3D Printing Adventures Summer 2017 update

Summer is coming up fast, so here is an update on my current and future 3D Printing adventures.

Firstly the 3D Printing for Dummies book has now been issued as a revised and updated Second Edition, I was surprised to receive the author copies as I was not expecting it to be published until mid-late summer.

But here it is, and thank you to everyone who contributed to it's updates and revisions. Also a big thank you to my co-author Kirk and the great team at Wiley for making this update happen.

Some really great projects, printers and material updates have been added to the book, along with a lot of updated topic's and sectors where 3D printing is growing.

I can only find a USA link for the new version, but worldwide stocks should be available soon if you wish to buy a copy. And if you do, thank you.

I go over a lot of updates in the video below, and here is also a quick-jump index if there is something specific you want to hear about -

Quick jump index -
00:50 - 3D Printing for Dummies (2nd Edition)
02:10 - The Olsson RUBY Nozzle
02:26 - The Sorceress - printed with the Ruby
02:40 - Pongo PLA - interesting translucent white
03:20 - PEI Print bet 3M sheet from AndOrNot
03:50 - Fuel3D Scanner is no longer for sale :(
05:15 - Polymaker Polysher & Polysmooth Kickstarter
06:08 - Glitter machine...
08:27 - Sigma R17 Noodle catcher upgrade
09:25 - Learning SharkCAD3D V10
10:00 - 100% Recycled Filament by ReFlow

You can also find this and more on my YouTube channel in HD over here

Olsson Ruby nozzle - 

I was very excited to receive an Olsson Ruby nozzle for testing, this is an upgrade I have been fascinated about for some time. I'll be doing a lot more testing, but the initial results are very smooth and it's printing really well on the Prusa i3 MK2.

The construction is quite simple, but exceptionally engineered. This has a real ruby embedded inside the tip of the hot-end with a 0.4mm nozzle hole.

The back is plugged and then drilled out to allow a 1.75mm or 2.85mm filament path.

They are E3D and Ultimaker Olsson block compatible.

It's easy to fit - as always, be careful with fitting, and I would certainly advise to lock the heater block and thermal break down on to the nozzle, rather than trying to screw the nozzle tight into the heater block directly. 

When fitting any E3D nozzle I always leave a small gap with the nozzle because for the E3D V6 the stainless steel thermal break is designed to lock flat to the nozzle, not for the nozzle to seal against the heater block.

This image does not do justice to the great model by Louise Driggers (The Sorceress) you can get it from Pinshape here  but I wanted to show a print from the Olsson nozzle - this is printed at 0.2mm layers in Fillamentum  PLA Rapunzel Silver

The finished print quality looks like you would expect from a 0.15mm layer height. But I will do a lot more testing with the Ruby nozzle - especially with filled and composite filaments.

Many thanks to Pongo for the 'water clear PLA' filament sample. We had a discussion over on Twitter about this material - I'm looking for translucent white (not clear, but also not opaque) filaments to use as Optical LED light guides. This looks very promising, I'll update you on the results.

Andrew from AndOrNot sent me over a new sample (Test) bed material (3M sticky-backed PEI Sheer) - It's going to be fitted to the Sigma R17 glass bed so I can print PETG without damaging the glass build surface.


Polymaker Polysher (Kickstarter)

I'll have a dedicated post all about the Polysher and Polysmooth materials, I have done a lot with the machine and am impressed with the results, here is a quick overview example below -

The Polysher and Polysmooth materials are now becoming available around the world. For an overview and feedback from early users, do take a look at the Kickstarter here.

Don't print at these high (210 - 230) temperatures! - Really it's way too high - I'm printing around 190 for 55mm/sec print speeds and that produces great results without micro-bubbles or angel-hair.

I'll talk more about temperature and print settings for Polysmooth in the next blog post and video, but do take a look at the simple temperature test above - and as it's a constant speed spirial vase, no retractions or pauses were experienced, so it's a good test for material temperature stability.

Before (Top) and After smoothing (Bottom) - This was a 'draft mode ' print made quickly at 0.2mm layers - it's quite small and detailed, but the Polysmooth helped make it a really great finish.

Voronoi D Tower 

Math Art by Dizingof

www.3dizingof.com/3D-Printing/

Testing out the transparent Polysmooth - Above shows both Clear and white - they both become flat smooth, but the internal layer lines remain for the clear material, the surface feels smooth for both.

