An Update: 3D Print Blobbing and How to Fix It

Maybe you’ve read our blog from several years back about improving a 3D print’s surface quality by reducing the triangle count of your STL file, or maybe you’ve just experienced some surface blobbing on a print and are looking for an explanation and a fix.

Well, you’ve come to the right place! This update blog will serve as both a complement to our original post, as well as a jumping off point for anyone experiencing issues described here.

Have you ever had the problem of little filament blobs dotting the surface – like in the picture below – ruin an otherwise great print?

Those blobs are due to a buffering issue. There is a speed at which the board feeds the printer information and a number of commands it holds in the queue. It’s like a restaurant putting out orders for people to pick up. There’s speed at which they make the orders, and only so many spots for orders waiting on pickup.

If the printer comes to a bunch of really quick moves, it clears out all the stored commands and has to pause a second to wait for more. That pause lets some plastic ooze out and create one of these blobs. Having fewer triangles equals fewer commands to make the same shape, so the average move is longer. This is one solution to the blobbing problem.

Another fix is to increase the buffer size (room for more pickup orders) or speed. We have been playing with buffer size since it is a setting in the firmware. The buffer speed depends on the capability of the board, so that would require a hardware upgrade to be faster.Lowering the mesh count on a model helps ensure that the printer can achieve its best performance for that print. You are modifying the part to match the capability of the printer. STL files are just a list of triangles that occupy a 3D space – curves are stored as a series of tangent triangular planes. Smaller triangles give a more accurate interpretation of the curve. So long as the facets are smaller than the printer can actually print, the result is a smooth curve. Technically you are degrading the mesh curvature. It’s the same as the transition from analog to digital. Analog is more information, but it overloads the system which makes digital better.

When we wrote the first article on this topic, we changed our firmware to have a large buffer for prints via SD card. Gigabot’s board can only support a certain buffer size, so that buffer space was taken from the USB. We recommend Gigabot users to print via SD because it has a larger buffer size and it also avoids other complications involved with keeping a computer connected to the printer. Recently we have been working on a touchscreen interface for Gigabot, which communicates over USB. We started to see print quality differences in SD card prints versus touchscreen prints in the form of globs on curved surfaces. Changing the buffer size for the USB is one of the changes that will roll out with the new touch screen.
 
Join the conversation on our forum if you want to continue this discussion with us!

Morgan Hamel

Blog Post Author

The Gigaprize is Live!

The re:3D Team is honored to be accepting applications for the next Gigaprize recipient through 11:59pm CT Dec 20th 2019!

What is the Gigaprize?

The Gigaprize is a competition we run to support other groups committed to building community, one layer at a time. For every 100 Gigabots we sell, we donate one unassembled GB3+ FFF 3D printer to an organization that will be using it for good.

Gigabot 3+ FFF 3D Printer

How do you apply?

The competition is simple: make a video explaining how you or your organization could benefit from receiving a Gigabot 3+ FFF 3D Printer. What would the technology enable you to do? What would it mean for your company and its mission? What impact would it have on your community? Don’t worry about production quality – you can shoot the video on a cell phone – we’re interested in what you’re saying, not how you look while you’re filming.

Email info@re3d.org with a link to a YouTube video that describes how you would use a Gigabot to make a difference in 3 minutes or less by the deadline.

How do you win?

Apply early and tell your friends! As soon as videos are received, they will be posted below so we can help share your vision with the community. Judges will be evaluating submissions for the following criteria:  feasibility, originality of the idea, drive & dedication. Number of video views and unique comments on the video will also be considered through Dec 19th. After deliberating with the judges, a winner will be announced on our website on Dec 31st and your Gigabot will ship two weeks later!

We can't wait to hear your BIG plans for printing HUGE!

Terms & Conditions: re:3D reserves the right to remove any videos that contain offensive content. The winning Gigabot will ship in Jan 2020. Shipping and duty will be provided by re:3D. Questions can be directed to info@re3d.org.

Who are the amazing applicants?

The first submission was just received! You can view Sanipro’s vision to prototype better hand-washing systems for displaced persons below:

The second submission is live! Checkout ICON’s work to use waste materials to support construction and empowerment in Cameroon!

Wow! This submission from Inspire Africa in Nigeria has an inspiring vision for new job creation!

OGRE Skin Designs has big plans for Gigabot to protect those that serve!

A large printer could for 3D Africa could really help their prosthetic projects scale!

This all girls school has huge plans for exploring careers in STEAM!

Hear how young women in Kenya would use Gigabot to explore a future in tech below!

The youth at this Cameroon Innovation Lab could do amazing things with a Gigabot 3+!

Gigabot 3+ Updates for Fall 2019

re:3D’s Research and Development team never stands still, and while we’re developing the next generation of your Gigabot® and Gigabot® X 3D Printers, we’re continually looking for ways to refine the current iteration’s user experience, precision, and quality. As of October 1, 2019, all new Gigabot®3+ 3D printers ship with the below enhancements. Current Gigabot® owners can order these as replacement parts that are fully compatible with previous versions.

Major Changes

LED Light Cover

To enhance user comfort and safety, we’ve created a full length 3D printed cover that fits over the top of the front-mounted LED light strip.

Printed Extruder indicators and part numbers

Our Unibody Extruder design, which was released this past spring, as well as our Filament Detection units now features numerical hot end indicator labels for a visual aid for filament loading. Additionally, these and many other 3D printed parts now include part and revision numbers. Not sure what a part is called? Search our store using the part number or share the part number with customer support to help streamline troubleshooting communication.

