Welcome to the SeeMeCNC Community

I thought folks here might be interested in a modification we made to introduce a clay/paste extruder to a Rostock Max. We want to develop technology for inexpensive 3D ceramic printing for artists. Ultimately we want to extend this to art programs at other universities, and even to high schools. All the details of the extruder and the project are posted in a blog we started here: http://blogs.nd.edu/3dp/ . I also put a small blurb in the new member section.

Briefly, we replaced the hot end with a stepper powered extruder fed by a pressurized syringe. (we also added magnetic arms which are terrific in that we can easily switch back and forth between printing plastic and ceramic by changing effectors and firmware)
[img]http://blogs.nd.edu/3dp/files/2013/08/0 ... ingo13.jpg[/img]

here are a couple of simple prints
[img]http://blogs.nd.edu/3dp/files/2013/08/0 ... ingo14.jpg[/img]
[img]http://blogs.nd.edu/3dp/files/2013/08/0 ... ingo16.jpg[/img]

The extruder as presently designed works, but it is slower (clay throughput is too small) than we want, so we are now developing a new design for making larger objects in reasonable times. I will pass along the news when we have this done.

That is really cool and a unique application for a Rostock Max.
Did you use the information in the Xnarron thread to create the magnetic arms, effector and such?
I'm looking forward to you posting more information and pictures of your creation.

yes, those are Xnaron arms. We used his stl's and made one set of arms and 2 effectors. One for clay and the other for the plastic hot end.

This would have great possibilities for mold makers as well no? It seems like one could print the negative(s), coat in ceramics, fire, and fill. I saw a "How It's Made" once where turbine fins were being made by using a wax base coated with multiple layers of a ceramic sand. They would fire the ceramics and let the wax melt out, then have finished molds for the fins. If one could calculate the finished thickness of the final ceramic coating obtaining molds in this fashion might be possible.

A lot of it depends on the surface finish you are needing. Solidscape (owned by Stratasys) makes wax printers that can be used for jewelry making, among other applications. Printing a wax shape will give a much smoother surface than printing from a slurry. Then you can use the "lost wax" technique you mentioned. People have also done "lost plastic" using a plastic printed part in the same way you saw wax employed.http://3dtopo.com/lostPLA/

Fine surface are also available by inkjetting into a bed of ceramic powder (Zcorp ). The complication in printing the ceramic mold is that it may need to be fired (sintered) before use in a casting process. In this case you need to be able to control the shrinkage and the printed object may undergo distortion

have you guys seen hyrel 3d's extruder?

http://www.hyrel3d.com/emo-25/

foshon wrote:This would have great possibilities for mold makers as well no? It seems like one could print the negative(s), coat in ceramics, fire, and fill. I saw a "How It's Made" once where turbine fins were being made by using a wax base coated with multiple layers of a ceramic sand. They would fire the ceramics and let the wax melt out, then have finished molds for the fins. If one could calculate the finished thickness of the final ceramic coating obtaining molds in this fashion might be possible.

I want to print with investment casting wax. Dipping the form in slurry would be easy, and then you can pour in any metal that you want.
No reason not to just print the cast though, good point.


I'll have to walk over and see your printers as soon as BTS calms down a little bit. Happy Printing!

the hyrel 3d extruder is the basic design used for a lot of syringe pumps, where a motor drives the plunger. It is more of an industrial solution and ends up being pretty large, and from the looks of theirs pretty heavy. It will work well with highly viscous substances. For example, they have shown they can extrude Sugru.

Jimustanguitar, I think working with PLA for lost plastic would be easier than wax. A company called Ballistic Particle Manufacturing was an early player in 3d printing. They inkjetted molten wax drops. I saw one of their units early on up at Argonne national lab. It was nice technology. If you are interested, here is a pdf of some slides about the technology( https://256.makerslocal.org/wiki/images/6/6c/BPM.pdf) I think inkjetting of wax is easier than extrusion technology. People like MicroFab have advanced inkjetting technology for molten solder droplets. ( http://www.microfab.com/archive/about/p ... jmep98.htm ).

What would be cool would be a set of low-cost interchangeable deposition heads (plastic extrusion, ceramic extrusion, molten inkjet, etc) that one could pop on and off a delta robot.

Argonne??? I grew up less then 15 minutes from there. My father worked there for as long as I could remember, retired now.