Incredible Folded 3D Printed Mechanisms
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- Опубліковано 23 лип 2021
- Live hinges are incredibly useful for simple, lightweight mechanisms - but 3D Printed hinges aren't all that great. This video documents my experiments in trying to overcome these limitations by combining 3D Printing with thin plastic sheet and laser cutting!
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Prior to retirement I was a coatings chemist for over 30 years. Preparation of the substrate, in your case the plastic cup, to remove any residues on the surface is critical, wash in soapy water and/or solvent wipe the surface before printing to it. Our company did a lot of business in coating plastics and worked with a number of difficult types like EPDM and TPO. There are several approaches to gaining adhesion, one is to use a chlorinated polyolefin tie coat at very low solids (not at all green) another is to immerse the plastic in a heated solution of bleach and water for a few minutes then rinse and dry. This might be worth a try to help solve your adhesion problem. Age of the formed substrate and the forming temperatures used to make the plastic sheet can also effect adhesion.
Very interesting insight, thanks!
What concentration of bleach and water, also would heating/tempering the plastic during the adhesion process as well as mechanically abrading the surfaces to adhere to help?
sandblasting might work too maybe?
@@satibel Sandblasting will leave a dusty residue. You would have to chemically clean the surface.
Chlorine bleach, I'm assuming?
Iced coffee AS A BUSINESS EXPENSE! BRILLIANT!
What could possibly go wrong 😂
that is the question
First attempt was wagyu steak based live hinges, but that for some reason failed immediately.
@@kwaaaa I need a sample of this material, can you have it here by 5-5:30?
@@MakersMuse "Hold my coffee; watch this!"... Nah, doesn't sound right without the beer, does it?
I love when you go through all your failure. Many people edit those parts away, but showing us all your attempts allow us to learn more. Thanks man.
Indeed. It's good to see what doesn't work, so you know why the final project was done by a specific method.
Definitely!
Agreed! You're pushing against the negative results reporting bias that plagues science!
Buy some Document Lamination Pouches
They are flat, has adhesive on one side pre-applied, and can be bought in all kinds of thicknesses.
Good idea
Was going to suggest that too
good idea but that stuff shrinks when heated
@@Nialija not much, otherwise it's crumple on use
Nice research. This is interesting
I love how these UA-camrs conduct these experiments and prototypes in these videos
I have a feeling that fiberglass drywall tape would work fantastically here. Essentially the same as the nylon mesh fabric but much tougher and less stretch. I think I'll try that out and see how it fares
Assuming it's on the straight grain and not on the bias, yes.
Sounds good. It won't wear out
Non-repeatability in a LASER cutter is an unacceptable abomination for what those cost.
Agreed, even just your cheapie 3d printer using microswitches can have better repeatability than that. Not even asking for the repeatability of a CNC that uses limit switch/encoder index to home
Tell me about it! Mine sometimes gets lost in the middle of the engraving
so their firmware is already getting crappier, just like inkjet bullshit.
@@CKOD 𓅷
Angus's shirt collection is very recognisable at this point
I certainly have my favourites haha
@@MakersMuse I love CyberDog too
Since you are using a flat insert, why not filament swap just a few layers for the hinge?
You'd probably want to also insert some really tough pins to keep the different layers from sliding over eachother when you're using different materials.
I was thinking the same thing, like a layer or two of tpu would probs work really well, I’m gonna go try that out
@@henrydavis2660 Problem is that TPU doesn't weld well with other material.
@@rikilshah yeah I thought about that, if I set the first layer of pla to be hotter it might work, I’ll try it out tomorrow, (11:36 pm rn) and let you know how it goes
@@rikilshah What about making the two materials comb together?
Having trouble sticking paint to plastic I used to flame treat it quickly and that works. Also we use a lot of tape hinges in radio control foam aircraft. You can even get tape with strands embedded for strength.
Fiberglass tape embedded between layers would probably work out the best. It won't tear, is very floppy and cycle count should be much higher than a printed live hinge, or one made out of the PET or acetate sheet.
Flame treatment or electrically generated plasma treatment both work well for low surface-energy materials, it's used commonly to enable printing onto plastic substrates.
@@cambridgemart2075 NaOH (drain cleaner) can treat the surface of PET too, but I am not sure how effective it will be for bonding the two plastics.
At one time I made some r/c planes out of Coroplast (real estate signs). It was common to run a propane torch over the sheet material wherever one was gluing anything. A light blue flame flashed (in fact, the process was called "flashing").
