Parker Print Shop

3D Printing Journey

My 3D printing journey began when I needed to find a way to make custom cases for Lithium Iron Phosphate (LifePO4) batteries for my RV. The battery tray was exactly 14.25" x 14.25" and fit two normal lead acid Deep Cycle batteries. Two 100 Ah LifePO4 batteries would fit, but I wanted more capacity, much more.

I wanted to use 280 Ah EVE cells which when put together to make a 12.8 Volt battery, were almost 7" wide - just the cells. So, I had about 10 mm of extra space. I thought of using wood as many people were doing at the time, but thought I would look into the possibility of using a 3D Printer to make the cases.

I ended up making cases for four batteries. Each one was 280 Amp Hours @ 12.8 Volts. The four in parallel give me 1,120 Amp Hours with about 14.3 Killo Watts of usable energy. Along with the 3,200 Watt Pure Sine Wave Inverter, the batteries allow me to run anything in the RV while off grid. Nice to be able to run a rooftop AC while driving in the summer without running the generator. With full batteries, I can run one AC for about 10 hours. Since I added 600 Watts of solar on the roof, the batteries last even longer.

My first printer was an Ender 5 Plus. And it was quite slow, especially by today's standards, but it was amazing to watch something I designed come to life in front of me. It reminded me of a quote from one of my favorite authors:

“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”
                                                      ~Arthur C. Clarke

That's what it seemed like to me, magic. It's a bit like the very early precursor to the Star Trek Replicator.

So, I did end up designing and printing custom cases for my RV batteries. The first version was a bit crude, but as I got more comfortable with Fusion 360 I made several improvements along the way. Surprisingly, PLA held up fairly well. When I get around to a redesign, I may try making the cases from PETG.

Here are some pictures of the battery case iterations.