Cool Engineering

Info on some cool engineering projects

Wednesday, November 24, 2010

3D printing - Veroboard Base

I've been using the UP! 3D printer for 2 weeks now and one of the common problems I've had along with other is warping of the corners for large prints. People have been using the paint, blue painters tape, kapton tape and other such ideas. I've tried the paint and blue 3M tape with mixed results and been a bit annoyed with the high maintainence.
It was then we stumbled across a really simple solution - veroboard. Veroboard is basically a PCB with lots of regularly placed holes. When you print the bottom layer goes into some of these holes and sets - keeping the model firmly anchored to the base.

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Wednesday, November 17, 2010

Printing in 3D

Well one of the most exciting gadgets i've been using recently isn't the remote control watch (although that is pretty cool) but a 3D printer. The printer basically works by melting and extruding ABS plastic in a 3D pattern you have designed in some CAD software like Solidworks.
So far I've printed an assortment of servo brackets, a mounting assembly for my PhD research and a some hardware for Adam's CNC machine design.
For those curious the printer is this one: http://pp3dp.com/