@@ytrichg99 ive done the same thing. Especially with cowlings, canopies and heli bodies before painting.
Cool experiments! Looking forward to seeing how this evolves.
I love that you put the work into figuring all this out and doing a comparison, explanation AND video of it all. Massive amount of work and it’s definitely noticed and appreciated.
I would strongly recommend Polypropylene (PP) material for live hinges due to its strain hardening characteristic. You will have a hard time getting PLA or PETG to stick to it so perhaps PP filament with a PP sheet would be the best bet. PP is used to make things like tic-tac containers and bathroom stall dividers. The latter application is solely because it is very difficult for markers to stick to it thus preventing graffiti in the stalls.
You’re right PP has many good mechanical properties. However PP sheet warps lots at fairly low temperatures in my experience. The warping is especially problematic under a laser cutter (in industry they’re normally CNC cut with a tangential knife system - outside of die cutting - and I can only wish I had one of those.)
I occasionally sew pp sheets (with industrial sewing machines) but find it too much of a pain to cut to make more with it.
Well done. Great step by step and quite interesting.
I wonder if laser printable OHP film would work. 'Laser printable' means it should cope with the bed heat.
What I was thinking about too. It's easy available and there are versions that are 100 microns thick (thin?).
I couldn't get it to work, but that's not to say someone smarter and/or more persistent can't.
It's a joy to follow the processes of someone who thinks the way I do! I found myself finishing your sentences once or twice, and that is encouraging, as well as seeing ahead if time something overlooked, like the size of the reference dots, which is easily missed when everything is in prototype phase. Thanks again for all your efforts, and know that your ideas can be universally adopted for their principles
Angus You're probably aware that the reason for an Ackerman steering linkage is to make the inside wheel turn more than the outside wheel because the inside wheel has to go around a smaller radius.
Only saying this because in the straight ahead position it looked like the two trailing arms were at 90 degrees to the centre of the vehicle body so you would not get any Ackerman angles.
Yeah it's a parallel linkage for now, but I'll modify it a little.
Good work Angus, I can see a lot of potential in this idea.
Really cool! It's amazing what you can do when you start combining these tools, taking advantage of the strengths of each. I look forward to your continuing experiments with this.
I like that you include all of your mistakes and solutions. It will help a lot more than most people think.
Really enjoy seeing each step--brainstorming followed by iterative process. Thanks for showing us all the failures on the way.
What about a thick plastic bin bag? They're usually LDPE so might be resistant to sticking. Or an acetate sheet for projector overlays?
LDPE gets EXTREMELY sticky when it's up to temperature.
Ooops. I copied your transparencies sheet idea. That used to be available eveywhere but maybe not so much. I wrote a comment above suggesting those cheap nasty binders for schoolkids. The ones with a living hinge must be the right material to perform and they are stupid cheap and you get two letter sized sheets in any colour you want :)
I think the melting point of the LDPE would be very very bad. I had one blow onto the muffler of my motorcycle... it sucked onto it like it was drawn to it since it shrinks as it melts... it was however a very durable finish :p
@@someguy2741 Ah crap i did the same thing and suggested transparencies
Great video. I love these types of smart combinations of materials, tools and approaches. Very Maker's Muse
I think a few holes in grid pattern, cut on the surface of the plastic sheet would help the printed pla/petg to stick.
The melted pla/petg would go through the holes and expand a bit on the other side of the sheet, forming a sort of "rivet"
I'm afraid that wouldn't work because the nozzle would bump against the sheet material as it was depositing the first layer on the bed - unless you can instruct the extruder to make hops from one hole to the next?
One might choose to just start printing, and have it pause when the pocket for the sheet is done, including tiny posts everywhere. You'd laser cut holes in your hinge shapes that fit right over those studs. Just insert all the laser cut parts in the paused print, hit resume, and presto!
I think this embedded approach obviates the need for plastic-to-plastic adhesion.
Fantastic, I love how you document your learning process. Thanks
I've been a subscriber for quite some time now, researching 3D-printing hardware and techniques for over a year. I am getting closer to getting my first 3d-printer, and I'm so impressed with the consistent content. Not only well presented but also very thorough and easy to understand all the steps towards great engineering. I can't see any other future than this channel going north of 1 million subs very soon.
Thank you Angus, and keep it up! 🏆
Love this channel
You still have kept the enthusiasm after all these years
Excellent and intriguing video as always! Always pushing the limits, love it!
