Category Archives: 3D printing

BraidMaker

Posted by on August 6, 2010 No comments

In my spare time this summer I've been working on a mechanical braiding machine. I'm not sure where the idea came from, but one night I jotted down the design for a mechanism to braid three threads together. The design quickly went from the notepad by my bed to Blender, where it took about 2 weeks of programming (the gears were generated by a python script) and modeling to have a finished braiding machine. Then it took Shapeways exactly one week to print up the device and deliver it to my door :D

When I received it, a few parts were merged together, probably because of low clearance. Both the gears were merged with their respective axles, but a careful twist got them loose. The only other assembly required was to push the top axle with the gears into position (it was left out of position so the gears wouldn't merge together).

The BraidMaker worked as intended right away, except for locking up once in a while. This is solved by gently tapping the device so the pieces fall into the right spot (I have to do this a few times in the video). It runs smoother the more you use it though, probably a combination of me learning how to operate it properly and the track getting smoothed by the moving parts.

Some of the parts of the device are very thin, like the gear teeth (which are no more than a millimeter thick) but it is still very tough and handles being used very well. The material is truly white, strong and flexible. When running it leaves a thin blanket of white dust on the ground, probably from the moving parts grinding against each other, but that is (hopefully) only while it is new.

All in all I'm very satisfied with the BraidMaker. I was expecting several parts to be merged together, the gear teeth to be too thin and therefore snap when I'd try to use it, and the device failing to braid at all. Nothing has broken off yet, and it is quite capable of braiding (thin) threads!

The BraidMaker is available at my Shapeways shop for $17 in WSF.

CentripetalBox

Posted by on January 15, 2010 No comments

I just received my first ever 3D printed object from Shapeways, a CentripetalBox. Shapeways provide a cheap and simple way to 3D print anything you can imagine in a variety of materials, including ABS (like Lego), stainless steel and even color printed 3D objects. This is the first time I have 3D printed anything, so I was quite excited, but at the same time expecting a designflaw showing up in the finished product.

The design I got printed was a CentripetalBox, a cube which needs to be spun around quickly to be opened. You can see a video of how it works below. The original design had 4 plugs which would fit inside the 4 slots in the box and lid, but due to the inaccuracy of the printing process, the plugs where slightly too big. The lid was also a bit too big, and needed to be sanded down slightly to fit inside the box. This was expected, but what was not expected was how tough the material was. I printed in White, Strong and Flexible, and while the surface is quite rough and seems fragile (small particles of the raw material powder will come loose if you scratch it), the actual box is pretty solid. I tried sanding down the plugs so they would fit inside the slots, but quickly moved to a file instead. A Dremel might have been a good tool to have handy. Instead of using the printed plastic plugs I used a thin steel rod cut into plugs. It might even be that the plastic plugs are too light to work. A few more days of sanding/filing, and I'll know.

CentripetalBox componentsThe rought texture of the WSF material

Having discussed the end result and design with my dad, we came up with some improvements. I'll make a new version for the Shapeways shop with those improvements (and bug fixes, like smaller plugs, and a tiny gap between the lid and the box). This is the first thing I have ever made in Blender and then 3D printed, and the fact that it works (with a bit of post-production work) is more than I expected. I have a few other ideas for 3D printing, and I'll work on them this spring (or autumn, if you are in Australia).

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