 for a pair in SLS nylon from Shapeways, LoL, but only about $90 for a pair in FDM from 3D Hubs. (which I think was around the price of a commercial pair, but the printed ones are customizable to your exact specs!) The beauty of Shapeways, though, is that you could just jump straight to aluminum, for a mere $4k! Nobody on 3D Hubs even offers that option. :-)

Yes, both the toe and heel parts are generated in one STL file - just be sure to set the 'Layout' parameter to 'Print' - this will flip the pieces upside down for printing, so that the top surface comes out nice and flat, and so that the bottom surface can be printed with the little protruding ridge. Some of the online printing services apparently used to be pretty strict about charging per the individual part, regardless of it being one STL, but they seem to be more relaxed about that these days, from what I've read more recently. If anyone finds that an online service is trying to charge them for 2 individual parts for a single set, let me know, and I can add an option to generate a 'tree' between the two parts. (I've got another version semi-in-progress that will generate 2 sets in one STL file, and I definitely plan to offer an option for treeing those together, as 4 separate pieces might understandably start stretching the goodwill of an online printing service...) There are numerous online services for printing parts. Probably the most popular is Shapeways, though it can run a little on the pricier side, as they tend to have only more premium materials to choose from, and they use SLS (Selective Laser Sintering), which tends to produce the nicest and strongest parts. One set of shims (ie, for one foot) will run around $30 for nylon, depending on the volume of your job (higher angles and/or base depth will result in greater volume). The other end of the spectrum is probably '3D Hubs', which is a network of individuals with printers, who will accept jobs from 3D Hubs, print things out, and then mail them to you. Objects produced in plastic via 3D Hubs, however, will all be FDM (Fused Deposition Modeling - the filament-based approach that most home/hobby machines utilize). A set in nylon via this service will also run around $30 (so in that case, use Shapeways' SLS service), but they also have less expensive materials, such as ABS, PETG and ASA - each of which should run in the neighborhood of $10 per set. There is a good summary of available online printing services here: https://all3dp.com/1/best-online-3d-printing-service-3d-print-services/

There was some discussion of screw lengths in the old 'Impatient Curiosity' thread, but I don't think there was discussion of 6 deg lift, in particular. (See the below post, and the post immediately following it). I think I printed up a 6 deg at one point along the way - I can check when I'm home tonight. I know I ended up going to the local hardware store and purchasing some bolts, as I didn't have enough of the long stock ones to do both front and back. (I bought little star lock washers to use under the pan-head bolts, as I wasn't willing to shell out the big bucks for another whole set of factory screws with the special bumps under them, and I was unable to source those suckers from anyone, even online...)

There were about 70 downloads of this from Thingiverse in the first day it was up, but unfortunately, I'd put up an old version with a bug in it (the shims wouldn't sit flat against the printer bed if there was toe lift or rightward cant, which means they wouldn't print successfully - Thanks to @Donek for noticing this). I uploaded the proper version a little before 11AM USA EST this morning (4/18). SO, If you downloaded the .scad file from Thingiverse before about 11am USA EST on 4/18, please discard that file and re-download it again from Thingiverse. The one that is up there now is the latest and greatest, and does not have this bug. Sorry about that - just goes to show that one shouldn't make decisions with consequences late at night! <:o/

Yeah, the base depth is a little fiddly, for moderate combinations of lift and cant, 0.5 - 1.0 can often work, but you need to keep a close eye on how thin/thick the little groove/ridge at the thin edge is - it should extend all the way to the edge, and be thick enough at the edge to be durable. If the base depth is too thin, the wall of the groove/ridge will get too thin, and/or disappear altogether at the edge. (Toe edge for heel lift, heel edge for toe lift.) If you're not overly concerned about getting an extra 1-2mm of base height in your shims, I'd recommend just specifying base depth as a minimum of 1-2mm. (But again, always visually inspect your generated STL, and make sure things look good before slicing and sending to a printer...) The other thing to keep in mind is that if there are significant differences in angles between 2 sets of shims (ie, front set vs rear set), then one will come out taller than the other, and for those very particular about their setup, it can be worth playing with the base depth to make sure that your binding tops end up at the same height. (There would have to be a particularly significant difference between front and back, and you'd have to be particularly particular for this to make a noticeable difference, but it seems we've got some folks here who are able to discern very small dimensions in their setups, so this is worth considering if you're one of those folks. (I'd considered adding extra parameters that could be used to match heights between two different sets, and/or be used to set a specific height, but the seemingly-minor benefit didn't seem worth the added complexity and confusion. BTW @jburk, "embossed" is a gratuitously-kind description of how the settings end up coming out on the surface of the shims. Because they print on the surface that is against the print bed, the gaps in the letters pretty much fill up with melted plastic, and can only really be read by holding the surface at an angle to the light, and squinting at it while moving it around. I usually label mine with a Sharpie, but, if you do end up with a collection of them and they're not labeled, it should be possible to figure out which ones are which with some visual effort. Further BTW, these things are a work in progress, for sure. If you run into problems, have suggestions, request for improvement, additional features, etc, please let me know - these were designed to just meet my particular needs, so I'd be interested in what ideas others come up with. (Can't promise I can do them all, but I'd be interested to hear them!)

