Hello everyone,
Things are humming along smoothly in the 3D Lab this week. All of our printers are (thankfully) in working order, providing high availability to students, community members, and engineering classes that need them. Our first 3D printer (a Makerbot Replicator 2X provided by the Laura B. Frick Charitable Trust) was recently repaired at Makerbot headquarters. After eight hours of labor and lots of worn, replaced parts, we have a working printer again. Makerbot’s excellent service plan allows these repairs to be provided at no-cost, a worthwhile yearly investment.
We also have the portable 3D printer working better. In the past, this printer (an Up! Plus 2 provided by the Romich Foundation) worked with Makerbot filament. But this filament performs best at 230 degrees while the printer is locked in at 270 degrees. The result is printed objects that have drooping features and rough surfaces. After purchasing filament meant for Up! printer, it works perfectly again. The summary is that not all filaments are created equal! Each printer brand has specific requirements for filament. The following was printed on the portable printer with “correct” filament:
Our engineering students are hard at work building new projects each week, from Dyson-like air moving devices, cube tossing robots (the cubes are 3D printed), and recently, a complex knee brace apparatus. The knee brace uses around 8-10 pieces that snap together to form the brace. Students are designing the braces from scratch in CAD software, an incredible feat. Here is the CAD design of one of the brace parts:
Our Taz 3D printers (provided by the Wayne County Community Foundation) are busy printing the braces. These are being produced with HIPS plastic, having the heat resistance and strength of ABS plastic yet being 3D printing friendly as with PLA plastic. We are pleased with these very reliable printers.
If you haven’t been to www.thingiverse.com lately, you’ve been missing a lot! It’s a place where hundreds of thousands of objects, tools, furniture parts, car parts, household items, toys, and more can be downloaded and printed, designed by people from all over the world.
One of our students discovered an excellent earbud wire wrap that folds for easy storage. He printed the initial design on our Makerbot Replicator 5th Generation, an excellent printer that uses PLA plastic. After printing, he intends to use the laser engraver to customize the wire wrap with his name. 3D printing is a good example of creating things that are custom or personal, things that can’t be found in stores. Your imagination is all that’s needed to make personalized items for your lifestyle.
Last week, Wayne College hosted the Heartland Education Community Steering Committee meeting, comprised of volunteers representing many areas of the community including parents, educators, business leaders, social service representatives, city government, and clergy. The committee meets monthly to discuss Heartland activities and community issues.
Near the end of the meeting, 3D printing was the topic with explanation of the Wayne College 3D Printing Initiative, how it impacts students, communities, and businesses, and its future plans. The program was well received with much interest and many questions. We are proud to be invited to share our vision with the committee.
The laser engraver in the 3D Lab is used for all sorts of interesting projects, providing fabrication methods that cannot be easily accomplished by 3D printing. It is a popular, easy-to-use tool for everyone. Students have been adventurous with engraving unusual objects such as iPhones, laptops, even leather! One student recently engraved an image onto his Stratocaster guitar. He overlaid the guitar with an acrylic sheet to verify image placement, then removed the sheet to perform the final engraving. The result is beautiful!
Stay tuned next week as we report on the latest engineering students’ LEGO Mindstorms robotics project, a cube tossing event!
3D printing involves working with 3D objects. See how this incredible automatically concerts 2D photos to 3D without CAD expertise:
https://lensvid.com/gear/amazing-from-2d-to-3d-object-manipulation-using-a-free-software
See how artists “paint” light using 3D printers and twisted video walls:
http://www.engadget.com/2015/07/05/painting-light-with-3d-tech
Until next week,
Tom