3D Printing
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Discusses 3D printing, including items to print on a "home" printer and those printed by industries. Addresses some of the medical applications.
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3D Printing
- 1. PRINTING WITH 3D PRINTERS
- 2. WHAT CAN YOU PRINT? Prosthetic Hands Tools Hardware Replacement Parts
- 3. WHAT CAN YOU PRINT? Clothes Shoes Toys Jewelry
- 4. WHAT ABOUT FOOD? Hamburgers Sugar Candies Chocolates Pizza Ravioli
- 5. ICE CREAM?
- 6. WHAT ABOUT FOR MEDICINE?
- 7. WHAT’S IN THE FUTURE FOR MEDICINE? Bionic Ear Knee Cartilage Skin Grafts
- 9. Flashforge Creator Pro MECHANICS OF PRINTING IN 3D
- 10. FLASHFORGE CREATOR PRO Print Bed Filament
- 11. RAFT & SUPPORTS Failed overhangs Raft With supports Supports removed
- 12. PRINTING A FILE • STL file • G-code
- 14. G-CODE
- 15. WEBSITES FOR 3D PRINTABLE FILES
- 16. PROGRAMS FOR MAKING FILES OpenSCAD
- 20. OpenSCAD
- 22. PLACES TO FIND FILES
Editor's Notes
- The most common type of 3D printing is considered Additive Manufacturing where an object is created by adding material layer by layer. This is accomplished by heating the filament, in our case plastic filament, so that it can be extruded in very fine strands. Each strand is laid down one on top of the previous until the object is finished.
- The basic 3D printer that most people, libraries, or small businesses are using prints with plastic. Just starting with plastic printing, you can print useful things like tools, hardware, replacement parts, (click mouse) and prosthetics.
- And, less useful, but still fun things, like toys, shoes and accessories, even (click mouse) clothing. Although, it doesn’t look very comfortable.
- But, plastic isn’t the only thing 3D printers can use as filament. Printers have been created that print using edible materials, such as chocolate, sugar candies, pizza, ravioli, even (click mouse) hamburger patties and buns.
- Some students at MIT reconfigured a Solidoodle 3D printer to print ice cream into customized designs; while a Taiwanese professor and his students hacked a Delta 3D printer to print the perfect ice cream cone.
- We already saw a prosthetic hand that has been printed using a 3D printer, and printing prosthetics is a fairly common occurrence now. (click mouse) People are even printing prosthetics for animals. Parts are also being printed for use inside people’s bodies. (click mouse) This replacement skull was printed to save a woman who was suffering from a disease that was causing her skull to thicken to 3 times its normal size. (click mouse) While this small splint was used to support the air passage ways to an 18-month-old’s lungs allowing him to breath.
- Although these uses already seem incredible, there are lots of experiments going on for medical printing with materials other than plastic and metal that are even more amazing. Like printing organs using cell tissue, printing cartilage using plastic and human growth hormones, and printing replacement skin your own skin cells.
- Getting back to more standard manufacturing materials, but on a much larger scale. A company named Local Motors has printed a small electric car with carbon-fiber-reinforced plastic. Thanks to the nature of 3D printing, the company embed energy-absorbing crash structures and super strong seat-belt mounts that are anchored deep in the car’s body. Local Motors is building two factories, scaled to employ 100 people each, where more of this type of car can be printed. (click mouse) While nobody is currently printing entire airplanes, some companies are using 3D printing to create airplane parts. CFM International is using metal to print parts of it’s jet engines because, as they explained, "This technology is actually enabling us to create designs that wouldn't physically be possible to make with standard conventional machining.“(click mouse) Then there’s WinSun, a company in China, that recently printed 10 detached homes using a giant 3D printer and cement made from waste construction materials. They have also printed the largest 3D building, a 5 story apartment building. All of these buildings are printed on site and use a printer approximately 150 yards long.
- Now that we’ve thought a bit about the amazing things 3D printers can print, I’m going to talk a little more about the mechanics of the process used, particularly in hobbyist printers. The printer you see here is a Flashforge Creator Pro. It’s based on the Makerbot opensource 3D printer. There are many different 3D printer companies in the market right now, and models vary widely, but most of what I’m going to talk about related to the mechanics of printing holds true for all additive process 3D printers.
- Our printer has a heated print bed, which makes printing easier. Because of it’s size, the Flashforge can print something as big as 8” by 5.5” by 5.5”. We purchased this printer about 4 years ago, and at the time it cost thirteen hundred dollars. The printer has dual extruders, so it can print an object in 2 colors. Most 3D printers use either ABS or PLA plastic filament which comes on spools in many colors. ABS prints at a higher temperature around 446 degrees Fahrenheit). It’s the type of plastic used to make LEGOS. PLA prints at about 392 degrees Fahrenheit. It contains corn starch and is biodegradable. Printing times vary based on the size, complexity of design, and structural integrity of an object. Even small, simple objects take at least 20 minutes to print. Heating up the extruder and the print bed are also time consuming. It takes between 15 and 30 minutes to heat the printer up if it hasn’t been used in a while.
