Non-Planar Fuzzy Skin Textures Improved, Plus A Paint-On Interface

December 6, 2024 by Dan Maloney 3 Comments

If you’ve wanted to get in on the “fuzzy skin” action with 3D printing but held off because you didn’t want to fiddle with slicer post-processing, you need to check out the paint-on fuzzy skin generator detailed in the video below.

For those who haven’t had the pleasure, fuzzy skin is a texture that can be applied to the outer layers of a 3D print to add a little visual interest and make layer lines a little less obvious. Most slicers have it as an option, but limit the wiggling action of the print head needed to achieve it to the XY plane. Recently, [TenTech] released post-processing scripts for three popular slicers that enable non-planar fuzzy skin by wiggling the print head in the Z-axis, allowing you to texture upward-facing surfaces.

The first half of the video below goes through [TenTech]’s updates to that work that resulted in a single script that can be used with any of the slicers. That’s a pretty neat trick by itself, but not content to rest on his laurels, he decided to make applying a fuzzy skin texture to any aspect of a print easier through a WYSIWYG tool. All you have to do is open the slicer’s multi-material view and paint the areas of the print you want fuzzed. The demo print in the video is a hand grip with fuzzy skin applied to the surfaces that the fingers and palm will touch, along with a little bit on the top for good measure. The print looks fantastic with the texture, and we can see all sorts of possibilities for something like this.

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Unique 3D Printer Has A Print Head With A Twist

December 2, 2024 by Dan Maloney 26 Comments

If you’re used to thinking about 3D printing in Cartesian terms, prepare your brain for a bit of a twist with [Joshua Bird]’s 4-axis 3D printer that’s not quite like anything we’ve ever seen before.

The printer uses a rotary platform as a build plate, and has a linear rail and lead screw just outside the rim of the platform that serves as the Z axis. Where things get really interesting is the assembly that rides on the Z-axis, which [Joshua] calls a “Core R-Theta” mechanism. It’s an apt description, since as in a CoreXY motion system, it uses a pair of stepper motors and a continuous timing belt to achieve two axes of movement. However, rather than two linear axes, the motors can team up to move the whole print arm in and out along the radius of the build platform while also rotating the print head through almost 90 degrees.

The kinematic possibilities with this setup are really interesting. With the print head rotated perpendicular to the bed, it acts like a simple polar printer. But tilting the head allows you to print steep overhangs with no supports. [Joshua] printed a simple propeller as a demo, with the hub printed more or less traditionally while the blades are added with the head at steeper and steeper angles. As you can imagine, slicing is a bit of a mind-bender, and there are some practical problems such as print cooling, which [Joshua] addresses by piping in compressed air. You’ll want to see this in action, so check out the video below.

This is a fantastic bit of work, and hats off to [Joshua] for working through all the complexities to bring us the first really new thing we’ve seen in 3D printing is a long time.

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Fuzzy Skin Finish For 3D Prints, Now On Top Layers

November 8, 2024 by Donald Papp 9 Comments

[TenTech]’s Fuzzyficator brings fuzzy skin — a textured finish normally limited to sides of 3D prints — to the top layer with the help of some non-planar printing, no hardware modifications required. You can watch it in action in the video below, which also includes details on how to integrate this functionality into your favorite slicer software.

Little z-axis hops while laying down the top layer creates a fuzzy skin texture.

Fuzzyficator essentially works by moving the print nozzle up and down while laying down a top layer, resulting in a textured finish that does a decent job of matching the fuzzy skin texture one can put on sides of a print. Instead of making small lateral movements while printing outside perimeters, the nozzle does little z-axis hops while printing the top.

Handily, Fuzzyficator works by being called as a post-processing script by the slicer (at this writing, PrusaSlicer, Orca Slicer, and Bambu Studio are tested) which also very conveniently reads the current slicer settings for fuzzy skin, in order to match them.

Non-planar 3D printing opens new doors but we haven’t seen it work like this before. There are a variety of ways to experiment with non-planar printing for those who like to tinker with their printers. But there’s work to be done that doesn’t involve hardware, too. Non-planar printing also requires new ways of thinking about slicing.

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3D printed test jig to determine the yield point of a centrally loaded 3D printed beam.

One Object To Print, But So Many Settings!

February 25, 2024 by Dave Rowntree 12 Comments

When working with an FDM 3D printer your first prints are likely trinkets where strength is less relevant than surface quality. Later on when attempting more structural prints, the settings become very important, and quite frankly rather bewildering. A few attempts have been made over the years to determine in quantifiable terms, how these settings affect results and here is another such experiment, this time from Youtuber 3DPrinterAcademy looking specifically at the effect of wall count, infill density and the infill pattern upon the strength of a simple beam when subjected to a midpoint load.

