Casting Metal Parts And Silicone Molds From 3D Prints

February 25, 2018 by Lara Grant 35 Comments

The invention of the relatively affordable 3D printer for home use has helped bring methods used to produce parts for prototypes, samples, and even manufacturing, closer to designers. This tutorial on how to cast metal parts from 3D printed silicone molds is a perfect example of how useful a 3D printer can be when you are looking to make a custom and durable metal part at home.

After 3D printing a mold design using an Ultimaker 2 [Matt Borgatti] casts the mold using Smooth-On Mold Star 15 that can withstand heat up to 450 °F (232 °C), which he points out is ideal for the low-temp metal casting alloy tin-bismuth comprised of 58% Bismuth and 42% Tin with a melting point of 281 °F.

You may have heard of molds created from 3D printed parts before, but what makes this tutorial great is that the author, [Matt Borgatti], really sets you up to be successful. He offers up plenty of insights including mold-making techniques and terminology like why you would need a well and runners designed as part of your mold when casting with metal.

You can either reproduce his designs or use the tutorial to create your own which makes it a good start for beginners as well as another method to file away for people who already have experience 3D printing molds. This post is also really a twofer. Not only do you get detailed instructions for the method but [Matt Borgatti] uses his casted metal part for a flat-pack camera arm he designed to document projects with which you can also build using his files found on Thingiverse.

To create molds for precision parts and to learn more about using a 3D printer as a tool in the casting process, check out this method for creating higher resolution molds with a resin printer.

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Student 3D Prints Eyes

February 15, 2018 by Al Williams 20 Comments

[Ondřej Vocílka] is a student at the Brno University of Technology in the Czech Republic. In addition, the 23-year-old lost his vision in his left eye. While attending a lecture on 3D printing, he wondered if he could 3D print an ophthalmic prosthesis — an artificial eye. Turns out, he could. If you don’t speak Czech, you’ll need to call on a translation service like we did.

Unlike conventional glass or plastic eyes, it is trivial to change parameters like color when 3D printing the prosthetic. This is especially important with the iris and the finished product takes about 90 minutes to print. There is additional time required to coat the product with an acrylic layer to mimic the gloss of a natural eye.

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The Most Utilitarian 3D Print Has The Widest Reach

February 13, 2018 by Mike Szczys 21 Comments

3D Printing is often heralded as a completely new fabrication method, creating things that simply cannot be manufactured in other ways. While this is true, the widest reaching usefulness of 3D printers isn’t for pushing the limits of fabrication. The real power is in pushing the limits of manufacturing for individuals who need one-off parts.

The proof point is in the story shown above. A missing key on a keyboard could have meant an otherwise fine piece of hardware headed for recycling, but was saved by a single part printed on a desktop 3D printer. Multiply this by the increasing number of people who have access to these printers and you can see how using 3D printing for repairs will have a huge impact on keeping our gear in service longer.

We want to see how you’ve saved things from the rubbish pile. Show them off in Hackaday’s Repairs You Can Print contest. The best Student entry and the best Organization entry (think Hackerspace) will each win a high-end 3D Printer. But anyone can enter, with the top twenty entries receiving $100 credit for Tindie.

If you’re like us though, these prizes are just icing on the cake. The real reward is showing what some think is mundane but the Hackaday crowd believes is worth celebrating. Check out all the entries so far and join us below for a few highlights.

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Heated DryBox Banishes Filament Moisture For Under $20

February 10, 2018 by Donald Papp 39 Comments

There has been a lot of activity from [Richard Horne] regarding 3D printing filaments lately; most recently he has shared two useful designs for upping one’s filament storage and monitoring game. The first is for a DIY Heated DryBox for 3D printing filament. It keeps filament dry not just by sealing it into a plastic box with some desiccant, but by incorporating a mild and economical heater intended for reptile habitats inside. Desiccant is great, but a gently heated enclosure can do wonders for driving away humidity in the right environment. The DryBox design also incorporates a handy little temperature and humidity sensor to show how well things are working.

Spool-mounted adapter for temperature and humidity sensor (and desiccant) to monitor storage bag conditions.

The second design is a simple spin-off that we particularly liked: a 3D printed adapter that provides a way to conveniently mount one of the simple temperature and humidity sensors to a filament spool with a desiccant packet. This allows storing a filament spool in a clear plastic bag as usual, but provides a tidy way to monitor the conditions inside the bag at a glance. The designs for everything are on Thingiverse along with the parts for the Heated DryBox itself.

[Richard] kindly shares the magic words to search for on eBay for those seeking the build’s inexpensive key components: “15*28CM Adjustable Temperature Reptile Heating Heater Mat” and “Mini LCD Celsius Digital Thermometer Hygrometer Temperature Humidity Meter Gauge”. There are many vendors selling what are essentially the same parts with minor variations.

