The secret to a strong push clip was printing it laying down instead of straight up. This was to add strength to the device, as the fractures on previous designs occured on print lines. The next step was getting them spaced perfectly to fit in both slots. I went through 3 handle redesigns before I... Continue Reading →
One of the door handles in the lab has been missing all semester. Either the door has to be left cracked open, or pried open with a tool. With a prompt from a professor, I decided to attempt a fix with the 3D printer. The opening is pretty small, so it was tricky to come... Continue Reading →
This cast went excellent! What a great way to end the semester after what happened with the Zeppelin cast. I used baby powder to coat the surface, and then poured a steady stream of pewter into the sprue. I thought i was going to have to increase the size of the sprue, but it worked... Continue Reading →
After creating the chess pieces, I realized I had a lot more room in my drawers than I originally realized. I decided to go ahead and make some checkers pieces. I used AutoCAD again to create the designs. I had to print with support, which distorted the bottom ring side of the pieces. If I... Continue Reading →
The bake out process did not go as planned, the refractory cement had some time of bonding agent that really clogged out the burn out process. The PLA did drain out, but I had to put in the oven an additional 7 hours because the sprue was blocked up with some foreign material. It looked... Continue Reading →
After desiging the pices, I spent the afternoon printing them. It was nice having access to 3 printers for this process! I broke the prints down into ones that required support and those which did not. The Knight and the King were the ones that really needed the support, but I used some on the... Continue Reading →
I decided to try and use the refractory cement material again, which I used on the T-Rex skull. I used a different approach this time, I encased the whole ship in the material. Here was it is inside the mold:
I made a chessboard in my wood shop class, so I decided to make some chess pieces of my own design. I researched chess piece sizes based on square sizes on this site, and made some designs in AutoCAD. This program has become a great tool for me.
Using a tool from one of Prusa's communities, I was able to stop the print at a specfic layer and switch out the colors mid print. This worked perfectly! I made a plaque with a magnet imbeded into the back so it clings to the outside of the Fortus 250mc machine. The credentials (I removed... Continue Reading →
My professor ordered a smaller nozzle for the Prusa. Using Area51 clip design from Thingiverse, I edited it with Tinkercad. I made some plaques to indicate which nozzle was installed to not confuse users.
I had an exciting night, I had all 4 printers in the lab working on prints. I installed a .25mm nozzle on one and was printing a tank. I was printing the same tank with the standard .4mm nozzle on another printer. The third Prusa was printing a clip on tag to indicate which nozzle... Continue Reading →
Two other Falcon Prints
I tried the plaster out again, this time with greater expectations. I decided to go with something smaller. I used the same Knight model that i used in the sand pack method. I did about 3 coats of plaster, and did a low and slow bake out, as before, to not disturb the plaster with... Continue Reading →
My professor received the silicone from Smooth-On the week before Thanksgiving. I followed the exact steps from the video from their webpage. After letting it sit for 24 hours, I took off my removable doors and peeled out the silicone. The sections fit very well and almost suction together!
I installed the threading, I had to shave down the brass a bit more and use an Xacto knife on the opening in the ABS to make it fit. Instead of using my original plan of heat sinking the metal, I decided to use epoxy. The walls were a bit too thin and I thought... Continue Reading →
Using the information on the Tap Handles, I found the correct threading at Lowes. I shaved down the exterior threading by .1" so I wouldnt have to have as big of a base. I started the print which should take about 12 hours. The print came out really nice! Can't think of another way this intricate design... Continue Reading →
The skull prints were submerged in WaterWorks concentrate, which is a high pH solution. The system circulates the water at 150F. The support material dissolved overnight, or even quicker, but the interior holes where the pin slips in took a while to get dissolved.
STL for snakes: maitan Printer: Fortus 250mc I decided to attempt this tap handle design. It seemed the most appropriate for the support capability of the Fortus 250mc. I used the snakes from an obj i found on Thingiverse that matched my references I found 2 months ago exactly. The wings were a bit too... Continue Reading →
While waiting or the Smooth-On product to arrive, I did some heat tests with the silicone I had found. I used a solder pen that got up to around 400 degrees F, which had no effect on the material besides turning it white for a time. It returned to its normal color shortly. I decided... Continue Reading →
I used the larger Stratasys machine, the Fortus 250mc. I was glad I had an introduction on the uPrint system. The material was very low on the model filament, so it had to be swapped mid print. Turns out it was a slightly different shade of white so there is some visual difference, but other... Continue Reading →
First experience with something other than the Prusa. We made these designs in AutoCAD, exported them as STL. Using the Insight and Control Center programs, they were sent to the uPrint system. Prints came out very nice considering their size. The support material released easily and to my suprise offered a cleaner print on than... Continue Reading →
Once I got the stl file into AutoCAD, I was able to easily and precisely lay it out. Tinkercad was good for producing a proof of concept, but it is not capable producing exact measurements unless you are constantly remembering exactly how many increments you move each piece, making it difficult to return to projects.... Continue Reading →
This was a major pain to be able to manipulate a model from Thingiverse in CAD. Strange that Autodesk's Tinkercad is capable of opening STL's and manipulating them so easily. I tried numerous attempts of Maya. I imported and tried to export as OBJ, FBX, STEP...but AutoCAD would not read them. I tried using Inventor... Continue Reading →
After the Fall Conference, I was turned onto using pewter as a casting material. This was due to the ability of the metal to melt at such a low temperature. I tested out the pewter we had in the lab to be sure it melted around 450F, and it did. If this was to be... Continue Reading →
After about the 6th layer of Refractory Cement, I decided to try and drain out the plastic. It seemed to heat quicker than the previous two substances I used (sand and plaster), but the brittleness was definitely a problem. I probably could have doubled the amount of layers of material, but I still think I... Continue Reading →
It took some bead blasting with compressed air and small glass beads, grinding on a wire brush wheel, and dremmeling, but the cast turned out pretty excellent. I wanted to get it ready for the showcase booth I am showing at this years Fall Conference at SUNY Oswego, but I may return to do some... Continue Reading →
I discontinued the T-Rex cast for a time to prep the other molds for the Iron Pour. I have between returning to this one about once a day to add another lay of the Refractory Cement. This stuff is brittle but seems to be sticking to itself better and better as I add more layers.
