Texture Map GCode Directly In Blender With NozzleBoss

March 31, 2022 by Dave Rowntree 5 Comments

We’ve seen this funky dual disk polar printer already recently, but [Heinz Loepmeier] has been busy working on it, so here’s an update. The primary focus here is nozzleboss, a blender plugin which enables the surface textures of already sliced objects to be manipulated. The idea is to read in the gcode for the object, and convert it to an internal mesh representation that blender needs in order to function. From there the desired textures can be applied to the surfaces for subsequent stages to operate upon. One trick that nozzleboss can do is to create weight maps to tweak the extrusion flow rate or print velocity value according to the pixel value at the surface — such ‘velocity painting’ can produce some very subtle surface effects on previously featureless faces. Another trick is to use the same weight maps and simply map colours to blender text blocks which are injected into the gcode at export time. These gcode blocks can be used swap tool heads or extruders, enabling blending of multiple filament colours or types in the same object.

Some nice examples of such printing manipulation can be seen on [Heinz’s] instagram page for the project. So, going back to the hardware again, the first video embedded below shows the ‘dual disk polar printer’ fitted with a crazy five-extruders-into-one-nozzle mixing hotend setup, which should be capable of full CMYK colour mixing and some. The second video below shows an interesting by-product of the wide horizontal motion range of the machine, that the whole printing area can be shifted to a nozzle at the other end of the gantry. This enables a novel way to switch extruders, by just moving the whole bed and print under the nozzle of interest! One final observation — is that of the print surface — it does look rather like they’re printing direct onto a slab of marble, which I think is the first time we’ve seen that.

Interesting printer designs are being worked on a lot these days, here’s a really nice 5-axis prusa i3 hack, and if you want to stay in the cartesian world, but your desktop machine is just too small, then you can always supersize it.

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the water gravity air powered engine running

Gravity-Water-Air Powered Engine

March 28, 2022 by Matthew Carlson 19 Comments

Air engines are a common occurrence here on Hackaday. They’re relatively novel and reasonably easy to 3D print without requiring any fluids or supporting machinery. For example, [Tom Stanton] took a previous air engine design, did away with the air compressor, and instead used gravity and water to create just a few PSI to run the engine.

The basic setup is to have a large jug of water up somewhere high. Flexible tubing runs down to [Tom’s] custom acrylic pressure chamber. A little CNC-ing and some epoxy made a solid chamber, and we’re happy to report that [Tom] did some initial simulation before construction to make sure he wasn’t accidentally building a bomb. Some back of the napkin math showed that he could expect around 0.6 bar (around eight psi) with his setup. His first test showed almost precisely that. Unfortunately, [Tom] ran into some issues despite the early success. His engine would stop as it drew air and the pressure dropped, and the replenishing rate of the pressure was limited by the relatively small inlet hole he had drilled.

To fix this, he printed a larger diaphragm for the engine, so the lower air pressure had more to push against. This allowed the engine to run for a good while before the tank filled up. Additionally, he smoothed and polished everything, so it was as low friction as possible. We know we often state it here, but it is incredible what can be achieved with 3D printed parts these days.

We love seeing the iteration evident in this video. The various engine versions splayed across the table offer a powerful story about [Tom’s] persistence. Powering an engine is a small step to powering your whole home.

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3D Printed Portal Turret Moves And Talks Like The Real Thing

March 27, 2022 by Robin Kearey 19 Comments

Thanks to its innovative gameplay and quirky humor, Portal became an instant hit when it was released in 2007. Characters became cultural icons, quotes became memes and the game became a classic along with its 2011 sequel. Even today, more than a decade later, we regularly see hackers applying their skills in recreating some of the game’s elements. One beautiful example is [Joran de Raaff]’s physical rendition of a Portal Turret.

A 3D CAD drawing of a Portal Turret — Inside the Turret it’s full of moving parts.

[Joran] decided to use his 3D printer to create a Turret that can move and speak exactly as it does in the game. The result, as you can see in the video embedded below, was a triumph. We’re making a note here, “huge success”. The outer shell is a beautiful shiny white, an effect achieved through patient sanding, priming, and spraying with high-gloss paint. The internals are even more impressive with servos, microswitches, and a whole array of 3D-printed gears, cams, and levers.

A motion sensor activates the Turret whenever a human moves nearby. It will then open its wings and fire its guns while playing the corresponding sounds from the game. Its brains are formed by a Wemos D1 which drives the various LEDs and servos, while an MP3 player board holds a library of sound bites and plays them through a speaker hidden inside the Turret’s shell.

After posting his creation on YouTube [Joran] got many requests for the 3D files, so he made them available and wrote a comprehensive build guide. This should enable anyone with a 3D printer to build this neat gun, without getting too much science done. If this model is too small for you, then perhaps this life-sized model is more to your liking. If you prefer your Turret small and cute, check out this plushie version.

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3D Printed Forge For Recycling

March 27, 2022 by Matthew Carlson 30 Comments

If you own a CNC and have kept tabs on metal prices these past few years (honestly months), you might shed a small tear as you watch chips fly off your work and into the trash. With a sigh, these flecks and pieces are consigned to be the cost of machining a part. Thankfully, the fine folks at [ActionBox] have been working on a 3d printed plaster forge for recycling their metal scraps.

The team ordered some graphite crucibles of a few sizes from a large online bookstore and started 3D printing some molds for crucible holders. They started with a smaller version to try the method. While the walls were too thin in that initial version, the approach was proven. With slightly thicker walls, the medium-sized version worked much better. The goal of the forge was to smelt copper as they had a lot of thick copper wire lying around. Armed with several propane torches, they started melting aluminum and brass, which worked reasonably well. However, the melting point of copper continued to elude them (1984°F or 1085°C). To counter this, the [ActionBox] team bought some new torches that provided significantly higher BTU output, while still fitting the holes in the mold. This did the trick!

