Here are three 3d printed chairs that look very futuristic and HYPER cool. They will probabyl find their place in some modern art gallery or in a tech billionaires mansion.
Voxel chair v1.0 by the Bartlett's Design Computation Lab
Well, they look cool, but are they comfortable? I doubt it. I'm actually pretty certain that they are almost unusable. I like my cheap Chinese faux-leather lazy-boy copy, chewed out by my dogs, where I can chillax with beer and chips in front of the TV.
Tropical Labs team made a coffee maker into a Delta 3d printer. Interesting hack. Tropical Labs engineers have been developing a flexible design for ultra-affordable 3D printers and this a part of their efforts.
Video of the Delta printing:
Printer features:
Coffee maker, Tropical Labs used an old Norelco 12 model they found at a thrift shop, but any coffee maker with a hot plate could potentially work
Arduino Mega 2560
RAMPS 1.4
A4988 Stepper Motor Driver Carrier
Nema 17 stepper motors
Home switches, optical or otherwise
3D printer hot end/extruder – again, any kind will do; Tropical Labs snagged theirs on eBay
Thomas made an interesting experiment where he baked in an standard household oven some PLA (and other filament) objects. It looks like you can improve the strength significantly with this simple method.
See the entire process and measurements in his video:
With change in strength, there is naturally some shrinkage and expansion in different axis.
Let us know in the comments if you have simillar experiences with heat treated PLA or simillar materials!
Hristo Borisov developed and published a set of 3D printable socket and switch modules that are controlled by ESP8266. ESP8266 is very interesting piece of electronics since it is very small, affordable (some 4 USD) and powerful since it has WiFi and can be used as Arduino. With this project you can control your electric devices via WiFi remotely and setup a simple DIY smart home project for a fraction of a price of commercial proprietary solutions.
Sockets are fully 3D printable and are of standard European "Schuko" type, designed in Autodesk Fusion 360. Design is modular so you could probably easily change it to any other socket standard.
There is even an iOS app for remote control of modules. Project is also open source so they get extra pints in my book.
Project homepage with all the code and instructions:
Ian van Mourik, a product designer from the Netherlands developed and open sourced an air purifier anyone can make. It is autonomous since it is controlled with Arduino and uses simple fans to move air trough particle filters and activated carbon. It costs around 70 Euro. It has some laser cut parts from plywood but you could cut them manually or use different structural support since they are mostly decorative. Looks like a great solution to improve your home air quality by removing dust and destroy mold particles or pollen (which I'm allergic to). Just keep in mind to change the filters or upgrade them with HEPA. Carbon filters get used up relatively fast.
Jonathan Odom developed and shared his great looking DIY 3d printable LED lamp. This battery powered wireless charging lantern will glow for 1.5 hours on a single charge. It works with a few cheap electronic parts and a USB charger. The USB cable plugs into the base, and the lamp sits on the base and charges through induction via Qi Universal transmitter and receiver. The lamp housing, charging base, and lens are all 3D printed on a almost any standard FDM printer since the lamp is a 5" X 5" (127mm X 127mm) cube.
Extremely detailed build guide with all the .STL files can be found at:
Air heat exchanger is a useful ventilation system part that will enable you to save energy while maintaining a good air flow in your enclosed space. It uses the outgoing air form the heated space to warm the cold air that is going from outside. Heat is thereby recovered and energy consumption for heating decreased. They are mostly used in passive or low-energy houses or buildings, but they can be used in most insulated spaces. There are also applications where you can cool the air coming in. The entire system is also called Heat Recovery Ventilation (HRV). You maintain air flow which improves indoor air quality, reduces bacteria and mold buildup, stabilizes the moisture but you don't need to open the windows and still keep some 70-80% of heat that would normally be wasted.
Yvo de Haas developed a small DIY 3d printable version that he implemented in his house with excellent results. The heat exchanger itself is printed in PLA while tubing is standard PVC with standard 60mm fans to drive the air. The electric fans can be noisy but they can be easily replaced with quieter ones.
He developed two versions of this DIY HRV: one that is partialy 3d printed and one that is fully 3d printed.
Here is what Yvo writes about the fully 3d printed unit tech specs:
The completely 3D printed version is, as the name suggests, completely 3D printed. To make it I modified my Ultimaker with an E3D V6 with 0.25mm nozzle.