- As items print, it is common to have them built on a raft. This is another way to keep them from moving. Supports should also be used when you’re printing something that has overhanging pieces. Without supports, these overhanging pieces have nothing to stick to when the printer extrudes them, so they either fall off the extruder or get dragged along to the next printed section. The rafts and supports are easy to remove once an object is done printing.
- There are all sorts of sites where you can create or find 3D objects (I’ll talk about some of those places soon). Once you have something you want to print, it can be download as a stl file. That’s short for a Stereolithographic file which is a complete listing of the xyz coordinates of the vertices and normals for the triangles that describe the 3D object. (Click mouse) STL files need to be translated into a file that the printer understands, which is called Gcode.
- For our printer, we use the ReplicatorG software to make this translation. ReplicatorG is the software that FlashForge provided when we purchased our printer. It is an opensource program. There are a lot of different programs that perform this same translation process. In ReplicatorG, I can change the size of the object based on scale and move it around the print bed, but I can’t adapt it in other ways. So, if I want to add a base to something, I would need a different software program to do that.
- Before ReplicatorG generates the GCode, I can make some changes to the model, such as the thickness of the layer height which has a significant impact on the size of the printed object. I can change the default print temperature, print speed, and type of plastic. This is where I have to make any raft and support structure decisions as well. GCode looks similar to other coding languages.
- Now I’m going to share some programs and websites that you can use to create your own 3D printable files or find objects to print that other people have created.
- There are many other programs that can be used to create 3D models. They have varying degrees of difficulty. Each of these programs is usable on a computer. TinkerCAD and Cookie Caster are both online programs, while Blender, SketchUp, and OpenSCAD must be downloaded to a computer before you can build in them. SketchUp and Blender both offer paid versions as well as free versions. OpenSCAD, TinkerCAD, and Cookie Caster are all free.
- You can create new content in TinkerCAD using different geometric shapes, letters, numbers, symbols, and holes. TinkerCAD is also incredibly useful because it allows you to add a base to an already created model. This makes creating 3 dimensional signs easier as well as allowing you to create scenes, like a neighborhood, that are all attached together. One nice thing about the hole option is that you can use it to hollow out shapes. TinkerCAD has added a lot of different shapes users can manipulate based on size, scale, angle, thinkness, etc. You can’t touch up, smooth out, or otherwise change a model in TinkerCAD.
- Sketchup is another program with a free version that allows you to make something from scratch. The program has a significant focus on architecture and you mostly build using straight lines, geometric shapes, and angles. From my experience it has a moderate learning curve. Things created in SketchUp can be printed on a 3D printer.
- Blender has a steep learning curve. Although I’ve played with it a little bit, I haven’t been able to figure out how to do anything with it. All the items you create in Blender can be used online as avatars or for use in games and movie making. I haven’t tried to download anything from Blender for printing, but from what I’ve read this is possible.
- OpenSCAD is a free program that can be used on a computer to create 3D models. It has a gallery where you can access items made by other creators. In OpenSCAD, you create using code rather than with drawing instruments or pre-created shapes. OpenSCAD has tutorials on the website.
- Cookie Caster is a simple online program where you can draw a cookie cutter free hand using straight lines, or you can trace an image. You can upload your own image, or search for one using their Inspire Me button (but this is fairly glitchy). When you trace, you can use the pen option which allows you to draw with straightlines or you can use the magic trace option that does some of the work for you. Once complete, the cookie cutters can be downloaded as stl files for 3D printing or ordered from the company.
- In addition to there being a lot of sites where you can make items, there are many sites where you can search for items made by other people. Creative people seem to love sharing what they have designed and many of them upload their creations to 3D object sites that allow you to download the objects to print yourself. Almost all the programs and apps presented today have libraries where you can access models made and shared by their creators. These are often free for others to use, download, and manipulate. The main place to look for premade items is Thingiverse. Thingiverse is a forum maintained by MakerBot that allow users to download items as stl files from the site for free. Thingiverse also lets you upload files you’ve made and interact with other makers. MyMiniFactory and Cube 3D Systems have items you can download for free to print on your own, or you can purchase the print of through their sites. GrabCAD is a 3D community specifically geared toward mechanical engineers. YouMagine.com has the same structure as Thingiverse but it is newer and doesn’t have as large of a community. Yeggi is a search engine specifically for 3D printable models. You can search for an item using Yeggi, just like you search within Google, but the only results Yeggi will find are all 3D objects. Yeggi also has categories you can browse. When you select an object on Yeggi, it takes you to the website where it is currently housed, (which is often Thingiverse). One benefit of Yeggi is that it provides a faster more streamlined search than Thingiverse.