The mold to accommodate the large crucible was massive and printed in four sections. The team did melt copper successfully and had four ingots to show off. We want to stress how dangerous molten copper and other metals are, particularly regarding things you might not realize have moisture soaked up inside. Proper PPE is essential to use these things without getting hurt. [ActionBox] has some helpful pointers in that area, but they admit they are relatively new to forging and casting themselves. Perhaps version two can incorporate a flip lid for added safety.

Video after the break.
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DIY SLS 3D Printer Getting Ready To Print

March 25, 2022 by Dave Rowntree 12 Comments

Ten years ago the concept of having on our desks an affordable 3D printer knocking out high quality reproducible prints, with sub-mm accuracy, in a wide range of colours and material properties would be the would be just a dream. But now, it is reality. The machines that are now so ubiquitous for us hackers, are largely operating with the FDM principle of shooting molten plastic out of a moving nozzle, but they’re not the only game in town. A technique that has also being around for donkeys’ years is SLS or Selective Laser Sintering, but machines of this type are big, heavy and expensive. However, getting one of those in your own ‘shop now is looking a little less like a dream and more of a reality, with the SLS4All project by [Tomas Starek] over on hackaday.io.

[Tomas] has been busy over the past year, working on the design of his machine and is now almost done with the building and testing of the hardware side. SLS printing works by using a roller to transfer a layer of powdered material over the print surface, and then steering a medium-power laser beam over the surface in order to heat and bond the powder grains into a solid mass. Then, the bed is lowered a little, and the process repeats. Heating of the bed, powder and surrounding air is critical, as is moisture control, plus keeping that laser beam shape consistent over the full bed area is a bit tricky as well. These are all hurdles [Tomas] has to overcome, but the test machine is completed and is in a good place to start this process control optimisation fun. Continue reading “DIY SLS 3D Printer Getting Ready To Print” →

3D-Printed Parts Let You Assemble Your Own Biggest Fan

March 17, 2022 by Dan Maloney 14 Comments

It’s getting close to the time of year when we need to start carefully vetting projects here at Hackaday. After all, nobody likes to get punked by an early April Fool’s joke. But as silly as this outsized PC fan looks, it sure seems like a legit build, if a bit on the pointless side.

Then again, perhaps pointless is too harsh a word to use. This 500-mm fan is by [Angus] over at Maker’s Muse, and it represents a lot of design work to make it buildable, as well as workable and (mostly) safe. Using both CNC-cut MDF and printed parts, the fan is an embiggened replica of a normal-sized case fan. The fan’s frame had to be printed in four parts, which lock together with clever interlocking joints. Each of the nine blades locks into a central hub with sturdy-looking dovetails.

And sturdy is important, as the fan is powered by a 1,500 Watt brushless DC motor. With a 4:1 reduction thanks to a printed gear train, the fan spins at around 3,300 RPM, which makes a terrifying noise. There’s a little bit of “speed-wobble” evident, but [Angus] managed to survive testing. The fan, however, did not — the 3D-printed gears self-destructed after a full-speed test, but not before the fan did its best wind tunnel imitation. And the RGB LEDs looked great.

This one reminds up of something we might see [Ivan Miranda] come up with. In fact, his super-sized 3D printer might have been just the thing to shorten [Angus]’ print times.

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Doubled Up 3D Printer Upgrade Doubles The Fun

March 17, 2022 by Dave Rowntree 19 Comments

[Nathan] from Nathan Builds Robots on YouTube is no stranger to modding 3D printers, whether it’s a good idea or not, it’s just fun to find out sometimes. His latest escapade he calls the Double Ender (video, embedded below), where he not only doubles up the hotend, but the doubles up a few other bits too. The aim was to achieve dual material printing, with his specific goal to combine plain nylon and carbon fiber-loaded nylon in the same print, to get the best properties of both materials.

Taking a stock Ender 3 v2, [Nathan] first installs a dual Z axis kit, doubling up the Z axis screw and associated stepper motors. Likely this was needed to compensate for the additional weight of subsequent mods. Since the stock Ender mainboard has only one Z axis port, the less obvious solution was to just install a second mainboard! By leveraging the immense hackability of the Klipper printer firmware/software stack,he was able to get this weird configuration to work.

Next the main part of the build; the Phaetus Tai Chi dual hot end installation. For some reason, initially, it was decided to combine the stock bowden injector/extruder with a direct drive second unit, which we guess keeps the reciprocating weight down a bit and does let you directly compare bowden and direct drive print results on the same machine. Anyway, the first dual material prints came out pretty good after a few (quickly glossed over) fails, and did work well enough that dual-nylon printing could now be an option. After switching the build to a dual direct-drive setup, [Nathan] found it easier to get the machine to switch filaments more reliably, which makes sense when you think about the impact of all that extra filament in the bowden tube.

[Nathan] clearly has been burned (haven’t we all?) possibly literally, by the curious habit of some Chinese suppliers, of randomly assigning power supply polarity to red/black wire pairs. The solution, somewhat belt-and-braces, was to simply make up custom power cables with an embedded rectifier. Well, we guess that’s one less thing to worry about, but do look away when those PSU hacks are being shown!

Multi-material or multi-color FDM printer options are plenty, here’s a cool way of using a servo to swing a pair of hotends to the same point, and we also saw a while back, a way of using a sprung-loaded rocker to flip the unused hotend up out the way when not needed.

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