A tray of 3D printing infill patterns available in mainstream slicers — Modern slicers can produce many infill patterns, but the effect on real world results are not obvious

When setting up a print, many people will stick to the same few profiles, with a little variety in wall count and infill density, but generally keep things consistent. This works well, up to a point, and that point is when you want to print something significantly different in size, structure or function. The slicer software is usually very helpful in explaining the effect of tweaking the numbers upon how the print is formed, but not too great at explaining the result of this in real life, since it can’t know your application. As far as the slicer is concerned your object is a shape that will be turned into slices, internal spaces, outlines and support structures. It doesn’t know whether you’re making a keyfob or a bearing holder, and cannot help you get the settings right for each application. Perhaps upcoming AI applications will be trained upon all these experimental results and be fed back into the slicing software, but for now, we’ll just have to go with experience and experiment. Continue reading “One Object To Print, But So Many Settings!” →

Orca Slicer Is The New Game In Town

July 13, 2023 by Lewin Day 13 Comments

Slicers are the neat little tools that take your 3D models and turn them into G-code that your 3D printer can actually understand. They control the printing process down to the finest detail, and determine whether your prints are winners or binners. Orca Slicer is the new tool on the block, and [The Edge of Tech] took a look at what it can do.

The video explores the use of Orca Slicer with the Bambu Lab P1P and X1 Carbon. [The Edge of Tech] jumps into the feature set, noting the rich calibration tools that are built right into the software. They work with any printer, and they’re intended to help users get perfect prints time and time again, with less messy defects and print failures. It’s also set up out of the box for network printing and live updates, which is super useful for those with multiple printers and busy workflows. You can even watch camera feeds live in the app from duly equipped printers. It’s even got nifty features for calculating your filament cost per print.

If you’re not happy with your current slicer, give Orca Slicer a go. Let us know what you think in the comments. Video after the break.

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A Comprehensive Look At FDM Supports

March 27, 2023 by Al Williams 13 Comments

When we first started 3D printing, we used ABS and early slicers. Using supports was undesirable because the support structures were not good, and ABS sticks to itself like crazy. Thankfully today’s slicers are much better, and often we can use supports that easily detach. [Teaching Tech] shows how modern slicers create supports and how to make it even better than using the default settings.

The video covers many popular slicers and their derivatives. If you’ve done a lot with supports, you might not find too much of this information surprising, but if you haven’t printed with supports lately or tried things like tree supports, you might find a few things that will up your 3D printing game.

One thing we really like is that the video does show different slicers, so regardless of what slicer you like to use, you’ll probably find exactly what different settings are called. Of course, because slicers let you examine what they produce layer-by-layer, you can do like the video and examine the results without printing. [Michael] does do some prints with various parameters, though, and you can see how hard or easy the support removal is depending on some settings. The other option is to add support to your designs, as needed manually, or — even better — don’t design things that need support.

This video reminded us of a recent technique we covered that added a custom support tack to help the slicer’s automatic support work better. If you want a longer read on supports that also covers dissolvable support, we’ve seen that, too.

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The underside of the rotational base of the Gen5X 3D printer. A belt connects a pulley on the bottom of the stage to a stepper motor on the right side. The carriage for the stage looks organic in nature and is printed in bright orange PLA. The stage can rotate within the carriage which is mounted on two stainless steel rods connected to teal mounting points on either side of the printer (ends of the X-axis).

5-Axis Printer Wants To Design Itself

February 14, 2023 by Navarre Bartz 41 Comments

RepRap 3D printers were designed with the ultimate goal of self-replicating machines. The generatively-designed Gen5X printer by [Ric Real] brings the design step of that process closer to reality.

While 5-axis printing is old hat in CNC land, it remains relatively rare in the world of additive manufacturing. Starting with “a set of primitives… and geometric relationships,” [Real] ran the system through multiple generations to arrive at its current design. Since this is a generative design, future variants could look different depending on which parameters you have the computer optimize.

The Gen5X uses the 5 Axis Slicer from DotX for slicing files and runs a RepRap Duet board with Duex expansion. Since the generative algorithm uses parametric inputs, it should be possible to to have a Gen5X generated based on the vitamins you may have already. With how fast AI is evolving, perhaps soon this printer will be able to completely design itself? For now, you’ll have to download the files and try it yourself.

If you want to see some more printers with more than 3-axes, check out the RotBot or Open5X.

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