Printed Centrifugal Dust Separator Stays On Budget

January 17, 2024 by Maya Posch 24 Comments

Anyone who’s ever spent time in a woodworking shop knows how much dust is produced when cutting, sanding, and so on. [Tim] of Pilson Guitars was looking to outfit his shop with centrifugal dust separators to combat the problem, which are supposed to remove over 99% of the sawdust particles right out of the air. Unfortunately, they can cost thousands of dollars. So he decided to try making his own.

Centrifugal dust separator design, by Tim at Pilson Guitars.

Using a clear PVC tube and 100 hours of printing on his Prusa i3 MK3, his CAD file had come to life, ready to use the power of centrifugal air to leave just enough fine dust in the output port to have a HEPA filter handle the remainder. Unfortunately, initial testing showed that a single dust separator filtered out far less than 90%, and even adding a second unit bumped that up to only 94.2%. Still impressive, but this would clog up a HEPA filter in no time. Thus [Tim] had a second try at it, after a range of helpful comments to the first video.

Changes included a different design for the impeller blades to improve the vortex, as well as attempting to run the system in series. Sadly more issues cropped up, with apparently the air also seeking a way via the collection bins that has [Tim] rethinking more aspects of the design. He has made the design files (STEP and more) available on GitHub for perusal by the community and hopefully some constructive input on how to DIY such dust separation system.

Over the years, we’ve seen many different approaches to the problem of dust collection. We’ve covered other 3D printed solutions if your printer is looking for something to do, but if you’d prefer something a little more low-tech, this traffic cone dust separator is particularly clever.

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New Resin Printing Method Creates Objects In Seconds

June 1, 2022 by Bryan Cockfield 20 Comments

For anyone looking to buy a 3D printer at home, the first major decision that needs to be made is whether to get a resin printer or a filament printer. Resin has the benefits of finer detail, but filament printers are typically able to produce stronger prints. Within those two main camps are various different types and sizes to choose from, but thanks to some researchers at Switzerland’s École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) there’s a new type of resin printer on the horizon that can produce prints nearly instantaneously.

The method works similarly to existing resin printers by shining a specific light pattern on the resin in order to harden it. The main difference is that the resin is initially placed in a cylinder and spun at a high speed, and the light is shined on the resin at different angles with very precise intensities and timings in order to harden the resin in specific areas. This high-speed method allows the printer to produce prints in record-breaking time. The only current downside, besides the high price for the prototype printer, is that it’s currently limited to small prints.

With the ability to scale in the future and the trend of most new technologies to come down in price after they have been on the market for some amount of time, it would be groundbreaking to be able to produce prints with this type of speed if printers like these can be scalable. Especially if they end up matching the size and scale of homemade printers like this resin printer.

Thanks to [suicidal.banana] for the tip!