truss

2 Articles

Laser-Cut Metal Endoskeleton Beefs Up 3D Prints

January 24, 2025 by 23 Comments

There are limits to what you can do with an FDM printer to make your parts stronger. It really comes down to adding more plastic, like increasing wall thickness or boosting up the infill percentage. Other than that, redesigning the part to put more material where the part is most likely to fail is about the only other thing you can do. Unless, of course, you have access to a fiber laser cutter that can make internal metal supports for your prints.

As [Paul] explains it, this project stemmed from an unfortunate episode where a printed monitor stand failed, sending the LCD panel to its doom. He had taken care to reinforce that part by filling it with fiberglass resin, but to no avail. Unwilling to risk a repeat with a new tablet holder, he decided to test several alternative methods for reinforcing parts. Using a 100 W fiber laser cutter, he cut different internal supports from 0.2 mm steel shim stock. In one case he simply sandwiched the support between two half-thickness brackets, while in another he embedded the steel right into the print. He also made two parts that were filled with epoxy resin, one with a steel support embedded and one without.

The test setup was very simple, just a crane scale to measure the force exerted by pulling down on the part with his foot; crude, but effective. Every reinforced part performed better than a plain printed part with no reinforcement, but the clear winner was the epoxy-filled part with a solid-metal insert. Honestly, we were surprised at how much benefit such a thin piece of metal offered, even when it was directly embedded into the print during a pause.

Not everyone has access to a fiber laser cutter, of course, so this method might not be for everyone. In that case, you might want to check out other ways to beef up your prints, including just splitting them in two.

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Tensioning 3D Prints For Lightweight, Strong Parts

August 6, 2023 by 28 Comments

Desktop 3D printers have come a long way over the past decade. They’re now affordable for almost anyone, capable of printing in many diverse materials, and offer a level of rapid prototyping and development not feasible with other methods. That said, the fact that they are largely limited to printing different formulations of plastic means there are inherent physical limitations to what the machines are capable of, largely because they print almost exclusively in plastic. But augmenting prints with other building techniques, like this method for adding tensioning systems to 3D printed trusses can save weight and make otherwise unremarkable prints incredibly strong.

The build from [Jón Schone] of Proper Printing consists of printed modular sections of truss which can be connected together to make structural components of arbitrary length. To add strength to them without weight, a series of Kevlar threads are strung from one end of the truss to the other on the interior, and then tensioned by twisting the threads at one end. Similar to building with prestressed concrete, this method allows for stronger parts, longer spans, less building material, and lighter weight components. The latter of which is especially important here, because this method is planned for use to eventually build a 3D printer where the components need to be light and strong. In this build it’s being used to make a desk lamp with a hinged joint.

For other innovative 3D printer builds, [Jón] has plenty of interesting designs ranging from this dual extrusion system to this 3D printed wheel for a full-size passenger vehicle. There’s all kinds of interesting stuff going on at that channel and we’ll be on the edge of our seats waiting to see the 3D printer he builds using this tensioned truss system.

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