Month: November 2016

New 3D Printer at work and almost no one has experience.

It is to be used and there will be select people who will be kinda trained a bit. Sadly I am not one of them. I’m highly interested and have been following 3D printing from afar since the beginning. I want to learn and if I can become skilled enough, work my way into a position of more value.So outside of the obvious trying to learn 3D printing without access to a 3D printer; is there sizable pay for those who do it for work? http://ift.tt/2fvhQqM

Super cheap and light “lift dual extruder” concept!

http://ift.tt/2eLyUsI guys, so I was taking a magnificent shower and this lovely idea came to mind. I’m not an engineer and I suck at CAD, so I just drew this–so it’s a pretty rough sketch.There are two pistons, the left piston is coupled to the syringe (pump) and the right piston. When pressure is applied by the syringe, it lifts the right nozzle. The reverse lifts the left nozzle. I’m using those childhood Lego “Technic” pneumatic pistons as a model in this drawing.Air is compressible so a liquid (as in hydraulics) would be tempting, yet it adds additional weight and I can’t even imagine how to bleed this thing. So far I’m waiting on a professional to chip in.The beauty of this thing is it uses standard bowden PTFE tubes and couplings (which is actually the same thing used in the industry sector, and is airtight with an O-ring) and a random cheap syringe tied to a generic servo motor. The servo motor is not just a pump actuator, but can be used to “sense” feedback pressure when the nozzle hits the bed. So this means the whole system can used as a z-endstop or a bed probe!So far the pros:LightCheapUses generic 3d printer parts like the bowden tube and threaded bowden couplingTheoretically easy to integrate within software and controller boards that allow servo motor controlCan be integrated within a mutli nozzle platform (cough E3D) instead of separate mechanicsAutomated z-leveling for each nozzle using pressure feedback (without additional parts)Efficient: Doesn’t add wasted movement (like the ultimaker 3 “bump to corner to raise nozzle setup”) so print times are barely affected.Can be used as a dampener so springs on heatbed can be eliminatedCan detect layer height irregularities on the fly while printing (if on a fixed and rigid print bed)Can be super precise if engineered accordinglyCan even be implemented on direct (multi) extrusion setupsCons:Y settings for each nozzle still needs to be calibratedI can’t find a small enough piston to do proof of concept yetMaybe I’m too enthusiastic, but if this concept becomes a thing, and somehow I was the first to think of it, I would like this to be named the “PP system”. http://ift.tt/2ft1Nvt