Thomas will show you how to fix your filament

He will also teach you how you can ruin it in the first place...

3D Printed Military Submersible

Engineers in ORNL made military’s first 3D-printed 30 feet long submersible hull made from carbon fiber composite material.
The Optionally Manned Technology Demonstrator is a prototype vessel that could be used to deploy divers, logistics capabilities, and sensors. It was made much cheaper and faster when compared with traditional manufacturing methods.

We don't need more weapons guys. We need more technology for permanent peace.





Source news release with more information:

https://energy.gov/eere/articles/navy-partnership-goes-new-depths-first-3d-printed-submersible

Two Great Surface Finishing Tutorials

I was researching YouTube to find some good surface finishing, smoothing and painting tutorials, here are the two good ones I found.


First one is from Jure Korber from Slovenia. He made this detailed tutorial and has some good tips like the using of wooden stick to hold the piece.





Second is from Commando Designs



Hopefully, you found them useful!

New Prusa I3 MK3 is Released!!!

The original Prusa I3 Mk2 is one of the best 3D printers currently available and it just got better with the new version: the MK3.
It features many improvements and cool upgrades that go beyond what many much more expensive machines have.

New features:

• Filament sensor
• Power Panic
• RPM sensing fans and Noctua
• Ambient thermistor and P.I.N.D.A 2 with thermistor
• EINSY RAMBo motherboard
• Trinamic2130 drivers with layer shift detection, faster and silent printing
• New Y axis
• Bondtech extruder
• Magnetic MK52 Heatbed
• Powder coated PEI spring steel print sheet
• Ready for OctoPrint

It will be priced at $749

MK3 presentation video:










MK3 release post with all the details:

http://www.prusaprinters.org/original-prusa-i3-mk3-bloody-smart/

Cutting Acrylic with EleksMaker Laser on HyperCube 3D Printer

Chris from Tech2C YT channel made a video showing various settings on his EleksMaker 2.5w laser diode for cutting a 3mm Acrylic sheet. It is mounted on HyperCube 3D printer.
It is an interesting video if you want to go into lasing acrylic with a cheap laser diode and you want to learn something and save some experimentation time.







Tip from the comments: black acrylic is easiest to cut since it absorbs the most energy.

HyperCube 3D Printer/CNC on Thingiverse:

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1752766

DIY Multi Extrusion Tool Switching by Rolmie

Rolmie from Germany is developing a multi-extrusion tool changer suitable for many common 3d printers. Interesting project you may want to follow up.

Project description:

Single and dual extruder FDM printers are commonly available these days but machines with support for 3 or more hotends are still hard to find. The current approach to dual/multi extrusion is either a XY carriage moving multiple hotends or a single hotend with several filaments feeding into it (eg. E3D Cyclops, Diamond Hotend, Prusa i3 MK2 Multi Material).

Both designs have their own limitations with regard to scaleability. For the first it is size and weight of the carriage, the second requires all materials to be within a similar temperature range.

This design overcomes some of these limitations and requires only off the shelf components (pins, bushings, magnets), 3D printed parts and most importantly no additional motors, servos or other electrical components. Modification of most CoreXY/H-Bot style printers should be possible

Prototype video:




Project page:

https://hackaday.io/project/26053-tool-switching-multi-extrusion

Tool head making a contact with on of the extruders

3D Printable DIY Scuba Diving Thrusters

Someone developed low-cost 3d printable underwater thrusters for scuba diving. There is a full set of instructions and files available.


Tech specs:

• 1.85 mph underwater speed! 
• 20 minutes runtime. 
• $153 for flying underwater at speed of 3 km/h
• DT700 brushless motors: 2 pcs x $14
• Kort nozzle for DT700: 2 pcs x $35
• ESC speed controller at least 40A with BEC: $4
• Servo tester: $5
• Slide Potentiometer any from 5K to 30K Linear: $2
• SLA battery 9Ah: 2 pcs x $22

Here are the thrusters in action:





Detailed construction guide and all the files:

http://www.instructables.com/id/Underwater-Wrist-Thruster-185-Mph/

Hackaday.io project page:

https://hackaday.io/project/27134-arm-underwater-thruster

Angus And His Experiance With 3D Printed Combat Robot Parts

Angus from Maker's Muse shares his knowledge and experience with a DIY battle robot he created. Since it uses a lot of 3d printed parts it is interesting to see how they cope in this type of application. The robot is named "Vanguard", and it's a 30lb of pure machine aggression :-)

Simple DIY 3D Printable Bluetooth Speaker

Here is a simple and easy 3d printable battery-powered Bluetooth speaker you can make with even basic electronics skills. It was developed and published by Hardiq Verma.






Detailed construction guide and all the files can be found at:

http://www.instructables.com/id/Awesome-3D-Printed-Bluetooth-Speaker/

HRL 3D Printing High-strength Aluminum

HRL made a major breakthrough in metal additive manufacturing by developing a process enabling 3d printing of non-weldable metals like aluminum. This will certainly play a big role in future manufacturing facilities and product development.


Project description:

MALIBU, Calif. Sept 20, 2017 — HRL Laboratories, LLC, has made a breakthrough in metallurgy, developing a technique for successfully 3D printing high-strength aluminum alloys — including types Al7075 and Al6061 — that opens the door to additive manufacturing of engineering-relevant alloys.

HRL's nanoparticle functionalization technique solves this problem by decorating high-strength unweldable alloy powders with specially selected nanoparticles. The nanoparticle-functionalized powder is fed into a 3D printer, which layers the powder and laser-fuses each layer to construct a three-dimensional object.  During melting and solidification, the nanoparticles act as nucleation sites for the desired alloy microstructure, preventing hot cracking and allowing for retention of full alloy strength in the manufactured part.

Because melting and solidification in additive manufacturing is analogous to welding, HRL's nanoparticle functionalization can also be used to make unweldable alloys weldable

Video presentation:




HRL news post:

http://www.hrl.com/news/2017/0920/

3 Simple Hacks to Protect your Files from Theft, Piracy, and Plagiarism

Angus from Maker's Muse shows how he protects his files from theft, piracy, and plagiarism. He uses watermarks, invisible or hidden watermarks, and hiding a text into a file. All those measures can be defeated but that is just nature of the digital world.






Maker's Muse page:

http://www.makersmuse.com/

3D Printable DIY Moka Pot Made with Formfutura Volcano PLA

Stefan from CNCKitchen in Germany designed and successfully made a fully functional 3d printed coffee Moka pot. Due to high temperature needed to reach the internal water pressure he used Formfutura Volcano PLA. Do keep in mind that this is a demonstration and not everyday usage object. The pressure build-up in a closed plastic vessel can be dangerous.






Thingiverse page:

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2490679

If you are not sure what Moka pot is, here is the wikipedia page:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moka_pot