3D printing in architecture

Posted on by aneczka2307

http://gizmodo.com/this-bizarre-concrete-beam-is-the-smartest-use-of-3d-pr-1723340656

This Bizarre Concrete Beam Is the Smartest Use of 3D Printing In Architecture Yet 

This Bizarre Concrete Beam Is the Smartest Use of 3D Printing In Architecture Yet

I’m going to put this as gently as possible: 3D printing entire buildings, right down to the fixtures, doesn’t make a ton of sense yet.

It’s an exciting vision of the future, of course, but it’s also a myopic one—we’re forcing an emerging technology to fit into the mold of our existing world. While plenty of companies have demonstrated it can be done, that doesn’t mean it should be done. A group of Italian engineers and researchers want to prove that 3D printing individual structural unit makes more financial and environmental sense. The group, called WASProject, originally set out to design a printer that could produce full homes. “WASP was born with the dream of printing houses with 100% natural materials,” the company writes today. “But wisdom teaches that extremism is never a good thing.”

This Bizarre Concrete Beam Is the Smartest Use of 3D Printing In Architecture Yet 

Now, WASProject focuses on printing specific pieces of buildings and bridges—the structural beams—that usually require the most heavy and CO2-producing concrete. “Concrete is bad for the planet,” the group explains. “A ton of cement generates a ton of Co2.”

The group’s designs get rid of any redundant materials in a beam. With smart software modeling, they say they’re able to cut down on the amount of CO2 produced by a structural beam by 50 percent. The product of their research was unveiled today, and they describe it as “the world’s first 3D printed reinforced beam,” though other groups have certainly been pursuing similar ideas.

The fact that it’s lighter and less expensive isn’t the most important thing about the design—it’s the fact that is uses less concrete. Concrete is the most-used artificial material on Earth, as Gizmodo’s Maddie Stone wrote yesterday, and it’s now a $100 billion market. In countries that are developing cities very rapidly, it’s the singular building block: One popular stat, for example, holds that China has used more concrete in the past three years than the US did in the entire 20th century. And unfortunately, making the stuff contributes to as much as 7 percent of global CO2 emissions.

While printing full houses also has the potential to cut back on waste, by using construction refuse for “ink,” for example, the technology is still too nascent to be used widely anytime soon, or in any structure besides simplistic one-story homes. WASP’s beam, on the other hand, is already being stress-tested at the University of Naples’ engineering lab. One day, it could be integrated into conventional structures and skyscrapers, without the architects or developers needing to design a fully printed building.

It’s still a long ways from being adopted by the industry—this is still just an experiment. But it’s far less of a pipe dream than a full 3D-printed house. You might be waiting on that for a while.

gizmodo.com

by Kelsey Campbell-Dollaghan | 8/11/15 11:00am

Startup hopes to revolutionize construction with 3D printing

Posted on by aneczka2307

http://www.manufacturing.net/news/2015/07/startup-hopes-to-revolutionize-construction-with-3d-printing

Startup Hopes To Revolutionize Construction With 3D Printing

A Tennessee startup company’s 3D printing technology could enable builders to create strong, lightweight structures while dramatically cutting costs.

Branch Technology, based in Chattanooga, uses a technique called cellular fabrication to print matrices that serve as the internal structure for buildings.

A matrix weighing 2.5 pounds and complemented with spray foam, for example, can support nearly 3,000 pounds, and the process could reportedly reduce construction costs from thousands of dollars per square foot to as little as $80.

Conventional 3D printing gradually applies layers of plastic to create a structure; cellular fabrication, by contrast, prints a combination of plastic and carbon fiber into solid building material.

The system can create a structure up to 25 feet wide and 58 feet tall at the construction sites themselves.

“We fit them together like big Lego blocks on site,” founder and CEO Platt Boyd told Fortune.

Once printed, builders can add concrete, insulation or other materials to the structure.

“It’s the real deal,” Boyd said.

