1998.5 Dodge Ram CTD - Sally

UglyViking

Well-known member
Looks great man! It def looks like it came from the factory with a special package, which is really the best for interior mods I feel.

How did you do the texture on the switch mount and stick ring? Was that just from the plate while you 3D printed?
 

frojoe

Adventurer
Looks great man! It def looks like it came from the factory with a special package, which is really the best for interior mods I feel.

How did you do the texture on the switch mount and stick ring? Was that just from the plate while you 3D printed?
Thanks! I'm beyond stoked at how "integrated" it turned out. For the Atlas sticks, I'm in the middle of hashing out decent 3D prints for top caps, with debossed lettering of "F" vs "R" for the left and right sticks, and a little factory-like diagram of "L-N-H" for position.

The texture on the top is just the print plate, which honestly looked close enough to a "factory rough texture" that I rolled with it. It did require the visible textured surface to be flat (not an issue for these specific pieces) and for the part to be oriented/printed upside down, which required a bit of forethought for the backsides of the parts in order to not have any difficult/extreme overhangs that might print poorly.

Just before these Dodge parts, I did spend the better part of a week trial-and-error'ing to find a good surface finish for a multi-faceted part printed at an off angle, for additional gauges on the Nova.

It turns out the best resolution and surface finish smoothness (only in terms of the print quality) is to angle the part so that there are no surfaces that are directly vertical or directly horizontal, and ideally the priority surface that is desired to have the best finish quality is printed at about 15deg off of vertical. I then dusted the parts with satin black spray paint about 5-6 light layers with no shaking of the can, to get little paint globs building up a slightly rough sandpaper-like texture, instead of glassy smooth.

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chris_the_wrench

Fixer & Builder of Things
In the effort of making things more streamlined and ergonomic, I had an idea to make rocker switch "pods" for either side of the steering column, and since I got a 3D printer in October 2024, this was finally possible to do in a not-tacky "obviously aftermarket" manner.
Did you somehow 'scan' the dodge profile there to generate the correct curvature for where the switch block mounted?
 
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frojoe

Adventurer
Did you somehow 'scan' the dodge profile there to generate the correct curvature for where the switch block mounted?
I cut maybe 4 or 5 versions of the curvature out of cereal box until I got the extreme ends to mate to the plastic panel nicely, then did a 3rd cross-section horizontally, then took pics of those curves and then projected them onto planes in my 3D modeling software. That got it close enough, and I did maybe another 3-4 rough/quick test 3D prints until I got the entire perimeter of the plastic pod mating nicely to the plastic panel.
 

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