Print on Cylinder

thingiverse

This is a demonstration of an idea for printing on a convex surface such as the outside of a cylinder using a consumer-grade (read "cheap") 3D printer augmented with 3D-printed parts. This may or may not be a useful thing to do. The support brackets are specific to the printer - I was using an Anycubic Mega S - and the included stl files for the brackets required some physical hacking to fit. The idea is that the brackets can be affixed to the printer using existing screws and that they must stay out of the way of the fixed and moving parts of the machine. The one on the left is particularly tricky because the print head “homes” to the left front of the build plate. Putting the rack and gear on the right side (and overcoming some topological blunders) made it somewhat easier but it’s still barely adequate. The axle needs to have something to stop it moving left-to-right during the print but it also has to be removable in order to install the cylindrical object being printed on. There needs to be a way to mount the cylindrical object on the axle. I used a section of 2” ABS pipe for the cylindrical object so I printed a disk for each end with a hole for the axle. These “supports” would have to be crafted to the specific cylindrical object. Rather than continuing to fuss with brackets, I decided to do a “manual” test print. I used the printer's “continuous extrude” function to push hot filament out of the nozzle while I moved the build plate by hand to rotate the gear and tapped the print head a bit to the right on each pass. The “gloppiness” and irregularities are due to the fact that the “continuous extrude” function pumps out molten filament in an uncontrolled fashion and the rotation and left-right displacement were done by hand. It's far from ready for prime time but I thought it might be interesting as a starting point for something useful.