The plaster molds were buried in the ground, so I unearthed those and opened up the Iron Man mold. The fears of the sulfur reaction with plaster and iron came to fruition, bt the iron man mold came out great. The throne came out with shape than the airship, but it not very pretty. It... Continue Reading →
The Iron Pour was a lot of fun, and pretty intense. It was a joint effort between the Art and Tech Departments. Right before the pour it was found out that plaster does not react well with iron due to the gypsum in the plaster. This reacts to make sulfur, but I wanted to try... Continue Reading →
I did not much enjoy working with plaster for this part of the process. The substance was either too liquid or to solid to work with, the former usually being the preferred because the stuff set up so quickly. I made quite a mess getting these prepped. The final step in the process was the... Continue Reading →
There is going to be an iron pour on campus this coming Tuesday. I was a little late in deciding that I would create some prints for this, but I am glad I started when I did. I am doing a total of 4 prints! The first is the Iron Man Hulkbuster model. I am... Continue Reading →
Considering the first Knight cast came out pretty well considering the size, I decided to try it again with some of his buddies. These guys were a bit of a pain to prep all at once. There was a lot of support material for their overhanging pieces, but once again I am super impressed by... Continue Reading →
Found another awesome model on Thingiverse. Model Stl File: MakerBot Was going to to use this as my first PLA cast, but I thought it was a bit too much plastic to attempt. Decided to print with Moldlay. Another successful print!
This was a 24 turn around cast! Was not trying to get it done so quick but it all worked out nicely. Model Stl File: stockto This was the first PLA used print, after my material melt comparison. It worked just as I hoped. I used a cake icing container to pack the mold, and baked... Continue Reading →
My professor shared a cool video about an Investment Plaster cast. Using plaster is something to definitely check out, but the main thing I drew from the video was that the person used PLA as the item that they melted out of the mold. I decided to do a comparsion of PLA to the Moldlay product I... Continue Reading →
Got the Falcon printed yesterday with the new sprue and casted today! Seems like it takes a solid 3 hours plus to get the wax to drain out of the mold. I did 3 hours at 525 and then about 30 minutes at 550. Unknown if it takes that extra push over 525 to melt... Continue Reading →
Did some sprue redesign. After some more consultation, I developed a more funnel like shape (which makes sense). Printing up now and should be able to pack it in sand tomorrow. Im getting quick at this!
My intricate sprue system did not go as planned. I will return to the single sprue system as before, and will modify as need be. The finer sand seemed to work great! The open cavity of the mold picked up all the detail beautifully. Excited to modify and try again. I will use a similar... Continue Reading →
The second Falcon print came out awesome. The sprues fit nicely, but I would probably make the connection between them and the model bigger next time. I will also make them cubic instead of cylindrical so i can print them horizontal instead of tall and horizontal. The current ones fell over mid print, so they... Continue Reading →
Prints were successful but took a long time (4 hours for the Falcon, 45 minutes for the sprues). After the print was complete, I realized that model was bit thin. This was because I only scaled the X and Z axis, but never scaled the Y on the model. I fixed it, and the is... Continue Reading →
So I stated in my previous post, I will be increasing the size of the Falcon (2x the size), 3D printing custom fitting sprues, and (hopefully) getting my hands on some finer grit sand. With some assistance from professors, I am going to implement a multi sprue system. You only pour into one slot, but... Continue Reading →
After the wax was successfully drained out of the mold, I let the mold cool overnight. It probably would have been ready sooner but I did not get a chance to do it that same day. Heating up the aluminum to 1250 degrees Fahrenheit, it was poured in the mold at left to cool for... Continue Reading →
First, I constructed sprues for the aluminum to flow into the Falcon. These were hand rolled out of wax and attached manually to the models. Then a wooden frame was made to contain the sand and resin mold that would harden around the Falcon. Letting it dry over the weekend, the wooden frame was then... Continue Reading →
After more additions of pins and slots, I got the piece finished. It was a good learning experience on how to line up pieces, how things shrink or expand on printing and so on. Major Lessons Learned: Do no line up a slot right on a seam. The halves will sag, causing a smaller hole... Continue Reading →
In an effort to make it easier and quicker to line up the halves, I put in some pins and slots. These will hopefully make a big difference. I also did some smarter scaling, I did not just reduce by 2.5% in Slic3er. This decreased all axis equally, where I only really wanted to affect... Continue Reading →
