Table of Contents

Open Source Hardware:

From fibers to fabrics

Due to my curiosity, additively fabricate large-scale structures made of water-based materials, I decided to make my own Gelatine-based bio-plastic 3D printer.
The first idea was to make a 3D printer which has double extruder controller. First syringe extruder should provide the more rigid amount of material(structure) and the second one should be more flexible(surface). I made my gelatine-based biomaterial with different ratios. I basically keep the same amount of water and glycerine ratio and systematically increase gelatine ratio(1-2-4-8). But despite my many trials when every ratio of gelatine-based materials interface with each other lost their shape and they harmonized with each other. Then I try with corn starch-based bio-material. Starch-based bio-material performance well together.

Bio-Material 3D printer

I converted RepRap tricolor mendel printer into bio-plastic 3d printer.

First ı tried many ratio's in the bio-plastic.

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As you can see from the chart, ı stabilize the amount of water and glycerine and only play with the gelatine amount.
^   ^glycerine ^water ^gelatine |
Left x 20x 4x
middle x 20x 8x
left x 20x 16x

First ı tried diffrent ratio's. Turned out for ratio 3/4 water gelation is a good performance.

img_6039.jpgimg_6041.jpg

I tried on fabric, I wanted to see if the fabric could take the shape of my lines and would it be bending. But it did not work. Bio-Material is soaked by the fabric and when its dry it completely crack when ı stretch the fabric.

img_6042.jpgimg_6043.jpg

For my 3D printer, I tested out Gelatine based bio-material with other Bio-plastics.Gelatine is not working well with other gelatine based material. They are melting with each other.

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Cornstarch-based bio-material colored by blackberry glycerine Cornstarch vinegar water
ratio's x 3x 2x 12x

Hacking the RepRap

Check this link from the reached out whole documentation of RepRappro tricolour.n

For control The machine I downloaded [[http://www.pronterface.com/|printrun]] which is a 3D printing host software suite
which talks to your printer and handles the printing process.

3d-printer-pronterface-software.jpg

But this ss for normal fdm settings. What we should is that turn off the bed temp. and extruder temp.

praenter_aentrface.jpg

The idea is to first remove filament extruder and replace with my new syringe extruder design. When the servo motor of the extruder moves extra structure that ı designed would push the syringes and create a shape by following pipes.

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so when you remove the filament extruder, you have to run the machine without heating the extruder heat. That's why you have to use G-code m302 code.

http://reprap.org/wiki/G-code#M302:_Allow_cold_extrudes


Design syringe extruder

There are not many syringe extruder example in the internet actually. I actually used this design and changed as 3d files to 2d to cut with the laser cutter.

double-pump.jpg

I took the section views of the parts and extended as one pieces also for carry two syringe at the same time.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQZ7nPtEXKQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YrH1otV9-To&feature=youtu.be

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