3D Printed Hovercraft Takes Flight

January 11, 2018 by Al Williams 22 Comments

Last time we checked in on [Ivan Miranda] he was putting a drill press on the Internet. Lately, he has been trying to 3D print a hovercraft with some success. He made four attempts before arriving at one that works fairly well, as you can see in the video below. We will warn you, though, the screwdriver cam is a bit disconcerting and we suggest waiting at least an hour after you eat to watch.

The starboard impeller broke midway through the test, although with a single impeller it was working pretty well. [Ivan] thinks he can print the impeller frames more strongly to prevent future failures. The design is in Fusion360 and there is enough detail that you can probably duplicate his work if you have the urge. There’s a mount for a headlight and an action camera on the bow.

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You Got A 3D Printer, Now What?

January 10, 2018 by Tom Nardi 89 Comments

Given the incredibly low prices on some of the models currently on the market, it’s more than likely a number of Hackaday readers have come out of the holiday season with a shiny new desktop 3D printer. It’s even possible some of you have already made the realization that 3D printing is a bit harder than you imagined. Sure the newer generation of 3D printers make it easier than ever, but it’s still not the same “click and forget” experience of printing on paper, for instance.

In light of this, I thought it might be nice to start off the new year with some advice for those who’ve suddenly found themselves lost in a forest of PLA. Some of this information may seem obvious to those of us who’ve spent years huddled over a print bed, but as with many technical pursuits, we tend to take for granted the knowledge gained from experience. For my own part, the challenges I faced years ago with my first wooden 3D printer were wholly different than what I imagined. I assumed that the real challenge would be getting the machine assembled and running, but the time it took to build the machine was nothing in comparison to the hours and hours of trial and error it took before I gained the confidence to really utilize the technology.

Of course, everyone’s experience is bound to be different, and we’d love to hear about yours in the comments. Grand successes, crushing defeats, and everything in between. It’s all part of the learning process, and all valuable information for those who are just starting out.

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Robotic Drive Train Is Nearly All 3D Printed

January 7, 2018 by Al Williams 2 Comments

There are lots of ways to move a robot ranging from wheels, treads, legs, and even propellers through air or water. Once you decide on locomotion, you also have to decide on the configuration. One possible way to use wheels is with a swerve drive — a drive with independent motors and steering on each wheel. Prolific designer [LoboCNC] has a new version of his swerve drive on Thingiverse. The interesting thing is that it’s nearly all 3D printed.

You do need a few metal parts, a belt, two motors, and — no kidding — airsoft BBs, used as bearings. There are 3 parts you have to fabricate, which could take some work on a lathe, so it isn’t completely 3D printed.

[LoboCNC] points out that the assembly is lightweight and is not made for heavy robots. Apparently, though, his idea of lightweight is no more than 20 pounds per wheel, so that’s still pretty large in our book. The two motors allow for one motor to provide drive rotation while the other one — which includes an encoder — to steer. Of course, the software has to account for the effect of steering each wheel separately, but that’s another problem.

This robotic drivetrain is just thing for a car-like robot. If you are a little lonesome you could always print out ASPIR, instead. Or if you want an exotic 3D printed way to move things, you might get some inspiration from Zizzy. If you want a swerve drive that doesn’t require any machining or 3D printing, you might enjoy the video from another FIRST team, below.

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3D Printed Propellers Take To The Skies

January 6, 2018 by Lewin Day 10 Comments

In the world of drones, propeller choice is key to performance. Selecting the right props can have a major effect on things like flight time, vibration, and a whole host of other factors. Thinking it might be fun to experiment, [RCLifeOn] decided to 3D print some props and head out for a fligh t.

The props are a fairly simple 3-bladed design, which were printed in both PETG and PLA. No major difference is noted between the two materials, and the quadcopter under test is able to fly with either. It was noted that the props perform particularly poorly in a crash, with all props failing even in the softest of crashes. We would recommend some eye (and body) protection when spinning these props up for the first time.

If you’re keen to try them out yourself, the STL file can be had here. The video notes that when printing 4 props, 2 must be reversed in the Y-axis to print a counter-rotating set of 4. The instructions used for creating propellers in Fusion3D are available here.