Branch thus far raised just more than $900,000 in funding and hopes to acquire another $1.5 million. The company is also sponsoring a home design competition in an effort to apply the technology at scale.

manufacturing.net

by Andy Szal | Thu, 07/30/2015 – 2:39pm

3D printing color

Posted on by aneczka2307

http://mashable.com/2015/06/19/3d-printing-color/

3d-prints

3D printing has been taken to a whole new level: Color

3D printing is driving a huge revolution in the world of design and technology. In the process, it is changing the way we think about the design, prototyping and manufacturing of just about everything.

But anyone who has played with a 3D printer will be aware of one significant problem. This 800-pound gorilla is the issue of color. 3D prints can be magnificent copies of more or less any shape. But in terms of color, they are mere shadows of the originals.

Today, that looks set to change thanks to the work of Alan Brunton and pals at the Fraunhofer Institute for Computer Graphics Research in Germany, who have worked out how to produce accurate colors in a 3D print for the first time. Their work promises to take 3D printing to an entirely new level.

The approach takes advantage of a relatively new way to make 3D prints. In general, these objects are made one layer at a time by fusing powder or laying down extruded plastic. Neither approach gives anything but rudimentary control over an object’s color.

What’s needed instead is a way of creating objects in the same way as 2D printers make images, pixel by pixel. In other words, this requires 3D prints to be laid down, not in layers, but voxel by voxel.

In the last year or so, exactly this technology has come to market. It works using a number of inkjets that lay down an object, droplet by droplet. These droplets are instantly cured by UV light to form a solid.

That immediately allows the possibility of much more accurate control of color, since each droplet can be thought of as a voxel. This is the approach that Brunton and pals have taken, but it is easier said than done for a number of reasons.

The first is the sheer volume of data and number crunching involved in creating a virtual color 3D object, even before the printing begins.

The droplets from inkjets are tiny — there are some 18 million of them in a solid cubic centimeter. So any decent-sized object must be made up of tens of billions of voxels and the impact that each one has on the final color has to be calculated.

The second is that the droplets are translucent because UV light must be able to pass through to cure them. This has a significant impact on their visual appearance since light ends up passing through several layers of voxels, being scattered along the way.

That means droplet color has to be carefully controlled to a depth of several voxels throughout the object. And this dramatically increases the complexity of the algorithms needed to calculate their required colors.

The final challenge comes from the nature of 3D printing. In 2D printing, it is possible to combine up to three different inks at any point on an image. In a 3D print, each droplet must be a single material and that places important constraints on what is possible colorwise.

Nevertheless, Brunto and co have made significant advances by bringing to bear the many decades of research that has been done on color management for 2D printing and for color imaging in general.

Their approach is to combine two techniques. The first is the 3D equivalent of a 2D printing technique called half-toning. This is where continuous shade and color is replaced by an arrangement of dots of different sizes and spacing. The second is a way of calculating the color of a surface given the way light has been scattered for several layers of voxels below.

And the results look impressive. In the pictures above, three apples and the thumb are real. The rest are 3D prints but it is not easy task to tell them apart.

And Brunton and co say the results should get better in the near future as materials scientists develop less translucent printing materials and as printers become even higher resolution. In both these respects, the team’s algorithms are future proof. Less translucent inks should be easier to handle and the higher resolution should be manageable too.

The ability to combine translucent and opaque inks should even make it possible to reproduce the surface appearance of many biological materials that are also semi-translucent, such as skin.

That’s fascinating work. It will usher in a new generation of printing application. And it will make the current generation of printers look thoroughly old-fashioned in just a few years.

References:

mashable.com

http://mashable.com/2015/06/19/3d-printing-color/

Warehouse A

Posted on by aneczka2307

http://www.pymnts.com/in-depth/2015/3d-printing-may-make-the-warehouse-a-thing-of-the-past/#.VdXcMPntmkp

Innovation

3D PRINTING MAY MAKE THE WAREHOUSE A THING OF THE PAST

Not long ago, during his 2013 State of the Union Address, U.S. President Barack Obama called attention to 3D printing, saying it “has the potential to revolutionize the way we make almost everything.” While the c is expected to alter the way consumer goods are made, 3D printing could also affect the entire supply chain—from warehousing to profit models.

