The people over at Pensa posted an awesome CNC wire bender on their blog. Robotic wire benders are common industrial machine that are very fun to watch. These machines can turn out custom wire-bent parts or sculptures in a matter of seconds. The Pensa team’s “DIWire Bender” might not be as fast as the big boys, but it works just the same.
From their Tumblr blog, we see that there are motors to draw the wire off a spool and into a hollow shaft. At the business end of the machine, there’s a small gear-driven bender that can form wire in just about any shape. There’s an awesome video of the DIWire Bender in action after the break if your mind is still trying comprehend how wire top hats and glasses can be made.
The Pensa team says they built this to fill a void in DIY fabrication machines – 3D printers are great and all, but some things can be done more easily by bending some wire.
Neat
this look like a very cool tool to develope new 3d fractal antennas
Great idea!
This would be great for building rolling ball sculptures/marble runs, especially if there was specialized CAD software to automate track building.
I like the way you’re thinking!
My thoughts exactly! The lazy non-artist’s way to make Rolling Ball Sculptures ;-)
Thats a great idea! I was going to say – this is how they make roller coasters. I totally didn’t think of making a mini roller coaster though!
I really really want to build one of these. I have a 3D printer and I have free reign on the CNC machines at work, but like the article says – you can do a lot with bent wire that you can’t do with those other tools!
This is very cool.
Very neat, would be super useful for making models and sculptures.
Plans?
Yes, where are the plans? I want to build one. :-)
If you look at their web site, they are a consulting group. That would make me think they would probably build one for you for a $$, or they might sell you plans, but I doubt they are free.
But it never hurts to ask.
From what I see on their blog, there could be enough pix to figure out how to build one yourself (then post the plans … please :)
The only addition that might be nice (but obviously not required) is a wire cutter at the tip. … This would make Just In Time paperclip manufacturing a snap :)
It’s not the plans…it’s the software. I bet they sell that part.
How about ribs for airplane wings? It you could get the right shape in a light wire, you could stretch some type of skin over the wire to make a nice airfoil.
Arthur Ganson-style gears and sculptures, please!
Very well made. thats quite thick wire to bend with plastic gears :-)
for the interested, 3D benders also exist for tube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yigRgG_NIyU
Now make it say “bite my shiny metal ass”.
I wonder if they can get it bend rigid coax, that would be handy.
I read an article about a machine learning algorithm that designs near-perfect antennas for very specific requirements. It makes a bunch of antenna designs, simulates them, and then given a set of desired attributes it picks the best couple designs. It then adds a few literal kinks to the antenna and repeats the process.
It would be cool to use this machine + that antenna algorithm to make custom antennas for specific applications. Some of the designs I saw for that antenna algorithm just looked like a bunch of bent wire at different angles.
Linky linky: http://idesign.ucsc.edu/projects/evo_antenna.html
It was NASA with genetic algorithms. Fun stuff.
CNC wire bending machines are really cool!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SQIYZ-iKuG4
worlds biggest paper clip
ancestor of bender rodriguez ^^
Neat. Only criticism I can think of is the wire straightening section is designed wrong. The wheels should alternate. Like this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6rC8UHn5df8
This is a nice build. I’ve been looking into buying a CNC wire bender.
I’d be interested in knowing more about the control software and how to generate the program.