FIRMWARE RELEASE VERSION 4.2.3

Our newest iteration of Gigabot®3+ firmware has been posted at re3d.zendesk.com along with instructions for how to flash your firmware. This firmware update includes the following changes:

  • Increased electrical current to X and Y motors to prevent layer shifts.
  • Decreased filament feed rate during the Filament Change routine for easier purging.
  • Minor Bug Fixes

Fit and Strength Adjustments for Polycarbonate 3D Printed Parts

The following parts have had material added for improved strength and durability:

  • 10870 Extruder Tensioner Left 
  • 10871 Extruder Tensioner Right 

The below parts have had their designs modified for better fit or print quality:

  • 11157 Gigabox Magnet Bracket 1 
  • 11245 Gigabox Magnet Bracket 3
  • 11158 Gigabox Magnet Bracket 4
  • 11159 Gigabox Y Support Magnet Bracket
  • 11238 Gigabox Enclosure Corner Cap
  • 10511 XY Upright Cover
  • 11251 Filament Detection Cover Right
  • 11252 Filament Detection Cover Left
  • 10599 Filament Tube Connector

We’ve upped the durability and longevity of our head cable and added 3D printed wire separators inside the cable carrier to protect the electrical wiring as it rolls and unrolls during normal Gigabot® operation.

Under the category of non-3D printed parts, we’ve thickened our bed plates to improve strength and rigidity. The square, left and right leveling blocks attached to the bed frame have had fit adjustments. We’ve also adjusted hole spacing for Gigabox Enclosure panels and split the top panel on the Gigabox Enclosure into two pieces. This improves manufacturing quality as well as increases modularity, as one piece can now be removed for venting or other customizations.

Do you have an improvement or a design change you’d like to see for this or future versions of Gigabot®? Fill out our New Feature Request form and share your ideas with us!

Charlotte craff

Blog Post Author

Sculpting Interdisciplinary Career Paths at Monmouth University’s Art Department

“You’re always going to have the people who are going to say, ‘Oh, what are you gonna do with a fine arts degree?’”

Lauren Haug is a third-year student at Monmouth University pursuing her Bachelor of Fine Arts in Design, and she’s all-too familiar with the reactions that come with being a student interested in following a passion for art into higher education.

“But when it comes to doing this interdisciplinary stuff, you get to open up so many more avenues that you never thought you’d be able to go into.”

It was at Monmouth that she fell under the tutelage of Kimberly Callas, an Assistant Professor teaching drawing, sculpture, and 3D design at the university, and that Haug’s career visions underwent a stark trajectory change.

Callas is an academically-trained figurative sculptor and social practice artist. Her craft is a very old tradition – she sculpts in clay and casts her work in bronze or concrete. And yet she’s been on the forefront of adopting new technology and finding ways to use it to better her workflow and incorporate it into her teachings.

Her students are reaping the benefits of this as much as she is – graduating with a set of highly-sought after and directly-applicable experience: from CAD and 3D printing to creativity and adaptability.

Fostering Innovation through Interdisciplinary Projects

Callas’s curriculum has been largely influenced by her early experiences working at a makerspace.

“There was a student there who was in engineering, and then there was another student who was a nursing student, and I was there as an artist working,” she recounts. “To me it was really fascinating to work between the fields, and so I wanted that opportunity for my students.”

The interdisciplinary experience stuck with her and has impacted her teachings to this day. “It’s one of the things I really like about 3D printing and emerging technologies, that we can all work together in the space and maybe through touching shoulders we come up with better ideas or innovative ideas,” she says. “I feel like it really does foster innovation; in the arts, being exposed to the other fields, but also the other fields being exposed to the arts.”

Through cross-department projects with her students, Callas encourages the weaving of an artist’s touch into other fields, and vice-versa.

“With the Gigabot, we do a couple of different projects,” she explains. “[The students] have to go out and seek someone in another field that needs a 3D print, or may not even know they need a 3D print yet.” She’s had students work on projects with scientists, anthropologists, mathematicians, and chemists.

“Last semester, I had a student who was able to 3D model and 3D print a molecule that only exists when we make it on this campus,” she recounts. “That was really neat because the students were able to hold the molecule in their hand and look at it, and this is something they’ve been researching for a long time.”

Both Callas and Haug have a particular way of describing the tactile nature of 3D printing. For them, touch is inextricably linked to their craft, and so it’s no wonder that the transmutation of a concept from idea to digital to physical is so meaningful to them. But they also talk about it in a way that extends beyond the art world.

Haug worked on a project with a Monmouth professor to print out DNA in its building-block segments. “Her students will be able to break apart the actual double helix strand and…inspect the pieces that build them and see how they work together, how they link up, and how the actual double helix itself is formed, instead of just being able to look at the page in the textbook,” she explains. From a student’s perspective, Haug describes how this could function as a powerful teaching tool. “I know for myself, personally, when I’m able to feel things and actually look at things from all angles, that it helps me remember.”

149171-548709-haug_lauren-may-7-2019-607-pm-img_3865
149171-548709-haug_lauren-may-7-2019-607-pm-img_3864

Another student of Callas’s took on a project in the anthropology department, 3D printing a mandible from a scan. “It was a newly-discovered mandible that showed that there was this new evolutionary line in humanoids,” she explains. The discovery was so new that it was still just being researched in a lab, but Callas’s student was able to get ahold of a 3D scan that the laboratory had taken. “We were able to 3D print it for our students to look at the mandible and be able to really examine and understand – ‘Why is this significant? What’s important about this?’ – by physically looking at it, which is what they would be doing in the field.”

It’s this sort of mentality that permeates Callas’ teachings: how does this school project translate into future real-world work? How does this degree cross over, post-graduation, into a career? It’s a deliberate, thoughtful, applicable style of teaching that one would hope every student gets the opportunity to experience.

Callas took her students on a field trip to the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Media Lab, where students got a firsthand glimpse of what a post-graduation career path might look like. “The students just saw all kinds of possibilities in 3D printing and digital scanning,” she says.

Haug also describes the profound impact this trip had on her. “We got a little backstage tour of [The Met’s] digital imaging labs,” she recounts. “That’s [now] kind of a loose goal for myself to do work with an anthropological aspect to it, ’cause I think that’s really interesting. I really like working with both past and present, and…bringing them together in a way that everyone can be interested in.”

