I just wanted to share a few photos of my custom tips that I printed for my ER2XR.
It took a few days worth of work and access to a fancy 3d scanner, but I think they turned out pretty good.
Anyways, here’s the finished product. The black ones are the ones that I’m actually going to use since they fit the IEM’s and my ears just right. The purple ones turned out looking amazing, but were too loose for the IEM’s to sit snugly.
And now the family photo of all the failed prototypes and the ear impressions.
I’m pretty happy with the results I’ve gotten, but there are still some things that I think I could improve.
For one, the right ear impression wasn’t the greatest. One part of the 2 part silicone goop was half solidified in the package so I couldn’t use a good chunk of it, making the final impression rather soft and not very detailed.
The finished product is just a 3d printed piece covered in clear coat UV nail polish. The polish really brought everything together with look, feel and sound as it did an amazing job at covering up and smoothing over the prints’ ridges.
I was able to utilize a pretty nice 3d scanner to digitize the impressions, and that probably would’ve been the hardest part of this project if I didn’t have access to it.
The second hardest is positioning of the actual IEM’s inside the tips. I didn’t realize how little space there is to work with. Ears are heccin small!
Future goals include repositioning the IEM’s in such a way that they exit my head at symmetric angles (they’re kinda cattywhompous right now) and experimenting with silicone molds to get something a little more squishy. But that’s probably for another weekend…
Let me know what you guys think! If there’s anything I could’ve done better or any tips or tricks from seasoned CIEM designers, I’d love to chat!
Thanks