Better 3D Prints, Courtesy Of A Simple Mass-Produced Bracket

August 3, 2023 by Dan Maloney 34 Comments

On the “hack/not-a-hack” scale, a 3D printed bracket for aluminum extrusions is — well, a little boring. Such connectors are nothing you couldn’t buy, and even if you insisted on printing them instead, Printables and Thingiverse are full of ready-to-use designs. So why would you waste your precious time and effort rolling your own?

According to production 3D printing company [Slant 3D], a lot of times, we forget to take advantage of the special capabilities of 3D printing. The design progression of the L-bracket shown is a perfect example; it starts as a simple L, moves on to a more elaborate gusseted design, and eventually into a sturdy sold block design that would be difficult to make with injection molding thanks to shrinkage but is no problem for a 3D printer. Taking that a step further, the bracket morphs into a socketed design, taking advantage of what 3D printers can do by coming up with a part that reduces assembly time and fastener count while making a more finished, professional look.

Again, this isn’t really about the bracket. Rather, it’s about a different way of thinking about your designs and leveraging the unique capabilities of 3D printers relative to other mass-production methods, like injection molding. We’ve covered some of [Slant 3D]’s high-volume design insights before, such as including living hinges and alternatives of pins and holes for assembling printed parts. Continue reading “Better 3D Prints, Courtesy Of A Simple Mass-Produced Bracket” →

Giant 3D Printer Can Print Life-Sized Human Statues

July 20, 2023 by Lewin Day 29 Comments

We’ve seen a few makers 3D scan themselves, and use those to print their own action figures or statuettes. Some have gone so far as building life-sized statues composed of many 3D printed parts. [Ivan Miranda] is no regular maker though, and his custom 3D printer is big enough that he can print himself a life-sized statue in one go.

The printer is a gargantuan thing, using an aluminium frame and a familiar Cartesian layout. It boasts a build volume of 1110 mm x 1110 mm x 2005 mm, making it more than big enough to print human-sized statues. Dogs, cats, and some great apes may be possible, too.

Many of the components are 3D printed, including the various braces and adapters that hold the frame together. The build uses NEMA 23 stepper motors, with Duet3D hardware running the show. Notably, it uses V-wheels for the Z-axis, as linear rails would be prohibitively expensive at the sizes required.

[Ivan] shows off the printer by having it produce a statue of his body at 1:1 scale. It’s not a perfect print, with some layer shifts and an awkward moments where the filament supply was interrupted. It took 108 hours in total, with 76 hours of that being actual print time, and is made up of 4375 layers. Despite its flaws, its an incredibly impressive way to demonstrate the capabilities of the machine.

Eager to build such a printer for yourself? [Ivan] will sell you the design files for a reasonable fee.

[Ivan]’s giant printer was once a large tabletop affair; just look how far it’s come. He’s even come up with a system for using smaller printers to create large-scale construction kits, too. We can’t wait to see what mad project he comes up with next. Video after the break.

Continue reading “Giant 3D Printer Can Print Life-Sized Human Statues” →

3D Printer Recognizes Third-Party Build Plates, Just Make Your Own ID Codes

July 19, 2023 by Donald Papp 14 Comments

The Bambu X1C 3D printer is a machine known for its speed, and it has a number of useful features like automatic build platform recognition. Factory build platforms are marked with an identifier code, and thanks to [elumspe] it’s now possible to make your own identifiers to stick onto third-party platforms and have the printer recognize them as though they were factory offerings. There’s even a super handy 3D-printable alignment tool that ensures the identifier goes in the correct spot, which is a nice touch.

These codes aren’t DRM so much as they are used by the printer to automatically verify that the installed build plate matches the slicer settings before a job begins. Printing one and sticking it in the right place is an easy way to get third-party plates recognized the same as factory offerings.

The identifier codes aren’t DRM so much as they are a way for the printer to verify that the installed build platform matches the slicer settings before a print begins, and throw up a warning if it doesn’t. The printer is perfectly happy to use third-party build surfaces, but since they lack an identifier, the printer will throw a warning each time. One solution is to simply disable checking the build platform before a print, but for those who would prefer to have the printer see what it expects to see, printing a small 2D barcode to stick on is an easy way to do it.

We see these sometimes called QR codes, but they look more like AprilTags. Both are types of 2D barcode, but while QR codes can encode a variety of information types, AprilTags are simpler and usually represent identifiers. In this case, they’re an appropriate way to let a camera-enabled printer know what kind of build plate is installed.

AprilTags are common in computer vision applications, and even relatively modest hardware can detect and decode them almost in real time. AprilTags are convenient and easy to use, as this gate access system demonstrates.

Orca Slicer Is The New Game In Town

July 13, 2023 by Lewin Day 13 Comments

Slicers are the neat little tools that take your 3D models and turn them into G-code that your 3D printer can actually understand. They control the printing process down to the finest detail, and determine whether your prints are winners or binners. Orca Slicer is the new tool on the block, and [The Edge of Tech] took a look at what it can do.

The video explores the use of Orca Slicer with the Bambu Lab P1P and X1 Carbon. [The Edge of Tech] jumps into the feature set, noting the rich calibration tools that are built right into the software. They work with any printer, and they’re intended to help users get perfect prints time and time again, with less messy defects and print failures. It’s also set up out of the box for network printing and live updates, which is super useful for those with multiple printers and busy workflows. You can even watch camera feeds live in the app from duly equipped printers. It’s even got nifty features for calculating your filament cost per print.

If you’re not happy with your current slicer, give Orca Slicer a go. Let us know what you think in the comments. Video after the break.

