3D Printed Tyres Let You Drive On Water

October 14, 2017 by Lewin Day 28 Comments

[Jesus] apparently walked on water, without any tools at all. But when you’ve got a 3D printer handy, it makes sense to use it. [Simon] decided to use his to 3D print some tyres for his R/C car – with awesome results.

[Simon] started this project with a goal of driving on water. Initial experiments were promising – the first design of paddle tyres gave great traction in the sand and were capable of climbing some impressive slopes. However, once aimed at the water, the car quickly sank below the surface.

Returning to the drawing board armed with the advice of commenters, [Simon] made some changes. The paddle tyres were reprinted with larger paddles, and a more powerful R/C car selected as the test bed. On the second attempt, the car deftly skipped along the surface and was remarkably controllable as well! [Simon] has provided the files so you can make your own at home.

It’s a great example of a practical use for a 3D printer. Parts can readily be made for all manner of RC purposes, such as making your own servo adapters.

Dumbo Never Forgets To Fill Your Glass

October 5, 2017 by Al Williams 27 Comments

What do you get if you have a 3D printer, some booze (or any beverage), a pump, and an Arduino? If you are [RobotGeek] you wind up with an elephant that will pour you a shot on demand. The project was inspired by the ShotBot, but we have to admit the elephant sells it.

Conceptually, the device is pretty simple. A pump and a light sensor do all the real work. When you cover the sensor with a shot glass, the pump dispenses liquid. What we found of interest, though, was the process of starting with an elephant model and then modifying it for the purpose at hand. In addition to making it larger, they also cut off the trunk and replaced it with a spout. The steps show Fusion 360, but you could apply the same concepts using your choice of CAD programs.

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3D Printing Aluminum With Nanoparticles

September 25, 2017 by Al Williams 20 Comments

We love our 3D printers. But sometimes we really wish we could print in metal. While metal printing is still out of reach for most of us, HRL Labs announced a powdered aluminum printing process that they claim is a breakthrough because it allows printing (and welding) of high-strength aluminum alloys that previously were unprintable and unweldable.

The key is treating the metal with special zirconium-based nanoparticles. The nanoparticles act as nucleation sites that allow the aluminum to form the correct microstructure. The full paper on the process appears in Nature.

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The Narrowing Gap Between Amateur And Professional Fabrication

September 20, 2017 by John Baichtal 51 Comments

The other day I saw a plastic part that was so beautiful that I had to look twice to realize it hadn’t been cast — and no, it didn’t come out of a Stratysys or anything, just a 3D printer that probably cost $1,500. It struck me that someone who had paid an artisan to make a mold and cast that part might end up spending the same amount as that 3D printer. It also struck me that the little guys are starting to catch up with the big guys.

Haz Bridgeport, Will Mill

Sometimes it’s just a matter of getting a hold of the equipment. If you need a Bridgeport mill for your project, and you don’t have one, you have to pay for someone else to make the thing — no matter how simple. You’re paying for the operator’s education and expertise, as well as helping pay for the maintenance and support of the hardware and the shop it’s housed in.

I once worked in a packaging shop, and around 2004 we got in a prototype to use in developing the product box. This prototype was 3D printed and I was told it cost $12,000 to make. For the era it was mind blowing. The part itself was simplistic and few folks on Thingiverse circa 2017 would be impressed; the print quality was roughly on par with a Makerbot Cupcake. But because the company didn’t have a 3D printer, they had to pay someone who owned one a ton of cash to make the thing they wanted.