Another example above - white, natural and clear, smoothed in IPA for around 35 minutes. Make sure you watch out for fluff and dust because it'll stick and bond into the surface finish (see lower left above).

Above model - https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:11687

Designed by  Mark Durbin (MakeALot)

For Sigma R17 and TAZ6 updates, do check out the video above. I'll have a lot more on these machines, projects and developments over the summer.

SharkCAD3D V10 - 

I have also been learning a new 3D CAD package (SharkCAD 3D V10) From Punchcad )

So far I'm really impressed with this package, It's amazingly powerful and has a lot of great 3D printing features for both design and model processing. I'll be posting a lot more about this package as I learn how to use it over the following months (and years) - This is going to be my new CAD software for all existing and future developments from this point on.

If anyone is interested in me posting some training video's or anything specific about this software, and it's capabilities, do let me know. It'll help me learn, and after doing a lot of screen-casting last summer I would like to do more.

Punchcad also have ViaCAD 2D/3D and many other SharkCAD packages at very low to high price points, so something for every maker or 3D design professional. I would encourage you to check them out, if for no other reason than the fact I accidentally stumbled over them, and was amazed I didn't already know they existed.

It's still early days for me learning the tools and user interface, but I'm quite sure you will be pleasantly surprised if you decide to try out the trial software or buy a version (Mac and PC available).


Quad Extruder printing? - 

I also hope to receive my Quad extruder upgrade for the Prusa i3 MK2 at some point in the next month. The Prusa team have quite a big backlog of orders and I didn't place my order until October, so the September shipments are going out first. I'll keep you updated on the progress with that, but I'm excited to get hold of it and experiment with multi-materials and colours.

ReForm Recycled filaments - 

And just as I was editing this video and blog post, I received some really nice 100% fully recycled 3D Printing filaments - You can find out more here - > ReForm by Formfutura

Cardboard spools, 100% recycled rPET, rPLA and rTitan materials. It's exactly what I have been asking suppliers to make for many years now.

I'm really impressed that Formfutura have managed to manufacture these materials, I hope they print well and I also hope more manufacturers will also think about sustainable materials and packaging for 3D printing filament consumables.

I'll let you know very soon how I get on with these materials, spools and how they perform in various 3D printers.

I hope that was a useful update, lots more to come from me this summer -  do comment and please subscribe to my YouTube channel for more 3D printing adventures soon.

Thanks for reading and watching.

Rich.

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2013 review of developments, 3D Printing book release and more challenges.

#2014

I missed doing my annual roundup of 3D Printing adventures before Christmas, so here it is, with some plans and updates for 2014.

Firstly thanks for reading this blog and to all the wonderful people who contacted me in 2013, I believe this year is going to be the best yet for 3D Printing, stay tuned and do get in contact if you have something to share or a project collaboration idea.

To catch up on other things I have done over the years, here are past annual reviews, 2012/11, 2011/10

My 2013 year of 3D printing development started with a pledge to be my year of ‘yes’, wherever possible I planned to say ‘yes’ and get as involved as I could manage (with time available).

This led to trying out many new things including speaking at various shows, festivals, events and even on the BBC website and World Service about 3D printing.

I'm working on new designs, prototypes and ideas. Collaborating with different people and always looking out for other 3D printing projects and experiments too, do keep in contact and let me know what you are up to too.

3D Printing for Dummies -

One of the real highlights of 2013 was the experience of writing a book. It’s always been on my lifetime achievement list, and it feels really good to now be a published Author, I really hope to do more as the experience really was exhilarating from start to finish, something I will never forget.

It was a real privilege to be part of this book, and I was very lucky that my co-author Kalani Kirk Hausman had already put in so much work to get the project off-the-ground with the world famous publishers Wiley – so when the chance to contribute to this project came about it was a very easy ‘yes!’. We had a short timescale for the 300+ Page multi-chapter book, and it had to cover a wide range of 3D printing aspects.  The book covers some of the 30 year history of an already well established additive manufacturing industry, and looks at the current and future uses for this technology.

Many people and fantastic developments have helped to make this book a reality, I want to thank everyone involved in the project and all who kindly allowed images to be used for the book.

3D Printing for Dummies on Amazon - Here - 

You can take a look at the Dummies guide to 3D printing book on Amazon now, it’s available in either print or eBook, and various translations are planned. If you do get a chance to read it, Kirk and I would love to know what you thought.