Adaptation in the Art World

Callas explains that what she’s doing in her classes is more than just teaching her students a software and a machine. Yes, her students come away with CAD and 3D printing experience, but what she’s really trying to impress upon them is a can-do spirit of versatility and flexibility.

“I think one of the things that’s really exciting about the students using the printer…is that sort of entrepreneurial mindset,” she says. “That adaptability is gonna be really important in their work life and going forward. And so 3D printing’s been really important for my students to… understand that this changes all the time and you have to change with it. You have to figure things out yourself, you have to Google it and use YouTube, and that self-direction is really important and I see a lot of growth in them through doing that.”

Callas is speaking from experience.

She got her MFA from the New York Academy of Art and her BFA from the Stamps School of Art at the University of Michigan. She’s been working as an artist in an age-old craft for decades, and yet has nimbly evolved as her field has undergone some major, rapid changes in the last several years.

“It’s been interesting to be able to watch something be introduced to my field of sculpture at this stage that changes it radically,” she says. “I liken 3D printing to when Photoshop was introduced to photography and Illustrator to design work, when everything went onto the computer. Well sculpture hadn’t been on the computer. And so what it’s done to sculpture has been unbelievably fast, so we’re all adapting quickly.”

Where Callas had to evolve efficiently and pick up a new tool midway into her career, she works to give her students a leg up by sending them out into the world well-versed in these new digital tools.

“I try to keep it integrated in every class,” Callas says, of 3D printing. “My big focus is being able to work seamlessly between the handmade and the digital. And I think that that is absolutely necessary for going forward in the world today.”

The old traditions and handmade touches will likely always remain in their own ways, but the injection of digital into the creation process is undeniably beneficial and here to stay. The message under Callas’s teachings seem to be: better to embrace this and prepare for it than to fight it. “I want my students to realize that the digital is going to be a big part of what they do in the studio, even though they still have the dirt and the dust and the plaster dust under their fingernails.”

3D Printing in the Artist’s Workflow

This fusion of digital and handmade permeates not only Callas’s teachings but also her personal work, where she uses the two mediums to complement one another.

“I work back and forth between the digital and the handmade the whole time,” she says. “Uploading drawings, and then uploading scans, printing things, sculpting from prints, sculpting from the models, scanning what I’ve sculpted in clay, going back into the computer, printing that…so it’s a real back-and-forth process.”

Callas has a long history of working in sustainability, something that has heavily shaped the work she does today.

“I realized when I was working in sustainability that people were having a hard time responding to just environmental data,” she explains. “But if it were a stream or something that they fished in as a child, then they would really protect that space. And so I wanted to find those more emotional connections in people, like where are our emotional and more intimate connections to nature and where do those exist?”

She began experimenting with incorporating local flora into her work, forming a body of work around what she called the “Ecological Self.”

This ultimately evolved into her Eco-Portraits, a mask series in which she does a portrait of an individual around a symbol or pattern from nature that’s significant to that person. “I’m looking for that connection, where is that intimate link between them and nature,” she explains. “And then I take a pattern from that…and I combine it with a portrait.’

Where Callas used to work solely in the handmade realm, she’s found immense advantages with bringing new technology into her work.

“Before, I would sculpt from a model to get the individual portrait, and then I would sculpt and dig into the clay the different patterns,” she explains. “The way that 3D printing has helped it is now I can take a scan of my model and I can 3D print their head, and then I sculpt from the head. I still work in the clay, but I’ll be working from a 3D print of the model so they don’t have to sit there that long.”

“The other thing that’s been a huge advantage,” she continues, “is often when I want to get an intricate pattern into the clay and then I make the mold and cast it, some of that pattern gets disturbed and broken [and] needs to be repaired. And so with a 3D print, I’m able to digitally scan in my sculpture, get an intricate pattern without much repair work, and I can just 3D print it rather than cast it.”

There are several different aspects to 3D printing that have proven to be of immense help to Callas in her process of creation. “One is that you can change things really quickly, and so if you’re working digitally and you need to shrink something down or enlarge it or change any part of it, it’s much faster than working in clay,” she explains. “And also then you can get copies really quick. If you have to make a mold of a sculpture, it takes you quite a long time, but I can scan a sculpture in a couple of minutes, and then I can 3D print it very quickly compared to what it takes to cast from a mold. So those are some really big advantages.”

What Photoshop is to photography and Illustrator to design, 3D printing is to the physical, Callas explains. And what more valuable function is there in these programs than the undo button? This is a game-changer to which her field never previously had access.

“Oh, there’s no comparison…it’s so much quicker,” she says. “If I make a mistake or if I just don’t like something, I just undo it. But if I don’t like something in clay, I have to rebuild it, and it takes a long time.”

Callas’s current big project is 3D printing a life-size human sculpture with patterns from nature etched into the form – “almost tattooed into the skin” – representing how place shapes us and can very literally become a part of who we are through what we eat and breathe.

She completed an artist residency at an eco-art residency called Joya in Spain last spring – paid for in part by an Urban Coast Institute Faculty Enrichment Grant – collecting symbols and patterns from the wildlife there, which she will add to the 3D printed figure. She’s currently doing test prints for the body, which she estimates will take somewhere between 10-12 prints and 1,300 hours of print time.

While she still loves working in good old-fashioned clay, Callas can’t deny the time and labor savings that comes with adding a 3D printer to her workflow. “I still love working with clay, there’s something to it,” she says. “But I think some of the advantages which I’m looking forward to [include] emailing my file to the foundry rather than shipping huge molds or carrying them…” She laughs, and says of the artist community, “I think we’re going to end up liking that.”

Callas was recently chosen to be the new Artist-in-Residence for the Urban Coast Institute. During this two year appointment, she will be making 3D printed life size figures that combine ocean science with symbols from the ocean.

Inspiring New Career Paths

There’s no denying the impact that Callas’s teachings have upon her students. The interdisciplinary elements in her classes are opening her students’ eyes to interests and career paths that were previously unconsidered.

