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The First 3D-Printed Steel Bridge

gizmodo.com

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Re: The First 3D-Printed Steel Bridge

#31

Post by mikenew »

function_seven wrote: post #18
mikenew wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same experience for me. I bought a cheap printer from eBay and slowly started re-designing and replacing existing parts by printing them out on the printer itself. Nearly 100% of the printer has been replaced, and I’m finalizing the design for a second printer. I’ve started making contributions to the firmware, slicers, and host software to get features I want, learned to model in Blender, learned about programming m…

Things I learned from RC cars as a kid: 1. Basic electricity 2. PWM 3. Battery chemistry and care 4. Transmissions/gear ratios 5. How DC motors work. Winds and turns and brushes, etc. 6. Suspension basics 7. Basic RF (crystals and channels and avoiding interference) 8. Soldering And all sorts of hard-to-list mechanics and know-how. I didn't realize it at the time (and I don't think my parents did, either), but I lear…

The board is an MKS Sbase 1.2 with an ARM chip running Snoothie, and I’m using the integrated stepper drivers. I switched from using the typical Arduino Mega + Ramps setup because working with Marlin was really difficult, and it felt like they were fighting a losing battle trying to cram more features into an 8 bit architecture. The motors are varying sizes of Nema 17s, but I don’t remember the manufacturer.

I have started experimenting with printed linear rails, and likely V2 of the printer will have printed rails on the z axis. The bushings are printed nylon that thread directly into the bed, x carriage, etc. I would also like to start experimenting with printed wiring, but most conductive filament is more like resistor wire, so that would take some figuring out.

As far as the frame and all that; yes it’s all printed. You’d be surprised how much the part count starts to fall when you no longer have to attach different parts together and you instead start integrating them into a single, printed part.

Re: The First 3D-Printed Steel Bridge

#32

Post by asnyder »

mdorazio wrote: post #29
jstanley wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you operate 50 printers you're presumably doing some sort of business. Nobody operates 50 printers for a laugh. It sounds interesting. Are you printing arbitrary parts that other people send you, printing parts of your own design for your own products, or something else?

Yes to all of those. It's a micro manufacturing shop (we also have laser cutters, a CNC mill, woodworking equipment, casting materials, etc.). We mostly sell products that we design and build on Etsy & Amazon, but also do small batch runs for people who need 50+ pieces of something and the economics of injection molding don't make sense. It actually started as a makerspace, but the economics of that model were not su…

How can I contact your shop?

Re: The First 3D-Printed Steel Bridge

#33

Post by opencl »

wheelie_boy wrote: post #15
eloff wrote: post #4

Just beautiful. The ability of 3D printing, not just to automate a traditional construction process, but to enable radically different designs is going to create a whole new style of architecture. Many of the old constraints don't apply and the human imagination is given a freer reign. There's still that pesky law of gravity that must be respected, but otherwise this offers a remarkable freedom.

An interesting thing that's happening alongside 3d printing is the emergence of visual programming languages specialized for geometry, the most popular being Grasshopper.

Is it really the most popular? It's a plugin for a $1000 CAD program which seems to dramatically limit who can use it.

Re: The First 3D-Printed Steel Bridge

#34

Post by noen »

opencl wrote: post #33
wheelie_boy wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An interesting thing that's happening alongside 3d printing is the emergence of visual programming languages specialized for geometry, the most popular being Grasshopper.

Is it really the most popular? It's a plugin for a $1000 CAD program which seems to dramatically limit who can use it.

Rhino is the cheapest professional CAD tool on the market by an immense margin.

Compared to Solidworks, Inventor, Studio Tools, Catia or any other package, a grand is a steal.

And compared to the horrific productivity of "free" cad packages, you will quickly recoup that cost. (aka Fusion360/TinkerCAD , SCAD)

Re: The First 3D-Printed Steel Bridge

#35

Post by jacquesm »

mdorazio wrote: post #30
sterlind wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How far away are we from 3D printer + CNC mill/laser cutter + robot arm for assembly? Incremental deposition may not yield a working 3D printer, but couldn't a small ensemble of machines construct all their parts? (Minus the chips, for now)

Great question, and the answer is probably "it depends". I've got all of those except the robot arm/part picker and even if you had really expensive tools like metal sintering printers and a 5-axis CNC mill, you would still have to buy a lot of the components that are produced with specialized machinery. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that maybe in 20 years we'll be able to self-replicate machinery with raw ma…

I highly doubt your estimate is even in the ball(bearing) park.

