3d printing

822 Articles

Make Your Own Color Gradient 3D Printing Filament

September 30, 2022 by 1 Comment

Color gradient filament is fun stuff to play with. It lets you make 3D prints that slowly fade from one color to another along the Z-axis. [David Gozzard] wanted to do some printing with this effect, and learned how to make his own filament to do the job. 

[David] intended to 3D print a spectrogram of a gravity wave, and wanted the graph to go from blue to yellow. Only having a single-color printer, he needed color shift filament, but couldn’t find any blue-to-yellow filament online.

The resulting color-shifting print looks great, demonstrating the value of the technique.

Thus, he elected to create it himself. He started by creating a spiral model in Fusion 360, with a hexagonal cross-section and slowly tapering off to a point. Slicing and printing this in blue results in a filament that slowly fades down to a point. The opposite shape can then be printed in yellow, tapering from a point up to a full-sized filament. The trick is to print one shape, then the other, by mashing the G-code together and changing the filament from blue to yellow along the way. The result is the blue and yellow plastic gets printed together into a single filament that gradually changes from one to the other.

Notably, the filament is smaller than the original filaments used to create it, so it’s necessary to run slightly different settings when using it. [David] has shared the models on Thingiverse for those eager to recreate the technique at home. His resulting gravity wave print is impressive, demonstrating that this technique works well!

We’ve seen similar different techniques used for creating multi-color filaments before, too. Video after the break.

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Peer-Reviewed Continuity Tester

September 30, 2022 by 10 Comments

One of the core features of the scientific community is the concept of “peer review” where any claims made by a scientist are open to be analyzed and reproduced by others in the community for independent verification. This leads to either rejection of ideas which can’t be reproduced, or strengthening of those ideas when they are. In this community we typically only feature the first step of this process, the original projects from various builders, but we don’t often see someone taking those instructions and “peer reviewing” someone’s build. This is one of those rare cases.

[oxullo] came across [Leo]’s original build for the ultimate continuity tester. This design is much more sensitive than the function which is built in to most multi-meters, and when building this tool specifically some other refinements can be built in as well. [oxullo] began by starting with the original designs, but made several small modifications. Most of these were changing to surface-mount parts, and switching some components for ones already available. Even then, there was still a mistake in the PCB which was eventually corrected. The case for this build is also 3D printed instead of being made out of metal, and with the original video to work from the rest fell into place easily.

[oxullo] is getting comparable results with this continuity tester, so we can officially say that this design is peer reviewed and tested to the highest of standards. If you’re in need of a more sensitive continuity sensor, or just don’t want to shell out for a Fluke meter when you don’t need the rest of its capabilities, this is the way to go. And don’t forget to check out our original write-up for this tester if you missed it the first time around.

Big 3D Printed BMO Is Also An OctoPrint Server

September 23, 2022 by 7 Comments

OctoPrint is a useful tool for 3D printers, providing remote access to essentially every 3D printer with a USB port. [Allie Katz] decided to build an OctoPrint server in the shape of a life-sized BMO from Adventure Time, and the results are cute as heck.

A Raspberry Pi 4 is the heart of the build, with [Allie] selecting a 8 GB model for the job. It’s paired with a Raspberry Pi touchscreen that serves as BMO’s face. The Pi is also given a stereo audio output board, and hooked up to a custom PCB that runs all of BMO’s buttons. Printing BMO itself was fairly straightforward, but requires some experience working with larger PETG parts. A useful note for those playing along at home is that Polymaker PolyLite PETG in teal is just about a perfect dupe for BMO’s authentic body color.

A bit of Python code animates BMO’s face and delivers funny quips at the press of a button. When it’s time to work, though, the touchscreen serves as a straightforward interface for OctoPrint. The resulting build is both fun and functional, and a great example of what 3D printing really can achieve. It’s a cute figurine and a functional print all in one, something we don’t see everyday!

