Mini-Lectures

Hi WOOFers and 3DP enthusiasts,

>Our first round of mini-lectures seemed like they were well received. Thanks to all who came out. Because some of you asked, I've posted links to the slides I used during my presentation:

3DP Toolchain Slides
3DP Electronics Slides


>I am doing another lecture this week: An Introduction to OpenSCAD. Everyone is invited!

For those of you who aren't familiar, OpenSCAD is a free, open source CAD package for 3D modeling. 

There are many reasons why it's a great program to have in your repertoire of 3DP skills:

*If you're a beginner, OpenSCAD is simple enough to not be overwhelming.

*It can easily do some things other CAD packages cannot.

*It can be picked up pretty quickly (beginner or not).

*You will learn a different type of modeling, namely CSG (as opposed to feature based, direct, etc...).

*It is affordable. Each download is $0 and they give you a 20% bulk discount if you download ten or more.

*You help support the open source community.

*If you bought a Printrbot: there's an awful lot of satisfaction using a printer you assembled yourself when you're printing a part you designed yourself...

During the course of the presentation I will be demonstrating the topics I cover within the OpenSCAD environment because I want you to see it in action. I encourage you to bring a laptop so you can follow along with me. If you choose to do this, before you come: A) make sure your computer is charged up so we're not fighting over outlets and B) download the most recent version of OpenSCAD here.

The lectures will be about 45 minutes and will start at 4:30 on Wednesday, 12 NOV with a repeat presentation at 4:30 on Friday, 14 NOV. They will be held in MEB 103.

I hope to see lots of enthusiastic faces there. Don't forget to be awesome.

-Mark H.

Come One Come All Meeting a Success

New and potential members talking with WOOF officers in the workroom

WOOF held a Come One Come All meeting in the Mechanical Engineering Building at 5:00PM on Monday September 29th. The meeting was well attended by members who had joined the WOOF mailing list at the First Year Programs Dawg Daze and during orientation meetings for the Mechanical and Electrical Engineering Departments. An email announcing the meeting was sent out resulting in a nice influx of new members. A pre-meeting starting at 4:45PM was hosted by WOOF officer Mark Hanson (Download the slide deck here: WOOF Intro to 3D Printing Slides) who gave a lecture on 3D Printing and WOOF. Our club President Jeff Bergeson welcomed attendees and gave an overview of WOOF. Our Director of Operations Dana Henshaw then gave a run down on available projects, directing interested people to the different project leads. The meeting broke down into groups around the different projects. Conversations and tours of the WOOF room continued past 7:00PM. WOOF is off to a strong start. We are looking forward to continuing to reach out to the campus and wider off-campus communities and the 3D Printing Industry. If you are interested in joining WOOF or would like more information send us an email at: woof3d@uw.edu

WOOF Come One Come All 2014 - 2015 3D Printing Club Introductory Meeting

 Salutations 3D Printing Enthusiasts,

It was our pleasure to meet all of you this week. In order to further introduce you to our club we’d like to invite you to attend our introductory “Come One Come All” meeting on Monday, Sept. 29th, at 5:00PM. The meeting will be held in the Mechanical Engineering Building in room MEB 246. There will be several opportunities presented at the meeting:

First, we’ll introduce you to the Printrbot Simple. This is the printer kit we’ll be offering this quarter. It’s a nice little printer and assembles very quickly. Everyone that orders one through the club will get special work times set aside to put the printer kits together with the aid of WOOF officers.

Second, we’ll be introducing our projects for this year. If you are interested in design, mechanics of printers, large format printing, printing in composite materials, writing code, electronics, or control systems, we’ll introduce you to the projects we have planned. If you have an idea of your own, you could also start your own project and we’ll help you form a team to take it on. Once the meeting is over, you can group up and speak with project leads about anything you are interested in.

Third, the money. Membership dues are $20 for a year, renewing in September. So if you think you may want to join us, or you are renewing your membership, bring $20 cash to the meeting. If you won’t have a twenty on Monday, it’s no big deal, you can contact us to pay at another time. If you are interested in a Printrbot, we’ll be taking payment for those kits at a later date.

Fourth, we’ll have a quick optional “How to Get into 3D Printing” lecture 15 minutes before the meeting at 4:45. This will be a first of a series of optional mini-lectures to help you jump into the technology.

Thank you for your time and have a great weekend!

