Ceramic 3D Printing Extruder (2nd update)

thingiverse

Extruder for printing with ceramic. Still in development, but we already produced nice results. See pictures for results. Added new photos and info. Instructions We have created an extruder based on the design of Unfold. We have added a syringe holder and a few more parts to attach it to the printer. We used a 0.5 mm, 1.2 mm and a 1.6 mm nozzle as an experiment. But we have 30 other different nozzles, so we will keep trying to get the right nozzle. We bought a set of different nozzles in order to experiment with different sizes and lengths of the nozzles. You could also buy a set of 50 pieces of one type of nozzle. We have also been creating different mixes of the ceramic, but we think that we have found a good mix that is strong enough to make thin walls. If you would like to build your own, you will need the following things: Spacer.stl Connector.stl 6mm multiplex HeadV1 5D.stl (from unfold: thingiverse.com/thing:28018) Syringe Adapter Head (from unfold: thingiverse.com/thing:21074) 2x M3 30mm bolts & nuts 4x M3 25mm bolts Disposable feed screw (http://www.dosieren.de/en/shop/products/cat/consumables/pr/disposable-feed-screw.html) Dispense needle kit (http://www.dosieren.de/en/shop/products/details/cat/dosing-needles/pr/dispense-needle-kit.html) Update: We experimented another day with printing ceramic. We tried to adjust the extruder, but it was more difficult than we tought. We made a new mix the evening before we printed, but the next morning the ceramic mix was changed. So we needed to adjust the mix to make it a bit more ticker. You can also see that the mix looks a bit pink, but that will go away when you bake it. We still have some problems with the speed of extruding, but we think that we made more improvement since last week. As you can see in the images you can see a square with more squares in it. The first test were not good, but one images shows the final test wat already looks nice. Also the tube was a nice test how high we can go with the ceramics, about 10 cm we came. But we are sure we can come higher, we were limited because of the model was 10 cm high in my design. The strange misforming on the top of the tube model is because of some air that came out of the nozzle. So it has nothing to do with the quality of printing. This was it for now. Next week we hope to show you more about printing with ceramics. Update 2: We have some new nice models to share. Last weekend we were printing at the Keramisto event in Milsbeek (Netherlands). We used only airpressure to create our models, because our new extruder was not finished yet. Almost all the objects we printed were very nice, with special thanks to Jo Schoenmakers(jasmv.nl ) who made the ceramic mix for us. The mix worked really well and we made very nice objects and they will be baked this week. We also used 2 different colors in one tube, so that the prints will have an sort of marmer effect when baked. U can already see some difference in color, but when it is baked the color difference will be more. We designed all the objects ourselfs, because we could only print in one single line and not with infil. That's also why the objects are not that special, but the best we could at this moment. We hope to print more complex objects in the future with our new extruder that we are developing. So more to come soon! The project is still in development, but the results are already very promising. More info about the project will be uploaded in the future.