3D Printing With Metal… At Home!

November 7, 2013 by James Hobson 29 Comments

[Bam] from the LulzBot forums has successfully printed metal using his 3D printer and a Budaschnozzle 1.1 hot end. Well, solder to be specific — but it’s still pretty awesome!

He’s making use of 3mm solder purchased from McMaster (76805a61), which has a blend of 95.8% tin, 4% copper and 0.2% silver. It took quite a few tries to get it extruding properly, and even now it seems to only be able to print about 15mm before jamming up — a more specific hot end with a larger thermal mass might help. He plans on trying a thinner filament (1.75mm) as it might help to keep it at the proper extrusion temperature, which in this case is around 235C.

During our research we found another user from the RepRap blog who has also been experimenting with printing low-melt point alloys — and he’s even successfully created an Arduino compatible Sanguino board using the printer!

If you want to try this yourself, you’ll need a nozzle you don’t care about, bored out to about 1mm — any smaller and it won’t extrude at all. Be warned though, the solder will corrode brass and aluminum, and [Bam] notes that after going through 1lb of solder, the nozzle was closer to 2mm in diameter when he was done! Oh and for the love of hacking — use ventilation!

Stick around after the break to watch a video on a professional version of this system — which is essentially a repurposed welding robot, using electron beam direct manufacturing. These technologies can’t make nicely finished parts, but they excel when considering they can make near net-weight parts, requiring only a small amount of machining to finish.

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The Trials Of Printing Mil-Spec Connectors

November 3, 2013 by Brian Benchoff 33 Comments

conn

[Chris] over at the 23B hackerspace had a bit of a problem – a project required the use of a very old rotary encoder with a mil-spec connector. While it might be possible to simply buy one of these mating connectors on Digikey or Mouser, that’s not [Chris]’ usual MO. He has a nice 3D printer, and this connector is basically a cylinder with some holes. How hard could printing out one of these connectors be?

The dimensions for [Chris]’ first attempt at creating a mating connector came from Solidworks’ “Sketch Picture” command where an image can be superimposed over a model and the 3D features created from that guide. If it worked, it would be far too easy, and the printed model didn’t fit at all.

This failure led [Chris] to page through MIL-STD-1651, a portly tome of 200+ pages covering every circular connector possible. After 20 minutes of scanning the specs, [Chris] found what he was looking for: the correct specification showing him where all the pins and holes should go.

After some fine modeling in Solidworks, [Chris] had his very own custom printed Mil-Spec connector. Sure, he ate up more time than it was worth for one connector, but now that he has the STL file, he can print out as many as he needs.

Low Cost Filament Extruder

November 1, 2013 by James Hobson 27 Comments

Here’s a great low cost filament extruder solution. It uses basic parts available from any hardware store, and a few 3D printed ones — estimated cost is well under $100.

It’s very similar to the Lyman Filament Extruder, but can be built for even less money. By using 200C set-point heaters, his setup requires absolutely no electronics — although a cheap PID controller from China could give him more extrusion capabilities with temperature control… Regardless, the system appears to make good filament and he uses it exclusively for his personal filament consumption in his Delta printer. He’s even hacked up the ABS casing of a refrigerator, ground it down, and turned it into filament using this machine! If you’re hungry for more details, the full build log and discussion can be found on the RepRap forums.

He also has a guide on making your own ABS color masterbatch to make your own filament colors!

[Thanks Liam!]

UK Cops Fear Gun; Pointlessly Seize 3D Printer

October 25, 2013 by Brian Benchoff 204 Comments

quoteGUNquote

Above, according to the greater Manchester Police force, is a 3D printed gun. Well, the rozzers say it’s merely a trigger for a gun. In part they’re actually correct; it is a trigger. For a spring-loaded extruder for the Makerbot Replicator.

For the past few days, the media has been abuzz about the first seizure of a 3D printer (a Makerbot Replicator 2) in Manchester, UK during a raid on suspected gang members. Despite numerous complaints and comments by makers across the UK (thanks, guys), Assistant Chief Constable [Steve Heywood] says, “We need to be absolutely clear that at that this stage, we cannot categorically say we have recovered the component parts for a 3D gun.” The seized 3D printer parts are being sent to ballistics experts to determine if a random piece of plastic can be used in the manufacture of handguns.

Alright kiddos, editorial time. We’re quite aware that the UK is a little…. different… than the US when it comes to firearms regulation. Nevertheless, we feel the need to defend anyone with a 3D printer, in a handy Q&A format:

What this has also done is open up a wider debate about the emerging threat these next generation of weapons might pose.

