Second row cup holders

I know this thread is a bit old but I figured my thoughts went along with this thread. No reason to start a new thread. My wife has a 2018 Yukon XL. We have 4 kids and she HATES the middle row cup holder option for our youngest two. She came to me and told me to fix the issue. I wanted a place to put large bottles like our Hyrdroflasks and Yeti 36oz bottles and she wanted a place for kid cups. I came up with this. It has removable inserts so it can accept the regular sized cups my kids use AND accept the large bottles I use. I am a mechanical Engineering teacher and specialize in CAD design so I figured I would apply my skills to something functional. So far after a few weeks my wife is VERY happy and we can now finally carry our large water bottles on longer trips. My wife can easily access the bottles from her front passenger seat. My kids have stepped on it with all their weight a few times (not happy about that) BUT it held up. Right now it just hooks on with no adhesive or hardware but I included 4 screw holes and a place to install 3M adhesive if I decide to later make it more permanent. I also own a 3D printing company so it was easy to get it printed out.

Bhicks said:

I know this thread is a bit old but I figured my thoughts went along with this thread. No reason to start a new thread. My wife has a 2018 Yukon XL. We have 4 kids and she HATES the middle row cup holder option for our youngest two. She came to me and told me to fix the issue. I wanted a place to put large bottles like our Hyrdroflasks and Yeti 36oz bottles and she wanted a place for kid cups. I came up with this. It has removable inserts so it can accept the regular sized cups my kids use AND accept the large bottles I use. I am a mechanical Engineering teacher and specialize in CAD design so I figured I would apply my skills to something functional. So far after a few weeks my wife is VERY happy and we can now finally carry our large water bottles on longer trips. My wife can easily access the bottles from her front passenger seat. My kids have stepped on it with all their weight a few times (not happy about that) BUT it held up. Right now it just hooks on with no adhesive or hardware but I included 4 screw holes and a place to install 3M adhesive if I decide to later make it more permanent. I also own a 3D printing company so it was easy to get it printed out.

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I imagine you are about to receive a LOT of order/purchase requests @Bhicks - get ready. That looks about as OEM as it can get! Nice job! **chef's kiss**

San Diego Tahoe said:

I imagine you are about to receive a LOT of order/purchase requests @Bhicks - get ready. That looks about as OEM as it can get! Nice job! **chef's kiss**

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I wasn't sure if I wanted to make these and sell them. They are a bit of a PITA to make. Its 40 hours of print time plus support removal, hand sanding, chemical smoothing, then the textured coating on top. If anyone wants one then let me know. If there is good interest then I will go ahead and make a batch. Right now my out of pocket to get one made is around $50-$60. With the 2/3rds of a spool going into it, the labor in support removal, sanding, smoothing, epoxy coating, shipping, packaging, and the cost to actually run the 3D printer, it's not the most cost effective thing I have designed. I didn't worry about cost effectiveness on this one. I only cared about functionality for my wife, kids, and myself. After taxes and online seller fees I would have to be at $80 to just make a $5-$10 profit. Not really sure it's worth that much but I can't take a loss or even break even or it's not worth the hassle. Figured I should at least get that cost out there up front so folks can make an educated decision about this being something they want or not. If not, no worries. I'm just happy I have something that meets my needs. If the moderator wants me to become a vendor or something then let me know. If there seems to be interest in stuff like this from the GMC community then I can pay the vendor subscription and maybe try to come up with a few more functional things. If there is no interest then I will just continue to enjoy this forum and reading the threads you guys post.

At $5-$10 margins, I agree that it'd be a significant investment of time and resources - I wouldn't do it, hahaha! Regardless, I'm glad you were able to fab something so awesome for your YXL!

San Diego Tahoe said:

At $5-$10 margins, I agree that it'd be a significant investment of time and resources - I wouldn't do it, hahaha! Regardless, I'm glad you were able to fab something so awesome for your YXL!

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The key to making these is that we have to only print them during a slow season. We can't tie up one of our assembly line machines for 40 hours to only make $5-$10. If it's during the slow season and we have some machines sitting idle then it makes sense to at least make some money on the machine compared to zero money. April and October have always been our slowest months so if that trend continue, I should have some idle machines in the next week or two and will make one batch of 10-15. Not sure if I will make more. We will see.

Are you on this 2015-2020 Model Year Tahoe forum on Facebook? I think that crowd would go bananas over your creation.

San Diego Tahoe said:

Are you on this 2015-2020 Model Year Tahoe forum on Facebook? I think that crowd would go bananas over your creation.

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I'm old school. No social media. I know it's not in my best interest to live in the stone age and I'm sure sooner than later I will be forced to get "connected". If you are willing to post some info over there about what we plan to make then that would be awesome. I decided to dust off some of our older machines from storage and got them healthy and running last night. I have 5 of these new cup holders printing right now. My older machines are a bit slower so now I'm looking at a 52 hour print BUT at least I didn't disrupt my assembly line to get them made. I will just keep running those 5 machines until the interest fades away. If that means I only make 5 then so be it.

Bhicks said:

The key to making these is that we have to only print them during a slow season. We can't tie up one of our assembly line machines for 40 hours to only make $5-$10. If it's during the slow season and we have some machines sitting idle then it makes sense to at least make some money on the machine compared to zero money. April and October have always been our slowest months so if that trend continue, I should have some idle machines in the next week or two and will make one batch of 10-15. Not sure if I will make more. We will see.

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I'm curious what do you usually make with these machines? 40 hrs print time seems awfully inefficient, wouldn't a mold and a injection machine work much faster?

Doubeleive said:

I'm curious what do you usually make with these machines? 40 hrs print time seems awfully inefficient, wouldn't a mold and a injection machine work much faster?

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Our specialty in production is Toyota stuff. Here is our website www.bh3dprinting.com. I'm a die hard Toyota enthusiast. If your wondering why I'm on this forum; Toyota doesn't make an SUV that fits my families needs. The Sequoia is too small for 4 kids and 4 dogs. We had an Escalde ESV before this (my wifes choice) and it treated us well minus some serious needed tranny upgrades. We then decided it was time for something newer and she wanted the Yukon. They are great cars and great for our family. I let Toyota meet my offroad and enthusiast needs and GM covers my family needs. In regards to your other thought; for injection molding to be profitable you need to be making 10,000+ parts. There is a HUGE financial investment to have the mold machined. 3D printing allows parts that are just as functional and structurally sound be made in tiny batches. There is no way I could ever sell enough of these to cover the cost for the mold. Most of our parts are under 24 hour print times by design. We start the part in the morning and walk away. We then restart the machine the following morning. We have a line of machines that run 24 hour prints that get restarted every 24 hours. We have another line of machines that run sub 12 hour prints that get restarted twice a day. That is as efficient as we can get. When a print goes over 24 hours it really wreaks havoc on profit because it has now tied up that machine for a 2nd straight day. We do everything in our power to design parts that can be made in under 24 hours. This Yukon cup holder didn't get that scrutiny because I only desired to use it for myself so I made exactly what I wanted and didn't worry about profitability. If they are popular and a demand grows we will be forced to go back and find a way to get print time down. If the demand is small then we will just leave it and make a small batch and be done.

I went ahead and made a small batch. I actually made 8 but 2 went to a friend and a cousin. I have 6 left. If these sell quickly then I will make another batch. If they take forever to sell then this will be it for production. I listed them on ebay, etsy, and on our website. We can offer a bit better pricing on our website because we don't charge ourselves seller fees BUT we don't have a ton of payment options available on our website. Here are the links.