There was a time when print-in-place transferring components had been a curiosity, however [Tomek] exhibits that issues at the moment are at a degree the place a hand-cranked turbine blower with built-in planetary gears will be completely 3D printed. Some meeting is required, however there isn’t a added {hardware} past the printed components. The blower is able to respectable airflow and may in all probability be optimized even additional. Take a look at it work within the video under.
Every bit being 3D printed brings a couple of benefits. Choose the hand crank on the opposite aspect? Merely mirror every thing. Need a greater model? Simply scale every thing up. As a result of all the fasteners are printed in addition to the components, there’s no fear about exterior {hardware} not becoming outsized holes after scaling issues up (scaling down may run into points with tolerances, however should you handle an extra-small model, we’d love to listen to about it).
There are a couple of good suggestions which are price protecting in thoughts in the case of print-in-place assemblies with transferring components. First, altering the seam location for every layer to ‘Random’ helps make transferring components smoother. This helps stop the formation of a seam line, which might act as a bit pace bump that will get in the way in which of easy motion.
The opposite factor that helps is lubrication. A plastic-safe lubricant like PTFE-based Tremendous Lube is a helpful factor to have across the workshop and does wonders for smoothing out the motion of 3D-printed transferring components. And we will attest that rubbing candle wax on mating surfaces works fairly nicely in a pinch.
One draw back is that the blower is noisy in operation. 3D printed gears (and even printed bearings) will be efficient, however do contribute to a definite lack of silence in comparison with their purpose-built variations.
Nonetheless, a tool like this can be a signal of how far 3D printing has come, and the way it allows tasks that will in any other case stay an concept in a pocket book. We do love 3D-printed gears.