Try printing on Polycarbonate sheet! We have tested that method in our lab. Let me know if you want to discuss more
Very interesting! I'm always impressed with how deep you drive into these kinds of really unique techniques. Super cool stuff!
TPU live hinges have worked very well on my fleet of RC planes. Extremely flexible and robust, I have yet to have one fail.
Good to know! Definitely a great use case.
That's a very sophisticated build process! Thanks for sharing! It gives me some ideas for my own 3D printing.
This experimentation is brilliant ... it's how we learn. Thank you for sharing your thought processes / mistakes / correction ... so many people just share final outcomes ...
It's great you are willing to experiment and endure the inevitable failures that go along with it. Very cool. Great information and fun to watch. Thanks.
awesome! please keep making more of these experimental design methods. they are really interesting
honestly impressed you figured this all out in a week. glad your pushing to find these solutions even though how difficult it is, been there lol its not always the funnest
I've been using plastic bags I can't get rid off for hinges for lightweight RC planes for a year now, works really well
brilliant video as usual, if anyone reads this... you can print PLA directly onto a single layer of TPU with a normal single material hotend and extruder set up by exploiting the initial layer settings... all you do is manually swap filament after the first layer (which is easy because we all watch the first layer go down don't we...?), the bond between the two types is surprisingly strong and once parts are cooled the TPU doesn't sag.
What a neat concept, thanks for sharing!
Blooming brilliant, dude. Seen a few of your great projects and discoveries now and you are great! Fascinating content! Subscribed!
This was very interesting! Thanks for your efforts on this
Really impressive stuff here Angus. You've given me some ideas to try out on my printer.
Another option for doing all this is to print one or two layers of a flex material, insert a filament change instruction and continue with whatever material you want the rest to be made from. You just need to make sure that the two filaments are compatible and will bond together.
Super clever. Your perseverance really paid off.
Very cool idea, it'll be really interesting to see how this develops!
*Very* well done! I love it when people get really creative and push the limits of technology in new and useful ways!
I'm looking forward to having a job again, so I can support you on Patreon!
This is the nbest channel for experimental DIY 3D printing and pushing the limits of what has been done, always interesting!
I have been using a single layer as integrated live hinge for a press button mechanism. If you play around with the parameters (layer height, temp, first layer pattern) this works like charm for me and is quite durable. I have not ever broken one single, by bending it too often. Anyhow, I think your idea on using thin plastic foils as print surface deserves more research and is a good idea. Thumps up and please continue to explore out-of-the-box ideas !
This is a fantastic idea! I don't know why I never thought of this! I used to make foldable mechanisms out of construction paper as a kid... I never thought to do anything like this though!
Love that great makers never stop innovating.
Great video, love the idea, very well done.
Great stuff, thanks for sharing this try and error process :)
Wow, impressive project!
Thanks for sharing your experience with all of us 👍😀
I used adhesive plastic sheets in the past to print petg with awesome results (petg wont stick to my creality print bed at all). Those adhesives plastic sheets are really easy to use
Very interesting stuff. I messed with the idea of printing onto plastic sheet a couple of years ago, with the idea of making architectural models (think something like Heathrow Terminal 5, 4 big glass walls and a curved roof), but could never get the print to stick. I may well revisit the idea now.
Yeah, for clear windows and details it could be a good option! I didn't even consider that.
Very creative! You are just a smart and creative young man!!! Thanks for sharing!
Enjoy the channel and vids! Great work!
very nice tips! 🙂
Thank you, may I put my bra back on now?
@@danielreed5199 nice! 😄
This was amazing piece engineering work. Good job. More of these plz
Impressive.
Good idea and good research!
Very interesting for some niche applications.
For most hinges I recommend press-fit dowel pins.
Nice experiments. I'd go for a 3d printed hinge in combination with a 1mm wire/rod or even a paper clip, worked very well in the past!
Cool project can tell you put some real time and thought into it. !
This was genius!!! I really enjoyed watching it and it opened up ideas in my mind! Thanks!!
Great job experimenting! Loved the journey
Super cool! I've thought about trying to print clear PETG directly onto a sheet of acrylic/polycarbonate to see if I could get the same effect of edge-lit engraved acrylic. (still need to try it). I love the idea of printing onto or embedding non-printed parts for novel applications.
Can't wait to see more of this sort of thing. Oh, I also have that exact same double sided tape, and it's CRAZY strong. haha
Nice work, I hope You will find good plastic sheet for this so we can see more of this in the future. Keep up the good work.
