Saturday 27 August 2016

3D Printing - At Last!

Yus, folks, I'm finally printing out plastic objects (it's called PLA: poly lactic acid):


The object on the left is a chess piece and on the right is what is called a Nautilus Gear, normally used as a demonstration piece for 3D printing, as it's difficult to make any other way. The pieces have a sort of fibrous quality, being made of strands of plastic rather than one piece, so there's both strength and lightness.

I took a video of the printer in operation:


The process is very laborious as it requires me to wipe away surplus plastic from around the nozzle (the seal isn't quite good enough) every five minutes or so. It's also slow, taking about two hours each to create the two pieces.

The series hasn't quite finished as they want to include a cover, but it seems good enough as it is.

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