Since JLCPCB lowered its shipping charge to $1.50 for small parcels to me, I wondered if the same applied to JLC's other services. I decided to try out their 3D printing service.

I have wanted a THT resistor lead former for a while. It helps make sure the leads are the right spacing for insertion into PCB holes. But even manufactured ones on Aliexpress cost several dollars each. Daylight robbery for a piece of plastic. I guessed that there would be open designs available and sure enough I found dnewman's design on Thingiverse. I ordered both narrow and wide Imperial size models.

Submission through the web form was straightforward but even just for SLA I was bewildered by a plethora of choice of resin material. A friend explained that they were simply different resins for different use cases. In fact tooltips on the options explain what each is good for. Since the part in question is not load bearing, doesn't have to withstand heat, and doesn't have to be a particular colour, I went for the cheapest beige resin. But even other resin types would not have broken the bank. The order came up to $2.70 including shipping.

There was a bit of a hitch when their engineer warned me about a thin wall < 0.8 mm in the design. It's near the narrow end of the skinny former. I think it means that this feature is in danger of breaking off. I don't have the skill to edit the source files of the design and this isn't a critical part so I told the engineer to let it through.

Progress through production wasn't as fast as for PCBs. I think they don't work on weekends. But there are less steps and it was done in a couple of days then shipped.

This is a cheaper way to get 3D printing done than at my local library where there is a printer, provided I'm willing to wait 10-14 days.