Lovely little grumpy frog.
Hey! I do this kind of bed leveling for multi material with the BL touch… regardless the height of anything I put in the bed, it’ll consider it as the zero.
Just remember to remove that purge line from the beginning of gcode, and disable mesh leveling.
Great content as usual!
Innovative! good job, also inspiring!
Very cool bro. Thank you for sharing this experiment with us. This gave me some new ideas to explore in my own designs. Again, thank you.
Thank you! Cheers!
Give the cup material a scuff with a Scotch Brite or a very light kitchen scourer. The micro trenches give the deposited filament something to bite into by increasing surface area. 3M also make a plastic primer in no spill, single use applicators. Love your work mate.
Love the concept I used a push hinge on a project 3mm stainless bar printed into one housing then the hinge printed in PLA clipped on to it but I liked the idea of living hinge
angus over here killing it
PETG & TPU will stick together, meaning you can print first couple of layers in TPU for the hinge part(s) and the rest in PETG.
I tried blending PETG & TPU using Thingiverse 3565827, "3D-Printable Filament! -Print Your Own Filament for Multi-Color!".
The initial dual-filament print worked well, but had layer adhesion issues when I tried printing with it so might try increasing the temperature beyond 240C in a future test to try and help the melting & bonding.
I printed a hinge I designed where the hinge printed vertically, each barrel using the previous one for support, and then using a 2.5mm RC car axle as the hinge pin. Worked a treat!
Great idea and exploration :)
Wouldn't it be an advantage to break the live hinges on that rack mechanism into two parts, divided by a little gap, so that when a split starts in the hinge through fatigue, you have at least a chance that it'll stop at the gap and you'll still have the other half of the hinge for a little while? You'd maybe get a warning break that way without a full failure. Great video as usual.
Dang! Thats an innovative idea! 👍👍👍
Very cool project! Could definitely see doing this with my younger robotics classes to open up more ideas instead of using off the shelf components.
Really the BEST way is to be able to print and cut on the same machine. The XChange can allow for printing and laser cutter or drag knife on the same machine
Thumbs up for compliant mechanisms!
This is really interesting. I can't wait to see what people do with this.
Very good idea. Thanks for sharing 🙂
You can also make a hinge with a 3d printed pin with threads on the end or basically a 3d printed nut and bolt. They work pretty good
I’ve been recently trying to figure out how to make folding polyhedra, so this could be very helpful!
You're one of the few guys who dip their toes into the unknown and get something out of it, keep up your good work
Love your videos !!!!!!!!!
For a re-visit, you could try using a more durable fabric (even one without gaps) and punch holes in the fabric in the areas where it will be printed through. You may need to create a modified layer to only fill the holes depending on the thickness of the fabric. The cross section might look something like this:
===============
===============
== == == ==
===============
The gaps being the spaces where the fabric isn't cut/punched out.
I actually was planning on making a pegboard 3d printed guantlet. This is super useful stuff to know
I generally don't associate live hinges with durable products.. but more with disposable products. But maybe in comparison with micro-3d-prints it's wort the lot of effort.
I was thinking the exact same thing; but I think he makes a great point at the end that the actual motion isn't extreme; so there really shouldn't be a lot of wear on the hinge at all. I would bet that the hinge outlives the service life of the vehicle its used to build.
@@carpdog42 Yeah, I don't think he is lying us xD It's just the impression, that I had, yet
Vary cool. Lots of interesting possibilities combining the 3d printer and laser cutter. Would be nice if someone could characterize the fatigue performance of different filaments so you could design the compliant mechanism appropriately.
I love your videos!
This is exactly why I like using regular nuts and bolts whenever possible. So much simpler.
Cover page protectors that you would use in a binder work well. Have used them before in a similar fashion.
Also overhead projector sheets work as well. Though not sure how available those are now a days.
Love your videos. I've had success using a thin layer of printed PETG as a live hinge
What brand and thickness?
@@kevinpezzi6777 Never mind. PETG is not as durable as I thought. I've changed to using plastic snap rivets to hold my printed parts together and to act as hinges where needed. They are cheap, easy to use, and easy to design into my parts
Thanks you have explained this well........
This is actually really smart! I like it! 🔥
I like the new background and layout
I would assume the cup plastic probably starts as a thicker sheet then is formed to that shape which thins it a bit. You may be able to use your vacuum former to get your sheets to the desired thickness.
Nice research very useful!