Collapsing the Supply Chain

In the not-so-distant future, manufacturing may no longer be associated with warehouses filled with stacks of finished products waiting for shipment. Instead, 3D printing allows manufacturers to easily produce goods to order.

According to Ed Morris, director of the National Additive Manufacturing Innovation Institute, 3D printing brings an on-demand business model to suppliers. “Whenever you need a product, you just make it,” herecently told third-party logistics company Cerasis. “That collapses the supply chain down to its simplest parts, adding new efficiencies to the system.” This simplification will spread throughout the entire supply chain, from assembly and carrying to distribution.

The value of 3D printing is maturing from its early days of product prototyping and expanding into the realm of finished products. Currently, finished products make up just 28 percent of the money spent on printing technology. That figure is expected to jump to 80 percent by the end of the decade. For manufacturers looking to cut costs, the advantages of moving toward 3D printing are numerous. On-demand printing requires little physical storage space, allowing manufactures to reduce overhead by moving production closer to the intended market, and shortening the length of the chain.

Printing is also well suited for low-volume and specialized products, particularly replacement parts. Shifting this segment of work to printers from factory floors frees up traditional manufacturers to focus their time, energy and talents on other goods. Some experts expect the change to be drastic. Cutting the need for high-volume production facilities and low-level assembly workers, 3D printing effectively cuts out half of the supply chain in “one single blow,” according to Cerasis.

Caution: Bumps Ahead

Despite the advantages and positive growth, the expense of 3D printing machines, materials and maintenance is slowing mass adoption. Printers now range from $1,000 to over $1 million. The price of materials remains high. Data collected by Supply Chain Quarterly with the Center for Supply Chain Research at The Pennsylvania State University’s Smeal College of Business revealed 3D polymers can cost up to 104 times more than the polymers used in injection molds. Metals also cost more, some 7-to-15 times more than metals used in traditional manufacturing methods.

But 3D printing can reduce the expense and complexity of production, lowering the cost of entry for new manufacturers. Printing allows for low-cost prototyping and the ability of small orders opening up the market for new companies to challenge legacy companies or to cater to a niche market. The increased level of competition could force suppliers and manufacturers to find ways to differentiate themselves or offer additional value-added services.

Profit-making potential expands beyond the classic buyer-seller relationship in the new 3D printingsupply chain. In its review of the disruptive forces that accompany the 3D printing revolution, McKinsey & Company highlighted the option for businesses to sell blueprints to be printed somewhere else. As the tools needed to print products become more widely available, buyers could print aftermarket or replacement parts on their own equipment using data supplied by manufacturers.

The on-demand wave has hit many aspects of B2B transactions, from credit cards to business travel, as buyers demand to do business in real-time. Now, that wave is washing over manufacturing, too – and the opportunity could be quite lucrative. McKinsey Global Institute research estimates 3D printing could have a yearly impact of $550 billion on the manufacturing process alone by 2025. But for now, high costs are likely to keep 3D printing a pipedream for many manufacturers today.

References:

pymnts.com

by  | 8:15 AM EDT April 28th, 2015
http://www.pymnts.com/in-depth/2015/3d-printing-may-make-the-warehouse-a-thing-of-the-past/#.VdXcMPntmkp

3D printing revolutionising space travel

Posted on by aneczka2307

http://europe.newsweek.com/3d-printers-revolutionise-space-travel-within-two-years-324021

3D Printers to Revolutionise Space Travel Within Two Years

NASA are aiming to introduce 3D printers into spacecraft within two years, allowing astronauts to set up permanent habitats on other planets and even print their own food.

In an interview with Newsweek, NASA’s 3D printing chief Niki Werkheiser says the technology will revolutionise space travel by allowing astronauts to be away from year for years on exploration missions without relying on ground control.