Washington Open Object Fabricators

woof3d@uw.edu

http://www.woof3d.net

P.S. Any questions can be directed to woof3d@uw.edu

WOOF Successful Outreach at UW Dawg Daze

Jeff and Kim at the WOOF booth

Wednesday and Thursday September 24^th and 25^th WOOF participated in the University of Washington’s annual First Year Programs Dawg Daze (http://www.uwdawgdaze.com/)  held in Red Square. In wind and rain, WOOF used the opportunity to introduce interested students to some of WOOF’s projects, encourage them to sign up for the mailing list and to attend the upcoming “Come One Come All” meeting. On display were a collection of 3D objects printed in a variety of materials such as poly lactic acid (PLA), a carbon fiber composite PLA and recycled HDPE. Running off of a 12 volt Fire Engine battery and a power inverter was this year's printer kit - the Printrbot - offered for sale to anyone interested in building their own 3D printer. Enthusiasm for the club was high with 290 students expressing interest. WOOF welcomes new members from all backgrounds and levels of experience. Anyone is welcome to drop by the WOOF room - Room G045 on the ground floor (almost the basement) of the UW's Mechanical Engineering Building (MEB G045).

Printrbot, filament, and objects printed and cast in different materials: PLA, Carbon Fiber Composite PLA and Brass

WOOF Members Attend 3D Printer World Expo in Bellevue

Friday August 22, 2014 

WOOF members had the opportunity to attend the 3D Printer World Expo held at the Bellevue Regency Hyatt in Bellevue WA. 3D Printer World Expo Bellevue, WA Aug 22-23, 2014

The Expo was well attended and the 3d Printer research, design and manufacturing communities were well represented. University of Washington Mechanical Engineering Professor Mark Ganter, one of WOOF’s faculty advisers, gave a presentation on 3D printing materials sustainability.  After Friday’s closure, Professor Ganter accompanied a group of WOOF’s officers to the Cheesecake Factory in Bellevue.

When asked about the experience, WOOF Officer Mark Hanson stated “For me, it was exciting to see the innovations people have made in the consumer market. I loved comparing the various ways people are doing more with less as we continue to perfect these machines.” 

This experience helped bring WOOF onto a broader playing field and allowed WOOF to connect and catch up with current 3D Printer innovators like Lulzbot, Makerbot, Matter Hackers, Flashforge and Leapfrog.

HDPE Print Bed Adhesion Solution

3D printing using recycled HDPE (shredded gallon milk jug flakes) comes with many challenges, one of them being print bed adhesion. HDPE has become infamous to WOOF for its uncontrolled warping and shrinking, which causes prints to peel off of the print bed. To mitigate this, WOOF Officer Brandon Bowman began developing a process to create an HDPE print surface. 

The initial idea was to heat gun HDPE flakes onto steel plates (18” X 18” X 1/8"). This evolved into baking using a standard baking oven. Bowman initially baked HDPE flake onto a steel plate then applied force on top of the flake using another surface, his body weight and his feet.

This process produced inconsistent and non-optimal results. Size limits of the baking oven, the need to put plastic in an oven, and the need to apply spray on Teflon coating encouraged designing a different solution.

  

Over time the flake baking process evolved into a recipe reasonably perfected by WOOF’s Director of Operations Dana Henshaw. The following recipe utilizing a Wabash Hot Press has produced promising results:

Stack 4 plates prepared in the below manner with a 5th steel plate by itself as a barrier on top into a hot press.

To prepare each steel plate requires:

1 - 24” X 24” Steel Plate (1/8” thick)

3 - Pints of Recycled HDPE Milk Jug Flakes (cleaned and shredded) spread on the steel plate leaving an approximately 1" border.

1 – 24” X 24” Sheet of Porous Teflon Coated Fabric

1 – 24” X 24” Sheet of Breather Material

Finally top the sheet off with: 

1 – 24” X 24” Sheet of Non-Porous Teflon Coated Fabric (Not Pictured)

Then using a Hot Press:

Apply and maintain 400lbs of force

Increase temperature to 375 °F over 30 minutes

Hold at 375 °F for 40 minutes

Cool for 10 – 20 minutes

Remove the 400lbs of force and separate hot press platens

Then carefully remove the hot plates

After the plates are cooled, they are attached to the build surface and then used for printing.

This is an attempt to print a cylinder that was to be used as a potential floatation device.

This turned out to be a great learning experience. Here are a few things that were tried but did not work: 

Failure of first hot press: Used only non-porous Teflon coated fabric. It made sheets that were too smooth, and the first layer of printed HDPE wouldn't adhere well enough.

Failure of second hot press: holding pressure for 20 minutes with the breather material was not long enough for temperature to penetrate deep enough into the stack to allow full adhesion of HDPE flake onto each plate. The HDPE on the middle plates stayed as flakes.

 

In all, developing this process has allowed the WOOF team to achieve successful prints of the sections a multi-sectioned Kayak.