3D printers are the future of manufacturing technology. They allow makers to create geometries that are impossible to achieve using conventional manufacturing methods that shape parts from a single piece. Being able to make use of this tool is essential for any engineer, as such the Engi210 class was assigned with printing an impossible object to get acquainted with the 3D printers in the OEDK. My print of preference for this task is the Klein Bottle.
What would make this task truly impossible: printing a klein bottle made of glass pre-filled with wine. (Must be 21 or over to consume kids.)
About a million years ago, in my calculus 3 class, I wondered if four-dimensional objects existed and what they looked like. A simple google search revealed the elegance of the Klein bottle, which is defined as a 4-D object since its exterior surface becomes an interior surface (the liquid is poured into the bottle from the bottom). Some day, some how, I would own one of these strange objects. What a better chance to have one than making one myself in a small size.
The first bottle was made using the M2 printer next to the laser cutter room with a downloadable stl file from thingiverse (courtesy of MadOverlord). In his post he recommends the print be done without supports or a raft. The supports were pretty self explanatory as the voronoi structure would have made removing the supports difficult (another impossible feature of this print). The settings I used are a blur (post beer bike syndrome?) thus have not been included on this post. As the print is quite small, it is advisable to set the extruder to the lowest layer height so the part is very precisely printed. This of course takes a longer time for the print to complete (mine took about 28 minutes).
Printing is great for lazy people…not that I am one(?).
A single print on a single printer? No, that would be boring and a wasted opportunity. I printed a second bottle on an even cooler (ever more expensive) printer within the wet lab. This thing is massive, its automated, and fully supported (as in, it prints supports everywhere).
The Objet 260 sports a more supportive approach to manufacturing.
The print this machine created was beautiful, and full of supports which had to be removed via waterjet which was very fun. The downside to this printer is the amount of time it took to complete a small part (my bottles are about 23mm wide and 45mm tall) which in this case was approximately 2 hours and 40 minutes for a whopping cost of $8.42. It was definitely worth every penny as the quality was very good…plus I got to play around with a high-pressure water jet.
Post-processed print.
The settings on these machines were very friendly, as they only took one attempt to get the desired dimensions and quality. Hopefully someone will figure out how to add a wine dispenser to any printer…this will have to do for now.
Objet print on the left, M2 print on the right.