Current costs for space transportation are $10,000 per pound of mass. The development therefore has the potential to save millions of dollars as astronauts can travel light and print essentials on demand whilst in space.

NASA is currently developing its largest rocket yet, the Space Launch System (SLS). The SLS is due to make its first test flight in 2017 and Werkheiser says her team are working to get a 3D printer on-board.

So far, Werkheiser’s team at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama have produced several rocket components and a small wrench with the technology and yesterday the team announced the first successful print of a copper engine part for rockets.

However, they are working on much more exciting projects, including printing parts for a small shelter using substitutes for Martian and lunar sand – the theory being that astronauts could one day use the printers to build themselves habitats on extraterrestrial surfaces.

“The bottom line is being able to print anything you need in orbit. When we live on the ground, we don’t think much about running to Home Depot if something breaks but when you’re in space, even tiny things make a difference,” says Werkheiser.

The space agency is also funding a Texas-based company which is researching printing food, and has already produced prototype results in the form of printed pizza.

Other projects include developing a recycler which breaks down food wrappers into filament which the printer could convert into useful tools like circuit boards and batteries.

Werkheiser is optimistic that commercial applications of the technology means 3D printing in space will not be a thing of the future for long.

3D products are already being touted as offering a solution to homelessness and a means of creating human organs for those in need of transplants.

“The beautiful thing about 3D printing is that you’re going to see a pretty rapid evolution of commercial development. It’s going to happen,” says Werkheiser.

NASA has spent some $3m on the In-Space Manufacturing project which Werkheiser heads up.

The prototype 3D printer used on the International Space Station is the size of a small microwave and prints objects the size of an iPhone 6.

It produces objects by a process known as additive construction, using plastic filament as ink and constructing objects by a layering technique. Instructions are uplinked to the printer from ground control via email.

Werkheiser’s team are working on introducing metal filament to allow the printer to produce sturdier tools.

However, they are still working to overcome certain challenges posed by manufacturing in microgravity – for example, whether the layers of heated plastic form strong bonds when layered on top of each other in the absence of gravity.

Nevertheless, Werkheiser believes the technology will provide the key to allowing astronauts to live in space with the same freedom as on earth.

“This suite of capabilities will enable us to operate and live in space as we do on the ground. You need to get that autonomy in space and this is the secret sauce to getting there.”

europe.newsweek.com

by  |  4/22/15 at 1:45 PM

3D printing use to help teach blind girl

Posted on by aneczka2307

http://www.3ders.org/articles/20150417-father-uses-3d-printing-to-help-teach-his-blind-daughter-math.html

Father uses 3D printing to help teach his blind daughter math

While 3D printing technology has been steadily cementing its reputation as an excellent tool for help the disabled and people suffering from unusual medical conditions, one family from San Diego proves that we shouldn’t forget about the blind either. For one of Jason and Dori Walker’s daughters, Layla, is blind but is using 3D printed objects to ensure she doesn’t fall behind in school.

As father Jason explained in a brief documentary, he and his wife are raising a loving family with five children, of which three have been adopted. ‘When we started having kids and got married, we had two kids and lost a third one. We decided at that point to just adopt. My wife found these kids on a video on the Huffington Post. They were a set of three children, thirteen, ten and seven. They were looking for a forever home,’ he says.

This story already has everything to warm your heart, but unfortunately the eldest of the three, Layla, was born blind. The girl, who is currently in the eighth grade, was facing tremendous difficulties due to her blindness. Education, after all, is completely geared towards sight and while plenty of braille alternatives have fortunately been made already, lots of basic concepts in math, for instance, are very difficult to grasp when blind.

Father Jason, fortunately, happened to already have a ROBO 3D printer at home, which he quickly turned into an educational machine that turns intangible concepts such as fractures into tangible objects. ‘Layla’s predominant sense that she uses to see and learn the world is touch,’ mother Dori explains, so the parents set out to 3D print objects for their daughter. As Layla liked busses at the time, Jason first 3D printed a bus on his ROBO 3D printer to enable her to understand the concept of turning thoughts into objects. ‘I thought my dad bought it at the store. I asked for a bus and then a few hours later I could touch it,’ Layla said about that first print.

