(Newbie alert!) TPU for replacement rubber rollers in old audio equipment??

[phuzzyday]

Hi everybody!  Been watching and learning on EEVblog for ages, but just came into forum, so there is a risk of touching on something already discussed here...  a quick search shows it may have been grazed before...

I enjoy (trying) to repair old audio equipment, and of course there is a lack of supply of rubber parts, which have broken down into nothingness.
I now have a 3D printer, and just ordered some TPU with the idea of making some rubber rollers!  Has this been tried before?  I have a .2 mm nozzle and a machine that can do .01mm layers.

Thanks for any replies, and I look forward to joining into the conversations!!
PD

[DaJMasta]

I've made some parts from it to good effect, but it's going to depend a lot on your application.  The TPU I used printed about the consistency of hard rubber (Sunlu brand), so while parts were pliable, they were fairly rigid even with lowish infill (20% or so).  You can go lower or go to single layer walls to get more flexibility, but you probably want a softer material for good vibration damping or sealing applications (though, I wouldn't expect to get a real watertight or better seal out of a printed part).  The problem is, of course, that softer materials are harder for your extruder to make work, so it becomes more important to slow down print speed and really make sure the filament path between the extruder gear and the nozzle is constrained.

Regardless, with my cheap Sunlu TPU, a 0.4mm nozzle and 150um layer heights, I printed a bunch of feet and bumpers for a couple different kinds of equipment as well as some anti-vibration fan gaskets and things to pretty good effect.  There's a thread in the Test Equipment section that has a bunch of 3D models that include those.

[ebastler]

When you say "roller", do you refer to the drive mechanism in a tape drive or record player? (Pinch roller for the tape, or friction wheel to drive the turntable?) Those must be among the most critical parts to make, since the roundness directly impacts wow and flutter.

Unless you have a very high resolution printer, you would need to put the parts on a lathe to finish the perimeter surface. I would probably avoid 3D printing at all, and rather try to make a mold from an original (but hardened) part, then cast replicas.