Heated Chamber For Personal 3D Printers

This idea is hot - literally. Instructables member UglyBuddha created and posted a design for a Heated Build Chamber for his RapMan personal 3D printer. No, he doesn't install a heated chamber into his RapMan. Instead he builds a heated chamber around the 3D printer!

 

Wait a moment. Why would one require a heated build chamber for their 3D printer? It's because one of the commonly used print materials, ABS plastic, has a very nasty habit. It expands when heated and shrinks when cooled. This means that ABS 3D prints, which are hot when initially extruded and cool shortly thereafter, are subject to warping. Sometimes the warping is quite dramatic and can doom your print attempt. The warping effect is much more pronounced on large objects, leading some manufacturers (such as Bits From Bytes) to advise 3D printer operators not to print any ABS objects larger than 100mm x 100mm. 

 

By heating the print the warping could be reduced or even eliminated. That's UglyBuddha's goal. 

 

This brilliant idea should be adaptable to most other personal 3D printers: if they fit inside, it will work. If it doesn't, just make a bigger chamber. 

 

The design is straightforward: plastic sheets providing the outer shell, with insulation keeping the heat inside. How hot should the chamber be kept? UglyBuddha suggests +95F (+35C) to avoid the dreaded ABS warping phenomenon. 

 

Via Instructables

BotMill!

There's a new shop in town: BotMill. They're addressing the growing DIY 3D Printing space: 

 

At BotMill.com, we cater to the growing number of 3D DIY enthusiasts with quality products at discounted prices. We are constantly on the look out for new and innovative products…

 

They appear to market a wide variety of relevant 3D items, including their flagship product, a RepRap Mendel - either in kit form (USD$799 on sale now) or fully assembled and tested (USD$1545 also on sale). The Mendels come in Blue, Black, Red or Yellow - get one and then print your own Mendel offspring in more colors if you wish. 

 

BotMill also sells electronics, hardware and various parts for the printers at pretty reasonable prices. In fact, their print material is less expensive than MakerBot's store. Example: 5 lbs of Black ABS are USD$65 from MakerBot, while BotMill's price is only USD$60 (but on sale now for only USD$52.45). 

 

Once you've got your Mendel working and need something to print, you can also purchase a David Laser 3D Scanner kit for only USD$499.  

 

It looks like BotMill's marketing plans are extensive, as their well-organized web shop includes a currency feature (only USD$ at the moment) and translation into fourteen languages!    

 

Via BotMill (Hat tip to Fred and Rami)

Another Hobby 3D Printer: The Ultimaker

There seems to be a sudden rash of open source, low-cost 3D printer kits lately. In addition to the usual suspects (MakerBot, RepRap, Fab@Home and the very recent UP!), we now have The Ultimaker! This prototype device is being developed at FabLab Utrecht (under the name "elserbot") and seems to build on the experiences of prior projects. 

 

While there are few specifics about this device yet, it appears to us that it may be a simpler design, meaning it may cost less, have fewer parts, easier to assemble, more reliable, etc. Of particular interest is the 2-rod X-Y axis that is much simpler than the 4-rod approach used by MakerBot. This could permit a larger build area than other designs. 

 

There's little information present about the extruder mechanism, which is of course a critical component. Nevertheless, the goals of the project include "designing/developing an easy to build low cost 3D printer with a small form factor but large build envelope". 

 

The result will be open source, meaning everyone will be able to build one themselves; presumably other projects might incorporate some of Ultimaker's ideas into their own designs. Let's keep watching this one develop.  

 

The way developments have gone recently, we should have a few dozen more personal 3D printers to choose from by the end of next year! 

