If you have ever planned an air duct or dust extraction system for your shop, you’ll know just how difficult it can be to accommodate all but the simplest of arrangements. Off the shelf systems are intended for use in home heating or other domestic systems, and offer little flexibility of choice. Of course you could 3D print an adapter or two, but [Fabian] has taken it to the next level with a comprehensive library of 3D-printable pipe system adapters and accessories. We’re not sure we’ve seen such a complete collection.
The pipes are mostly at 125 mm diameter, with the full array of elbows and joints, alongside adapters for fans and smaller pipes, and different splitter options. It becomes particularly interesting in the accessories department though, because he’s also made a set of smart addons, packing ESP32s for sensors, and even valves.
It sometimes shocks us to go into hackerspaces and see nothing in the way of extraction around tools that really need it. Airborne smoke and particulates are a proven hazard, and thus we like this project a lot. If you don’t have adequate ventilation or extraction on your bench, consider printing yourself a solution. Take a look at how one hackerspace did it.
We are close to the day where 3D printers will be fast, reliable and autonomous enough (think filament loading, part unloading) to be used and replace going to buy cheap hardware at the store.
If a company professionally models and support that kind of parts, anyone could buy the templates and print exactly what’s needed for the job.
If the filaments are certified and produced locally, that would be an responsible way of producing and transporting cheap parts.
Not really.
I already find this to be true a lot of the time– especially for something as non-critical as dust extraction, where things don’t need to be perfectly air tight. I can print a random hose adapter without having to mess around with returns or worry about exact fits, and if it doesn’t work, i can print another one.
As much as surface level it seems like a small upgrade, going from an extensively modded ender 3 to a K1C that i don’t have to babysit at all has made such a huge difference in trial and error steps. And with relatively inexpensive SLS around the corner… Idk how you could say “not really” in any sense.
In W. Gibson’s “The Peripheral” and following books corner hardware/dollar store type shops have been replaced with 3D fab shops…. I can totally see that being a reality for parts that you don’t already own a machine capable of printing.
Have you been to a dollar store type shop to look at what products they move
3d printing is great, you can do so much with it that wouldn’t be practical or economically viable to set up the big industrial process for, but for everything else going to the local hardware store or having a heap of stuff delivered from one is probably the better choice.
Really 3d printing only shines when you want something a bit unusual, as no matter how fast and good the printer gets you will be waiting on it and having to keep a large stockpile of materials for your projects. And if you use the printer enough replacement parts to keep it running.
So I doubt that actually works out well for many of these sort of things – the waste (if there is any at all with in house recycling) at the giant industrial production facility is a much smaller proportion to the product, the shipping of a finished product rather a functionally required waste in the heap of spools, desiccant etc not to mention the extra energy that goes into making the intermediary materials for home 3d printing…
It also shines in the repair space. I’ve modeled plastic replacement parts for toilet flushers that cost cents compared to old stock replacement parts of 20+ dollars, íf they’re still around. That’s replacing the part or possibly replacing your toilet.
After 40-50 years in use, I would rather replace the toilet, along with renovating the rest of the bathroom and plumbing before they start leaking waste water into the walls and floors.
I knew two geeks that shared an apartment for a few years.
In the end, they had the toilet replaced, rather than cleaning it.
I’d seen it, it was the right choice.
For me, California will get my 7 gallon flush toilet from under my cold dead butt.
Ceramic does not leak after 40 or 50 years.
Personally I’d say that falls into the definition of a bit unusual – not that many things fail in ways that are particularly repairable before the whole thing is replaced for other reasons anyway. I do agree though replacement parts can be a very good use for a printer – one of the first practical prints on my first printer was replacing the plastic shim/body/spacer whatever its supposed to be called for the lock of a cupboard at my parents place. Way easier to model that part and keep using all the perfectly good metal components than even try to figure out what that particular style of lock is called, assuming such things are still made in similar style some 50 (maybe even more) years after the lock was made.
Having plastic tubes made with injection molding would still easily beat even very advanced 3d printers in terms of maintenance cost and waste and energy expenditure at scale.
Now if only they could rediscover the lost technology of making things in your own country instead of offshoring everything and shipping it across oceans three times (once for the raw materials, twice for shipping to customer, a third time to recycle) to satisfy the perversity of globalists
for the straight and common odd shaped parts you are right, but there are always the odd parts that would make a project easy that cost a fortune or are simply not available.
Depends what you mean by close. As a geek and DIY type, I find 3D printing tedious. The only way to make it better is to spend a lot of money and even then there are factors to consider. The effort and price range aren’t anywhere near being in the realm of everyone using this tech IMO.
It is a remarkable effort to create an entire ecosystem of fittings, adapters, valves, and electronics that can be produced on demand.
