Powder Printer?

Ideas are good....ripping off ideas is bad. End to that non-sense.

I'm happy with the inkjet powder printer using either corn starch with sugar and water as a binder. Very fine. Yes the parts will be extremely delicate but with using a vacuum to excavate the part(s) and then a binder like wax, gelatin, latex, pva glue, something other than epoxy or harsh chemicals. That stage can be tested out.

I think the biggest issues for me isn't the mechanical or slicing software but the electronics for steppers and coding to activate the modified actions that printers normally don't do. I could just buy a cnc stepper kit with motors, power supply, drivers. Not sure how the printer is going to communicate with the drivers. I thought when the printer sends the signal to feed the paper into itself this signal would be fed to a controller board where it would then activate a program that I program to tell the bin(s) to raise/lower and spread....etc. I prefer to stay away from using relays like Afagossa. The easiest is to buy a kit and wire it up to the printer. Maybe will have to build a controller board with IC of choice and program it. I want my hand to be held here...like others who don't want to spend their life building a machine but instead using the machine.

I've followed other's blog but find they're not exactly step by step instructions, but more like "this is what I did and I'm not going into too much detail here".

a very basic powder printer can easily be hacked from most any inkjet style printer and I have been working on one of this kind of design off and on for a while now. most of my time though has been taken up in my makerbot and building a mendel so haven't worked on this project in a few months. While I agree that neither of the reprap designs are appropriate for powder printing in any major way I like to keep my options open and have more things I can do. making a functional powder print mechenism for a reprap wouldnt be all that difficult but then again it wouldnt be super efficient either. But if i can proof of concept a print head for a reprap then making a reprap that is designed from the ground up for powder printing is just another step. Reprap is a concept not a product. weather a person makes a darwin, mendel or something completely different is irrelevant. If the printer abides by the tenants of the reprap ideal then by definition it is a reprap.

Dental plaster or alpha grade gypsum is very strong and rapid set, to get it to spread in very thin layers may require adding lubricant in the form of glass powder or similar.
different makes of Printers have different cleaning and parking cycles, older printers were simpler and easier to hack, although the same in principle they differ in the way they do things, for this reason the covers should be removed carefully from the candidate printer and studied in detail the mode of operation when doing print jobs, some may do a lot of head cleaning whilst others do less, paper sensors and timings etc, a micro controller such as the PIC or Arduino can then be programmed to address these problems and move motors, read limit switches etc. the electronics needed are all here on the reprap sites for this approach. (Dman, I would recommend the Arduino or Sanguino, if you have not got one treat yourself to one, it will open up a world of possibilities)

Bubble jet cartridges replace the whole print head so if when experimenting with binders one is made useless, a new one can be installed, but with Epsom type peizo heads they are fixtures and only the ink tank is replaced, or it is with the ones I have dismantled, so a lot depends on the printer chosen, another thing to consider is that building one part is equivalent to printing hundreds if not thousands of pages, how many pages is the printer designed to last??.

Thanks johnrpm...someone who stays on topic.

Ya, I've been looking at an Arduino...currently have a Basic X-24...but it's aging. I'm enrolled in an Electronics Technician program and am craving to do something practical for myself in this field. I prefer to build from scratch. I'll be studying C language this Xmas which will help.

I think it's best do finish another semester and tackle this in the summer. I'll keep the ideas on paper. Just anxious.

There's a liquid acrylic copolymer product called Forton VF-812 that improves the strength of plaster mouldings and waterproofs them. The plaster mix is gypsum, melamine and ammonium chloride. The acrylic can be diluted with water, and the setting can be accelerated with aluminium sulphate. If it can be diluted to a suitable viscosity for an ink cartridge, it might be a good candidate for a binder.

Dman
If you download the arduino IDE or look at the example programs, some are very simple, such as blinking LED's etc, but by connecting a few LED's and playing
with the program you will see the effect of your changes and this gives a very warm feeling and the realisation that you can control motors, read sensors, etc, etc, in fact the possibilities are endless.

Murd
Thanks for the info

Quote
The plaster mix is gypsum, melamine and ammonium chloride

, this looks like an interesting material, will look for it in the UK.

The binder is the key to getting a strong part, if we had a binder that achieved high strength then the powder could be sand or some other bulk powder, but inkjet heads may not be able to handle such binders?.