Since the DryBox is for dispensing filament as well as storing it, a good spool mounting system is necessary but [Richard] found that the lack of spool standardization made designing a reliable system difficult. He noted that having spool edges roll on bearings is a pretty good solution, but only if one doesn’t intend to use cardboard-sided spools, otherwise it creates troublesome cardboard fluff. In the end, [Richard] went with a fixed stand and 3D printable adapters for the spools themselves. He explains it all in the video, embedded below.

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Printed It: Do More With Lockable Ball And Socket Helping Hands

February 8, 2018 by Steven Dufresne 28 Comments

In one hand you hold the soldering iron, in the other the solder, and in two more hands the parts you’re trying to solder together. Clearly this is a case where helping hands could be useful.

Luckily helping hands are easy to make, coolant hoses will do the job at under $10. Attach alligator clips to one end, mount them on some sort of base, and you’re done. Alternatively, you can steal the legs from an “octopus” tripod normally used for cell phones. So why would you 3D print them?

One reason is to take advantage of standardized, open source creativity. Anyone can share a model of their design for all to use as is, or to modify for their needs. A case in point is the ball and socket model which I downloaded for a helping hand. I then drew up and printed a magnifying glass holder with a matching socket, made a variation of the ball and socket joint, and came up with a magnetic holder with matching ball. Let’s takea look at what worked well and what didn’t.

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CPAP Hacked Into Super Charged 3D Printer Cooler

February 6, 2018 by Tom Nardi 27 Comments

Of all the parts on your average desktop 3D printer, the nozzle itself is arguably where the real magic happens. Above the nozzle, plastic is being heated to the precise temperature required to get it flowing smoothly. Immediately below the nozzle there’s a fan blowing to get the plastic cooled back down again. This carefully balanced arrangement of heating and cooling is the secret that makes high quality fused deposition modeling (FDM) printing possible.

But as it turns out, getting the plastic hot ends up being easier than cooling it back down again. The harsh reality is that most of the fans small enough to hang on the side of a 3D printer nozzle are pretty weak. They lack the power to push the volume of air necessary to get the plastic cooled down fast enough. But with his latest project, [Mark Rehorst] hopes to change that. Rather than using some anemic little fan that would be better suited blowing on the heatsink of a Raspberry Pi, he’s using a hacked CPAP machine to deliver some serious airflow.

The brilliance of using a CPAP machine for this hack is two-fold. For one, the machine uses a powerful centrifugal fan rather than the wimpy axial “muffin” fans we usually see on 3D printers. Second, the CPAP pushes air down a lightweight and flexible hose, which means the device itself doesn’t have to be physically mounted to the printer head. All you need is manifold around the printer’s nozzle that connects up to the CPAP hose. This “remote” fan setup means the print head is lighter, which translates (potentially) into higher speed and acceleration.

[Mark] was able to connect the fan MOSFET on his printer’s SmoothieBoard controller up to the brushless motor driver from the CPAP motor, which lets the printer control this monster new fan. As far as the software is concerned, nothing has changed.

He hasn’t come up with a manifold design that’s really optimized yet, but initial tests look promising. But even without a highly optimized outlet for the air, this setup is already superior to the traditional part cooler designs since it’s got more power and gets the fan motor off of the print head.

Getting your 3D printed parts to cool down is serious business, and it’s only going to get harder as printers get faster. We wouldn’t be surprised if fan setups like this start becoming more common on higher-end printers.

Repairs You Can Print: Model Coal Car Fix

February 5, 2018 by Lewin Day 2 Comments

Model railways are a deep and rewarding hobby, and the mechanisms involved can be both surprisingly intricate and delightful. A great example that may surprise the unfamiliar is that of model train carriages, such as coal cars, that are capable of both receiving and dumping a load at various points on a model layout. This adds realism and, if we’re honest, just plain old fun.

When [Phil]’s father received his Lincoln coal car from eBay, it was unfortunately damaged, and incapable of dumping properly. Instead of throwing it away, a replacement part was developed and 3D printed. The part was iterated on until the coal hopper could dump and retract smoothly.

This is the perfect example of a tidy repair executed through 3D printing. The broken part was extremely detailed and would be difficult and expensive to repair or fabricate through other measures. However, through the power of 3D printing, all that’s required is a 3D modelling job and a few hours to print it.

It’s a great entry into our Repairs You Can Print challenge, and covers the fundamentals of modelling and iterative design well. Got a neat repair you’ve done yourself? Document it on Hackaday.io and enter yourself!