However, I really question the use of USB C connectors in a shop environment, particularly when a bit of pocket lint (let alone sawdust) can render these tiny connectors intermittent or even damaged.
I also wonder about the practical utility of a turbine-blade flow sensor. In clean air? Fine. In sawdust-laden air, I would anticipate particles whacking against the plastic internals to accumlate a (triboelectric) static charge and encrust the blades. There goes the calibration, and bad enough, it can result in loss of flow.
Sometimes you just have to try it out for awhile and see what happens for the sake of moving forward. I tend to try and predict and solve all of the potential issues before I even get started and then the project ends up just stalled and waiting for me to solve all the problems that may not even matter…. I really admire people that just start building and solve along the way. I have to force myself to get started. Every. Single. Time.
That’s what’s great about 3d printing, you don’t HAVE to have all the kinks worked out in the first stage. Look out for the obvious and catastrophic failure points, but you don’t need to have a perfect product off of your first print.
Now, that’s easy to say, but I know your pain. I want it to be perfect straight off of the printer.
I’ve had a lot of connectors ruined with angle grinder dust over the years
Same. Combine it with some airborne cutting fluids, and you end up with a distinctively hellish environment for most electronics.
huh? PVC pipes do the job fine, some have even rubber joints and need no glue, they are cheap and readily available, come in a variety of angles and diameter, what´s not to like ?
Well, not all of them are locally available everywhere, for one.
Sometimes you can make your own rubber-connected pvc:
https://youtu.be/i07YKszTE8Y?si=Ef9hJe9dyoznJ3eF
They are far more universally available than basically any part of a 3d printer. Where the heck doesn’t have PVC pipes? The middle of the ocean?
Last time I needed an odd connector the box store wanted almost 20$ (USD) *each* for the two required. I spent an hour writing an OpenSCAD library and 3$ in filament to make the equivalent.
Is it as good? No. Does it cost less and seal? Yes.
As a bonus it actually fit. As I wanted to use wide thin wall drainage pipe. Turns out I would’ve needed pipe fittings not offered locally as well…
Thanks to the author for publishing the work! Mine didn’t have all the fittings for radiuses that I wanted. Although I’m proud of the in-line fan portion.
There should prolly be a mention here as to the cost of the files….
35 euro for the full file set
Lol that’s tax for not learning CAD
I do not understand how this fits together with putting them under CC-licensing:
“Content that is not based on software/code: Unless otherwise stated, all works presented here that are not based on software/code are subject to the CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 license (attribution – non-commercial – dissemination under the same conditions 4.0 international).”
And I do not see any other statement.
The words: ‘paid, sale, sold, euro, cost, free, open source, paypal, purchase, buy, cart’ don’t appear on the hackaday.io page, but there is a link through to a page on nerdy.de (then another link at the bottom) where the STLs are downloadable for a cost.
How does this comply with Regulation #1 on the Hackaday.io Project Guidelines? Apology to the purveyor/project creator if I have missed something here.
We got a home ventilation system installed and the contractor used duct tape instead of complex adapters to fit different pipes together.
Should have switched contractors then. Foil tape is so astoundingly more durable than duct tape it’s absurd.
But, yeah, I get what you’re saying. I’ve built miles upon miles of duct with presized duct, galvanized flashing, foil tape, flex duct, screws and a means to drive them, and assorted tin snips and other handheld sheet metal tools. And I can assure all comers that foot for foot I can produce it way, Way, WAY faster than a 3d printer. This is a solution looking for a problem that doesn’t exist.
As for the guy who thinks there are places you can get an industrial scale/speed 3d printer but not basic hvac supplies? Well, my momma always said if you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all and I think I’ll listen just this once.
Problem: you need exactly ONE item NOW that is SPECIAL and your next baumarkt that has it is more than 48 hours away.
That’s the thing, you never *need* anything special. Anything that isn’t premade duct or flex duct, you can fabricate if you don’t already have a premade one handy. And you can fabricate it quicker than it can be printed and sanded. Plus, sheet metal is more durable than most plastics.
We’re not talking high pressure or temperature systems here. Not really even low pressure systems, they’re barely outside the range of ambient pressure and temperature. If you can make it stationary with 3-4 screws and make it mostly not leak with foil tape and insulation, it’s absolutely good enough for HVAC or dust collection.
It was just a quick guess, I honestly have no idea about ductwork and such, so you might be totally right.
I assume that everything that is inside walls/in attic/in basement can be as ugly as it wants. So it boils down to outlets, wall switches and all that stuff.