“I definitely want to pursue something with a sort of museum aspect to it,” says Haug. “I would really like to work with cataloguing and organizing.” She explains that she’s excited about 3D printing’s ability to increase accessibility to information and open doors to research.

“What inspired me to work with the anthropology professor was when they take fossil scans and they upload them to databases, so people all around the world can just print them out and be able to look at them,” she says. A bone segment that may live in a lab a flight away could instead be printed out in the comfort of one’s own facility in less time than it would take to travel there. “That is just remarkable to me,” she muses. “I want to be involved in that.”

Beyond inspiring her students to think outside the box and consider the possibility of applying their art degree outside the world of art, Callas also gives them the final piece of the puzzle: job postings.

“I’m always collecting job descriptions that include 3D printing and 3D scanning and digital modeling,” Callas says. “One of my students could walk right into a medical position with the scanning and the 3D printing [they learn].”

“If you had told me when I was in middle school that I could possibly work in the medical field, I would have told you, ‘What are you talking about? There’s just no way,’” says Haug. “I didn’t even consider the thought that this could be something that would be so interdisciplinary.”

A 3D printed eco-mask by Kimberly will be available at an upcoming auction at Sotherby’s in New York City, October 15th: https://kimberlycallas.com/take-home-a-nude-at-sotherbys-new-york-october-15th/

See more of Kimberly’s 3D printed pieces of work: https://www.artworkarchive.com/profile/kimberly-callas/collection/3d-prints

Morgan Hamel

Blog Post Author

The Last Lockdown

It’s a disturbing sight. The desk is scratched with graffiti, and a terrified-looking figure cowers underneath – a small girl – with fingers wrapped around one leg of the desk.

The haunting scene is only a statue, but the fear conveyed on the young girl’s face is real. The statistics etched into the surface of the desk say it all: “During the 2017-2018 school year, the US averaged more than one school shooting per week.” “Guns are the third leading cause of death for American children.” “22 kids are shot every day in America.” They go on.

Sean Leonard and a collaborator are the creative duo behind the jarring sculpture. Both senior creatives in the ad industry in Austin, Texas, the two were spurred on by the tragic school shooting in Parkland, Florida to put their advertising skills to work for a good cause.

“We were inspired by the youth who were taking charge and making their voices heard,” recounts one artist. “They were – and still are – desperate for the issue to remain top of mind. Unfortunately, we knew the issue of gun violence against kids and students would fade from the news cycle after a while until it happened again. This project is our way of drawing – and keeping – attention on the issue.”

The piece is in fact more than just one statue: it’s ten, scattered across the country on their September 15th reveal in cities from Irvine to Parkland.

The statues were strategically placed in districts “represented by members of Congress who receive a significant amount of money from the gun lobby,” explains the artist. The timing is no coincidence: it’s back-to-school season and midterm elections will be taking place in just a few weeks.

“We know the gun issue is a sensitive one with strong opinions on both sides and that one stunt or installation won’t solve all our problems,” says the design team, “but we want to engage both sides.”

The idea for the piece came about because they wanted to bring attention to an ugly truth that many prefer not to think or talk about.

“Even for parents, it’s difficult to imagine the drills their sons and daughters are being taught in school,” one of the artists says. “So we wanted people to not just conceptualize it, but really see it and feel it.” The drills alone can be a taxing experience for kids, and, as he puts it, “it’s important for that emotion to be relayed to adults.”

They settled on a sculpture for its interactive nature as well as its realism. “A three-dimensional statue forces you to stop and look at it. It’s tactile – you can go up to it and study it, touch it, interact with it,” says the artistic team.

“Another reason we thought this statue was interesting is because it flips what a traditional statue represents,” he says. “Most statues are celebratory or honorary. This captures a moment that should make you uneasy and your stomach a little unsettled. We wanted that emotive reaction.”

Design & Fabrication of the Statues

With the idea born, the pair began making moves to bring the project to fruition.

“After we came up with the idea, we brought on colleagues who could help us bring it to life,” the artist recounts. Caleb Sawyer was their go-to 3D modeler, and with a CAD sculpture in hand, they began pitching the idea to organizations within the national gun reform movement.

They immediately got a positive response from Manuel Oliver, whose organization Change the Ref works to raise awareness about mass shootings and reduce the influence of the NRA on the Federal level. Oliver’s son was one of the 17 murdered in Parkland.

The pitch also piqued the interest of Giffords, a prominent gun reform organization started by Gabrielle Giffords, the US Representative from Arizona who survived being shot in the head in an assassination attempt as she met with constituents.

The two uniquely-impacted individuals came together to lend their own touch to the project. “Mr. Oliver collaborated with us to refine the design of the statue and led the push to make it a guerrilla-style national launch, and Giffords funded the project and is bringing it to life,” explains the designers.

The actual creation of the statues posed its own set of challenges.

“Our first thought was to do a bronze casting,” says the team. But they quickly discovered that process would be both cost- and time-prohibitive. They looked into other materials, like foam. “What it came down to, ultimately, was what gave us the most realism and what was most cost-effective,” he recounts. “3D printing pretty quickly became the obvious choice.”

They decided on a multimedia approach: they would 3D print the girl and use a real school desk, both finished with a post-processing technique to lend a bronze-casted look to the piece

The perk of using Gigabot for the project is that the girls could be printed all in one go, with no need to affix different sections post-printing. At a height of about two feet, they fit easily within the build volume of the Gigabot XLT. The ten girls were printed in our Houston office and sent to PBE Exhibits where Adam Fontenault handled the post-processing.

“Our main goal throughout this part of the process was realism, from the size of the statue to the look on her face,” the design team says. “We even wanted the faux bronzing to look as realistic as possible. Adam lightly sanded the printed statues and primed them to smooth out any visible print lines. He used a mixture of materials to achieve the lightly-patinated bronze look.”

The result is a statue that looks casted, at a fraction of the price and time it would have taken to go through that process.

“We’re thrilled with the final outcome,” says the team. “She looks very lifelike, and the detail on the print is amazing. The bronze paint brings out additional features and makes the whole statue really pop.”