But it has since proven especially useful for understanding fractures, which teachers found difficult to explain to a blind person. As no simple teaching alternatives for the blind existed, Jason just decided to make one himself. ‘I started 3D printing pieces of pie and take them down to her and explain that this is a third and this is a sixth. Because in her mind, she thought that a sixth was bigger than a third because the number is bigger,’ Jason says. Helping his daughter feel and experience objects, just as you would draw a pizza for other struggling children, really helped. ‘I see with my hands so some ideas are hard, fractions are cool. And then geography was easier once I could feel the earth,’ Kayla said of these objects.

References:

3ders.org

by Alec | Apr. 17, 2015

http://www.3ders.org/articles/20150417-father-uses-3d-printing-to-help-teach-his-blind-daughter-math.html

3D printing and economic impact

Posted on by aneczka2307

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-04-01/3d-printing-impact-bigger-than-internet-expert-says/6365296

3D printed jet engine

3D printing will have a bigger economic impact than the internet, technology specialist says

Manufacturing industries need to embrace 3D printing, which will have an even bigger impact on economies and society than the internet, an Australian technology specialist says.

Steve Sammartino is a digital entrepreneur and venture capitalist who advises business on how to adjust to disruptive technologies and the digital revolution.

While most of us have heard about 3D printing and its potential to improve medical treatments and manufacturing processes, Mr Sammartino says 3D printing will be far more than a niche tool.

He says it will transform everything about the way we live within a matter of years.

Speaking to The World Today, Mr Sammartino said 3D printing represented an extraordinary technological shift.

“The first time I saw it, it blew my mind as well because to see actually something physically get made layer upon layer in front of you is quite astounding. I think that 3D printing will be even greater than the information revolution because it democratises manufacturing for the first time.

“We’re going to see desktop manufacturing in the same way that we saw desktop publishing and information transfer and so we can actually transfer physical products to other people who can print it at the other end, just like we would send an email or send a video.”

But while that may be good for individuals, it will be hugely disruptive for industry, and Mr Sammartino said business leaders could not afford to ignore it.

“I think you need to embrace it. Like we’ve seen with the social web, the companies that moved quickly to embrace the new tools and collaborate with their audience have been the major beneficiaries.

“In fact, the idea of making and selling items is not nearly as important as the idea of providing platforms and collaborating with your end consumers.

“So trying to fight the tide is kind of like — it’s not a strategy that’s effective for the manufacturing industry.

“The best thing they can do is work out how to use it as a platform and collaborate and get faster and quicker innovation by working with their customers and their supply chains rather than trying to fight the tide of the things that they used to make.

“Because we’ve seen with the social and informational web that’s a strategy which simply doesn’t work.”

‘It will change everything we do’

Mr Sammartino said even businesses that did not manufacture anything needed to pay attention to the technology.

“It’s just a little bit like the internet. When it arrived we thought, ‘Oh, that may be interesting for media’, but as we’ve seen it’s transformed every type of business no matter what industry.

An ear is fabricated with a 3D printer in a laboratory at Cornell University.

“The internet is an important part of our business, and 3D printing, while we can’t see exactly how that might manifest itself, there’s no doubt that it’ll change everything we do from just simple operations and the spaces we work in and in unforeseeable ways it’ll impact, I think, most businesses.

“Even the way our homes are furnished will change and the type of things that we print at home. It’ll even have an impact on our foods — we’ll be 3D printing food. Smart brands will be selling components.

“Just like the ink jet printers get sold, you might have a chocolate company selling you the ingredients that go into your 3D printing machine to print things exactly the way that you want.”

But making 3D printing more accessible will come with risks, Mr Sammartino said.

“One of the unforeseeable externalities is that I think that we have already seen 3D printed guns and one of the problems with those is that when they get used there’s no safety concerns in the manufacturing process,” he said.

