Since I started working in 3D printing i’ve been wanting to fabricate objects in ceramic and other materials. Last year Holly and I visited the Solheim Additive Manufacturing Lab to check out their powder based ceramic processes, and ever since then i’ve been scouring ebay for half way affordable used Z-printers but none have been forthcoming. So the other option in ceramic 3DP is to go with extrusion rather than binder based system. With my schedule finally a little more open over the summer i’m turning some of my attention to working up a few extrusion based methods.
Issue 3 of RepRap Magazine has some really great info on this subject in an article by Dries Verbruggen. The Unfold Studio which he is part of have been pioneers in this method of ceramic extrusion based 3d printing and have posted a number of their extruder designs on Thingiverse. In the article Dries looks at number of the different open source paste extruders out there right now including projects by RichRap, Adrian Bowyer, Tomi Salo, Bre Pettis and Unfold. Dries does a great job of talking about the pros and cons of each system and talking about Unfold and their method. All good stuff if you are interested in pushing paste out of an nozzle attached to a CNC machine. Issue 3 has some great other articles in it too about the open source 3d printing scene in general.
I’m hoping to finish my MendelMax 1.5 and fit it out with a RichRap Universal Paste Extruder. My Max is the phoenix from the ashes of my never finished Prusa Mendel – so it’ll be good when it’s finished as i’ll have a nice sense of completion. I’m also working on a build of a Printrbot Plus with a view to fitting it out with the Unfold Claystruder. Today i worked on both of these machines putting together what i could and assembling a punch list of parts i need still and ordering them from Inventables, Maker Tool Works, McMaster Carr and Amazon. Once i have these machines up and running i’m going to load my Prusa i3 up with a E3D metal extruder and play with Kai Parthy’s newest product – Lay-ceramic, a plastic/ceramic filament. And finally if all this works out without too many hitches, a Delta Kossel is on the horizon to use compressed air to force the paste out a la Jonathan Keep’s project here.
Ok! That’s a lot of stuff. That was today. Tomorrow i’m back to the studio at AIC to work on columns, “Folium” and catching up on email!