Rock tumbler?

I know this is kind of a crazy idea but I've been wondering if a rock tumbler would be an easy & good way to clean up parts... Any thoughts? My goal would to achieve a smooth outer surface. Smaller holes may not get exposed to the grit...

Here is an example of what I'm thinking about:
[www.thumlerstumbler.com]

I've been thinking about the same thing myself, but haven't tried it yet. But I'm sure I didn't come up with the idea myself, I think I read about it somewhere. Please share if you learn something!

I'm making one for my daughter... fun thing is that I'm printing some of the parts for it. I'll post the results.

I assume you mean to use it for cleaning up the plastic parts you make? The rotary ones work mainly by the parts (or rocks) sliding against each other with the grit between them, so while it will clean up the parts, it'll also abrade the exterior and round off any corners (the pressure is higher on them, so they get abraded faster). Without some chunky media to get inside concativities, crevices end up relatively untouched.

Tumblers are a standard practice for deburring metal casting parts, so, with the right grit and media, it might work well. As a starting point, you might want to use some of the "soft" plastic pyramid tumbling media, or maybe plastic BBs, as I'd think anything harder or heavier might be too aggressive to corners.

If the parts are not solidly filled, ot at least with air tight shells, won't you get grit down inside their lattice? How will you ever get it all out? If you don't, won't it gradually shake out over time with vibration? That seems to me like it could be destructive to things like bearings.

You are right, it is kinda crazy

Are your parts that rough? In most cases, it's best to print parts individually to prevent trails. My nozzle has a .8mm hole. This is huge by all accounts, but my parts come out very clean and smooth at hires. To get there, I set the layer thickness to .2mm, the infill to .7mm, the extrude multiplier to .6, and I rotate fill by 72 degrees. 90 if it's a smaller part

A sandblaster would be better since it's more controlled compared to a rock tumbler. Even better is to optimize your printer.