Finally: 3D Printer Recycling

We missed this one earlier this year, but it's still a terrific idea: The Filabot is a "plastic filament maker". The idea is straightforward, obvious when you think about it - and necessary. 

 

Any home 3D printer will tell you they end up with many unusable prints, perhaps due to printer failure of some kind, or perhaps the object is one of many iterations developed on the journey to the final version. What does one do with all these items? We keep ours in a box or on display for visitors, who are fascinated even seeing failed prints. 

 

But now there's another option. Filabot will grind your used prints, leftover short lengths of filament and any plastic scraps you may have lying around and melt it through a heated extruder into a brand new filament. It's 3D printer recycling! 

 

The Filabot can produce either 3.0 or 1.75mm filament from leftover ABS, PLA or even HDPE from milk jugs (just ensure you've used the milk first, please!) In fact, the Filabot can process HDPE, LDPE. PETE, Polymorph, Nylon, ABS, PLA, PVA and probably more once users start exploring. The device has three stages: Grinding the input material into tiny bits; extruding melted bits into a filament; finally spooling up the new filament for future use. 

 

Filabot was a Kickstarter project that closed earlier this year, raising over USD$32,000, far past its goal of USD$10,000. Dozens of supporters will receive do-it-yourself kits or assembled Filabots. We presume with this level of interest designer Tyler McNaney will take the product to market - and it appears so by looking at the Filabot website, which will offer the device for pre-order once the Kickstarter orders are processed. 

 

The Filabot could become a near-essential accessory for any filament-based home 3D printer, and not only for recycling plastic filament. Imagine the idea of mixing colored filament to produce new shades for specific applications. 

 

Finally there's a way to make that Tartan Filament! 

 

Via Kickstarter and Filabot (Hat tip to SymptomOfSociety)

Sugru Available At MakerBot

You may not have heard of Sugru, but it's an amazingly useful material now for sale at the MakerBot online store. It's not something you use in your 3D printer, but it definitely adds a lot to 3D printing. But first, what exactly is it? 

 

It's a secretly formulated air-curing rubber compound sold in small 5g packets. Made in the UK by some brilliant entrepreneurs (be sure to read their amazing tale here), this stuff is moldable by hand for about 30 minutes. During those 30 minutes it can be manually affixed more or less permanently to almost any surface. After 24 hours it has completely cured - but it's still flexible. That's right - it "hardens" into flexible form. How can this mysterious substance be of any use to a 3D printer operator? Let's look at some ideas:

 

• Print two or more parts in plastic, then use Sugru to join them together
• Make a flexible hinge for moving parts in your project
• Create colourful grips for handles that precisely match your fingers
• Place some shock-absorbing feet on your object
• Print a mold and press Sugru into it to create a precisely shaped flexible object
• Build something out of Sugru but use 3D printed parts as a skeleton for support

 

And we're certain there are many more imaginative ideas possible with Sugru.

 

The news today is that this substance is now very conveniently available at the MakerBot online store. They're selling 12x5g packs both color and black & white packets for USD$18 and USD$20 respectively. Of course, you could have obtained Sugru directly from their online store, but shipping could have been difficult from the UK to North American locations. 

 

How will you Sugru?

 

Via MakerBot and Sugru

Objet's Clear Bio-Material

Commercial 3D printer manufacturer Objet has released a new very interesting print material: MED610, which is a transparent bio-compatible substance. You might think that making a clear, safe substance would be easy, but it's not. In order to qualify for such a designation numerous tests and certifications are required, and that's the tough work that Objet has completed. According to their description: 

 

The material is ideal for applications requiring prolonged skin contact of over 30 days and short term mucosal-membrane contact of up to 24 hours. Objet Bio-Compatible material has 5 medical approvals including Cytotoxicity, Genotoxicity, Delayed Type Hypersensitivity, Irritation and USP Plastic Class VI*

 

While this material will typically be used for dental items, one wonders what one might print if we were able to use this material on our home 3D printers. 

 

Via Objet

Ponoko's New Gelatin!

Distributed manufacturing service Ponoko has released a new material available for their 3D printers, with the self-describing name of "Durable Fine Plastic". We think this is a pretty cool material, because it's actually TWO materials in one! 

 

The objects themselves are printed in a rather nice ABS-like plastic that has both "durable" (strong like ABS) and "fine" (smooth finish) characteristics.  

 

The other material involved is a gelatin-like substance that's used for support. This gelatin may be swiftly removed by washing it off after the print completes.

 

Support capability is really important, as it permits all kinds of new object geometries to be printed. However, using this material requires a bit of design work: even though it easily washes off, you must ensure your objects have a hole through which it can be washed out. Otherwise you'll be carrying a lump of gelatin around forever. 

 

Via Ponoko (Hat tip to Kristen)

Ceramic 3D Printing At Ponoko

Distributed manufacturing giant Ponoko now offers a "glazed ceramic" material option for their 3D printers. This is a big development because it permits the creation of "food safe" objects. Typical extrusion-based 3D printed objects have tiny grooves corresponding to the extrusion layers that can obviously become fouled with foodstuff and be unsafe. Not so with glazed ceramic, which is essentially the same thing your plates are made of. 

 

The process by which Ponoko produces the glazed ceramic apparently involves several firings in a kiln, followed by a glazing step. This obviously puts great stress on the 3D model's geometry, and so Ponoko has a number of recommendations you'd best follow lest your design end up in several pieces. 

 

Who will be the first to design an entire set of 3D printed china? 

 

Via Ponoko

Sit On Objet's 3D Printed Chair

It's always totally amazing to pull a new item out of a 3D printer, but it's even more amazing when it has moving parts and startling when it's a complete item that's ready for immediate use. 3D Printer manufacturer Objet has just produced such an item using a new material on a new printer. The object in question is rather nice folding chair, able to support a person, as you can see in the image above (click for higher detail). 

 

The chair was printed on a Objet Connex printer, which is capable of printing in multiple materials simultaneously. The chair is apparently able to support in excess of 100Kg (220 pounds), and is made from Objet's curiously named "ABS-like Digital Material". As you might expect, this material has great physical characteristics that permit the guy in the image to sit without the chair collapsing.

 

Via Objet

Human Tissue Material?

Nano-engineers at the University of California in San Diego have developed a new biomaterial that evidently is a very close match for human tissue. This material is not a uniform substance, but is rather a particular geometry that exhibits stretching properties useful for bio-engineering. 

 

The material is produced from a liquid polymer resin using light to solidify the resin into the appropriate material geometry in a manner very similar to how several species of 3D printers operate. 

 

While we believe it will be a very, very long time before personal bioprinters appear, it seems that the technology to do so might be emerging. 

 

Via Kurzweil.net

BfB Prints Clay!

Following up on last week's amazing feat of printing mashed potatoes, the scientists at Bits From Bytes in Bristol have modified a RapMan 3D printer to use porcelain clay. In the brief experiment, they successfully printed a model head. 

 

While clay seems like an obvious choice for an unusual 3D printing material, we're wondering a bit about this one. For millennia clay has been used to create all manner of shapes - and it's pretty easy to use. So why use a 3D printer to shape clay when you might be able to do it easily by hand? We see a couple of advantages. 

 

First, you'd be able to reliably duplicate a precise shape, whereas that might be less possible with traditional techniques. Secondly, clay as a material has properties that other materials don't have that could be desirable depending on what you're printing. For example, a fired clay pot could be put in an oven without risk of melting, as ABS might be. 

 

As with any new 3D printing material, it will be another capability ready to match up with your needs when the situation arises.