EDM (Electrical Discharge Machining) is one of those specialised manufacturing processes that are traditionally expensive and therefore somewhat underrepresented in the DIY and hacker scenes. It’s with great delight that we present EnderSpark, a solution to not one but two problems. The first problem is how to perform CNC operations on hard-to-machine materials such as […]
You have a part that needs different colors or different material properties — with a multi-color 3D printer, no problem. You can also laboriously switch filaments on a single-color printer. But [anonymous kiwi] points out a different way, which is surprisingly obvious once you think about it. You simply add a previously made part to […]
After previously putting carbon fiber-reinforced PLA filament under the (electron) microscope, the [I built a thing] bloke is back with a new video involving PLA-CF, this time involving co-extrusion rather than regular dispersed chopped CF. This features a continuous CF core that is enveloped by PLA, with a sample filament spool sent over by BIQU […]
Have an old Android device collecting dust somewhere that you’d like to put to better use? [Electronoobs] shows us how to make a Masked Stereolithography Apparatus (MSLA) printer for cheap using screens salvaged from old Android phones or tablets. [Electronoobs] wanted to revisit his earlier printer with all the benefits of hindsight, and this is […]
A friend of mine and I both have a similar project in mind, the manufacture of custom footwear with our hackerspace’s shiny new multi-material 3D printer. It seems like a match made in heaven, a machine that can seamlessly integrate components made with widely differing materials into a complex three-dimensional structure. As is so often […]
Having an enclosed 3D printer can make a huge difference when printing certain filaments that are prone to warping. It’s easy enough to build an enclosure to stick your own printer in, but it can get tricky when you want to actively control the conditions inside the chamber. That’s where [Jayant Bhatia]’s Chamber Master project […]
Although you can purchase many types of FDM filaments containing ‘carbon fiber’ these days, they are in no way related to the carbon fiber (CF) composite materials used for rocket hulls and light-weight bicycles. This is because the latter use continuous fibers, often in weaved CF mats, whereas the FDM filaments just use small, chopped, […]
Printing metal as easily as it is to printed with thermoplastics has been a dream for a very long time, with options for hobbyists being very scarce. This is something which [Rotoforge] seeks to change, using little more than an old Ender 3 FDM printer and some ingenuity. Best of all is that the approach […]
We love 3D printing here, but we also love clean air, which produces a certain tension. There’s no way around the fact that printing produces various volatile organic compounds (VOCs), and that we don’t want to breathe those any more than necessary. Which VOCs, and how much? Well, [Jere Saikkonen] has created a handy-dandy calculator […]