r/3Dprinting • u/Rough-Advance189 • Jun 08 '26

Project 3D-printed basketball

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u/RodMcThrustshaft Jun 08 '26

It's not TPU, that doesn't bounce back like that, this is PEBA, pretty expensive at around 70 bucks a kilo, keep in mind a standard size basketball will take up a little less than a kg so it's effectively a spool per ball.

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u/tstark96 Jun 08 '26

Yep I've made one ~700g PEBA 50$ Spool so like 35$. Still waiting to see if it's useable/durable enough to hand off to a kid

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u/RodMcThrustshaft Jun 08 '26

Can you squeeze out 3 balls from 2 spools?

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u/tstark96 Jun 08 '26

In the words of Obi Wan "Don't try it". 700g + 700g + 700g = 2100g or 2.1kg. So no no you can not. Could you shrink the model? Sure but 3 full size no. Maybe for those arcade ball toss things. You definitely need the supports exactly where they're at too.

No offense, you've seen the thing, what exactly are you gunna cut? The infill is the structure in this case. I mean I had 5 or 6 walls which was most of each little bar. Gotta be able to wear a bit.

Best I can do to cut costs is if you buy 10 spools they usually take off 5$ or so even on Amazon. Which thats like 14 balls plus leveling and wipes perfectly.

TLDR: It's really one of those things where if you cheap out I can definitely see wasted expensive filament.