I am woking on making solar panel mounts for the roof rack of my nissan xterra from TPU, since it can take a beating. Does any one have any experience with 3d-printed TPU threads? And how much stress before it can take before a bolt rips out? Also should i use teflon thread seal so the a bolt won’t come loose?
Use metal fasteners. Plastic fasteners are too weak for your application. The shear and tensile strength of plastic is quite low.
Get PolyPropylen (PP) filament, a spare build plate and packaging tape
Nearly impossible to destroy on impact and one of the best layer adhesions possible.
edit: CNC kitchen video on PP: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yRw2mC_6A00
Teflon seals threads vs water or air, and works more like anti-sieze than a thread-locker. Coincidentally, Thread-locker can also keep water out, but I have no idea if there’s any point in trying to use it with TPU.
I made flat head bolts out of pteg for solar panel mounted to my sailboat and while towing it to the lake they ripped out :( (and I lost the panel)
I made the bolt head like a flat washer so I could glue it to the boat then set the panel on it and secured it with a pteg nut.