The dedicated thread on the 3D Printed approach to the F2 lift/cant wedges is now here:

Material choice is something that I'm interested in, as well. I have printed and used a set made out of ABS, and they stood up to several days of use this season, but that is far from exhaustive testing (and I weigh all of 135 lbs, too...) I printed a set in PETG, but have not had a chance to try those out. Delrin might be a really good material, if you can get good inter-layer bonds (from other work with Delrin, I know its about impossible to get anything to stick to it, LoL... @erazz provided a link to a chart of plastics cold temperature performance in the 'Impatient Curiosity' thread. I'll repost his link here: https://omnexus.specialchem.com/polymer-properties/properties/ductile-brittle-transition-temperature

and...

This is intended to be a clearly-named spot to provide information about my approach to building customized lift/cant wedges for the F2 series of bindings (F2 Race/Intec Titanium and Intec Titanflex). This topic has previously been discussed to some extent in the following two threads, but the threads were mixed with several other topics, and I've been told that some were having problems finding information on this particular effort, so I'm centralizing it here. I recently acquired my first set of F2 bindings, and absolutely LOVE them. (I'm a life-long Burton RacePlate user, so this is a pretty huge change!) I was not so in love, however, with having to make lift and cant adjustments in 3-4 degree increments, as the F2 factory wedges force you to do. I'd heard various accounts of people making their own wedges by sanding, grinding, etc wood, plastic and metal, of people using washers and other shim material (ex, http://www.tognar.com/ski-binding-cant-strip/) to achieve desired lift/cant angles and lift heights. As a 3D Printing geek, my thoughts pretty immediately turned to how I might solve this problem with printed parts. Around the same time, @erazz was approaching a similar problem for soft-boot boards (see the 'Adventures in plates' thread...), and had also turned to 3D printing, so we traded some design ideas and approaches back and forth. The result is that using a free tool called OpenSCAD, or utilizing the 'Customizer' app on the Thingiverse website, it is now possible to custom design cants to your desired lift (heel or toe), cant (left or right) and binding height settings, for all 3 sizes of these F2 bindings. The file (if using OpenSCAD) , as well as access to the Thingiverse Customizer (no need for OpenSCAD), are available at: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2865271 I am merely sharing this approach with others, in case it can be of any use to anyone else. Bear in mind that I am not an engineer (nor even a particularly good snowboarder), and am not in any way qualified to claim that these are appropriate for use on your snowboard. If you choose to use this approach, be aware that your choice to do so is yours alone, and you are responsible for determining the suitability of the end result for your purpose, equipment, body, environment, etc. If you have any doubt or concern, DON'T USE THEM - your life and limb (literally) is not worth risking on this unproven and untested approach. Examples of what these look like are:

Ok, the proper version has been put up on Thingiverse now. The Thingiverse Customizer seems to be under some stress at present - I can't get it to complete a render (keeps timing out - when its under heavy load, longer renders tend to time out...), but the file can be downloaded and used on OpenSCAD. (My recommended approach.) It has been pointed out to me that this information is all buried in a thread with a title that doesn't really reflect that its about customizable F2 binding cant/lift shims. (I sort of hijacked my own thread, and it morphed into the current topic.) So, I think I'm going to start a new thread, with a more relevant title, so that anyone searching in the future will have a better chance of finding this information. I'll post a link to it here.

Ok, got it fixed - it was actually a bug I'd fixed previously, but then hacked up the wrong version to post on Thingiverse. I'll be glad if/when I ever get my brain back from this stupid brain injury! I've tested it 6 ways from Sunday, but I'm still going to wait till morning to update the version on Thingiverse, just so that I can look at it with fresh eyes in the AM, and make sure I haven't made some other dumb mistake. Should be up by a decent AM hour CO time. PS, @Donek I'd love to hear about what all you're doing w/ 3D printing!!

