3D Clay Extruder

  My first 3D Printer 

a clay printer

I have been messing around for a while at the Brookside Cabinet Shop in Bethleham Connecticut and the Connecticut Hackerspace in Watertown Connecticut. It has been both educational and fun but I figure I had better start producing useful (or at least a little interesting) things before people start getting tired of hearing me talk. So, since the hackerspace has some machinery and the cabinet shop has machinery, well as materials, a giant CNC, and a new Pottery Shop (the 550 Gallery). I figured I should make a 3D printer, one that prints in clay.

First I looked around the web to see what others have done.

• Some reprap things:
  • Ceramic Extrusion
  • RepRap Powder Printer
  • David's Paste Extruder
• Universal Paste Extruder For 3D Printers by: RichRap at thingaverse.
• designboom: 3D ceramic printer"
• Brian Peters 3D Printed Bricks
  
• Israeli Student Develops Largest 3D Porcelain Printer 

There is some pretty good information out there. Some of the links are to powder type printers. They look promising but I have decided to work on a printer with an extrusion type printer.

This is what I have come up with.

 It is just a piece of 3/4" PVC stuck to a board and a screw with a plunger turned by a stepper (and a planetary gearbox I pulled out of a broken cordless rotary saw) to push the clay out a nozzle at the bottom of the PCV. The little stepper at the top of the picture on the right was a little to small and I borrowed a NEMA 23 motor to really get things to work.

The plunger was not quite tight enough in the PVC. You can see 2 or 3 inches of clay that slipped around the plunger in the picture on the left. So, I have added a hot glue gasket that works well.

Here are a few things I have made. Most of my work has been to make the hardware and I still have work to do to get the software end of things working.











I have also posted a video on Youtube (My 3D Printer in action). I hope to make some more improvements and post some more information about it soon. Enjoy.