Wire Printing in Cura by Chuck

DIY Wire Bender with 3D Printed Parts and Arduino Control

Project page with all the details:

https://howtomechatronics.com/projects/arduino-3d-wire-bending-machine/

Advanced 3D Printing with Wire Deposition for Electrics Projects

Disney researchers developed a 5 axis 3d printer that can also lay metal wire for electric and electronic devices. Wires can be fixated by extruding plastics on it. Since it moves in 5 axis, it can make overlapping wire coils and other intricate geometry objects. 

Project description by Huaishu Peng:

We introduce a new form of low-cost 3D printer to print interactive electromechanical objects with wound in place coils. At the heart of this printer is a mechanism for depositing wire within a five degree of freedom (5DOF) fused deposition modeling (FDM) 3D printer. Copper wire can be used with this mechanism to form coils which induce magnetic fields as a current is passed through them. Soft iron wire can additionally be used to form components with high magnetic permeability which are thus able to shape and direct these magnetic fields to where they are needed. When fabricated with structural plastic elements, this allows simple but complete custom electromagnetic devices to be 3D printed. As examples, we demonstrate the fabrication of a solenoid actuator for the arm of a Lucky Cat figurine, a 6-pole motor stepper stator, a reluctance motor rotor and a Ferrofluid display. In addition, we show how printed coils which generate small currents in response to user actions can be used as input sensors in interactive devices.

You can see it in action here:




project homepage with more information:

http://www.huaishu.me/projects/electromagnet.html


While this project looks interesting, wire deposition with 3d printer head is not new in DIY world. Spoolhead was a RepRap project in early 2010 that did something simillar.




SpoolHead homepage:

http://reprap.org/wiki/SpoolHead

3D Printed Construction Mesh Structures

Here are some examples how 3d meshes can be used to reinforce building structures. This technique is probably much more useful and applicable then cement paste extrusion.


Mesh Mould uses steel wire:




Project description:

The research project Mesh Mould investigates the unification of reinforcement and formwork into a single robotically fabricated material system. During the first research phase a spatial robotic extrusion process was developed, allowing to examine the interdependencies of mesh typology and rheological behavior of concrete (see Mesh Mould 2012 - 2014).

The second research phase at the National Competence Centre in Research (NCCR) Digital Fabrication focuses on the translation of the structurally weak polymer-based extrusion process into a fully load-bearing construction system. The current research focuses on the development of a fully automated bending and welding process for meshes fabricated from 3 mm steel wire.

The research involves the development of a fabrication-, and structurally-informed mesh typology as well as the subsequent collaborative development of a specialized robotic end-effector together with the Agile & Dexterous Robotics Lab of Professor Jonas Buchli.

More information on this project can be found at:

http://gramaziokohler.arch.ethz.ch/web/e/forschung/316.html


digiFABTuring and their robot arm attached plastic extruder which is more similar to common 3d printheads and could be done in a home workshop:

Here is a complete wall system with 3d printed polymer matrix made by Branch Technology:

They 3D printed a 7-foot-tall-by-3-foot-wide wall in 30 hours, and are currently extruding at a rate of 1.5 pounds per hour. The wall has a spray foam insulation, concrete core and inside/outside finish layer.

More info:

http://www.architectmagazine.com/technology/this-architect-designed-wall-system-has-a-3d-printed-core_o

Real-time Wireframe 3D Printing Directly from CAD

Researchers at Cornell made a modified 3d printer that prints on-the-fly as the model is developed in a CAD software. It has 6 axis of movement with mist cooling and cutter head to produce wire-frame objects.

Project description:

On-the-Fly Print is a 5DOF modelling and design prototype that allows the user to design 3D models digitally while having a low-fidelity physical model printed in parallel. Our software starts printing features as soon as they are created and updates the physical model as needed. Users can quickly check the design in a real usage context by removing the partial physical print from the printer and replacing it afterwards to continue printing.

Video of the entire process:




Source:

http://mediarelations.cornell.edu/2016/05/31/on-the-fly-3-d-print-system-prints-what-you-design-as-you-design-it/

Orbital Composites Advanced Carbon Fiber 3D Printing

Orbital Composites is a company which developed advanced carbon fiber and wire 3d printing with applications in space additive manufacturing. It should enable future missions to 3d print satellites and objects in orbit or to 3d print drones with carbon fiber structures.

