The current FFF/FDM desktop 3D printing field has a wide variety of printing materials to choose from, which was unimaginable a few years ago, when it was the dream we were able to print flexible materials. Today, a variety of flexible 3D printed wires have become quite common.
Of course, since the application time of flexible printed materials is not so long, many usage techniques have not been tapped by players. So 3D printer users really don't have much flexible materials. A veteran named Steve Wood is very interested in flexible materials and has been exploring its applications in every aspect. Recently, he has found a clever way to simultaneously print 3D flexible and rigid wires in a single layer. He discovered this method when experimenting with a small project called Flesh and Bones.
"The relationship between flesh and blood is that I have been thinking and pondering for a while, because I was developing a 3D printing prosthetic at that time," Wood said. "The fake hand I want to create is soft to the touch, but it is rigid enough. So in order to achieve this I want to find a way to print both soft and hard materials in the same layer."
This is the purpose of the "Flesh" project. It turns out that Wood has reached his goal. Wood first upgraded its RepRap-style 3D printer Orca 0.43, which has been in use for three years, and replaced it with a new E3D Cyclops hot end, which is equipped with a dual wire input, but with only one nozzle. The output, which has the ability to switch between two wires, but another problem that Wood still has to overcome is how he can print both flexible and rigid wires in one layer.
"The problem I faced was that the Cyclops hot end used a dual Bowden system, which is very common for hard wires, but it doesn't work for ultra-soft Filaflex wires," Wood said. There is also a lot of compression inside the Bowden feed tube. Therefore, I chose a double direct drive method, because at that time I also want to print two different colors of flexible wire at the same time. I modified the existing double extrusion The machine is designed to fit the hot end of the Cyclops. This design is smaller, lighter and easier to print than other twin extruders."
In addition to modifying the hot end, Wood also needs to make some changes to the object he wants to print in terms of trimming. He needed to create a program that would allow the Cyclops hot end to remove the old material out of the hot end chamber and push the new material forward as the material was switched.
“Although Cylcops can switch materials very quickly, it is not done in an instant,†Wood explained. “Cura has a function to print a small, disposable cube on the side of the print object, the size of which is editable. So when the material is switched, the printer can print the cube on the side of the print layer first, etc. After the material is cleared, the original printing will continue."
Wood tells us that the bond between different material areas is very strong. This is due to the very sticky nature of the FilaFlex wire and the corresponding parameter settings in the Cura software. This parameter allows the user to control the overlap between different materials. An increase in the overlap area will reduce the sharpness of the color of the different materials, but it will increase the adhesion.
The next thing Wood wants to experiment with is to print "pseudo-mixed material" with his hot end.
“I say pseudo, because it's not a hybrid hot end that creates a truly homogeneous material. When a flexible wire and a rigid wire are simultaneously input and output, it produces a toothpaste-like effect,†explains Wood. I would like to see the effect of adjusting the input ratio of soft and hard materials and independently controlling the feed rate of each material. Last year I developed a software called Gcode Filament Mixer, which will Help me with this project."
Wood's ultimate goal is to hope that this will help create a better 3D printed prosthetic hand, a more realistic, realistic hand that combines a rigid internal skeletal structure with a translucent and flexible exterior structure.
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