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Glass 3D Printing Via Laser

September 19, 2022 by 5 Comments

If you haven’t noticed, diode laser engraver/cutters have been getting more powerful lately. [Cranktown City] was playing with an Atomstack 20 watt laser and wondered if it would sinter sand into glass. His early experiments were not too promising, but with some work, he was able to make a crude form of glass with the laser as the source of power. However, using glass beads was more effective, so he decided to build his own glass 3D printer using the laser.

This isn’t for the faint of heart. Surfaces need to be flat and there’s aluminum casting and plasma cutting involved, although some of it may not have been necessary for the final construction. The idea was to make a system that would leave a layer of sand and then put down a new layer on command. This turned out to be surprisingly difficult.

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DIY Haptic-Enabled VR Gun Hits All The Targets

September 17, 2022 by 3 Comments

This VR Haptic Gun by [Robert Enriquez] is the result of hacking together different off-the-shelf products and tying it all together with an ESP32 development board. The result? A gun frame that integrates a VR controller (meaning it can be tracked and used in VR) and provides mild force feedback thanks to a motor that moves with each shot.

But that’s not all! Using the WiFi capabilities of the ESP32 board, the gun also responds to signals sent by a piece of software intended to drive commercial haptics hardware. That software hooks into the VR game and sends signals over the network telling the gun what’s happening, and [Robert]’s firmware acts on those signals. In short, every time [Robert] fires the gun in VR, the one in his hand recoils in synchronization with the game events. The effect is mild, but when it comes to tactile feedback, a little can go a long way.

The fact that this kind of experimentation is easily and affordably within the reach of hobbyists is wonderful, and VR certainly has plenty of room for amateurs to break new ground, as we’ve seen with projects like low-cost haptic VR gloves.

[Robert] walks through every phase of his gun’s design, explaining how he made various square pegs fit into round holes, and provides links to parts and resources in the project’s GitHub repository. There’s a video tour embedded below the page break, but if you want to jump straight to a demonstration in Valve’s Half-Life: Alyx, here’s a link to test firing at 10:19 in.

There are a number of improvements waiting to be done, but [Robert] definitely understands the value of getting something working, even if it’s a bit rough. After all, nothing fills out a to-do list or surfaces hidden problems like a prototype. Watch everything in detail in the video tour, embedded below.

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3D Printing For Textile Work

September 11, 2022 by 7 Comments

While it isn’t for everyone, some of the best creators we know are experts at working with textiles. While the art is ancient, it isn’t easy and requires clever tools. [Lauren] collected a few 3D prints that can help you with knitting, crochet, and even a knitting loom.

Some of the designs are pretty basic like the yarn bowl, or pretty easy to figure out like the simple machine for re-spooling wool. We were frankly surprised that you can 3D print a crochet hook, although the post does mention that breaking them is a real problem.

We were really impressed though, with the sock knitting machine. There are actually a few of these out there, and you can see a similar one in the video below. Of course, like a RepRap printer, it needs “vitamins” in the form of metal rods, fasteners, and the like. There’s also a  portable knitting loom which looked interesting.

We aren’t adept enough with fabric arts to know if these tools are serious contenders compared to commercial products, but we have to admit the sock knitting machine looks like it could be. We recently saw a sophisticated loom, although that might be a bit more than most people need. We have looked at open-source knitting machines, too. Of course, if you’d rather not create with textiles, you can always 3D print on them, instead.

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Full Transparency: Stronger FDM Prints

September 11, 2022 by 7 Comments

We always look forward to [Stefan’s] CNC Kitchen videos. They are usually useful, but always carefully thought out and backed with experimental data. His latest is about creating transparent and strong FDM prints. You normally don’t associate the FDM process with clear prints even with clear filament. The problem is the filament doesn’t lay down in a particular structure, so light scatters producing a sort of white color. However, [Stefan] found a post on Printables called “How to Print Glass” which changes the structure of the part and, of course, [Stefan] wanted to see if the process also led to stronger parts.

The process is slow and the basic idea is to use no top and bottom layers. The entire part is essentially infill. You also need to set the infill to go in the same direction for each layer. As [Stefan] mentions, there have been other efforts to make transparent parts, especially in vase mode. Of course, you can also get transparent parts using resin printing, although it isn’t always as easy as you might think.

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