One of the biggest limitations to 3D Printing can be the shift from lightweight, breakable part to something that can interface with the rest of the robot. Printing threads is generally a lot of work for very little reward - they’re fragile and damage easily - but otherwise how else can you integrate a part with hardware when printing using Fused Deposition Modelling??
A potential solution: Heat Set Inserts.
These little guys can be purchased, are typically made of brass, and work for most sizes of hardware. Since we’re standardizing our bolt size it should be pretty easy to stockpile ones we might need. Not as strong as a steel nut, but still a big improvement on printed threads. There are other types of inserts as well, such as press-fit Bushings.
This video (linked below) in my lectures that I give as part of a second-year manufacturing methods class. It’s a good watch and covers the majority of the things we would need to know for our purposes. In the video they’re using Onyx - a chopped carbon fibre filament based in a nylon thermoplastic - but it can be used in any material printed using this method.
Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P7nHyI1TwKY&ab_channel=Markforged
Text version of the video: https://markforged.com/resources/blog/heat-set-inserts?__geom=%E2%9C%AA