 

Via Ultimaker and BuildLog

DIYLILCNC

The DIYLILCNC is a do-it-yourself CNC machine. Much like open source 3D printer designs, this one is instead for a CNC machine. This one can be built for approximately USD$700. From the site:

 

Plans and instructions for building the DIYLILCNC are distributed freely and intended for wide distribution and modification with few restrictions. The plans are formatted to facilitate easy fabrication, especially for beginners. The DIYLILCNC can be built by an individual, a student group, or a class. Besides being immensely fun, building the DIY LIL CNC is a great way to learn about motion control and CAD/CAM/CAE.

 

The 2MB download includes a 65 page detailed manual taking you through all aspects of the machine's assembly and software setup, as well as the design files for all the laser-cut components. We're wondering if Ponoko has this one available on their service?

 

Via DIYLILCNC

Ponoko Makes MakerBots!

What does a personal manufacturing service from New Zealand have to do with a 3D printer kit manufacturer from New York City? A lot more now, apparently. The two organizations have teamed up to leverage each other's strengths. 

 

MakerBot has opened a Showroom on Ponoko, where you can purchase and customize not only your MakerBot chassis, but also MakerBot electronics and whole assembly kits. 

 

One of the most interesting personal aspects of the MakerBot is the chassis, which is supplied in pretty basic form in the standard kit. However, it's simply a collection of panels cut and holed in the correct pattern. Many MakerBot owners have highly customized their printer by replacing these panels, sometimes in pretty radical ways. 

 

Now it's much easier to customize these panels through Ponoko's personal manufacturing service. The MakerBot CupCake design files are freely downloadable from the new showroom, allowing you to customize them in any way you'd like - without disturbing the functional pattern, of course. Then you simply upload the customized file back to Ponoko and use their service to physically manufacture the customized panels. The great part is Ponoko's selection of materials, which include 13 different acrylics, black and white Delrin, clear PETG, two species of bamboo, cork, hardboard, MDF and even veneer. 

 

No two CupCakes shall ever be the same again. 

 

Via Ponoko and MakerBot (Hat tip to Derek)

Another Inexpensive 3D Printer Kit Emerges

Competition for Makerbot? Cubely jumped into the 3D printing scene this week at an Arizona Hackerspace meetup. Cubely, a RepRap derivative, hopes to produce a superior hobbyist 3D printer at low cost. 

 

Cubely consists of four major components: Electronics, which they recommend purchasing from MakerBot, as they are "unfortunately" the sole supplier; Stepper motors from Interinar; Extruder assembly; Frame, made from 8020 extruded aluminum t-slots. Cubely says: "You are already less than 30 hours and less than $1,000.00 from successfully printing your first object." 

 

Cubely says "unfortunate" regarding the MakerBot electronics because Cubely is an Open Hardware project under the Open Hardware License, which should permit the use of freely available components. Their objective is to produce a "fully capable" 3D printer for manufacturing or prototyping that is made from "standardized, commodity components that are widely available" at a cost of less than USD$1,000. Further, they limit the assembly time to less than thirty hours with a typical set of common tools. 

 

All this and a goal of having 10,000 devices in production by the end of 2012! Their program is very ambitious, but will fully leverage crowdsourcing via the very open strategy. Will they succeed? Let's check back with them in several months, as they are clearly just starting out: their wiki pages are still mostly empty, ready for participants to assist.

 

Via Make, TeamDroid and Cubely

Image Credit: JohnKit  

Model Factory Hiro Uses 3D Printing

 

Model Factory Hiro, a Japanese maker of highly intricate model car kits makes good use of 3D printing technology in their development process. In Mech9's video and extensive write up, we can see the entire process from choice of car (Misao Hiro, President: "Something I like") to the final preparations.

Model Factory Hiro primarily uses photographs of classic vehicles from an extensive library, and then painstakingly recreates the cars using 3D modeling software (although they do receive CAD models from Ferrari, but only for recent models).

Transferring the design doesn't mean simply duplicating everything, as there are many complications when making a kit that can actually be assembled. Model Factory Hiro makes appropriate design adjustments resulting in terrific model kits. However, they typically issue only 500 at a time and they are priced in the USD$200-300 range.

Via Mech9