[Emily The Engineer] wanted a 3D printing project, so naturally, she decided to print a working toilet. Check out the colorful contraption in the video below. At the start, we thought making it watertight might be a bit difficult, which proved to be a problem. However, some careful work with sealing and soldering irons did allow her to make a working flushable toilet.
Mercifully, we don’t get to see the device in actual use, and, as far as we can tell, she never actually connected it to the plumbing in her home. But it did fill from a garden hose, shut itself off, and flush 3D printer waste, toilet paper, and other material out of its drain. It doesn’t appear that the designs have been made public, but since something of this size would likely take hundreds of print hours to complete, we aren’t sure anyone would really want to do this anyway.
However, some of the techniques might come in handy if you are working on something that has to handle water. If you do replicate this for actual use, consider that many 3D printed plastics aren’t considered food-safe because you can’t adequately clean the little ridges from the layer lines. If you were really using this for its intended purpose, cleaning would be a high priority.
Towards the end, the over-engineering bug hit, and you get to see an add-on bidet, armrests, and even mobile casters. A fun project, even if a bit impractical. As an art installation, though, we’ve definitely seen worse.
A mobile toilet is a unique idea, right? Um — maybe not. If [Emily] does a second version, we’d suggest making the TP roll holder heated.
Too much plastic waste for me…
Why do people print this stuff? Seriously
Waste
They print it because they can and because of the money she will make from the video. There are also a lot worse things people do to the planet.
pla is very biodegradable. unfortunately thats not a desired material trait for a toilet which will be handling all kinds of bacteria.
Not as biodegradable as you might think, which is bad for the sustainability of the material, but you’re absolutely right, bio-friendly enough that bacteria becomes a huge issue
It’s compostable, under the right conditions it decomposes. But those right conditions are not usually what it will end up in. Also, that’s for pure PLA, nothing you buy for 3D printing is pure PLA, so the additives are also an issue.
Fukushima started to let the radioactive contaminated water into the sea for the next 30 years from now on.
Shine bright like japanese tepco infused tuna! :)
In dark glowing sushi rolls
But dont worry france did the same and americo ähhhm…
The main contaminant is tritium. Tritium doesn’t bio-accumulate and has a half-life of just 12 years, and it vanishes into helium.
There’s a whopping 2.1 grams of tritium estimated to remain in a million cubic meters of the water they’re releasing. It could technically be filtered out, but since it’s already diluted in billions of liters of water, it’s not economically or practically feasible. Literally the best place you can put it, if you want to get rid of it, is just dumping it into the sea.
Commemt section is interrupted by lobbyist, i see, i see.
THANKS for damping the hype with facts.
Honestly this project has turned me off of watching Emily. I’ve blocked her channel.
It’s such a dumb project that serves no useful purpose. As you’ve pointed out all she accomplished was creating more plastic waste.
Personally, I enjoyed the humor in this video. While it’s certainly not something that fits with everyone’s tastes, to me it was entertaining. Not everything people make needs to serve an obviously useful purpose. Sometimes entertainment can be useful as well. That’s my 2 cents anyway.
Cry about it.
And I just subscribed because I can just choose not to watch episodes that don’t interest me. Amazing, no?
Somewhere between most to all DIY projects are a complete waste
“Anything worth doing, is worth doing badly.”
-G. K. Chesterton
Oh man your head is going to explode when you find out how many Benchy’s people have printed…. I got more news that might upset you… everything that everyone has every printed is going to be waste at some point in time.
Youtube algo commands them to like a marionette. Imagine the filth stuck in every little crevice between tens of thousands of print layers
Why would someone care if a toilet is food safe?
Toilets need cleaned do they not? The main concern with food safety is the layer lines trapping waste, that is a concern when using it for things like toilets or tooth brush caps or anything like that, dirt can get trapped in the layer lines and it can be difficult if not impossible to remove.
While there are concerns for 3D printed items being food safe for the first use (chemicals and stuff), another concern is the ability to clean and sanitize it between uses (for non-disposable/single-use items).
As for what cleanability is important for a toilet, I think that is fairly obvious.
“Why would someone care if a toilet is food safe?”
By the authority invested in me by the High Council of New Someburywichtonberg, I hearby award you One (1) Internet Merit!
(Suitable for framing or barter for One (1) cup of beverage similar to, but quite unlike tea)
Well people can get desperate during an apocalypse.
Yea if you’re eating out of the toilet you have bigger problems.
For some strange reason I now want to print a minature toilet bowl for the back of my Bambu X1
Skibidi
Yes!
Yes!
Printing your own toilet could be a nice way to have a toilet that is not restricted by the 1.5 gpf* laws.
*gallons per flush
??? There is a nanny law on the books somewhere in the world for GPF? I guess you just pull the handle several times or have a bucket handy :) … or as you say, design a new tank :) .
As for a printed toilet I see no problem with doing this as a project. Plastic is cheap. Make big, small, huge… You have the time and money, print whatever you want. Toilets, airplanes, boats, sidewalks, boxes, statues, etc.
People?
“There is a nanny law on the books somewhere in the world for GPF”
Yes and, most often for men, they’re called “double flush” toilets. Nanny states are brilliant and, if you bought that, governments are highly efficient.
That’s not metric lol! Liters baby, liters!
For me, I found it interesting to print such a basic covenience and have a look see the challenges. Demonstrates porcelein’s (sp?) Attributes. Emily, I enjoyed the video, ignore the Debbie Downers !
You should look into pressure assisted floats. That’s no longer a problem
people used to put rocks in their tanks to reduce the gpf. there’s a lot of precedent for hacking toilets. i’m just saying, if you want to fuss with the tank, there’s a lot easier options than putting kilohours of wear on your 3d printer :)
It’s one of my pet peeves. Having to flush 2 or 3 times. It probably consumes more water. So it waste both time and water. Same with some modern dish washers. They may use less water, but after 3 hours it’s still not clean, so people pre-wash them, which makes the total water used higher. Again wasting more water and time in the end. So many laws are counter productive.
I’ve never seen the handle on the other side. Is this a sinister trick, cause we all flush with the left hand right? Won’t split? A queen of England suffered great injury when the new fangled porcelain bowl broke. She went back to the old stone seat and it’s preserved in the floor of some grade 1 castle.
I’d think the main problem with PLA in this case is that it gets brittle with time, especially when exposed to moisture. PETG would probably be a better material for this.
I liked the part about the mid-life crisis. Boy, is she in for a surprise!
Sounds like a great way to make a lost-PLA cast for a ceramic object.
*terrible way
If you want it watertight and food safe, then coat it in a foodgrade epoxy resin. Seals all the layer lines and makes a nice smooth surface.
Using a toilet is analogous to 3D printing.
Very unpractical, but it will get views. You can buy a real toilet for less than the PLA filament price to print this.