Construction 3D printer ?

I deal with construction work and interested in this topic. Some internet posts state that a house can be build for under 4000 USD. Wondered if there is any inexpensive, DIY designs for construction 3D printers ?

You could do a web search for "3d house printer"????

16 HOUSE 3D PRINTERS AVAILABLE IN 2018

[www.aniwaa.com]

Expensive initial investment: house 3D printers can sometimes cost up to one million dollars.

Partially-built houses: house 3D printers only build house frames. The 3D printing process is usually paused to manually settle plumbing, wiring and rebars.

Rough exterior: most 3D printed homes’ exteriors are not as smooth as traditionally-built houses.

As far as inexpensive goes, your best bet would be a hangprinter style setup with cables. Anything with a solid gantry will get very heavy and expensive very quickly as you scale it up. Cables stay relatively cheap.

Pumping/mixing concrete for the extruder is a bit of a niche issue so you're unlikely to find a cheap or easy solution to that problem without significant work on your part (thus maybe not so easy or even cheap depending on the number of prototypes).

I don't think this is a cheapest or quickest way to build a house if that's what you're after.

I agree with the hangprinter configuration being a more economical approach for a construction printer. The more difficult conundrum as Trakyan already stated would be controlling the deposit of concrete. It would 100% have to be a custom solution.

I think concrete in a gravity fed hopper configuration may be a smart approach, perhaps with some kind of augur to feed it through the equivalent of a bowden tube to a nozzle. The other important consideration is what consistency of concrete would be best for a 3d printing solution. What speed can you layer it up at without having issue related to weight and deformation. Are there other perhaps quick-set/quick-dry solutions you could use to prevent that from being a problem.

I'm fascinated by the concept but lack some key experience/knowledge to give you any real advice. My brain is whirling with ideas of how this could be done, and in an affordable fashion, but I'm unsure which of them would be effective.

piping concrete is fairly difficult in general from what I know. It's usually "poured" rather than pumped since all of the grit and aggregate would wreak havock on any sort of pump. Possibly mixing it at the head could work? You can get the concrete mix to the head via vacuum, similar to how pellets are fed to the seemecnc part daddy, and then water can be pumped to the head and the two components mixed there.

While I still find the idea of 3D printing houses from concrete to make them "cheap, quick and easy" to be a bit of a misnome(?), there are a few ideas I can suggest.

3D printing a house involves printing hollow walls out of concrete. These hollow walls then have rebar setup in them and more concrete poured in. In essence, you're printing a mold. Maybe the mold can be printed in something that is easier to work with and extrude? An expanding foam perhaps? It would add a layer of insulation I guess and you'd have "post processing" to do regardless of whether the mold was straight concrete or foam (drywall, paint etc.).

As for actually cheap, quick and easy houses, I've heard of pre-cut panels that assemble into houses (generally pretty wasteful considering the volume of offcuts produced), and using modular panel-like structures as building blocks for a bigger building. The chinese have some neat ideas in this area, have a google.
[www.youtube.com]

See [3dprinthuset.dk]. Powered by Duet electronics of course

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Large delta printer [miscsolutions.wordpress.com], E3D tool changer, Robotdigg SCARA printer, Crane Quad and Ormerod

Disclosure: I design Duet electronics and work on RepRapFirmware, [duet3d.com].

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See [3dprinthuset.dk]. Powered by Duet electronics of course

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Disclosure: I have a financial interest in sales of the Panel Due, Mini IR height sensor, and Duet WiFi/Duet Ethernet.

^Just keep in mind above quote. If it wasn't 'powered by Duet, he wouldn't have piped up.

Ok, shameless plugs aside... Trakyan, I don't think a pump would be effective either, however, what I suggested would make sense in terms of an affordable and relatively inexpensive solution with the added benefit of relative simplicity

Here's a MS Paint sketch illustrating what I'm talking about. Don't know if it would work in practice but seems fairly straightforward.

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obelisk79
^Just keep in mind above quote. If it wasn't 'powered by Duet, he wouldn't have piped up.

I guess you like jumping to conclusions. Most of my posts on these forums have nothing to do with Duet.

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 10/01/2018 01:25PM by dc42.

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Large delta printer [miscsolutions.wordpress.com], E3D tool changer, Robotdigg SCARA printer, Crane Quad and Ormerod

Disclosure: I design Duet electronics and work on RepRapFirmware, [duet3d.com].

In obelisk's defense, a large chunk of your posts are something from a "subtle" *wink wink nudge nudge* "the duet can solve this problem for you", to less subtle plugs. I get why, but still

In terms of concrete extrusion, I suppose a look at those machines that pour foundations would be a good start. Not concrete mixer trucks, but the ones with a long chute that can be pointed and directed where you need the concrete to go, I can't say I know the proper name. Found this googling "concrete pourer"
[central-concrete.net]

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/02/2018 01:09AM by Trakyan.

The cure time of concrete is important in this type of construction. They usually let it cure over night to avoid cracks.
If you had fast curing concrete, you'd have to mix it 'on the fly'. If it would cure inside the printhead ( during travel moves or lunch time ) you'd have to replace the whole thing $$$
I'd put my money on printed foam walls, covered with concrete. All done 'onsite' and then put some labour in cleaning up surface and cutouts.

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 10/02/2018 01:52AM by o_lampe.

Most construction concrete is pumped.

[en.wikipedia.org]


Low end pumps --- pump to about 125ft height

Over in Saudi Arabia they pump to over 600m (1960ft) height

supporting weight of material in piping biggest problem.

Wouldn't want to be the poor sucker stuck maintaining those pumps.

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dc42
I guess you like jumping to conclusions. Most of my posts on these forums have nothing to do with Duet.

You very easily could have provided that link without highlighting that it runs on your product. You're almost as bad as a snake-oil salesman.
To your credit, you created an excellent product that pretty much sells itself by word of mouth on its own merits, which is why I don't understand why you have to name-drop Duet or RRF every time the opportunity presents.

Also, be advised that on the 3d printing facebook group, people are frequently recommending the chinese Duet-WiFi clones from aliexpress. I've even defended your product against the clones and tell them to buy from you because I respect your work. I just dislike the shameless plugs.

We can argue in PM if you really want to go back and forth though

Back on topic: (sorry OP for the derail)

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/03/2018 08:21PM by obelisk79.

Here's a video of the 3dprinthuset prototype concrete printer in action: [www.youtube.com]. Notice how it rotates the 'nozzle' to extrude the concrete in the correct direction.

The wavy walls may be aesthetically pleasing, but finding furniture to fit might be difficult! Maybe the outer walls should be wavy and the inner ones straight.

A search in youtube for "concrete 3d printer" yielded several more results.

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 10/04/2018 03:59AM by dc42.

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Large delta printer [miscsolutions.wordpress.com], E3D tool changer, Robotdigg SCARA printer, Crane Quad and Ormerod

Disclosure: I design Duet electronics and work on RepRapFirmware, [duet3d.com].