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Re: 3D cement printer - 12 years ago

QuoteJamesNewton That is just neat! Congratulations! What are you going to do for a version 2? How big? What do you think you will need to drive it? Let me know if I can help. Thank you, James, for your advice to increase the voltage. I increase to 36 Volts and promptly received the results I was looking for. The movements are stable/even and the motors work smoothly. In the next generation of

by AndreyR - General

Re: 3D cement printer - 12 years ago

QuoteA2 WOW! Can I send you a CAD file of the Dutch hot tub! Not a bad idea, actually. I'm seriously considering printing something like this for an experiment. But I cannot use CAD files for the cement printer yet because Slic3r has made things more complicated for simple design like a box, tub or even wall, and I have to program g-code manually, like 50 years ago. And thank you for the ent

by AndreyR - General

Re: 3D cement printer - 12 years ago

30cm in 8 hours @32F/0 C

by AndreyR - General

Re: 3D cement printer - 12 years ago

looks like not easy to find that cement, at least in my minnesota aria... I dont see any supplier here.

by AndreyR - General

Re: 3D cement printer - 12 years ago

QuoteA2 QuoteAndreyR Calcium aluminate accelerates the hardening of Portland cement, which allows you to mix a watery slurry. Look at the links I posted above. Maybe you could pump it by adding calcium aluminate to help it harden/cure faster? To prevent the wall from slumping, extrude a multiple layered wall with a small diameter extrudate. Video, go to 1 min, he mixes a soupy/watery batch of

by AndreyR - General

Re: 3D cement printer - 12 years ago

Quotejb92563 This is great stuff your doing but I'm curious how you handle the two conflicting requirements of: 1) The cement needs to be fast setting so you can build up layers taller without collapsing the earlier layers because they have not set yet. 2) The cement should have enough working time so that it can move through the extruder without altering the flow rate or blocking up the

by AndreyR - General

Re: 3D cement printer - 12 years ago

QuoteJamesNewton hackaday has an interesting article about Paste extruders including concrete: http://hackaday.com/2013/10/16/3d-printering-pastestruders/ QuoteA2 Have you explored using a Moineau pump? For the extruder, I'm indeed using a progressive cavity/Moineau pump. Unfortunately, I can't use any plastic parts; I have to use metal because of the very high amounts of torque in the pump. I

by AndreyR - General

Re: 3D cement printer - 12 years ago

After several months of experimentation, I finally made a custom extruder which works in the way it needs to for the cement printer (stable on any speed). This was not an easy task, and I made 5 different versions before the current working one. In the photo, you can see the very first print. Unfortunately, my garage workplace is close to freezing right now, and it would be hard to print several

by AndreyR - General

Re: 3D cement printer - 13 years ago

I have lots of ideas for the cement printer, and I thought I’d share one of them here. It’s very likely a crazy idea, but might be a boost for the next generation of cement printers. You can see my idea in the attached picture. The most complicated part of the cement printer- how to make layers dry/cure quickly in any weather condition. If we make an additional electric arc, it might help with t

by AndreyR - General

Re: 3D cement printer - 13 years ago

Ohmarinus Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Yesterday I saw a technique of spraying on > concrete with a spray nozzle that had the cement > being extruded from one side slowly and an air > compressor that was connected to the side of the > spray-nozzle that pressed out the concrete in a > spray. good for existed walls but how to build a wall witho

by AndreyR - General

Re: 3D cement printer - 13 years ago

Simba Wrote: > > there is a professor who has a > ted talk on 3d printers and has already extruded > about fist-sized tracks of cerment they are from the University of Southern California, and they have quite a bit of sponsors. Their team has several professors and a couple dozen students. However, the only video of their printer functioning I've come across has been circulating t

by AndreyR - General

Re: 3D cement printer - 13 years ago

Today, I performed an experiment with dry mix and water. In the beginning, it was very promising- the dry mix was extruded flawlessly- but when I added water supply to the nozzle, the nozzle started to clog, and as you can see in the video/pictures, this technique completely failed. At least for now. As you can see its failed for few reasons.. Here are two different videos I found that got succ