Unparalleled Access to Formerly Professional-Only Tools

But access to high end tools has never been easier. Hackerspaces and tool libraries alone have revolutionized what it means to have access to those machines. There are four or five Bridgeports (or similar vertical mills) at my hackerspace and I believe they were all donated. For the cost of membership, plus the time to get trained in and checked out, you can mill that part for cheap. Repeat with above-average 3D printers, CNC mills, vinyl cutters, lasers. The space’s South Bend lathe (pictured) is another example of the stuff most people don’t have in their basement shops. This group ownership model may not necessarily grant you the same gear as the pros, but sometimes it’s pretty close.
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I’ve Seen The Future And It’s Full Of Freakin’ Huge Bricks

September 8, 2017 by John Baichtal 31 Comments

“Did you know you can 3D-print LEGO bricks that can actually be used as regular LEGO?”–me, in 2009

Those magical words made real to me the wonder that was 3D printing. It was a magical time! Everyone was 3D printing everything, though most of it wasn’t very good because the technology wasn’t there. But just as every technology goes through an evolution, the goalposts of coolness move on past what used to be remarkable to the new thing everyone’s talking about.

These days, no one is going to be more than mildly curious about your 3D-printed LEGO brick. Still, when you look at that uneven lump of plastic as being just one step in an evolution, it’s pretty momentous. What I’m saying is that we’re looking at a future that can be described in three words: Freakin’ Huge Bricks.

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A Functioning 3D Printer For 10€

August 26, 2017 by Jenny List 42 Comments

There was a time when crowdfunding websites were full of 3D printers at impossibly low prices. You knew that it would turn out to be either blatant vaporware or its delivery date would slip into the 2020s, but still there seemed always to be an eager queue ready to sign up. Even though there were promised models for under $200, $150, and then $100, there had to be a lower limit to the prices they were prepared to claim for their products. A $10 printer on Kickstarter for example would have been just a step too far.

There is a project that’s come close to that mark though, even though the magic figure is 10 euros rather than 10 dollars, so just short of 12 dollars at today’s exchange rate. [Michele Lizzit] has built a functioning 3D printer for himself, and claims that magic 10€ build price. How on earth has he done it? The answer lies in extensive use of scrap components, in this case from broken inkjet printers and an image scanner. These provide all the mechanical parts for the printer, leaving him only having to spend his 10€ on some hot end parts and the printer’s electronics. In an unusual move, the frame of the machine appears to come from a set of cardboard biscuit boxes, a master stroke of junk box construction.

The claimed resolution is 33µm, and using the position encoders from the inkjet printers he is able to make it a closed loop device. We salute his ingenuity in building such an impressive printer from so little, and were we ever locked by the bad guys in a room full of IT junk and lacked a handy escape device, we’d wish to be incarcerated with [Michele] any day over [Angus MacGyver] or [Sgt. Bosco BA Baracus].

You can see the printer in action in the video below the break.

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3D Printed Robotic Arms For Sign Language

August 24, 2017 by Donald Papp 30 Comments

A team of students in Antwerp, Belgium are responsible for Project Aslan, which is exploring the feasibility of using 3D printed robotic arms for assisting with and translating sign language. The idea came from the fact that sign language translators are few and far between, and it’s a task that robots may be able to help with. In addition to translation, robots may be able to assist with teaching sign language as well.

The project set out to use 3D printing and other technology to explore whether low-cost robotic signing could be of any use. So far the team has an arm that can convert text into finger spelling and counting. It’s an interesting use for a robotic arm; signing is an application for which range of motion is important, but there is no real need to carry or move any payloads whatsoever.

Closeup of hand actuators and design. Click to enlarge.

A single articulated hand is a good proof of concept, and these early results show some promise and potential but there is still a long ways to go. Sign language involves more than just hands. It is performed using both hands, arms and shoulders, and incorporates motions and facial expressions. Also, the majority of sign language is not finger spelling (reserved primarily for proper names or specific nouns) but a robot hand that is able to finger spell is an important first step to everything else.

Future directions for the project include adding a second arm, adding expressiveness, and exploring the use of cameras for the teaching of new signs. The ability to teach different signs is important, because any project that aims to act as a translator or facilitator needs the ability to learn and update. There is a lot of diversity in sign languages across the world. For people unfamiliar with signing, it may come as a surprise that — for example — not only is American Sign Language (ASL) related to French sign language, but both are entirely different from British Sign Language (BSL). A video of the project is embedded below.

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