After a good amount of time in software on this post, it was time to hit the hardware. I decided to just print the top halves and the front helmet to see how they fit. The detail came out wonderfully, especially on the waffle pattern on the side windows. I actually had to scale up... Continue Reading →
I wanted to take one of my old projects and see if I could 3D print it. I found the low poly version of the project on one my old external hard drives, and converted it to higher resolution and changed some of the design elements to make it more printer friendly. I edited the... Continue Reading →
After trying out some solvents on this post, I decided to attach my Falcon halves from this post. I did one with each different solvent, Weld On #3 and Ethyl Acetate. They lined up pretty easy. As I noted before, Weld On #3 gives you a little extra play room to slide you pieces around... Continue Reading →
I wanted to see which of these solvents had more strength. I made up a rectangle with various break points in Tinkercad. I then separated along different areas, right in the middle and offset. This was to see whether it would break in the weld points or along the center where there was the most... Continue Reading →
Tried out a couple solvents today. Weld On #3 and Ethyl Acetate Initial test included both PLA and Moldlay for these two solvents. I applied pressure for some, and just used manual pressure for about 30 seconds for another set. Weld On #3 Con: More destructive on the surface Pro: More working time to align surfaces. You... Continue Reading →
Using the same cubes from my previous post, I attempted to fix some of the stringing I experienced on my LXD logo I printed in Moldlay. Moldlay Test 01 Speed/Travel: 140mm/s Retraction: .8mm Infill: 20% Fill Pattern: Rectilinear Horizontal Shells: 7 top, 5 bottom I also stuck with my earlier settings of 210 temp nozzle, and 45 to... Continue Reading →
Due to the webbing that occurred on some earlier projects, I decided to test some retraction and speed changes in Slic3r for Prusa. I have more information about retraction on my Filament page. I used to placements reccomended on this tutorial. In short, cubes are 10mm x 10mm, and spaced 10mm, 20mm, and 40mm apart to see... Continue Reading →
My Professor installed Filabot filament extruder. He produced a spool of Ingeo PLA, and we went ahead and tried it out on the Prusa i3 Mk3! After reviewing the technical specs, we deemed it safe to use the default PLA printing settings. The prints came out great! We made 3 more Falcons, because they are just so damn... Continue Reading →
I had to come up with a way to attach the two halves of the Falcon. After some research and attempts of using hot glue, I decided to go with with melding the two halves together. The hot glue should melt at the same temperature in which you need to heat the mold to, 230... Continue Reading →
I am going to be printing with Moldlay for this casting project, which is a plastic filament with wax like properties. Read more on my filament page! The hopes are to pack these waxy molds in a polymer mold with sand.Heating them after curing will leave an open cavity for molten aluminum to be poured into. FIRST PRINT... Continue Reading →
I found some really cool Millennium Falcon items on Thingiverse while looking for something to print for my next project! I am going to be printing with Moldlay for a casting project, which is a plastic filament with wax like properties. Read more on my filament page! Another purpose of this print is comparing between the Slic3r for Prusa program... Continue Reading →
I was going to use the slicing file that I created in new slicing software I had found first. It is an in-browser slicing software called 3D Printer OS. However after consultation, I decided to go with the Slic3r for Prusa program for the support system. I have not checked whether 3D Printer OS supports this, but Slic3r was... Continue Reading →
So i realized about a quarter of the way through printing that model was looking a little strange. Turns out that I had created the model wrong based of my reference. The L should be on top of the X, not behind it. This is a good lesson to learn early on, I should be... Continue Reading →
Read about the start of the project here. I started out again in Tinkercad. I figured this would be good practice with creating an object with some precision, considering the letters have to line up perfectly or else there will be gaps and imperfections. It proved a bit frustrating but working around with snap settings,... Continue Reading →
Read about the project more here. Used Tinkercad in-browser modeling program to create this measuring cup. Turns out I forgot to bring one from home this semester, so this is a practical creation. Modeling was quick, but somewhat limited in some of the customization. I will definitely be using this program again due to how... Continue Reading →
Model/Stl File: Downloaded from Thingiverse. Credit to FLOWALISTIK for model. G-Code File Creator: Slic3r for Prusa Printer: Prusa I3 Mk3 FIRST PRINT Time: 1hr 37 min Fill: 20% Quality: Draft Final weight: 9.05g Comments: Surprised at the definition of the model despite being draft quality. SECOND PRINT Time: 1hr 16 min Fill: 0% Quality: Draft Final weight: 5.07g Comments: Took longer than... Continue Reading →
First print on the Prusa I3 Mk3 using PLA. Exciting! Model/Stl File: All credit for this model to Josef Prusa.
lxdougla831
Explorations in 3D Printing Technologies 