Giant 3D Printed Excavator Is Awesome, But Needs Work

February 17, 2023 by Lewin Day 13 Comments

Many of us adored big construction machinery as children. Once we got past the cute, tiny age, it became uncool to gasp with shock and awe at diggers and bulldozers for some reason . [Ivan Miranda] still digs the big rigs, though, and built himself a giant 3D printed excavator that looks like brilliant fun.

Why did Lego never make MegaTechnic blocks? [Ivan] shows us the true potential of bigger building blocks.

The build relies on [Ivan]’s giant 3D-printed Lego-like assembly kit. It lets him simply bolt together a bunch of plastic girders to make the key parts of the excavator, including the base and the digger arm itself. The digger arm is controlled with linear actuators of [Ivan’s] own design, which uses servos and threaded rod to do the job. They’re not as cool as hydraulics or pneumatics, but they get the job done well. For propulsion, [Ivan] built a tracked drive system again using his unique Lego-like blocks. The tracks were tedious to assemble, but add a lot to the excavators Awesomeness Quotient (AQ).

The overall build is quite slow, and more than a little fragile. It’s not quite ready for hardcore digging tasks. In reality, it’s serving as a test bed for [Ivan]’s 3D-printed building blocks that get better every time we see them. Video after the break.

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3D Printing With Rice Might Be Nice

February 17, 2023 by Al Williams 36 Comments

The United Nations Industrial Development Organization recently pointed out a possible replacement for petrochemical-based polymers: rice resin. A Japanese company makes the material from inedible rice and also makes a biodegradable polymer known as Neoryza, which seems to contain some amount of rice as well. The rice resin contains 10 to 70% rice waste. You can see a video with English subtitles about the material below.

According to the video, there is plenty of waste rice. The resulting resin isn’t as toxic as petrochemical-based plastics and doesn’t consume food crops like other plant-based polymers. The video shows the rice resin being extruded like a normal polymer, so it should work like any other thermoplastic.

The video says the properties are similar to petrochemical-based plastics and no special equipment is required to handle it. They also claim that production is easier because, unlike other bioplastics, they don’t generate ethanol as the first part of the process. Waste rice should be cheap to obtain since it is essentially trash today. We aren’t sure what polymers are used in the 90 to 30% of the plastic that isn’t rice, but presumably, that is being brought in as a raw material.

We’ll be interested to see if anyone tries to make 3D printing filament from the stuff. We know that it is being used to replace polyethylene in furniture. We couldn’t help but think about using waste coffee grounds in 3D printing. If you want to compare this to PLA, we’ve talked quite a bit about the corny polymer.

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The underside of the rotational base of the Gen5X 3D printer. A belt connects a pulley on the bottom of the stage to a stepper motor on the right side. The carriage for the stage looks organic in nature and is printed in bright orange PLA. The stage can rotate within the carriage which is mounted on two stainless steel rods connected to teal mounting points on either side of the printer (ends of the X-axis).

5-Axis Printer Wants To Design Itself

February 14, 2023 by Navarre Bartz 41 Comments

RepRap 3D printers were designed with the ultimate goal of self-replicating machines. The generatively-designed Gen5X printer by [Ric Real] brings the design step of that process closer to reality.

While 5-axis printing is old hat in CNC land, it remains relatively rare in the world of additive manufacturing. Starting with “a set of primitives… and geometric relationships,” [Real] ran the system through multiple generations to arrive at its current design. Since this is a generative design, future variants could look different depending on which parameters you have the computer optimize.

The Gen5X uses the 5 Axis Slicer from DotX for slicing files and runs a RepRap Duet board with Duex expansion. Since the generative algorithm uses parametric inputs, it should be possible to to have a Gen5X generated based on the vitamins you may have already. With how fast AI is evolving, perhaps soon this printer will be able to completely design itself? For now, you’ll have to download the files and try it yourself.

If you want to see some more printers with more than 3-axes, check out the RotBot or Open5X.

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3D Printing Support Gets Down To Tacks

February 10, 2023 by Al Williams 9 Comments

If you use supports for FDM 3D printing, you might find that some designs are more amenable than others to automatically-generated supports. [Slant 3D] , for example, shows a cool-looking eagle with a downward-curved beak that comes to a point. Using traditional supports would allow the print to succeed, but didn’t allow the beak to form correctly. To combat this, he uses something called a “thumbtack” in the design. There are several flavors, as you can see in the video below, and it widens out the small part yet has a tiny contact with the actual part so you can easily remove it.

One of the thumbtacks looks more like a Hersey’s kiss to us. It makes sense. The point can touch the part to support and the fat base gives a nice target for the automatic support feature in your slicer to grab. There’s also a spherical base so you can rotate to odd angles. The final thumbtack looks like an alien spacecraft and provides multiple contact points.

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Spy Drone Propeller Makes For A Quiet PC

February 6, 2023 by Al Williams 45 Comments

MIT recently announced its research on toroidal propellers to create quieter drones. That got [Major Hardware] thinking about noisy PC fans. The obvious solution was to adapt the toroidal shape for a PC fan. He was familiar with the idea from similar screws on boats that are commercially available. You can see his tests in the video below.

The shape of the blades on the MIT drones is visible in video and pictures, but there were no available 3D models. [Major] did a design and 3D printed the blades. Watching the comparison with a conventional fan using smoke was pretty impressive.

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Custom Enclosure For 3D Printer

February 6, 2023 by Maya Posch 19 Comments

Having an enclosure around an FDM 3D printer is generally a good idea, even when printing only with PLA, as it keeps the noise in, and the heat (and smell, with ABS) inside. With all the available options for enclosures out there, however, [David McDaid] figured that it should be possible to make an enclosure that does not look like a grow tent and is not overly expensive. He also shared the design files on GitHub.

The essential idea is very simple and straightforward: the structural part is cut out of pine beams that are cut to size and joined into a cube by (3D-printed) corner brackets, with acrylic (Perspex) sheets filling in the space between the wooden beams. A door is formed using (also 3D-printed) hinges and door handles. The whole enclosure is rounded off with a lick of paint on the wooden elements, and a diffused set of LED lights for internal illumination.

It definitely has to be admitted that it makes for a very stylish enclosure, with a lot of modding potential. It can also easily be adapted to differently sized printers and filament material demands.

Ikea Clock Gets Wanderlust

February 6, 2023 by Al Williams 29 Comments

We always enjoy unique clocks, and a recent 3D print from [David Kingsman] caught our eye. It converts an Ikea clock into a very unusual-looking “wandering hour” clock that uses a Geneva drive to show a very dynamic view of the current time. The concept is based on an earlier wandering clock, but [David] utilized a different mechanism.

To read the clock, you note which hour numeral is in range of the “minute arc” and read the time directly. So if the 12 hour is over the 20-minute mark, the time is 12:20. Besides the clock, you need a fair number of printed parts, although they all look like relatively simple prints. You’ll also need 13 bearings and some metric hardware. A piece of cardboard used for the face rounds out the build.

Modifying the clock is more than just taking it apart. There is a template file to print, and you’ll need to align it and drill holes as indicated.

If you haven’t seen a Geneva drive before, it translates a continuous rotation into intermittent rotation. This isn’t the first clock we’ve seen use this kind of drive, although the last one we saw represented time differently. If you want something even more mechanical, try a chain-driven clock.