Huh, that's the complete opposite of what it should be doing... Let me take a look tonight - I modified some variables to make it more readable in the Thingiverse Customizer, and I might have screwed something up in the process. That definitely is not right, though. :-/

I'm obv a fan of the printing approach :-), but it is good for people to know their options. Do you find any rocking or twisting of the binding tops vs bottoms with the fender washers, or are they held solidly/stably in place? (Wondering from the perspective of any front/rear rocking due to the possible pivot point in the middle, as well as any twisting due to having the top and bottom pieces not interlocking through the little groove/ridge arrangement) Options are good!

+1 for the Superfeet Black ("Carbon") - very low volume, so didn't make my UPZ boots fit tighter (they're plenty tight enough!), but the underfoot support is much better than the stock beds, as well as than the molded underfoot fit (initially tried my Intuition liners w/o a foot bed) that I got out of my molding my Intuition liners. My local running store let me purchase and try out the Superfeet (including trimming them to fit in my liners), with the option to return them if I wasn't 100% satisfied w/ them. (even after trimming them) This seemed to be a Superfeet thing (vs just a thing by the running store), so it might be worth finding a local place, and see if they offer that same option, if you do decide to go w/ the Superfeet insoles.

Sean - I originally did some high-level research, and read that ABS tended to keep its 'useful characteristics' down to about -20C (-4F). That's certainly colder than I'll generally be man-enough to go out in, much less face here in the mid-Atlantic, but certainly, colder temps are regularly encountered in more extreme climates. With that in mind, I purchased some PETG filament, and printed up a set of shims, but my season ended before I got to try them out. PETG seems to be more cold tolerant (I read about -40c, which also mathemagically corresponds to -40F), and that seems to be beyond the temperature that even the hardiest of Manly Men would choose to head out for a carving session. These temperature ranges, I would imagine, would be what would be expected of industrially-molded components, however - I have no idea how printed materials would be affected, though I can't imagine that materials properties of printed plastic would compare favorably to those of molded plastics in any circumstance. I had a hard time finding definitive temperature ranges, or meanings of those ranges, for plastics. Lots of info about the upper end of the scale, but not much definitive info about the lower end. As a materials guy (ie, you), I'd be interested if you could possibly shed some light on some of this (or at least let us know in which direction we might seek out such light, ourselves...) , so that sensible decisions on materials (or even whether printing makes sense or not) could be made. I initially also did some seat-of-the-pants stress testing (at room temperature), including running the shims over repeatedly with a vehicle, hammering on them (sandwiched between 2 pieces of wood to reduce the effect of point stresses, which didn't seem very real-world), and the ABS held up Ok to that, but I'm no ASTM lab...

@digger jr - just based on the shims (ie, not taking any internal boot ramp angle into account), the stock lift shim gives about 3.5-4 degrees of lift, and the stock cant shim gives about 3 degrees of cant. Obviously, any lift or cant shims stacked on top of one another will increase in increments of those lift and cant values.

Thingiverse seems to have fixed their Customizer tool, so configurable Things are working again. The initial version of the F2 Binding Shims are posted here: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2865271 Its a bit of a complicated design, so the Customizer will usually take a few minutes to render it, at best. At worst, it will time out - the Customizer's responsiveness is inversely proportional to how many people are trying to us the underlying engine at the same time. (There also seems to be some relationship with how much of a rush you seem to be in - some kind of AI or something at work, that seems to intuit your impatience and frustration levels, and then works to help you build up your tolerance to ever-increasing levels of these...) I'd welcome any and all feedback on this - from the basic design, to the available parameter fields ,etc. I have an updated version in the works that will allow printing 2 sets of shims at once (each with their own set of customizable parameters), so that people using printing services (where they charge by the print) can combine 2 sets into a single print. I'll update the Thingiverse file, or upload it as a new Thing, when I get that finished. Bear in mind if the Customizer is not responsive enough, that you can download the .scad file from that Thingiverse page, then also download OpenSCAD (free), directly manipulate the file in OpenSCAD, and generate your STL file w/o having to use the Thingiverse Customizer. (I'd personally recommend this approach, as its typically faster to try out different parameters.) If anyone goes this route, and has any questions about how to customize the parameters in OpenSCAD, just let me know.