3d printing

804 Articles

3D Print In The Air With A Little Software Support

July 19, 2021 by 11 Comments

We all love 3D printing, but printing anything that has an overhang requires support, right? Maybe not. [Create Inc] has a video showing some 3D prints that seem to hang impossibly in the air — not bridges, but loops just floating in the air. You can see the effect in the video below.

The first part of the post covers gcode basics. Around the 5:30 mark, [Create] talks about his inspiration: FullControl Gcode Designer. You can do a lot with this tool and it inspired [Create’s] similar web-based version.

The point of these tools is to make it easier to create gcode directly instead of using a slicer. You can think of it as assembly language for 3D printing — you can do almost everything in the high-level language — 3D models — but if you want ultimate control you use assembly language, or, in this case, gcode.

The original tool uses Excel which didn’t visualize the output directly and could not provide proper error checking. The new tool solves those problems and is much easier to use.

If you know gcode, you can do a lot of interesting things. You can even put a spring in your step.

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See-Through Carburetor Gives A Clear Demonstration

July 6, 2021 by 19 Comments

Carburetors have been largely phased out on most automobiles, but for a century they were the standard, and still are on many smaller engines. Armed with a high-speed camera and with the help of his father, [Smarter Every Day] investigates these devices by experimenting with a DIY see-through carburetor connected to a real engine.

The purpose of a carburetor is to mix gasoline and oxygen to the correct ratio for combustion inside the engine. Gasoline flow from the tank to the bowl, from where gets sucked into the venturi. The choke valve adjusts the amount of air entering the carb, while the throttle controls the amount of air-fuel mixture entering the engine. It appears that the carburetor was made from a resin 3D printed body and manifold, with an acrylic cover and PLA throttle and choke valves. It was attached to a single-cylinder engine.

The high-speed footage is incredible, and clearly shows the operation of the carburetor and makes it incredibly easy to understand. If you’re interested, he also uploaded a second video with almost 80 minutes of detailed footage.

[Smarter Every Day]’s infectious curiosity has led to numerous fascinating projects, including a supersonic baseball canon and the backward bicycle.

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Machine Extrudes Filament

July 4, 2021 by 28 Comments

We’ve seen a lot of homebrew filament extruders, but [Stefan] at CNC Kitchen shows off a commercial desktop filament extruder in his latest video, which you can see below. The 3DEVO extruder is pretty slick but at around $7,000-$8,000 we probably won’t rush out and buy one. We might, though, get some ideas from it for our next attempt to build something similar.

In concept, any machine that creates filament is pretty straightforward. Melt pellets and push them out of a nozzle. Cool the filament and wind it up. Easy, right? But, of course, the problems are all in the details. Die swell, for example, means you can’t just assume the nozzle’s hole size will give you the right size filament. Continue reading “Machine Extrudes Filament” →

From Printer To Vinyl Cutter

July 2, 2021 by 14 Comments

Some might look at a cheap inkjet printer and see a clunky device that costs more to replace the ink than to buy a new one. [Abhishek Verma] saw an old inkjet printer and instead saw a smooth gantry and feed mechanism, the perfect platform to build his own DIY vinyl cutter.

The printer was carefully disassembled. The feed mechanism was reworked to be driven by a stepper motor with some 3D printed adapter plates. A solenoid-based push/pull mechanism for the cutting blade was added with a 3D printed housing along with a relay module. An Arduino Uno takes in commands from a computer with the help of a CNC GRBL shield.

What we love about this build is the ingenuity and reuse of parts inside the old printer. For example, the old PCB was cut and connectors were re-used. From the outside, it’s hard to believe that HP didn’t manufacture this as a vinyl cutter.

If you don’t have a printer on hand, you can always use your CNC as a vinyl cutter. But if you don’t have a CNC, [Abhishek] shares all the STL files for his cutter as well as the schematic. Video after the break.

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Print Your Own Flexures

June 22, 2021 by 12 Comments

Game developer and eternal learner [David Tucker] just posted a project where he’s making linear flexures on a 3D printer. Tinkerer [Tucker] wanted something that would be rigid in five of the six degrees of freedom, but would provide linear motion along one axis. In this case, it is for a pen or knife on a CNC flatbed device. [David]’s design combines the properties of a 1-dimensional flexure and a spring to give a constant downward force. Not only is this an interesting build in and of itself, but he gives a good explanation and examples of more traditional flexible constructs. He also points out this site by MIT Precision Compliant Systems Lab engineer [Marcel Thomas] which provides a wealth of information on flexures.

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3D Printing Food University Style

June 18, 2021 by 5 Comments

While refitting a 3D printer for food printing isn’t really a new idea, we liked the detailed summary that appeared from a team from the University of Birmingham which converted an i3 clone printer to use a syringe extruder.

The syringe in question was meant for veterinarian use and is made of metal. The paper suggests that the metal is a better thermal conductor, but it was’t clear to us if they included a heating element for the syringe. In the pictures, though, it does appear to have some insulation around it. In any case, we imagine a metal syringe is easier to keep clean, which is important if you are depositing something edible.

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Printed Catamaran

June 15, 2021 by 8 Comments

If you want to send some instruments out on the lake or the ocean, you’ll want something that floats. Sure, if you need to be underwater, or if you can fly over the water there are other options, but sometimes you want to be on the surface. For stability, it is hard to beat a catamaran — a boat with two hulls that each support one side of a deck. If that sounds like the ocean sensor platform of your dreams, try printing the one from [electrosync].

The boat looks super stable and has a brushless motor propulsion system. The design purpose is to carry environmental and water quality monitoring gear. It can hold over 5 kg of payload in the hull and there’s an optional deck system, although the plans for that are not yet included in the STL files.

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