Jan: It’s basically mostly quick, dirty hacks. Like if you need a piece of tubing (round, square, whatever) to fit inside a piece of the same size, you cut narrow strips around the sides as deep as you want it to slide, bend them to fit outside the unaltered piece while the rest of that end fits inside, then you fix it in place with self-tapping sheet metal screws through the tabs you just made and seal it with foil tape. As long as it’s not going to be moving around that will work perfectly well for longer than the system making use of the ducts. And it’s probably going to be covered by insulation anyway, so nobody has to see it.
Honestly, the only thing I can think of that would be worth printing are the registers. They’re supposed to be pretty and the fabrication you do while running duct is not capable of producing pretty.
I wouldn’t say 3D printing is “pretty” – unless you spend inordinate amount of time sanding and priming and painting, and generally trying to hide the fact that it’s 3D printed.
@Dude you really don’t need to spend time trying to hide its a 3d print for it be pretty, lots of great ways to make an attractive finish with a printed part. You can if you really really want to spend ages with filler and sandpaper, and sometimes you will want that. But its really not a requirement to have zero visible layer lines, in the same way the real metal parts usually have tool marks of some sort and injection moulds always have a seam and ports.
The easiest is just accepting the layer lines can be made into a deliberate part of the design. Some great stuff being done with deliberately adding a surface texture in the print process.
Then perhaps the next easiest in most DIY type contexts is with the right somewhat origami design for printing keeping the layer lines entirely concealed inside the part. The part is designed to fold with the outer surface being against the build plate and thus a clone of that fancy holographic build plate (or perfectly smooth if you prefer). Also if your design is suitable you can have the print head iron out the layer lines really quite effectively.
One of my personal favourites is just to use foil tape, on the right print with the right tools and a bit of practice you can get it to stick well and entirely hide the layer lines – the foil is thick enough as long as you don’t use a really soft tool to really work it into the layer lines it will bridge over those gaps just fine – I’ve got some cable holes through the coving in my ceiling that have perfectly contour matched prints glued in with a foil tape coating, even when you are right next to them the only thing that tells you it must be a 3d print is how perfectly sized to fit the varied cable bundle at each location they are and that they are not as cold to the touch as the solid metal they appear to be…
>The easiest is just accepting the layer lines can be made into a deliberate part of the design.
That’s called “brutalism”, from “brut” or “raw” – meaning that you’re using materials as themselves without decorations. It’s an aesthetic play on the quality of the material itself, and people usually pick brutalism with materials or construction techniques that are new at the time – like bending plywood or casting reinforced concrete in the 1940’s, or making “inside out” buildings with the ductwork visible on the exterior walls etc..
These days the fashionable thing is glue laminated timber beams and 3D printed layer lines. Some people like it, but after a while it loses novelty and people start seeing it as crude and cold, lazy design.
@Dude you can do marvellous things with bent plywood, concrete, 3print etc doesn’t have to be artless efficiency if you want to build with a material and some flair you can…
And by that argument almost every building is ‘crude and cold, lazy design.’ as the default building methods of every era mean whole towns, districts etc built in the same form, with the modern techniques, or to fit in with the techniques of decades prior, but likely done cheaper with even less effort to do it properly)…
You might like the design language of an era better personally, I certainly have preferences, but that doesn’t negate any other language from being ‘pretty’ if its done with care an attention. You may not love it but many others will.
That’s why I have a 3d printer at home (and hand tools). Especially if I live more than two days from town (where am I, the friggin moon? The middle of the Gobi desert on a donkey?)
Duct tape will disintegrate in a year or two, probably less if exposed to something like the heat of an attic. Foil HVAC is a better option, but sealing PVC with any tape isn’t really what it was designed for.
HaD, please stop promoting such unsafe stuff. Building codes and insurance companies require certified flame retardant material for air ducts. To my knowledge, there is no 3D printing material available to the average end user that does not burn like a candle and spit flaming droplets. Also the glass transition temperature of these materials is too low, parts made of PLA or PETG will collapse well below 100°C, an air temperature which is not uncommon in a building (e.g. sauna and kitchen exhausts).
Not convinced? Get a piece of your favourite filament, light it and watch…
HaD please promote way more fun dangerous stuff, don’t listen to that guy
A candle and some super dry flammable dust in a stairwell is fun for the kids!
Lit candle at the bottom, large cup of (flower/coffee mate) thrown in the air at top of stairs!
Also: LOX plus lit grill!
I did a set of small bore waste water piping connectors for a caravan a few years ago, they are my most popular download on Thingiverse. They are parametric (OpenSCAD) so you can set the diameters, wall thickness, angle etc. to suit your own situation:
https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4204467
Forgot to say they are completely free and open source.
Nice, thank you for your service
I myself am a relatively recent convert to foil tape. Not sure how I made it this far in life without knowing it even existed.
Not much love for 3D printers here, it seems. Interesting.