Hmm... interesting. Will it be strong enough? Interesting question. I've heard that while PETG is a bit stronger than PLA, it is less rigid. It has more flex than PLA. So the benefit, as I understand it, is it will give a little rather than breaking, but that may not be the feature you're looking for on this part. If you print it with a thicker shell and a stronger infill (like 3D honeycomb? I've heard that's one of the strongest infill patterns) you might get a better part from PLA than PETG. I dunno.
But it certainly won't be as strong as making it from metal. Nor will it be as much effort!
The biggest concern I'd have is the latching mechanism for the bucket. Maybe make that from metal parts?
Don't you love advise from someone who know's less than you about your project?
Kim
Great comments!
The petg may give a bit more than the pla, but the pla will snap if flexed too far. Prusa, maker of my printer, actually prints a lot of the printer parts from petg, as solids with no infill. This part is fairly thick. My experience with the parts I printed for the subs is that petg is a lot more durable if thick enough to be rigid, though pla gives much better details.
The door, struts to the boom, and the moving latch parts would need to be metal. I'm thinking the bucket itself would work as petg, and as you say would take a Lot less work than metal, just a couple minutes to set up the printer and hit Go!
worst case, it gets remade in steel.
Just for laughs, I went to places like Shapeways to see what they would charge to print/cast the bucket in aluminum. Even scaled down by a third to fit thier casting limits, the cost was about $800.
Just having them print it in plastic would cost more than another roll of filament for my printer!