The walls of the exchanger are 0.3mm thick. The outside dimensions of the exchanger are 15x8x7cm but it has an internal surface area of around 1000cm² (1/10th of a square meter or about a square foot). It is printed in PLA and takes around 10 hours to print at 0.16mm layer thickness.
With special adapters it can fit 60mm fans and all the other adapters I have designed special adapters were printed to connect the 60mm fans to the 3D printed exchanger.
Fully 3d printed heat exchanger element. Here is where the magic happens.
Heat exchanger installed on the window with fan ventilators attached.
Yvo measured and logged the temperature data:
The 4 temperatures (unit does not matter):
Hot in (the warmer air that enters the hot side of the exchanger)
Hot out (the warmer air that exits the cool side of the exchanger)
Cool in (the cooler air that enters the cool side of the exchanger)
Cool out (the cooler air that exits the hot side of the exchanger)
Does it work?
The answer, YES. After running for over 8 hours while I was at work, the air was a lot fresher. Usually when I come home there is a certain staleness to the air, but now I came home to nothing. Just nice air. I had the logger running for the entire time. The test started around 8 o'clock, every number on the X is 6 seconds. There are 3 zones of interest.
0-3000: Here the air outside is slowly heating up. Temperatures around this point are: HI: 17°C, HO: 10°C, CI: 6°C, CO: 14.5°C, giving 63.6% for the hot flow and 77.3% for the cool flow, averaging 70.5%.
3000-4000: Here the sun hits the window and there is a spike in temperature. No useful data can be gathered from this time.
4000-6000: The air outside is slowly cooling. Temperatures around this point are: HI: 17°C, HO: 12°C, CI: 8°C, CO: 15°C, giving 55.6% for the hot flow and 77.8% for the cool flow, averaging 66.7%.
Full construction tutorial with heat exchange data charts can be found at:
Pegboards are hard to find in Croatia and they are also expensive. If I could get them I would put them everywhere and use this 3d printable DIY pegboard organizing modules to store everything.
Pyra is 3d printed smart oven. It can cook food but it can be used for any process that needs heat chamber. And yes, it is smart, Internet-of-Things device.It is open sourced also! Kudos!
Key features hardware:
Built on Fortus 900MC 3D Printer
Printed in ULTEM 1010
FDA-Approved up to 375˚ F
Raspberry Pi + Arduino
WiFi Compatibility
12-Bit Digital Temperature Sensor
IoT capability:
Thermal Chamber Software
Smartphone Compatibility
HTML5 Web App
Cloud-Enabled
Built on Meteor
(Framework for Real-Time)
Other features:
Designed for Additive
Self-Supporting Structure
(No Support Material)
80-hour Build Time
3D Printed Heat Exchangers
Open Source
How it works:
A 3D printed fan in the base circulates air over heating elements and throughout specialized convective heating systems. The design eschews all the conventional wisdom of traditional manufacturing and embraces the capabilities of 3D printing.
This is evident through the design, from the profile of the complex heating channels to the shape of the smallest part in the heat exchangers 3D printed into the chamber walls. Even the overall shape of the Pyra was dictated by the constraints of FDM—sloping sides of 45 degrees are self-supporting and removing support material from the inside of the labyrinthine ductwork of the Pyra’s interior would be impossible.
I hate house cleaning. I really do. It was a source of many arguments with my girlfriend in the past, but I think she got used to it now. If you hate it also (or even if you like it), here are some DIY projects that can hel keep your house clean with a help of 3d printer.
We thought about buying roomba vaccum robot but it is just too expensive here in Croatia. There are several homemade Roomba clone projects but Jake Lee made a 3d printable DIY vacuum cleaner robot named Panda.
Here is a video of Panda in action:
If you want to make your Panda, here is a full build guide:
Stewart Allen designed 3d printable modules that will enable you to print full size furniture like chairs, tables, shelves etc. It will take some time to print it and I would like to see a price comparison with store bought furniture but there is much more pleasure in making your own stuff :-)
Filip Sjoo from Sweden developed this ... this ... 3d printed washing contraption :-) !
Technically it is "worlds first fully functional 3d printed dishwasher" but I see it more as a example of 3d design skills since it takes some knowledge to put all those gears and water powered turbine to work together.
Now, it's a nice design and idea, but it looks like it uses a LOT of water since it needs a strong stream to power it. You would probably save some money by using your hands or standard washing machine.