Spindles, motors, circuit boards with components on them and bearings, slides and so on are all multi material or very complex processes usually only doable if you produce a lot of something in one go.

Just try to think about what it would take to print something as trivial as lacquered copper wire for stepper motor windings or a circuit board with a reasonable level of integration.

And the biggest issue with that prediction is that there is no gain from it: printing the non-commodity parts is the whole trick to efficient 3D printing, mass produced parts will have incredible accuracy and very low pricing so use them when you can and 3D print the remainder.

Re: The First 3D-Printed Steel Bridge

#36

Post by jacquesm »

noen wrote: post #34
opencl wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it really the most popular? It's a plugin for a $1000 CAD program which seems to dramatically limit who can use it.

Rhino is the cheapest professional CAD tool on the market by an immense margin. Compared to Solidworks, Inventor, Studio Tools, Catia or any other package, a grand is a steal. And compared to the horrific productivity of "free" cad packages, you will quickly recoup that cost. (aka Fusion360/TinkerCAD , SCAD)

Is there a way to get it to work under Linux?

Re: The First 3D-Printed Steel Bridge

#37

Post by jacquesm »

skookumchuck wrote: post #28

While an amazing new technique, I'm a bit disappointed that it was used to create an "art" bridge. As an engineer, I'd be more interested in what a bridge would look like if it was pure utilitarian - the only material on it is what must be on it, not what is required by machining costs and stock material shapes. Before anyone scoffs that this must result in nerdy and ugly shapes, airplanes are beautiful shapes and no…

I actually think that the organic look shows off the fact that it was 3D printed in a very original way. If it ended up being a utilitarian 'boring' construction then there would be no point in 3D printing it in the first place. But there is no other way that I'm aware of short of a huge cast (and that's a big if given the hollow spaces) to make this bridge in any other way.

Re: The First 3D-Printed Steel Bridge

#38

Post by reneherse »

skookumchuck wrote: post #28

While an amazing new technique, I'm a bit disappointed that it was used to create an "art" bridge. As an engineer, I'd be more interested in what a bridge would look like if it was pure utilitarian - the only material on it is what must be on it, not what is required by machining costs and stock material shapes. Before anyone scoffs that this must result in nerdy and ugly shapes, airplanes are beautiful shapes and no…

Hard to look at the history of aircraft and think aesthetics have nothing to do with the shapes designers choose. Aesthetics may not be the driver, but it's definitely an input in the process, to varying degrees.

Re: The First 3D-Printed Steel Bridge

#39

Post by joshu »

jstanley wrote: post #6

I recommend the video, it includes some footage of the printing process: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=STAHy6hTP14 Unlike traditional 3d metal printing, which works by laying down a powder which is then baked in an oven to fully sinter it, this bridge seems to be constructed by directly welding additional metal to the existing structure. Here's a fun DIY attempt at the same kind of idea: https://www.youtube.com/wat…

I knew this was gonna be Tony before I even clicked.

Re: The First 3D-Printed Steel Bridge

#40

Post by skookumchuck »

jacquesm wrote: post #37
skookumchuck wrote: post #28

While an amazing new technique, I'm a bit disappointed that it was used to create an "art" bridge. As an engineer, I'd be more interested in what a bridge would look like if it was pure utilitarian - the only material on it is what must be on it, not what is required by machining costs and stock material shapes. Before anyone scoffs that this must result in nerdy and ugly shapes, airplanes are beautiful shapes and no…

I actually think that the organic look shows off the fact that it was 3D printed in a very original way. If it ended up being a utilitarian 'boring' construction then there would be no point in 3D printing it in the first place. But there is no other way that I'm aware of short of a huge cast (and that's a big if given the hollow spaces) to make this bridge in any other way.

> If it ended up being a utilitarian 'boring' construction then there would be no point in 3D printing it in the first place.

There's a great deal of point to it - saving money in material and fabrication costs.

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