Here is the interview with Orbital Composites Founder and CEO Cole Nielsen and presentation of their tech:



Orbital Composites homepage:

http://www.orbitalcomposites.com/

Coaxial extruder nozzle developed by Orbital Composites. It should deliver 10x increase in print speed. 

Coaxial extruder that can extrude carbon fiber,  plastic wire, solder epoxies and other materials.

Voxel8 conductive ink embedded electronic circuits 3d printer

Voxel8 presented the world's first commercially available FDM 3d printer with conductive ink embedding (aka. electronics 3d printer). There have been several projects, conductive filaments that are available and DIY solutions but nothing on this scale and in a serious market oriented company. Technology was developed in cooperation with Lewis Research Group at Harvard University and software with Autodesk.

Voxel8 technical specifications: 

• Printing Technology: FFF, Pneumatic Direct Write
• Build Volume: 4"x6"x4"(10X15x10cm)
• Layer Resolution: 200 microns
• Filament Size: 1.75mm
• Pause / Resume Prints: Yes
• Bed: Kinematically Coupled
• Conductive Trace Width: 250 microns
• Software: Hosted Cloud
• Supported Files: STL, PLY, OBJ, OFF, AMF
• Connectivity: USB, WiFi
• Supported Browsers: Chrome, Firefox
• Materials: PLA, Conductive Silver Ink
• Conductive Silver Ink Resistivity: 5.00 × 10-7 Ω-m
• Silver Ink Cure Time: 5 minutes

Here you can see how the Voxel8 deposits conductive wires made by extruding the special conductive ink on a internal layer FDM printed object. The electronic component is placed manually after the software stops the print process so the user can implant the chip. Voxel8 claims that they are primarily a materials company, so the ink is THE main component and technology.

Here is the nozzle depositing a conductive trace inside a 3d printed quadcopter frame:

This electronics printer has a special software custom made for the Voxel8 named Project Wire which was developed by Autodesk.

Here is video presentation of Voxel8 machine and technology:



You can order it as Developer’s Kit package that includes training for price of $8,999.

Voxel8 homepage: http://www.voxel8.co/

There are no independent test or reviews for this machine so we will see what the future holds for this market segment.

Fabrisonic SonicLayer 7200 industrial ultrasonic metal printer with integrated CNC tools

Fabrisonic SonicLayer 7200 is industrial ultrasonic metal printer with integrated CNC machining tools.
It is a BIG machine that 3d prints with aluminum tape layers which are fused together with ultrasound and then machined with CNC tools into final shape. It can produce intricate internal structures and make metal products on industrial scale.

Fabrisonic SonicLayer 7200 3d printing anc CNC machining center. Source: Fabrisonic

SonicLayer 7200 Production scale automated UAM system technical specifications:

• Integrated 3-Axis CNC Machining
• Automated Tape Feeding System
• 5000-lb load
• 9-kW power
• 72 x 72 x 36 in. Roll and Pitch Capability

Here is a video showing the machine in action:




Price is unknown.

Homepage: http://fabrisonic.com/soniclayer-7200/


Here are some previous smaller Fabrisonic machines and technology overview:

http://diy3dprinting.blogspot.com/2013/07/ultrasonic-metal-3d-printing.html

WirePrint wireframe 3d printable models for faster prototyping by Hasso Plattner Institute and Cornell University

Researchers from Hasso Plattner Institute and Cornell University developed WirePrint software for faster prototyping. It basically custs down the time needed to 3d print an object by replacing solid volumes with wire frames.

A question comes to my mind: if this is publicly funded institute will the release the code under one of open source license? Public money should provide public with some tangible goods and services ...
I don't know much about how this sort of institution operates, gets funding and disseminates knowledge form applied research ...

Update: here is some sort of similar code on GitHub, inspired but not related to this project but creates wire frames:

https://github.com/ramkam/wireframe_3d


From video description:

WirePrint is a low-fi fabrication technique that prints 3D models as wireframe previews. By extruding filament directly into 3D space instead of printing layer-wise, we achieve a speed-up of up to 10x compared to traditional 3D printing.

This project is a collaboration between Hasso Plattner Institute and Cornell University.