Simone Fontana and Ricardo Salomao repaired a broken refrigerator doors with 3d printed hinges. Another success story for owning your own universal home fabricator :-) The replacement part was printed on Ultimaker 2.
It would be interesting to see how many openings can the plastic hinge survive. Probably not so many (I might be wrong since it is only turning the door on the axial pivot).
Like someone pointed out in the comments, the full metal replacement hinge can be bought for some 10 USD, but it can be argued that in the future 3d printing materials will improve and then the whole replacement parts industry and economics will drastically change.
A hobbyist also gains knowledge and independance by repairing his own stuff.
Also do keep in mind that there are many plastic parts that cost a lot and are not under heavy stress.
Instructables user piratetv1 made and shared 7 inch retro looking 3d printable TV set powered by Chromecast. It looks very cool if you are into that design era...
Here is video of Philo in action:
Detailed instructions, BOM and build guide can be found on Instructables:
You can use nylon based filament to print functional permanent coffee machine filters or simple hot water filters. I'm not sure you could use PLA or ABS for it. Nylon is probably more heat stable and food safe with some water permeability properties. Here are some images of:
You will need a lot of filament for this project! It is a full size 3d printable chair which you can print on your standard home 3d printer in 202 or 77 interlocking pieces. Number of pieces depends on the model of chair. Makers say that it can be printed in ten days for cost of 30 USD.
I have a plan to build a music room in a old brick shed in my back yard. I want to have cheap HiFi vinyl listening setup. After a research I learned that sound diffusers are goot thing to have. I went to Thingiverse and found 3d printed sound diffusers by dkubicek.
The idea is good but the time needed to print sufficient are is ridiculous and the costs are just too high for me. I'll maybe make couple of modules just for decoration and stick with the wooden ones from wood scraps laying around.
From Thingiverse description:
What is a diffusor ?
If you have an room with unpleasing audio properties, one possibly reasons can be echos that occur in a structured way. Early echos (e.g. <0.4 sec) are e.g. well known for inhibiting personal speaking comfort. Now to get rid of echos, there are two practical ways: sound absorbers and sound diffusors. The goal of a good diffusor is to scatter sound, so that a specific incoming sound goes to all possible output directions. Hence echos are quite "mute" and do not start at a precise time, but one hears a slow buildup and decrease of echo noise. Audio absorbers create a harsh empty environment, similar to speaking in open air, while diffusors create a "warm" and sound of a well stocked living room. Mainly, there exist one and two-dimensional variants, and a you will find heaps of information in the references. And, they are extremely common in recording studios. Where do you want to put your diffusor ?On the sides and above the "viewing direction" to the sound source. In your rear, sound absorbers are a better choice.
Building a diffusor
Usually, diffusors are made from wood. The material should be reasonably stiff, so sound does not deform it. Ideally, the material should not burn, which sadly, PLA and ABS do. So, please be aware that a room with diffusors is a possible deathtrap. I figured that these diffusors can be printed easily with 3d printers, although the printsize requires to join many pieces to obtain a large enough area to actually effect the room sound. For a minimal effect, you want a couple of square meter (>25 prints).
Cost Analysis
I found one offer where 6 pieces of 0.6*0.6 mm diffusor cost 370 E. Thats 170 E per square meter. If you 3d print it with the octagonal structure, you will need 5kg of filament per square meter. Thats in a similar price regime. If you print for material costs. Also, you need to print for 16 days for a square meter on my printer...
The files
All files are created using openscad, the stls are just examples, and its highly recommended that you do not reuse a single part in a panel, but each part should be different. Also, you want to set the wall thickness according to your 3d printers nozzle. 2d rectangular diffusor. It has sideholes, to mount the pieces together. It is suited for 3d printing, but takes quite a while. Hexagonal diffusor. I figured that instead of a recitlinear grid, the diffusor cells can be aligned in a hexagonal layout. Really neat, no? However, you need to play with your slicing software, so that the outside walls actually print. Manhatten 1d diffusor, which prints quickest, but only diffuses in one direction. The figer structure might be to small, you might want to increase the cell size to 20mm, for even faster printing.
Reference:
The videos linked here are also shown above. They are not from me, and I just wanted to link them for further information for the reader.
Here is detailed instruction video on how to use ceramic delta 3d printer by Jonathan Keep. It explains basic software operations with Repetier host, clay preparation, clay printing etc. Very interesting.