“Is there a duty of care of the person sending the file or is the duty of care with the printing manufacturer or is the duty of care with the software designer that designed or scanned the file?”

He said it was an issue that needed to be considered by the Government.

“So you get all of these other legal issues that we’re going to need to be very speedy on from a government perspective so that we’re across it and we protect consumers.”

abc.net.au

by Sarah Sedghi and Eleanor Hall | 1 Apr 2015, 3:07pm

The World’s tiniest drill!

Posted on by Malta 3D Printing

Another Unique Product Created by 3D Printing: The World’s Tiniest Drill!

http://3dprint.com/51677/3d-printed-smallest-drill/

drillani
New Zealand Man 3D Prints the World’s Smallest Working Drill — Just 7.5mm Wide
3D printing has shown that it is the perfect technology to use when wishing to create something unique, whether it is a piece of jewelry, a keepsake, or even a house or car. The technology, unlike that of more traditional means of manufacturing, is an affordable way of creating one-of-a-kind products, and is one of the reasons I love covering the industry. There is always something new to report on, and today is no different.
Lance Abernethy is an ordinary man from Auckland, New Zealand. He works as a maintenance engineer, fixing machinery in a factory. However, the idea that recently popped into his head was not ordinary at all.
“I have always liked small things and have created small items since I was a little kid,” Abernethy tells 3DPrint.com. “I was with my work colleagues and was talking about mythical stories about one country making a twist drill and sending it to another. The other country returned it with a hole through the middle. Things like this easily challenge me and my idea was born.”
The 3D Printed Drill
That idea was to create the world’s smallest working drill, and he would do this using his Ultimaker 2 3D printer. To start off, he used a CAD software package calledOnshape 3D. He drew the outer shell of the drill, using his “normal” size drill as a reference.
“I wanted to make it as small as possible so I cramped all my parts as tight as possible,” Abernethy tells us.
Once he had the design just the way he wanted it, he 3D printed it on his Ultimaker 2, using a 0.25mm nozzle and a 0.04mm layer height. He also set his printer to print very slowly, at just 10mm per second. Printed without any support, the 3-piece drill took about 25 minutes to completely print out. The drill consists of two halves plus a 3D printed chuck which is pressed onto the motor shaft. Abernethy uses a hearing aid battery for power, a small button, and a miniature motor. For wiring, he stripped out a headphone cable. While 3D printing was really quite easy, assembling the drill was another story.
drillfeatured2
“It took me 3 hours to solder and try and squeeze [all the parts] in,” he tells us. “The wires kept breaking off when I was trying to connect them and it was a nightmare trying to hold them in place and try to not short the battery.”
drill3
When complete, the drill — which measures just 17mm tall, 7.5mm wide, and 13mm long — holds a 0.5mm twist drill and can drill through soft objects.
“I have seen claims of the world’s smallest cordless drill and I know mine is smaller but it’s not a confirmed claim,” Abernethy tells us.
What’s next for Abernethy? He wants to make an even smaller drill, using a smaller battery that he has already found. It should be interesting to see how small he can get it. What do you think about this incredibly small 3D printed drill? Discuss in the 3D printed drill forum thread on 3DPB.com.
drillnews
3DPRINT.COM
by  | MARCH 18, 2015

Sagrada Familia Church in Barcelona and 3D printing

Posted on by Malta 3D Printing

The still Unfinished Sagrada Familia Church in Barcelona is Assisted by 3D Printing!

http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-31923259

3D printing ‘builds’ Sagrada Familia

Construction of the Sagrada Familia church in Barcelona began in 1882 and the building is still unfinished. It was designed by Catalan architect Antoni Gaudi but by the time of his death in 1926, it was only one quarter complete.

The project, which relies on private donations, has developed slowly ever since and it is hoped the church will be completed by 2026.

And as BBC Click’s Spencer Kelly discovered, the 21st Century technology of 3D printing is now playing a crucial role in ensuring this 19th Century project will be completed.

References:

BBC.COM
http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-31923259

First 3D printed dishwasher!