Continue reading “Orca Slicer Is The New Game In Town” →

The toroidal propeller's details in the CAD software. (Credit: rctestflight))

Testing Futuristic Propeller Designs With A 3D Printer And A Solar-Powered Boat

July 2, 2023 by Maya Posch 21 Comments

The toroidal boat propeller pair installed. (Credit: rctestflight)

As boring as propeller designs may seem to the average person, occasionally there’s a bit of a dust-up in the media about a ‘new’ design that promises at least a few percent improvement in performance, decreased noise profile, or any combination of such claims. Naturally, if you’re [Daniel Riley] of RCTestFlight, then you have to 3D print a few of them, and make a video covering a handful. Most famous of these is probably the toroidal propeller that made waves a while ago, mostly in the field of flying drones, but commercial toroidal boat props exist too.

Test results of the different boat propeller designs. (Credit: rctestflight)

Interestingly, the 2-blade FDM-printed propeller ended up performing the best, while the bi-blade design (with two sets of blades positioned one after the other) performed worse — but better than the toroidal design. Here the last two designs were professionally printed in nylon, rather than printed at home in a standard FDM printer with all of the surface sanding and treatment required. Even so, the surface treatment did not seem to noticeably affect the results in further testing.

Hints at the root cause of the problem came from the bubble tests. In a bubble test, air is blown in front of the spinning propeller to visualize the flow of the water. This revealed some stalling on the bi-blade and the toroidal design too, which would explain some of the performance loss. Going back between the CAD model and the design in the patent by Sharrow Marine didn’t provide any obvious hints.

Considering that this latter company claims a performance uplift over regular boat propellers, the next steps for [Daniel] would appear to involve some careful navigating between fluid dynamic modeling and claims made in glossy marketing material to figure out exactly how close someone at home with a 3D printer and some spare time can get to those claimed numbers.

(Heading image: The toroidal propeller’s details in the CAD software. (Credit: rctestflight) )

Continue reading “Testing Futuristic Propeller Designs With A 3D Printer And A Solar-Powered Boat” →

Ventbot fans with 3D printed brackets and control circuit board with ESP32 breakout and multicolored 3D printed cases

Ventbots Are Fans Of HVAC And Home Automation

June 24, 2023 by Michael Shaub 21 Comments

[WJCarpenter] had a common HVAC problem; not all the rooms got to a comfortable temperature when the heater was working to warm up their home. As often happens with HVAC systems, the rooms farthest from the heat source and/or with less insulation needed a boost of heat in the winter and cooling in the summer too. While [WJCarpenter] is a self-reported software person, not a hardware person, you will enjoy going along on the journey to build some very capable vent boosters that require a mix of each.

There’s a great build log on hackaday.io here, but for those who need more of a proper set of instructions, there’s a step-by-step guide that should allow even a beginner hardware hacker to complete the project over on Instructables. There you’ll find everything you need to build ESPHome controlled, 3D printed, PC fan powered vent boosters. While they can be integrated into Home Assistant, we were interested to learn that ESPHome allows these to run stand-alone too, each using its own temperature and pressure sensor.

The many iterations of hardware and software show, resulting in thoughtful touches like a startup sequence that checks for several compatible temperature sensors and a board layout that accommodates different capacitor lead spacings. Along the way, [WJCarpenter] also graphed the noise level of different fans running at multiple speeds and the pressure sensor readings against the temperatures to see if they could be used as more reliable triggers for the fans. (spoiler, they weren’t) There are a bunch of other tips to find along the way, so we highly recommend going through all that [WJCarpenter] has shared if you want to build your own or just want some tips on how to convert a one-off project to something that a wider audience can adapt to their own needs.

See a video after the break that doesn’t show the whole project but includes footage of the start-up sequence that tests each fan’s tachometer and the customizable ramp-up and ramp-down settings. Continue reading “Ventbots Are Fans Of HVAC And Home Automation” →

Open Source And Giving Back

June 24, 2023 by Elliot Williams 41 Comments

3D printing YouTuber [Thomas Sanladerer] made a fairly contentious claim in a video about the state of open source hardware and software: namely that it’s not viable “anymore”. You can watch his video for more nuance, but the basic claim is that there are so many firms who are reaping the benefits of open designs and code that the people who are actually doing the work can’t afford to make a living anymore.

[Thomas] then goes on to mention a few companies that are patenting their 3DP innovations, and presumably doing well by it, and he then claims that patenting is probably the right way forward from a business standpoint.

The irony that he says this with a Voron 3D printer sitting behind him was not lost on us. The Voron is, after all, a very successful open-source 3D printer design. It’s just rock solid, has lots of innovative touches, and an extensive bill of materials. They don’t sell anything, but instead rely on donations from their large community to keep afloat and keep designing.

At the same time, a whole bunch of companies are offering Voron kits – all of the parts that you’d have to source yourself otherwise. While not mass-market, these kit sales presumably also help keep some of the 3D printer enthusiast stores that sell them afloat. Which is all to say: the Voron community is thriving, and a number of folks are earning their livings off of it. And it’s completely open.

When [Thomas] complains that some players in the 3DP business landscape aren’t giving back to the open-source community effort, he’s actually calling out a few large-scale Chinese manufacturers making mass-market machines. These companies aren’t interested in pushing the state of the art forward anyway, rather just selling what they’ve got. And sure, there are a million Creality Enders for every Voron 2 out there. And yes, they reap the benefits of open designs and code. But they’re competing in an entirely different market from the real innovators, and I’m not sure that’s a bad thing.

Let us know what you think. (And if you’re reading this in the newsletter format, head on over to Hackaday on Saturday morning to leave us your comments.)