No, it doesn’t. I don’t know what the British equivalent of a Home Depot is, but I could go to that store, buy some stuff, and build a zip gun. Of course I wouldn’t, because that’s not safe. I could also use a mill and lathe to make a proper gun.

But it’s made of plastic and thus undetectable

Bullets aren’t. Also, I could machine some Delrin. You should really watch In the Line of Fire.

But plans for 3D printed guns are available, making it easy for anyone to fabricate their own gun

Yeah, and Hackaday made one. There were a lot of problems with those 3D printer files. The spring wouldn’t slice, the hammer wouldn’t print, every part was out of scale, and you’d need a lot of experience in 3D modeling and design to turn those ‘plans available on the Internet’ into something you can send to a printer.

Your posting this article further sensationalizes the role of 3D printers in gun control.

You’re right. Here’s what you do: every time someone mentions 3D printed guns, say, “You can build an even better gun with a combo mill/lathe that costs the same as a 3D printer. Equal skill is required to operate both machines. Do you intend to ban the sale or use of machine tools?”

But UK gun laws are weird.

Then print a knife.

via reddit

Converting A Mill To CNC

October 25, 2013 by Phillip Ryals 22 Comments

Have a mill that you’d like to automate? Perhaps you can gets some ideas from the work [James] recently finished. Using familiar NEMA 23 stepper motors (the same motors used in the RepRap), he hacked his Proxxon MF-70 mill for CNC control. Adding a Sanguino and the stepper controllers from other projects, [James] got a working machine for minimal investment. You can tell that [James] is a fan of Polymorph, because he uses it liberally for most of the project, even using it to create some Oldham couplings (Google cache).

After completing the build initially, he managed to burn out the spindle motor by milling steel too quickly. We found it interesting that he was able to use a TURNIGY 2217 860kv 22A Outrunner (for R/C airplanes) as a new spindle motor. Not only is it a low-cost solution, but pairing it with a traditional brushless ESC can give your CNC software direct control over the motor speed.

The image above is an example of what [James’] machine is capable of. Overall, it’s a very accessible project for most of us. Not every mill needs to be capable of 10 mil traces. If you’ve got the urge, you can probably put one together yourself. Of course, if you do, please let us know!

3D Printering: A Call For An Open Source Automated Build Platform

October 23, 2013 by Brian Benchoff 79 Comments

I’ve said this before, and I’ll say it again: if you’re using a 3D printer to make a few hundred identical plastic parts, you’re doing it wrong. That’s the place for traditional manufacturing methods such as injection molding or resin casting. If, however, you’re looking at printing a few dozen identical plastic parts, or even running a script to optimize your machine time, the current open source 3D printer world leaves one thing to be desired.

An Automated Build Platform

An Automated Build Platform is a fairly simple idea: put a conveyor belt on your heated bed, and when the print is done, send a command to drive a motor, dumping the newly printed part into a bin, The printer then begins the next part with a clean bed, and the days of doting over a 3D printer soon fade into the past.

For such a simple and useful idea, it’s surprising there hasn’t been much done with this idea in open source circles. There are, of course, problems both technical and legal, but hopefully nothing that should indefinitely derail anyone who would want to create the first open source automated build platform.

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3D Printed Cutaway Jet Engine Sounds Great

October 22, 2013 by Adam Fabio 12 Comments

Thanks to the wonders of 3D printing, you can now have a 3D printed a jet engine of your very own. Unlike jet engines we’ve seen before, this one comes with no chance of the operator getting burned to a crisp. [Gerry] is a self-proclaimed “broken down motor mechanic” from New Zealand. He’s designed a rather awesome jet engine in 3D Software, and printed it on his UP Plus printer. The engine itself is a cutaway model of a high-bypass turbofan engine. While we’re not sure which make and model of jet engine this cutaway represents, we’re still very impressed.

This isn’t just a static display model – the engine will actually spin up with the help of compressed air. Separate start and run tubes send air to the turbine and main fain respectively. It even has that distinctive turbofan “buzz saw” sound. While this model is relatively safe, [Gerry] does warn to keep the pressure down, or it could come apart. To that end we’d recommend adding a regulator before the quick disconnect.

The Thingiverse project is a bit light on instructions. However this situation is remedied by [hacksaw], who posted a pictorial and build log up on pp3d. [Hacksaw] did run into a few problems with the build, but nothing a little bit of superglue couldn’t fix. It may have fewer moving parts, but this definitely puts our old Visible V8 Engine kit to shame.

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