Design of the Week: 3D Printed Toilet

This week’s selection is the fully functional 3D printed toilet by CNC Barcenas.

Yes, this is really a 3D printed toilet unit. While the toilet itself is not 3D printed and is of the standard ceramic variety, the rest of the toilet unit is 3D printed, aside from a few metal fixtures.

The toilet unit was produced by CNC Barcenas on their massive Super Discovery 3D printer, which we covered earlier. This enormous 3D printer is capable rapidly 3D printing large objects due to its innovative high-speed pellet extruder.

The machine also sports a rather wide nozzle, leading to the somewhat coarse finish on the toilet unit. But that matters little for larger objects.

Even on the very fast Super Discovery 3D printer, this 250kg print took five full days to complete. On normal 3D printers a structure of this size would take literally weeks to complete, and be broken into multiple parts that would have to be assembled after printing.

The walls of the toilet unit are unusual in that they are partially hollow. Here we see an image of the interior wall structure, showing approximately 20% infill. This is a practice commonly done on small 3D prints, but here we see it on a very large wall print.

Why 3D print a toilet unit?

CNC Barcenas explained to us that one of their clients is a shipping company that is producing replacement units for the modular toilets found in their ships. They found that the 3D printed toilets have somewhat less weight than conventional modular toilet units due to the partial infill of the walls, and thus are considering using them on a more wider basis.

This could lower the weight of the ship if used in a more extensive manner, which could lead to either lower fuel costs or faster transport, both of which are benefical.

When seeing such a large 3D printer I wondered what one might produce in that huge build volume. I never imagined it would be a toilet.

But there it is.

Via CNC Barcenas