Prompting Policy Change and Conversation

The installation has gotten some major press following its September debut, making headlines in Adweek, The Washington Post, and CNN, among others. It’s a big step for visibility of the project, whose intent is severalfold.

“The first is to raise awareness of how pervasive the issue of gun violence against children really is and to force people to confront it,” the designers explain. “The second goal is to show how art as activism can be a vehicle for positive change. And the third goal is to educate people and motivate them to demand change.”

It’s a hot-button topic with many complicated layers, but Crumrine and Leonard hope that the installation can break through partisan arguments to the ultimate message: keeping kids in school safe from gun violence.

“Inevitably, this issue is loaded with political baggage,” says the artists. “But we’re hoping this project can at least focus the conversation around how to keep our nation’s children from being innocent victims.”

The idea is to spark policy change as much as it is to spark conversation.

“We hope we get strong reactions from both sides. We want it to be uncomfortable to see because it’s an uncomfortable thing to talk about,” the artists explains. “There will always be people who viscerally accept its message or viscerally reject it. But we want the people in the middle to consider what it’s actually saying.”

And as for the name of the cross-country installation?

“The title of the piece is ‘The Last Lockdown,’ because that’s the ultimate dream outcome,” explains the artists. “We want to help create a world where we’ve already seen the last one, but we’re not naïve enough to think it’ll happen overnight. This is hopefully a step in that direction.”

The Last Lockdown statues can be seen in the following ten cities:

Irvine, California

Parkland, Florida

Sarasota, Florida

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Houston, Texas

St. Paul, Minnesota

Las Vegas, Nevada

Denver, Colorado

Milwaukee, Wisconsin

Spokane, Washington

Morgan Hamel

Blog Post Author

Gigabot X Update

Hot off the 3D printing press, it's a Gigabot X update!

It’s been about four months since we closed out a successful Kickstarter campaign for our pellet printer, Gigabot X, on April 23rd. Since we last touched base with you, our engineers have been hard at work making improvements to the design for our Kickstarter backer beta testers.
 
The main focus of the redesign has been the extruder, which has been completely overhauled over the last several months. There’s a new metal extruder body, improved wiring of heaters and the external motor driver, and a redesigned screw for more consistent extrusion.
Some previously 3D printed components within the extruder body were switched to metal for the purpose of durability. Originally printed for ease of testing modifications, our engineers found that some components weren’t lasting as long as they’d like to see due to the tremendous forces being generated within the hopper as the screw extrudes pellets. Now that the design of certain pieces is more final, we started machining certain components in metal to better deal with wear and tear.
 
The modular, 3D printed hopper has also seen significant changes. With the previous design, our R&D team found that the amount of pellets being pushed through by the screw was much higher than they expected – and wanted. They increased the size of the hopper to slow down the rate, which also provides the dual benefit of not having to replenish the pellets as often.

The first Gigabot X prototype took a trip up to Michigan and is currently residing at Michigan Tech University, where a group of students are performing material testing research as a collaboration supported by our NSF SBIR Phase I. Some of the materials they’ve been validating include PLA, PET, polypropylene, and ABS, in both recycled and virgin forms. One of our favorites we’ve been printing with is recycled PET, better known as the common disposable water bottle.

Michigan Tech has also done us the incredible service of creating improved Slic3r profiles for these materials. The profiles are working fantastically on the new Gigabot X in the Houston office, and we’re seeing improved quality of prints thanks to them. Backers will benefit from these profiles, which have improved the overall printing experience greatly.
 
Another thing our team is particularly excited about is that the MTU students were also able to 3D print with multiple sized pellets and have also been experimenting with printing directly with ground-up plastics with success. These results were then submitted to a peer-reviewed journal, and we would love to invite the community to check out the research in Materials. You can also share questions and comments with us on the Gigabot X forum by creating an account and logging in.
 
Testing of Gigabot X is still ongoing and small tweaks continue to be made, but things are moving along well. Over the next three to four months our team will be rounding out testing, cleaning up and finalizing the design and documentation of the machine, and getting the first bots ready for backers. Our team is really excited for the moment that we get to put this technology into the hands of our early adopters.
 
As re:3D R&D Intern Robert Oakley put it, “I’m really looking forward to seeing what people make with it… It’s really cool to see when people start figuring out how to use our printers to make cool objects that we haven’t thought of before.”
Stay tuned for an upcoming post about what Gigabot X was printing in the video above!

Morgan Hamel

Blog Post Author

New Feature: Linear Advance

Here at re:3D, we are results driven and want to provide the best possible product for our customers. Before the release of the new Gigabot Firmware 4.2.0, we wanted to put the new feature, Linear Advance, to the test. Referenced from the Marlin website, Linear Advance allows users to print more dimensionally accurate parts.  Under normal conditions, the extruder gear movement is a linear proportion to all other axes. However, the pressure buildup in the nozzle is not proportional to other axes and this leads to extra material being extruded at the end of each movement.

To solve this issue, linear advance changes the extrusion rate whenever the extruder slows down or speed up, creating an even extrusion line no matter the speed or change in direction. The K value has units of mm of filament compression needed per 1 mm/s extrusion speed [mm/(mm/s)]

The advantages of this feature are as follows:

  • Better dimensional precision.
  • Higher printing speeds are possible without any loss of print quality.
  • Visible and tangible print quality is increased even at lower printing speeds.
  • No need for high acceleration and jerk values to get sharp edges.

A total of 48 test specimens were printed at a different layer height, speed and K value. Each of the 25mm squares were printed individually to decrease the effects of other variables. A circular indentation was added to the middle of the model to increase the number of changes in travel direction, emphasizing the effects of Linear Advance. Shown in Figure 1, are a set of test pieces printed at 0.31 layer height, 120mm/s and a K value of 0.0, 0.05, 0.1, and 0.15 from left to right.