More Information:
https://www.hpi.uni-potsdam.de/baudis...

WirePrint is a research project by:

Stefanie Mueller, http://www.stefaniemueller.org

Sangha Im,
Serafima Gurevich,
Alexander Teibrich,
Lisa Pfisterer,
François Guimbretière, http://www.cs.cornell.edu/~francois/

Patrick Baudisch, http://www.patrickbaudisch.com

This institute had a previous faBrickation project that uses Lego blocks for volume replacement in rapid prototyping:

http://diy3dprinting.blogspot.com/2014/02/fabrickation-3d-printing-with-volume.html

3d printing with guided slew ring wire embedding

Bas de Bruijn, well known for his "pressure adjusted velocity controlled extrusion", made made this interesting wire embedding setup where a slew ring turned by a stepper motor connected to a 5th axis on the control board guides the copper wire in front of the extruder head. The wire is covered by extruded material and be shaped on a surface into various forms.





There are some obvious limitations: the wire has to be continuous, wire can not be cut, no possibility to connect the electronic components which make it unsuitable for making of electronic components. However, according to Bas,  it is quit suitable for other purposes like:

• Coils
• Antennas 
• RFID / NFC antennae
• PCB’s
• Flexible PCB’s (FPC’s)
• embed tubes and other filament types into plastic or other materials, like starch, organic printable stuff etc. etc.
• Use dissolvable PVA as an intermediate to bring wire/chips into tissue

Hopefully the project will be developed further!

Here are some attempts without the guide ring and with pre-positioned and fixated wire:



Source blog post with instruction details on setting the electronics:

http://basdebruijn.com/2014/05/additive-wire-laying/

Don't forget Spoolhead project which tried to develop wire embedding toolhead for 3d printers:

http://diy3dprinting.blogspot.com/2013/09/embedding-metal-wire-in-3d-printed.html

Print results. It looks like nice small 3d printed antenna. 

Off topic: SenSprout 2d printed nanoparticle electronic circuits for air and soil moisture sensing

Printing technologies are expanding further. SenSprout is a device for monitoring air and soil moisture in order to optimize agricultural production and irrigation management. It is produced by printing the electronic circuits on paper with silver nanoparticles. It is powered by ambient radio frequencies (it harvests 2,4 GHz frequencies) and transmits data on same frequency.
I wonder how practical it would be for real life application since it looks fragile, it is currently deployed and tested. Even if not practical, concept is excellent technology demonstrator: downloadable printable sensors powered with surround electromagnetic radiation. Cool!
They use commercially available inkjet printers and commercially available conductive ink from Mitsubishi.
Project by: Yoshihiro Kawahara

SenSprout printed moisture sensor deployed (source:Wired)

I think this is Mitsubishi silver nanoparticle ink they mentioned: http://www.mitsubishiimaging.com/digital-imaging-diamond-jet-NANOINK.html







Applications of 2d printed electronic circuits are infinite, similar to 3d printing. Hopefully this technology will soon expand into DIY space. There are many corporate and academic developments in conductive inks, but conductive ink can be also produced in DIY / home lab setting (this one doesn't work on paper):




Ink video by NurdRage

Embedding metal wire in 3d printed objects - Spoolhead project

Spoolhead project was effort to enable RepRap 3d printers to print and embed metal wire in plastic prints. They made some progress but the project is not active at the moment.

http://reprap.org/wiki/SpoolHead

http://spoolhead.blogspot.com/

Project final report in PDF (2010): http://reprap.org/mediawiki/images/2/25/SpoolHead_FinalReport.pdf

Pensa DIWire Bender - 2d and 3d metal wire shapes

I want one!

The DIWire Bender from PENSA! on Vimeo.

The DIWire Bender is a rapid prototype machine that bends metal wire to produce 2D or 3D shapes.
Wire unwinds from a spool, passes through a series of wheels that straighten it, and then feeds through the bending head, which moves around in 3 dimensions to create the desired bends and curves. Vector files (e.g., Adobe Illustrator files), text files of commands (e.g., feed 50 mm, bend 90° to right…) provide DIWire’s instructions.

It’s essentially a 3D printer that describes lines, instead of volumes, in space, and it could be used for anything from prototypes to customized products.