Category Archives: 3d printer

Repurposing Inkjet Technology For 3D Printing

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You would be forgiven for thinking that 3D printing is only about plastic filament and UV-curing resin. In fact, there are dozens of technologies that can be used to create 3D printed parts, ranging from welders mounted to CNC machines to the very careful application of inkjet cartridges. For this year’s Hackaday Prize, [Yvo de Haas] is modifying inkjet technology to create 3D objects. If he gets this working with off-the-shelf parts, this will be one of the most interesting advances for 3D printing in recent memory.

The core of this build is a modification of HP45 inkjet print heads …read more

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3D Printing And Modelling With A Robot Assistant

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[Huaishu Peng] and a group of other researchers have come up with a system that allows them to use virtual reality (VR) to model an object in a space in front of them while a robot simultaneously 3D prints that object in that same space, a truly collaborative effort they call the RoMA: Robotic Modelling Assistant. This is a step toward fixing the problem of designing something and then having to wait for the prototype to be made before knowing how well it fits the design goals.

How does the designer/robot collaboration work? The designer wears an Oculus Rift VR …read more

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Laser Cut Your 3D Printed Trash

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If you have a 3D printer, you’re surrounded by plastic trash. I’m speaking, of course, of failed prints, brims, and support material that builds up in the trash can near your printer. Although machines that turn that trash into filament exist, they’re not exactly common. But there’s another way to turn that waste into new building materials. [flowalistic], 3D designer extraordinaire, is using that trash to create panels of plastic and throwing that into a laser cutter. It’s a plastic smoothie, and if you can sort your scrap by color, the results look fantastic.

The first step in turning garbage …read more

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Unbricking A 3D Printer The Hard Way: By Writing a Bootloader

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There’s a sinking feeling when a firmware upgrade to a piece of equipment goes wrong. We’ve all likely had this happen and  bricked a device or two. If we are lucky we can simply reapply the upgrade or revert to a previous version, and if we’re unlucky we have to dive into a serial debug port to save the device from the junk pile. But what happens when both those routes fail? If you are [Arko], you reverse-engineer the device and write your own bootloader for it.

The offending bricked object was a Monoprice MP Mini Delta 3D printer to …read more

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Creality CR10-S Upgrade Shows The Effect Of Bad Power

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The Creality CR10-S is a printer that has become quite popular, and is not an uncommon sight in a hackspace or makerspace. Some models have a slight defect, a smoothing capacitor is of insufficient size, resulting in reduced print quality. [Jozerworx] has replaced the capacitor, and posted a full guide as to how the task can be performed.

Hackaday readers will have among their number many for whom replacing a surface mount electrolytic is no bother at all, indeed we’d expect most 3D printer owners to be able to perform the task. Maybe that the post has such an extensive …read more

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Casting Metal Parts and Silicone Molds from 3D Prints

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The invention of the relatively affordable 3D printer for home use has helped bring methods used to produce parts for prototypes, samples, and even manufacturing, closer to designers. This tutorial on how to cast metal parts from 3D printed silicone molds is a perfect example of how useful a 3D printer can be when you are looking to make a custom and durable metal part at home.

After 3D printing a mold design using an Ultimaker 2 [M. Borgatti] casts the mold using Smooth-On Mold Star 15 that can withstand heat up to 450 °F (232 °C), which he points …read more

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Repairs You Can Print: Fixing Pegboard Clips That Break Too Easily

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Right now, we’re running the Repairs You Can Print Contest, where one lucky student and one lucky organization will win the fancy-schmancy Prusa i3 MK3, with the neato multi-extrusion upgrade. [Budiul] is a student, so he figured he would repair something with a 3D printer. Lucky for him, the pegboard in his workshop was completely terrible, or at least the pegboard hooks were. These hooks were made out of PVC, and after time, more and more hooks broke. The solution? Print his own, and make them stronger in the process.

[Budiul] started his fix by taking the remaining, unbroken hooks …read more

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Water Cooling a 3D Printer

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It may seem like a paradox, but one of the most important things you have to do to a 3D printer’s hot end is to keep it cool. That seems funny, because the idea is to heat up plastic, but you really only want to heat it up just before it extrudes. If you heat it up too early, you’ll get jams. That’s why nearly all hot ends have some sort of fan cooling. However, lately we have seen announcements and crowd-funding campaigns that make it look like water cooling will be more popular than ever this year. Don’t want …read more

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Repairs You Can Print: Model Coal Car Fix

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Model railways are a deep and rewarding hobby, and the mechanisms involved can be both surprisingly intricate and delightful. A great example that may surprise the unfamiliar is that of model train carriages, such as coal cars, that are capable of both receiving and dumping a load at various points on a model layout. This adds realism and, if we’re honest, just plain old fun.

When [Phil]’s father received his Lincoln coal car from eBay, it was unfortunately damaged, and incapable of dumping properly. Instead of throwing it away, a replacement part was developed and 3D printed. The part was …read more

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3D Print A 3D Printer Frame

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It is over a decade since the RepRap project was begun, originally to deliver 3D printers that could replicate themselves, in other words ones that could print the parts required to make a new printer identical to themselves. And we’re used to seeing printers of multiple different designs still constructed to some extent on this principle.

The problem with these printers from a purist replicating perspective though is that there are always frame parts that must be made using other materials rather than through the 3D printer. Their frames have been variously threaded rod, lasercut sheet, or aluminium extrusion, leaving …read more

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