Each test specimen was measured with a caliper. In Table 1, the dimensions of all of the test squares are shown. The highlighted boxes show the test specimen that had the most accurate dimensional reading in its group. As linear advance decouples the extrusion motor from other axis, the print quality is visually and quantitatively improved. Shown in Figure 1, Linear Advance significantly reduces the extrusion of extra material on the outer edges at higher print speeds and larger layer heights. As print speed decreases, the addition of Linear Advance has less of an impact on the quality, however, it is still beneficial with a delta of 0.2 at 40mm/s and 0.15 layer height. These results showed to be consistent with expectations because as flow rate increases, the more buildup of pressure and potential for extra material to come out of the nozzle. With 8 test samples of 0.1 K value and 4 samples of 0.05 K value excelling in accuracy, a weighted average of K= 0.08 provides a good value to improve print quality across the board.

If you are interested in using this feature on your Gigabot, please visit the full feature list of the new Gigabot Firmware 4.2.0 here

Noah Pan

Blog Post Author

3D Printing Sparking Innovation at Stellar Industries

Have you ever walked by a construction site, looked at a massive piece of equipment that completely dwarves you, and wondered, “How do they change that massive tire if they get a flat?”

Stellar Industries has the answer to that question.

Stellar designs and manufactures hydraulic truck equipment – cranes, hooklifts, tire service, and more – for the construction, mining, and utility industries. In other words, they make the equipment to change those 12-foot-diameter tires, as well as perform a lot of the other service on hulking pieces of industrial machinery. It is interesting that 3D printing could be use to do something as intriguing as this. Luckily there are mark downs for those who are interested in finding computer systems that might be able to help.

A Gargantuan Operation in Garner

Stellar is based in the small Iowa city of Garner, and driving through downtown feels a little like driving through a Stellar Industries ad. Every other building seems to have a Stellar sign on its facade; the employee-owned company employs some 400 people there and sprawls across town.

Hydraulic truck manufacturing is a massive industrial operation that requires a lot of space, and the Stellar warehouses that dot the landscape each contain some portion of the truck-manufacturing process.

There’s the shop section, replete with engineering toys like enormous CNC machines and laser cutters, huge press brake machines that bend pieces of steel like putty, sparks flying from plasma cutting robotic arms and human welders alike. Another gargantuan building houses just the paint portion of the process, where truck bodies receive their coats on a journey along a carwash-esque track. The final stop of the trucks, the assembly building, is where everything comes together and the trucks take shape, workers flitting around the lifted rigs with tool boxes.

In a slightly less hectic area of the assembly building, a large wooden crate on wheels has arrived. It’s Stellar’s second Gigabot.

The Road to 3D Printing

“It was quite a journey.”

Engineering Manager at Stellar Industries Matt Schroeder recounted how they got to the point of having their second in-house 3D printer. “About 5 years ago, we looked at 3D printing, and it was just really expensive and very limited.”

What they were interested in doing was creating tools to help the folks in the assembly portion of the Stellar Industries operation.

“When we first started getting into the 3D printing realm, we needed some assembly fixtures.” Scott Britson is the Assistant Engineering Manager and has been in the Design and Engineering Department for 16 years.

Scott explained that different clients get differently configured trucks: different bodies, different components – sometimes customer-supplied – mounted in unique ways. They wanted to make the assembly team’s job easier in doing these custom setups, so that, as Scott explained, “when we repeat a truck for a customer, they get the same exact truck that they ordered from the first build to the eighth build.”

Stellar had in fact been creating these assembly fixtures themselves pre-3D printer, but their only option was to make them using what was available. Matt recounted, “Before our Gigabot – and before we would even contract out 3D printing – it would be a very intensive process of working either internally or externally with the machine shop to painstakingly make a prototype.”

The fixtures they made were heavy, costly, labor-intensive pieces which also had the negative effect of pulling their machine shop away from actually producing truck components. “We were using aluminum, we were using steel, we were having to machine stuff, we were having to weld stuff,” explained Scott. It was amounting to be too much of a labor, cash, and time sink to produce the tools.

Their attention turned to 3D printing.

“With 3D printing, we knew we could get lightweight, we could go into certain areas and cut places out of the part that we needed to go around,” Scott explained. “It’s a lot easier than sending it to our machine shop.”

They began by outsourcing their 3D print jobs to third party service bureaus, but they reached a stopping point where they were getting quoted longer and longer lead times. “We realized,” Matt recounted, “this is a core competency we need to develop in order to be able to have faster response times and control our own destiny.”

Thus began the hunt for a 3D printer of their own.

A Big Machine for Big Manufacturing

“When we looked at 3D printers a few years ago, you were limited by the 8 x 10s, the smaller, more toy things that sit on your computer desk,” Scott explained, “which really didn’t fit our needs.”

Stellar manufactures big, industrial equipment to service even bigger industrial equipment. They needed something to match that. “We needed to go to something that we could build bigger things, bigger fixtures for the types of trucks that we build,” said Scott.

Stellar prioritized a few important features to them: first on the list was size. Another deciding factor, Scott explained, was “the ability to upfit your 3D printer to the newest advancements and not be stuck at a version one, version two, version three.” They wanted something that could evolve with them and stay current with advancements in the industry without them having to buy an entirely new machine. And lastly, they were looking for a company that would come in and teach them, to help make their team 3D printer-literate.

“That’s where Gigabot came into our eyes as the clear leader,” said Scott.

“Right around the first of the year, we received our first Gigabot,” Matt recounted, “and we immediately put it to work that day, printing some prototype parts and things that were in a backlog that we really needed to get a project back on task.”

They completed most of that work in about two to three weeks, explained Matt, and then an interesting phenomenon occurred. People from other departments got wind of the new toy at the office and started coming by to check it out.

Igniting Innovation

“It’s kind of a piece that everybody wants to come up and see, everybody wants to take a look,” said Scott, of their Gigabot.

It didn’t take long before projects that weren’t originally on Stellar’s radar began springing up.

Scott recounted, “We’ve had our assembly department come up to the Gigabot and say, ‘Hey, you’re doing that part, do you think we can get something like that for this?'” The Stellar engineering department works to draws up the idea in CAD and print out the design on their Gigabot. Within a matter of days, they can have the part in their hands.