Another interesting aspect was a flurry of 3D printing writing activity from many different people who contacted me during 2013; asking for image permissions in their own books, some are also now released and some ongoing with releases this year. I’m sure much more will be written on the subject, it’s such an amazing technology that will some day impact and benefit the lives of everyone. I'm sure plenty more will be out soon.

On that note, I also finished reading MAKERS by Cory Doctorow ( @doctorow ) again over Christmas, it's now available for free or donation download in many formats here. A fantastic story (it's fiction, not history, but will be :) for anyone living and breathing the 3Dprinting and the fabulous Maker movement. I highly recommend reading it.

I have not added as much as I wanted to RichRap.com some of this was due to the already heavy level of traffic on it, it’s about to blow another bandwidth limit so at some point this year I will fix that, update and add more tutorials and content. In the mean time I also plan to get shorter but more frequent blog posts up on here, some while I do developments rather than a massive post at the end.

Tiny Printing - 

Printing small was a lot of fun, it taught me a lot about 3D Printing and how best to control plastic extrusion, when to use heat and when to cool, more information here.

RepRap Magazine - 

The RepRap Magazing was launched, this is again another great project by people in the community to document and give a wider voice for all things RepRap. - We would like to do and release more issues in 2014.

3D Printing in NYLON - 

My Nylon printing and colouring experiments attracted a lot of attention, this was a lot of fun and very much still something I continue to experiment with. I plan to do a follow-up article later this year about Nylon, mixed materials and further colour experiments.

3DR –

I have always planned to release a RepRap 3D printer, and after a frantic 5 week development during the earlier part of 2013, I had the first 3DR ready for testing.

For me 3DR has been amazing to watch as it goes out into the world as my take on a 3D printed Delta, watching it then evolve into something much more is great.

Releasing 3DR as an open-source project occupied a lot more time than I had expected last year, but it also led to some really great conversations with people and lots of other great things. You initially think that releasing everything and seeing what people do with it would allow more time to work on other things. That was not the case, it's as much work as if you released it for sale or started a company.

I'm planning to release at least another three machines this year, keep an eye out ;)

For me the starting point into the delta geometry was the Rostock, this was a great printer to build and allowed a lot of experimentation, especially with tall prints that had not been possible before.

Open Hand (and an open heart)- 

The Open Hand project by Joel Gibbard was a fantastic project to see come into life, and with healthy backing the project is well underway.

Joel also won the Venturefest award for best newcomer. Congratulations again, and best wishes from me for the ongoing project.

IndiGoGo perks shipped out and hand-designs well under way.

Shows and Events - 

The London Makerfaire, London 3D printshow and TCT Shows were another great highlight of 2013, we have more great things planned for shows this year, TCT is moving to a 3 Day event and will be bigger and better than ever.

Associations - 

We are starting to see many different 3D printing associations and 'standards' being setup, so I was delighted when the 3D printing association asked me to be a member of the board of advisers, we are aiming to promote, guide and advise as many people as possible with 3D printing and all forms of additive manufacturing.

News and dedicated 3D printing websites boomed in 2013 and will continue to grow and mature with both content and advice. It's almost hard to ignore 3D printing now and it's also very apparent, that many people are starting to be aware this technology is becoming useful for small businesses, and at a justifiable cost level.

My go-to news sites for 3D printing news are the 3DPrintingIndustry who I also try to write interesting articles for as time allows, most recently I posted one on filament recycling (tech for trade).

And another is 3DERS.org - an entire website with news and everything you can imagine to do with 3D printing, it's amazing what and how fast they pick up 3DP news and PR.

Sharing - 

We have also seen sharing sites grow and evolve. There are far too many to mention now, but one I have used and will continue with is the Excellent Youmagine (by the Ultimaker team).

And GitHub, where all sort of cool things happen, all the time :)

Kickstarter and IndieGoGo  both had a huge number of 3D printing and associated projects up for funding.

3D Printing Future - 

As usual time and other work got in the way of all the other things I wanted to experiment with and do, my list of projects and ideas grows bigger every month, but I still managed to design and do a lot of things over Christmas, I'll get up blog posts and images as soon as I can on these and future planned work, if any of you want to collaborate on any projects or innovation, do get in contact.

Lots more to share soon. It's going to be a very interesting year indeed.

Nils posted some great predictions by a few in the 3D printing community, lets see how many happen or disappear.

And for inspiration it's world #InventorsDay - go invent something... anything.

Rich.