In the new year I will start the process of creating some form of generic powder printer as I have 3 identical Lexmark printer chassis to play with and plenty of spare time.

I have all of the empty print cartridges so there will be plenty of scope to try some of these print material ideas out. I'm not sure how I will make a roller to flatten the powder layer to be printed maybe taking 22mm copper pipe with a skate roller at each end and filling it with a concrete slurry could be good method to try. I have 2 or 3 different types of casting powder I could try. Midge saw this thread and has a keen interest in seeing some thing work as it ties in with her interest in any thing that could be used in artistic way.

Before I can start this as a new project I need to finish my Grid tie Solar power project and the Solar powered workshop project need to populate this blog (need to continue the many projects we are doing). Also need to finish the weekend Mendel Cartesian bot build I started last Saturday and will attempt to finish this weekend. I think had my HD not failed on Sunday I would have completed Mendel from scratch in one weekend. Only time at the the weekend will confirm this thou. I have all the timber arriving tomorrow for the Solar powered shed so I'm quite busy right now.

---

Bodge It [reprap.org]
=======================================

---

BIQ Sanguinololu SD LCD board	BIQ Stepcon	BIQ Opto Endstop
BIQ Heater Block PCB	BIQ Extruder Peek clamp replacement	BIQ Huxley Seedling
BIQ Sanguinololu mounting	BIQ standalone Sanguinololu or Ramps mounting	Print It Stick It Cut it

My rep strap: [repstrapbertha.blogspot.com]

Buy the bits from B&Q pipestrap [diyrepstrap.blogspot.com]
How to Build a Darwin without any Rep Rap Parts [repstrapdarwin.blogspot.com]
Web Site [www.takeaway3dtech.com]

Dman Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Ideas are good....ripping off ideas is bad. End
> to that non-sense.
>
Have you seen something that isn't built on prior art? Patents give commercial protection for 20 years, they aren't thought blockers.
Your sentence skates close to plagiarising Orwell, BTW.

Man do people nit-pick other people's comments...

murd....I agree with your comments on patents and prior art....And I didn't know I was close to quoting Orwell.....something I said so we could steer this thread back onto topic....but hey, thanks for getting it off topic like so many others.....Don't be offended....let's just stay on topic.

Chill, Dman. I've worked with a loose affiliation of retired engineers and technicians from a spectrum of disciplines who innovate and contribute their skills to create devices to help people with medical or physical disabilities or problems. They're often able to come up with something that medical engineers haven't considered because they're too focussed. Cross-fertilisation of ideas brings innovation. You want to control what's on-topic or not? Contribute a list of what you're prepared to accept as on- or -off-topic. Let's get the bureaucracy down pat first, shall we?
Every other thread in this forum could benefit from being chided about drifting off-topic, I think you have a social duty to visit them all and remind them what they're here for. No?

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 12/19/2009 06:40PM by murd.

What were we talking about?

Some people call this process Brain storming..

Usual seen in any think tank type organization that are dancing on the edge of what is possible with technology or what is possible within a certain time frame or monetary constraint.

This thread is very much like that brain storming session where there will be e Doers and thinkers and talkers and a few others the tea lady or cleaner.

Now taking all of these various opinions and thoughts no matter how daft or "off subject" that at first they might appear to be is how true innovation is born usually from the stupidest of comments.

By examining how some one else's approach a similar problem. The innovative creative and doers of the world are not going to copy the solution verbatim.
They are going to want to improve, innovate on that solution else why would they bother in the first place.

As often it is the most silly suggestions that leads to the best innovation. I tend to keep an open mind. As they say think out of the box.

As to what we are talking about.

Its how we could make a DIY powder printer that stands a good chance of being a WFT project (Works First Time).
That could become the next winner of a community choice award or the first open source powder printer.
Maybe just for those who are keen to have and use innovative technology at home.

Built using pocket money without corporate funding.

I'm Dyslexic with very little knowledge of grammar so excuse my grammatical foo bars and Dyslexic spelling. Spelling mistakes corrected now I hope

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/20/2009 06:32PM by BodgeIt.

