Collaborate Disseminate
Surface-mount technology has been a fantastic force multiplier for electronics in general and for hobbyists in particular. But sometimes you’ve got no choice but to use through-hole components, meaning that …read more Continue reading Modified 3D-Printer Solders Through-Hole Components
Hackaday editors Elliot Williams and Mike Szczys are enamored by this week’s fabrication hacks. There’s a PCB mill that isolates traces by scratching rather than cutting. You won’t believe how awesome this angle-cutter jig is at creating tapered augers for injection molding/extruding plastic. And you may not need an interactive …read more
According to [Alex] it is easy to make your own rolls of 3D printing filament, even though existing off-the-shelf solutions don’t work very well. His explanation for this is economics. He built a filament extruder using a high torque induction motor and gearbox that was locally sourced. He argues that …read more
There was a time when most of us thought the next logical step for desktop 3D printing was to add additional extruders and hotends, allowing the machine to print in multiple colors or materials. Unfortunately such arrangements quickly become ungainly, and even with just two extruders, calibration can be a …read more
Continue reading External Buffer Boosts 3D Printer Filament Splicing on the Palette 2
“Amazing how with only the power of 3D-printing, two different computers, hundreds of dollars in CNC machinery, a lathe, and modern microcontroller magic, I can almost decorate a cupcake as well as a hyperactive ten-year-old.” We can think of no better way to sum up [Justin]’s experiment in CNC frosting …read more
Continue reading Syringe Pump Turns CNC Machine Into A Frosting Bot
How worn are your nozzles? It’s a legitimate question, so [Stefan] set out to find out just how bad 3D-printer nozzle wear can get. The answer, as always, is “It depends,” but exploring the issue turns out to be an interesting trip.
Reasoning that the best place to start is …read more
You might not think to use the word “rigid” to describe most 3D-printer filaments, but most plastic filaments are actually pretty stiff over a short length, stiff enough to be pushed into an extruder. Try the same thing with a softer plastic like TPE, though, and you might find yourself …read more
A video has been making the rounds on social media recently that shows a 3D printed “steak” developed by a company called NovaMeat. In the short clip, a machine can be seen extruding a paste made of ingredients such as peas and seaweed into a shape not entirely unlike that …read more
Continue reading 3D Printering: The Quest for Printable Food
Buying 3D-printer filament is little like eating potato chips: you can’t stop at just one. You start with basic black PLA, then you need a particular color for a special project, then you start experimenting with different plastics, and before you know it, you’ve got dozens of reels lined up. Trouble is, unless you move the in-use reel right over the printer, the filament can get a bit unruly as the printer sucks it up. What to do?
How about building an active strain relief system for your filament collection? That what [Daniel Harari] chose to do, and we have …read more
Continue reading Active Strain Relief for 3D-Printer Filament
We’ve seen all sorts of 3D-printers on these pages before. From the small to the large, Cartesians and deltas, and printers that can squeeze out plastic, metal, and even concrete. But this appears to be the first time we’ve ever featured a paper-pulp extruding 3D-printer.
It’s fair to ask why the world would need such a thing, and its creator, [Beer Holthuis], has an obvious answer: the world has a lot of waste paper. Like 80 kg per person per year. Thankfully at least some of that is recycled, but that still leaves a lot of raw material that [Beer] …read more
Continue reading 3D-Printer Extrudes Paper Pulp Instead of Plastic