by AndreyR - General

Re: 3D cement printer - 13 years ago

Yes, my first design was exactly like you said: Auger bit, vibration, etc. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work. The cement mortar releases water at any vibration; thus, the extruder gets clogged, especially towards the end. It works and pumps mortar only if there’s no stopping. If it pauses, even for a few seconds, it starts to clog again, and eventually clogs up completely. Mortar is a very strange,

by AndreyR - General

Re: 3D cement printer - 13 years ago

Here is my update. The first stage- the metal parts, motor, hardware, software, firmware- is done. Everything looks and moves nicely. I was able to print, though the extrusion is unstable. After several tries, I have come to the conclusion that it's better to use a progressive cavity pump for the extruder. Here is where I run into a problem, as the cheapest price I could find for this pump is $5

by AndreyR - General

Re: 3D cement printer - 13 years ago

JamesNewton Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > AndreyR Wrote: > -------------------------------------------------- > ----- > > Also, how can I get the max amps from your > driver? > > How many volts PCU is it better to use? I have > > 12V, 16A. > > Oh goodness! The driver is rated up to 4 amps, 50 > volts. Use a 48 volt supply

by AndreyR - General

Re: 3D cement printer - 13 years ago

SanjayM Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > You might want to look at Gecko-Drives and DC > motors. have to study about that, looks that's what i need and here the video i have:

by AndreyR - General

Re: 3D cement printer - 13 years ago

JamesNewton Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > I think the biggest problem is the chain bouncing > on the X and Y axis. > Another possibility is a different drive system. For the next review, I am going to slide one side of the chain inside the square pipe and the other side on the top of the pipe. Another good reason I would use a chain- construction cod

by AndreyR - General

Re: 3D cement printer - 13 years ago

Finally, I have got the printer to homing and the files are running smoothly- a small victory against the monsters I am creating against/for myself. Most of my time was spent setting up Merlin and Slic3r. It took a few days to scale my files to get them down to 1000 x 500 x 250 mm. In kisslicer, scaling looks even more difficult to me. Regretfully, if I change the scaling too much, I don't see t

by AndreyR - General

Re: 3D cement printer - 13 years ago

JamesNewton Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > > Of course, the other possibility is to measure the > voltage on the A2D pin from the thermister when > it's at temp and re-create that voltage with a pot > as a voltage divider to "fake" the current > firmware out. 260 ohm resistor and I have 246 C forever!!! Its easy and clever, thank you for t

by AndreyR - General

Re: 3D cement printer - 13 years ago

yydoctt Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Try kisslicer, it's better. > > Or you could scale the print and scale your > steps/mm in marlin accordingly. Not sure how > you're calculating cement flow but that'd also > need scaling. So try kisslicer, I think it might > be up to the task. also, slis3r always trying to make solid box not empty one

by AndreyR - General

Re: 3D cement printer - 13 years ago

JamesNewton Wrote: > Of course, the other possibility is to measure the > voltage on the A2D pin from the thermister when > it's at temp and re-create that voltage with a pot > as a voltage divider to "fake" the current > firmware out. Good idea! Will try!

by AndreyR - General

Re: 3D cement printer - 13 years ago

What I just figured out- Slic3r doesn't accept models with a larger size (in meters); it just freezes up. I'm not exactly sure where I can change these settings (in Merlin or in Slic3r)?

by AndreyR - General

Re: 3D cement printer - 13 years ago

just some pics...

by AndreyR - General

Re: 3D cement printer - 13 years ago

its about 2 cm for now

by AndreyR - General

3D cement printer - 13 years ago

3D Cement Printer I am prototyping a cement printer. So far, I have the first version. It’s 1/3 of full scale and the major parts are done. I have Arduino and RAMPS for the brain and Toshiba James Newton Massmind 4 Amp drivers. (Software- Pronterface, Firmfare- Sprinter.) But I am having some trouble, and would appreciate assistance. Thanks in advance! 1) How can I disconnect the

by AndreyR - General