3D Printing

This DIY electronic puzzle lets you construct circuits by plugging blocks into a 3D-printed board.

by

When ‘victorqedu’ was a child, he had an electronic puzzle game that enabled him to make various circuits from electronic components, such as lights, buzzer sounds, and even a radio. This fascinated him, and as “a programmer with a lot of hobbies,” it certainly had some influence on his life. He wasn’t able to find this game for sale today, so decided to build his own 3D-printed version, with component blocks that plug in to complete various circuits.

Read more…

Researchers Find a Faster, More Efficient Way to 3D Print

by

Two researchers at Penn State have created a new system for five-axis additive 3D-printing that reduces the amount and density of support materials needed for making printed objects.

In a paper entitled “Process planning for five-axis support free additive manufacturing,” doctoral candidates Xinyi Xiaoa and Sanjay Joshi proposed using a 3D printer with a movable build plate or extrusion arm to turn objects in 3D space as they’re printed, thereby making every surface “flat” as its being extruded.

Read more…

Top 10 3D-Printed Gifts No One Asked For

by

Stores are shut and the mail is clogged, but you can still print breathtaking DIY gifts. If you have a Prusa, an Ender 3, or any modern 3D printer, consider this your ultimate Christmas gift guide. I hand-picked these prints specifically for gifting.

You don’t need anything except filament and common household objects, you can make any of them in a day, and none of them are difficult to print or build. Most importantly, all ten are dramatic, exciting, functional prints that your giftee will love.

3D Printing with VHS tape filament

by

If you have a pile of old VHS tapes collecting dust in your attic or basement that you know you’ll never watch again, either because all of those movies are available on DVD or a streaming service, or because you haven’t had a working VCR since 2003, there might be a way of putting them to good use in another way. With the miles of tape available in just a few cassettes, [Brother] aka [Andrew] shows us how to use that tape as filament for a 3D printer. (Video, embedded below.)

The first step of the build is to actually create the filament. He uses a purpose-built homemade press to spin several tapes into one filament similar to how cotton or flax is spun into yarn. From there the filament is simply fed into the 3D printer and put to work. The tape filament needs to be heated higher than a standard 3D printer filament so he prints at a much slower rate, but the resulting product is indistinguishable from a normal print except for the color. It has some other interesting properties as well, such as retaining its magnetism from the magnetic tape, and being a little more brittle than PET plastic although it seems to be a little stronger.

Read more…

DIY Stream Deck (3D Printing, Arduino, Electronics!)

by

An Elgato Stream Deck is a vital tool for anyone looking to live-stream online, but the ongoing pandemic has made these devices hard to find or very expensive! To solve this problem, I built a DIY version using Arduino, 3D printing, and some custom PCBs, which you can also build yourself! All of the design files are free and open source so that you can create the Stream Deck that best suits your needs!