Posted on by Malta 3D Printing

Don’t You Just Love Technology?

http://goo.gl/P2tCfG

dishwasher1

Swedish Student Creates the World’s First 3D Printed Fully Functional Dishwasher

If you are an engineer and you have not yet had the opportunity to tinker around with CAD software and 3D print your designs, you are severely missing out. 3D printing has opened a whole new realm of possibilities for designers and engineers all over the globe. The technology allows these individuals to design or engineer a product, and then bring those products into the tangible world in a matter of hours. If 3D printing doesn’t greatly speed up the innovation and invention process in the coming years, nothing will. While many people look at desktop 3D printers as simply being toys for hobbyists, those individuals with unique ideas see it as a tool for bringing their ideas to life.

For one 22-year-old Swedish engineering student, named Filip Sjöö, 3D printing allowed him to come up with an invention unlike anything we have seen before.

“I got my 3D-printer for Christmas,” Sjöö tells 3DPrint.com. “It’s a Prusa i3, and it’s probably the best Christmas gift ever.”

When most ordinary people get their first 3D printer, they experiment by printing out simple little objects such as combs, mini Yoda figures, and other figurines. Sjöö, however, decided to jump right into an engineering project that he thought would be fascinating to create. He decided to 3D print a fully functional water-powered dishwasher.

“First I didn’t know exactly what I wanted to do, but I knew I wanted do to something that was powered by the water from the tap,” Sjöö tells us. “The first thing I did, was try to figure out how to attach the thing to the tap. The best way to do this was probably to use the threads on the tap.”

dishwasher5

After he had measured the threads, he began searching around the internet for a standard CAD file that would fit onto his sink’s tap. Unfortunately though, he was unable to find anything, anywhere with just the right measurements. This left Sjöö with only one other option — create his own.

dishwasher4

Using SolidWorks, he began designing his tap attachment, making sure that his threads did not exceed an angle of 45 degrees.

“The maximum angle you can print without supports is approximately 45 degrees,” Sjöö explains. “Because of this, I had to make a custom design. I was not sure that I would succeed in printing functional threads, as the pitch was only 1 mm, but surprisingly it worked very well after some failiures.”

Now it was off to the fun part. Sjöö had to devise a plan to fabricate a creation that could actually wash dishes effectively. The first idea that popped into his head was creating an internal water turbine, which he thought would be extremely efficient. However, he soon came to the realization that it was very difficult to do this without using any seals. Because of the high pressure of the water from his tap, many leaks formed, causing a larger mess than anyone would want to deal with when washing dishes.

Sjöö is an engineer though, and engineers are trained to come up with multiple solutions to the same problem. So this is exactly what he did. He devised a different plan. He would create an external turbine, which may be even cooler than the initial internal iteration, since it would be visible to onlookers.

“The rest of the CAD modeling was done in just a couple of hours,” he tells us. “The gear ratios on the dishwasher were based on well grounded guesses about the flow rate of the water and some basic calculations. My goal was the make the brush go back and forth one time every second or so.”

Once the design was complete, it was on to 3D printing the parts. Sjöö admits that there were a few failures at first which required him to modify some of the parts, but all in all he says the process went very well.

dishwasherfeatured

After printing had finished and the parts were just as Sjöö had intended them to be, he assembled them, hooked his newly built device up to his water faucet, and turned it on. The brush, which is not 3D printed, is held onto the dishwasher using zip ties. As the water runs through the turbine, it causes the brush to move back and forth at a steady rate. While Sjöö admits that it probably isn’t going to be a product that many people, if any, are interested in purchasing, he never intended for it to be more than a “funny little project that [he] had to do.”

Sjöö is currently working on finishing up his engineering degree. In his spare time when he isn’t experimenting with his 3D printer, he runs a company that he co-founded, called Headface, where he is the designer.

dishwasher3

What do you think about this intuitively designed device created by Filip Sjöö? Discuss in the 3D Printed Dishwasher forum thread on 3DPB.com.

3DPRINT.COM
by  | FEBRUARY 20, 2015