Awesome 3d Printing

Engineer James Bruton adds to his collection of unusual vehicles with the creation of a single-seater that rolls on four 3D-printed mechanum wheels. The not-quite-a-bike uses motors and an inertial measurement unit to remain balanced. By changing the speed and direction of each wheel, it can move forward, backward, sideways, and spin around on a dime. Its agility is quite impressive.

It’s easy to find an original Apple Macintosh on eBay, but it’ll look used. Kevin Noki built a new replica of Apple’s 1984 computer from scratch. He started by measuring the case from a Macintosh Plus, modeling its parts, then outputting them on a 3D printer. Inside, it runs a Linux thin client running a modified version of the Mini vMac emulator.

Mark Rober and his pals made one of the largest NERF guns ever. This time, he went in the opposite direction, putting the popular toy through the shrink ray so many times it’s only visible with an atomic force microscope. After using a compliant mechanism to engineer a simplified version that can fire a dart, he worked with scientists to make NERF guns from DNA.

Dyson’s Supersonic hair dryer pushes more air and dries hair faster than most. Integza figured out a way to use its tiny and powerful motor to create a handheld jet engine. First, he had to use an industrial 3D printer to produce a metal case for his project. Then he injected fuel into its combustion chamber and ignited it.

Mega Process takes us on a tour of a factory that produces unique, high-end pens using 3D-printed metal. Merain Korea uses a selective laser sintering 3D printer to melt together thin layers of metal powder, then painstakingly deburr, clean, and plate each pen before assembly and packaging.

Typical 3D printers can output one or two colors at a time, but this 3D printer from Mimaki can print objects from a palette of more than 10 million colors. 3D Printing Nerd got look at its capabilities during Formnext USA. It creates objects by printing layers of UV-curable CMYK resins encased in a water-soluble support material.

Building full-size rockets typically requires the creation of costly custom tooling. But Relativity Space is taking a different approach to the problem, using a giant 3D printer and additive manufacturing to melt and form aluminum into the shape of a rocket. Veritasium takes us inside of their facility for a look at how it works.

Light painting is the process of capturing long-exposure images of a light source being moved. Most light painting is done by hand and with 2D images. However, it’s possible to use the three-axis movements of a delta-style 3D printer to create 3D light paintings. Ekaggrat Singh Kalsi shows how this is possible. Read more on Hackaday.

This gadget can increase the speed of 3D printers from 200% to 500%. Incorporating Klipper tech, it connects to most FDM printers via their USB ports to supplant typically slow internal controllers with a fast new brain. It can preview models on its screen and connect to a camera to shoot time-lapse printing videos.

ThinAir3D is an expert at 3D modeling and 3D printing. After designing a realistic model of a fire hydrant with a hidden stash box, he printed it using Protopasta’s iron composite PLA filament, which allowed him to apply a realistic rust finish. The 3D model is available on Cults3D. Also, we want his Sticky Note Bot on our desk.

Actor Tom Hanks and Woody from Toy Story are so indelibly intertwined in our minds that we didn’t notice anything wrong with this image at first. Zedabyu Creations sculpted a 3D model and used a 3D printer to create a custom Tom Hanks head with moving eyeballs, then attached it to a knock-off 1/6th-scale Woody figure.

Time-lapse 3D printing footage can look pretty awesome. Maker Caleb Kraft was wondering if it might be possible to add another layer of interest to models as they print, so he figured out a way to embed an animated flipbook that tells a story as the print is completed. The files are available for download on Printables.

There are lots of tutorials how to recycle paper to create handmade paper. XYZAidan shows how the pulp extracted from cardboard can also be molded into sturdy 3D objects. The resulting pieces are reminiscent of egg crates or Starbucks drink trays. You can download his 3D printable mold designs on Thingiverse.

3D printers make a bit of noise when they’re generating objects, but that’s not what this video is about. Maker’s Muse wanted to see what objects made the most noise once printed and tested out several designs which are ridiculously noisy without the use of batteries, motors, or other electronics.

3D printing technology has been a boon for model makers. Knarb Makes shows off a diorama he built of a medieval city with the help of the tech – though there’s still plenty of artistic talent on display. The impressive Venice-inspired scale city has more than 50 buildings, bridges, canals, and lighting.

Most 3D prints we’ve seen are pretty small. But the guys at Argentina’s Trideo make the Big-T – a $40,000 industrial 3D printer that can crank out precise objects as large as 40″ x 40″ x 42.5″. Watch as it churns out a detailed model of a 39″ tall castle that tool almost 10 days to output. After that, watch it print a horse.

Fans of This Is Spinal Tap will immediately get a giggle out of this even smaller version of Stonehenge created by model artist Luke Towan. He created the detailed replica of the ancient monument with the help of an Anycubic Photon Ultra resin 3D printer.

Researchers from the MIT Media Lab developed a method for 3D printing that creates soft and stretchable textiles. The process takes advantage of a defect that can occur in 3D printing – underextruded thermoplastics. By precisely controlling this behavior, they were able to make thin, flexible fabrics with custom patterns.

Robinson Foundry crafted this useful brass kitchen gadget using a 3D printed measuring cube as a starting point. Like some of his other creations, he used the “Lost PLA” method to create a ceramic mold around the 3D print and then melted away the plastic. We wonder how accurate it is compared to the original.

Using a professional full-color 3D printer and taking advantage of the stairstepped surfaces of voxels, Make Anything was able to create a sweet model of a human skull that appears to change colors when viewed from different angles. Download the model here.

3D printer manufacturer Piocreat shows how they made a colorful light-up sign of their logo using their Creatwit 3D printer, which is optimized for printing lettering. They filled the fronts of the letters with liquid acrylic to enhance the lighting effect, then laser-cut a backing sheet and attached LEDs before assembling the light.

If you’ve been to a firing range, you’ll see countless shell casings littering the ground. Seth over at Robinson Foundry wanted to put these to use, so he melted down the brass casings and turned them into custom coins. He created the shapes by 3D printing coin models, then placed them into a sand mold for casting.

Normally, when you knock over dominoes, they stay down. But is it possible to create a domino that stands itself back up using the energy that toppled it? The Action Lab explores this very possibility with some unique 3D-printed dominoes. You can grab the 3D models on Thingiverse if you want to play with them for yourself.