---

Bodge It [reprap.org]
=======================================

---

BIQ Sanguinololu SD LCD board	BIQ Stepcon	BIQ Opto Endstop
BIQ Heater Block PCB	BIQ Extruder Peek clamp replacement	BIQ Huxley Seedling
BIQ Sanguinololu mounting	BIQ standalone Sanguinololu or Ramps mounting	Print It Stick It Cut it

My rep strap: [repstrapbertha.blogspot.com]

Buy the bits from B&Q pipestrap [diyrepstrap.blogspot.com]
How to Build a Darwin without any Rep Rap Parts [repstrapdarwin.blogspot.com]
Web Site [www.takeaway3dtech.com]

If any of you have been following makerbots progress on a frostruder the idea of using one to dispense water/binder at low resolution is also a posibility. Much lower resolution than using a print mechanism from a inkjet printer of course, but for some powders it may be a more viable option. not sure yet. havent made one but will shortly.

Just had a look at the frostruder, it looks like a syringe dispenser, these are commercially available for dispensing glue's etc, the only draw back is that the syringe would need replenishing, although its not a problem that can not be overcome.
I must admit that I am leaning towards a plotter type solution, using some form of injectors that can accommodate higher viscosity binders, print heads are so picky about what goes through them, the critical thing on each layer is the border, this defines the shape, the rest is just infill, the infill adds to the strength but its the border that defines the part.

Bodgit, you spelling can not be as bad as mine, thank goodness for spell checkers.

Thank you, Midge she is an ex software architect and technical writer realy gives me a hard time over my spelling and grama mistakes.. I like to think you cant be good at every thing... hmm now Im not sure what Im good at,.. aside from tinkering and bodgeing things together.. oh for a spell checker in the forum poster window..

---

Bodge It [reprap.org]
=======================================

---

BIQ Sanguinololu SD LCD board	BIQ Stepcon	BIQ Opto Endstop
BIQ Heater Block PCB	BIQ Extruder Peek clamp replacement	BIQ Huxley Seedling
BIQ Sanguinololu mounting	BIQ standalone Sanguinololu or Ramps mounting	Print It Stick It Cut it

My rep strap: [repstrapbertha.blogspot.com]

Buy the bits from B&Q pipestrap [diyrepstrap.blogspot.com]
How to Build a Darwin without any Rep Rap Parts [repstrapdarwin.blogspot.com]
Web Site [www.takeaway3dtech.com]

Quote

oh for a spell checker in the forum poster window

If you install Google toolbar you get spell checking in web forms. Firefox will also do it as you type, but for some reason that does not work for me at work but does at home.

---

[www.hydraraptor.blogspot.com]

nophead Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Firefox will also do it as
> you type, but for some reason that does not work
> for me at work but does at home.

Have you verified that "Options -> General -> Browsing Group -> Check my spelling as I type" is checked at work?

If it is then your dictionary may be missing.

Take a look at the following URL:

[www.ghacks.net]

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/22/2009 06:30AM by rhmorrison.

Hey thank you for that great Tip Nophead its installed

It will not check as I type here but it has given a spell check button which is great.

rhmorrison

Have you verified that "Options -> General -> Browsing Group -> Check my spelling as I type" is checked at work?

Yes I did and mine was alredy checked. I think that this version of Fire Fox 3.5.6 this function has died. As it used to spell check a while ago.

---

Bodge It [reprap.org]
=======================================

---

BIQ Sanguinololu SD LCD board	BIQ Stepcon	BIQ Opto Endstop
BIQ Heater Block PCB	BIQ Extruder Peek clamp replacement	BIQ Huxley Seedling
BIQ Sanguinololu mounting	BIQ standalone Sanguinololu or Ramps mounting	Print It Stick It Cut it

My rep strap: [repstrapbertha.blogspot.com]

Buy the bits from B&Q pipestrap [diyrepstrap.blogspot.com]
How to Build a Darwin without any Rep Rap Parts [repstrapdarwin.blogspot.com]
Web Site [www.takeaway3dtech.com]

@rhmorrison
It was indeed a missing dictionary at work, thanks.

@BodgeIt
It does work in the latest FF, you might have to install a dictionary to get it working though.

---

[www.hydraraptor.blogspot.com]

I seem to remember a 3d printer that used a solvent deposited onto powdered polymer, acetone or maybe m e k, normal printheads would not be able to handle powerful solvents, but food for thought.

that gives me a momentary thought about the frostruder using a metal or glass syringe and acetone dispensed on powdered abs. cant honestly say this would be practical but it does make me wonder.