It’s a worthy experiment, and something we’d like to see more of. With a 3D printer, it’s possible to experiment with all manner of propeller designs, and we’d love to see the best and worst designs that are still capable of flight. We’ve also seen 3D printed props before, like this effort from [Anton].

3D Printing Wearables With A Net

January 6, 2018 by Al Williams 4 Comments

If you want to build wearables, you need to know how to sew, right? Maybe not. While we’re sure it would come in handy, [Drato] (also known as [RobotMama]) shows how she prints designs directly on a net-like fabric. You can see a video of the process below.

The video after the break shows an Ultimaker, but there’s really nothing particularly special about the printer. The trick is to print a few layers, pause, and then insert the fabric under the printer before resuming the print.

[Drato] holds the fabric down after inserting it, and mentions you can use glue to hold it down, too. We wondered if some bulldog or alligator clips might work. The only thing we worried about is if the fabric were made of some synthetic, it might not take hot plastic without melting.

[Drato] mentions she uses Organza, which is a sheer fabric often found on wedding gowns. However, she doesn’t mention if she is using the polyester, silk, or nylon type of the fabric. A little research shows that polyester and nylon fabrics melt at about 295 C. Silk was harder to track down, but since you can iron it on a medium setting, that might work, too. Of course, the temperature where it melts and the temperature where it just deforms beyond use might be different, so some experimentation is probably wise.

What really piqued our interest was the application to creating wearables without sewing. We’ll be curious what other applications you could find for printing directly on a fabric substrate.

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Teaching Alexa To 3D Print

January 5, 2018 by Al Williams 21 Comments

Sometimes a gadget like Alexa or Google Home is a solution looking for a problem. Then the problem you’ve been looking for hits you square in the face. I’ve confessed before that I have an oscilloscope problem. I also have a microcontroller development board habit. It appears now I have too many 3D printers. I recently finished building my latest one, an Anet A8 I picked up on Black Friday. While calibrating it, I found myself juggling a screwdriver, a pair of pliers, and trying to operate the thing all at one time. I realized I had to come up with a better way.

I don’t know if it qualifies as an addiction yet, but I also have an Alexa in every room (although I call it “Computer” because I’m a Star Trek fan) and a Google Home device almost everywhere. Why can’t I get one of these assistants to operate my printer for me? What are assistants for, after all, other than telling Dad jokes?

You’d think adding voice control to a 3D printer would a bit difficult. With the right tools, it is actually pretty easy. Luckily those tools aren’t anything special… if you want a set up like mine, where Alexa controls your 3D printer, read on.

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Huge 3D Printer Ditches Lead Screw For Belt Driven Z Axis

January 4, 2018 by Will Sweatman 36 Comments

The vast majority of desktop 3D printers in use today use one or more lead screws for the Z-axis. Sometimes you need to think outside of the box to make an improvement on something. Sometimes you need to go against the grain and do something that others wouldn’t do before you can see what good will come out of it. [Mark Rehorst] had heard the arguments against using a belt drive for the Z-axis on a 3D printer build:

The belt can stretch, causing inaccurate layer height.
If power fails, gravity will totally ruin your day.

He decided to go for it anyway and made a belt driven Z axis for his huge printer. To deal with the power loss issue, he’s using a 30:1 reduction worm gear on the drive — keeping the bed in one place if power goes. And after a few studies, he found the belt stretch was so minimal that it has no effect on layer height.

Of course those two issues are but a small portion of the overall ingenuity that [Mark] poured into this project. You’ll want to see it in action below, printing a vase that is 500 mm tall (took about 32 hours to get to 466 mm and you can see the top is a hairy wobbly at this point). Luckily we can geek out with the rest of his design considerations and test by walking through this fantastic build log from back in July. Of note is the clamp he designed to hold the belt. It uses a small scrap of the belt itself to lock together the two ends. That’s a neat trick!

The introduction of a belt driven Z-axis eliminates Z-axis wobble — an issue that can be exacerbated in tall printers. Desktop 3D printers are constantly improving, and we’re always excited to see a new trick work so well. Let us know if you’ve seen any other handy Z-axis modifications out there.

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