The increased creativity and innovation sparked by the in-house 3D printer, as both Scott and Matt described, is palpable.

The whole Stellar team is, as Scott explained, “constantly thinking of new ideas and new things to help them improve their throughput.” As Matt put it, “Once we brought [Gigabot] in, it excited people’s ability to think outside the box; it got people thinking about innovation in ways that we originally we weren’t intending.”

Their Gigabot was suddenly awash in a steady stream of projects coming from all angles.

“Things that we wouldn’t have initially thought of,” Matt explained, “like, go/no go quality tools.” A common misconception about 3D printers – that they’re really only for prototyping – was quickly dispelled once Stellar got their hands on their Gigabot.

“I think something that was very eye-opening to me is the range of materials that we could print,” Matt mused.

“I was of the mindset that we could just print something in PLA and it was just this hard plastic proof-of-concept,” he explained, “but we’re printing very tough and durable materials, we’re printing things that can bend and stretch and flex. We’re printing gaskets. Things like that are not what we had originally envisioned, but we’re leveraging those now. Being able to print those large varieties of materials is really helping us.”

In Stellar’s weld shop are large 3D printed tack fixtures used for cranes. These fixtures are 70-85% cheaper than traditional metal fixturing, and let them keep their production equipment focused on end-product parts. 3D printing them also allows Stellar to keep their lead times down; depending on the size of the part, they are often able to deliver fixtures or tooling with just 24 hours’ notice.

Also in the welding area is an assortment of colorful, 3D printed rings used to designate the holes used for specific tool models. Using the 3D printed collars allows them to match the collars with any additional plastic parts, and are much more durable than denoting them with markings in paint or tape.

Their maintenance department has taken a liking to the new 3D printer, finding ways to cut costs on expensive replacements. “We had a small component for a paint system that was several hundred dollars to replace, and you had to buy the entire kit to do so,” Matt recounted. “We were able to look at the small part, we created it in 3D and printed it over that night, and they were up and going the next day. So it was very fast and it was very economical.”

And, of course, there are the assembly jigs and fixtures that originally spurred the Gigabot purchase in the first place. The lightweight, low-cost 3D printed pieces are night and day compared to their first-generation, machine-milled and welded metal brethren, and they’re helping the Stellar assembly team become more efficient and effective with custom truck builds.

“We’re able to keep spacing on parts, we’re able to drill new holes in the fixtures for the mounting,” Scott explained. “We’re able to do a lot more for our shop to make it more consistent – they’re not having to get the tape measure out and make sure they’re not getting mis-measurements. They have the fixtures there so that they’re getting the exact location that they need.”

Stellar’s mind has been firmly changed since their original belief that 3D printing was solely a prototyping tool. Matt mused, “I think there is going to come a tipping point where we will produce more and more production parts on our machines versus prototyping parts.”

Bringing in Backup

“I don’t think in the beginning we knew that we would be running the Gigabot nonstop,” said Scott.

“From the day that we got it to about 45 days down the road, that thing was running 40 days, day and night,” he recalled. “The only time that it was down was because…we didn’t have it running through the weekend, or we were letting the bed cool to pull the prints off the Gigabot.”

Matt also recounted the early days, ping-ponging between projects they originally intended for their bot and new unexpected ones that came out of left field. The two angles kept their machine plenty busy. “In short, we were able to keep the machine running non-stop for about six months,” he said. “There were just a couple of times for some minimal preventative maintenance that we had the machine down, and it’s still running around the clock today.”

“In fact,” Matt continues, “we have been so busy we’ve had to get a second machine going.”

In the quiet side room off the main assembly floor, they pry the wooden boards of the crate apart with the excitement of kids opening up a new toy, unveiling Stellar Gigabot number two.

Within minutes of getting it uncrated and into the office, it’s already begun printing.

Learn more about Stellar Industries on their website: www.stellarindustries.com

Morgan Hamel

Blog Post Author

The Library Makerspace

There are four videos throughout this post – scroll through to watch the full story.

If you ever find yourself driving through the Clear Lake City community of Houston, keep your eyes open for an interesting McDonalds. Looming in the sky on East NASA Parkway next to the golden arches is a giant astronaut, advertising the “Play Space” area of the space-themed establishment.

screen-shot-2018-05-24-at-3.44.40-pm

It’s commonplace in the neighborhood, which is infused with the culture of a local celebrity, the NASA Johnson Space Center. NASA’s Manned Spacecraft Center is down the street from another couple of locations which you may be familiar with: the re:3D Houston HQ, and the subject of today’s story: the Clear Lake City-County Freeman Branch Library.

It’s only fitting given the local climate that this library would be an innovator in its space. Walk upstairs and you’ll find an unexpected surprise nestled among the bookshelves on the second floor: a makerspace.

The library has found itself among the first of its kind leading the charge to reinvent the literary institutions as a hub for community creators to access cutting-edge technology. Named the Jocelyn H. Lee Innovation Lab, the space was made possible thanks to an extremely generous individual donation.

Jim Johnson was the Branch Manager of the library during the shooting of this story last year, and and now works at Harris County Public Library’s administrative offices.  “It started all the way back when we received a notice about a bequest received from Mr. Jocelyn H. Lee in 2013, and actually found out exactly how much he was giving us in 2014,” he explains.

Photo credit: HCPL

The sizable sum allowed them to put plans in place to purchase equipment and cordon off an area for the lab. They officially opened the doors to the makerspace in February 2015. The lab boasts a variety of equipment, from a CNC to laser cutter, soldering stations to dremel tools, Arduinos and Raspberry Pis, and of course, 3D printers – the largest being a Gigabot. “3D printing tends to be a cornerstone feature of the lab,” says Jim.

All the equipment and classes offered by the lab are free of charge to the community.

20180524-28839763832_59d029404a_k
Photo credit: HCPL

“With us being based in the Houston area and right near NASA, we’ve got obviously a lot of engineers in the area, and a lot of engineers’ kids,” Jim explains. “This space tends to focus on STEM activities: science, technology, engineering, and math.”

Some of the groups taking advantage of the lab are local robotics teams and home-schooled groups of students. One such group is FTC 8668: Error 404, Team Name Not Found, a local FIRST Tech Challenge robotics team comprised of high school home-schooled boys.

Error 404 Coach Clarissa Belbas saw a big opportunity in the lab’s capabilities, and in a true demonstration of “mothers always know best,” urged the team to consider incorporating 3D printing into the design of their robot. “At the end of last season, I kept saying, ‘Guys, there’s this Gigabot at the library. We could print the whole chassis in one piece!'”

The boys didn’t bite, protesting that the printed version wouldn’t be strong enough, so Clarissa took matters into her own hands. She visited the lab on her own, using Gigabot to print out a small, proof-of-concept of their robot’s chassis to show the team. They were sold.

“There haven’t been any other teams that we have seen that have had their robot completely 3D printed,” says Nick, a programmer on the Error 404 team. “Having a 3D printed robot and a good engineering log helps to make us stand out to the judges.”

It’s also proven to be quite the teaching tool. “For me the point was educational,” explains Clarissa. “Because that’s the way that it is in the real world: you truly design something before you manufacture it.” Forced to flesh out a part on the computer through CAD before printing, the team learned the lessons of design cycles, prototyping, and manufacturing.

Having access to a large-scale 3D printer has been crucial to the team’s robot design.

“Our first year as a FIRST Tech Challenge team, we had a really small 3D printer that we got as a grant; only had like a five inch by five inch by eight inch print area – absolutely tiny,” recounts Nick. “When we saw the Gigabot here at the library, that’s when we had the idea of printing out our entire chassis, because we’d be able to make it all in one piece, and that made it a bit more structurally sound.”

In addition to strength, the 3D printed chassis affords them more mounting opportunities for their robotics challenges, a more compact electronics section, and a far cheaper alternative to the aluminum they’re typically forced to buy for competitions. Clarissa explained that where one small piece of aluminum channel may run them $15 – “You don’t know how much you put into this” – they can get several iterations of their entire chassis out of a $30-40 roll of PETG. 

While Error 404 is currently leading the pack in 3D printed robots, Clarissa sees things trending in this direction. “There have been a lot of teams that have come and said, ‘Wow, that’s a really great idea. We want to do that.'” The only issue, she explains, is printer size. “A lot of teams say, ‘Well, our printer isn’t that big,’ and ‘Where did you get a printer that big?’ A lot of people don’t have access to a Gigabot.”

That’s something that the library is trying to change.

“We’ve got small business entrepreneurs who use this space, inventors, we have International Science Fairs winners who’ve come through here…many, many different kinds of projects that take place in this space,” Jim muses. “We really want it to be a space for the community and for them to sort of define what they want it to be.”

Another group making themselves comfortable in the lab is the FLL Thunderbolts #17355 robotics team.

This home-schooled FIRST LEGO League robotics team has also been taking advantage of the lab’s 3D printing capabilities for their robot, which is unusual for their division. “Not a lot of teams 3D print at this level,” explains Thunderbolts team member Tyler. “We thought we’d probably stand out a lot.”

And stand out they have. “This is only our second year as a robotics team and we’re going to World,” says teammate Israel. The FIRST World Championship is the culmination of the FIRST LEGO League, FIRST Tech Challenge, and FIRST Robotics Competition. “It’s the best of the best,” explains Nick from Error 404.

The Thunderbolts’ challenge was to design a product for animal-human or animal-animal relationships. They chose the problem of multi-dog families where a dominant dog eats the others’ food. Underwhelmed by the solutions available on the market, the team designed The Thunderbowl, a food bowl that opens and closes based on a bluetooth tag attached to a dog’s collar. Multiple types of food can even be enclosed in the same bowl, revealed in different compartments depending on the tag sensed.

The team started their prototyping process with paper plates, then moved to LEGOs, and finally graduated to 3D printing. In addition to helping them stand out among the competition, the 3D printed model is welcomed by many of the teammates for its durability.

“When our Thunderbowl was just a prototype in LEGOs, our job was to fix it whenever it broke, because it broke quite a bit,” says Abigail, another Thunderbolts team member. “That’s what I love about the 3D printing is it doesn’t break.”

Thunderbolts Coach Kris Lee admires the power of 3D printing to enable the kids to turn ideas in their heads into tangible objects. “We teach them the skills of CAD…and all of a sudden that idea is real,” he muses. “It goes from an idea to in their hands. That’s something I didn’t have when I was a kid.”

Jim also found continued wonderment in the projects that came out of the library’s lab through the years he worked there. “I’ve been amazed at a lot of the things that have come out of this space,” he says. “I am not an engineer myself, and one of the things I was looking forward to most about this space was seeing what people were going to do, because my imagination was very limited.”

Imagination now abounds on the second floor of the library. “There are ideas and plans in the works to expand the space due to the amount of usage it’s received over the last two years,” he reveals. “The sky is the limit.”

A fitting attitude for the NASA-neighborhood library.

20180524-28328416233_d8e07b951f_k

Learn more about the Jocelyn H. Lee lab.

See more photos courtesy of the Harris County Public Library here.

Learn more about the Error 404 Robotics Team here.

Learn more about the Thunderbolts Robotics Team here.

Morgan Hamel

Blog Post Author

Meet: Andrew

All new re:3D employees and interns are faced with the same question at our Houston office: “Have you met Andrew yet?”

If you haven’t, you’re in for a ride. Andrew Jicha is the man behind the machines, the owner of the hands that put together the lion’s share of the fully-assembled Gigabots that leave our office, and he’s nothing short of an absolute character.

Words don’t do him justice, so we got him on camera to tell you about what he does and where he came from (most likely another planet).

Without further ado, Andrew.

Morgan Hamel

Blog Post Author