Designing a 3D Dragon

July 7, 2014 9:50 AM

The challenges of designing a support-free dragon for 3D printing.
posted by Anonymous (6 comments total)

I was certain this was about this dragon.
posted by HuronBob at 9:57 AM on July 7, 2014

I'm a mechanical engineer who works with 3D printing quite a bit, and I've never really thought about support-free printing before. It's an interesting design constraint for sure.
posted by muddgirl at 10:09 AM on July 7, 2014 [1 favorite]

I was certain this was about this dragon.
posted by scose at 12:23 PM on July 7, 2014

There are other kinds of 3d printing, besides the hot plastic extrusion method used in consumer-level printers, that don't require supports. You can melt plastic dust layer by layer with a laser or glue together metal dust in layers and replace the glue with molten bronze later. Even the nicer plastic extrusion systems use two extruders, one printing a different support material that breaks away more easily. Hopefully as 3D printer technology improves, supports won't be a big deal.
posted by scose at 1:05 PM on July 7, 2014 [1 favorite]

Our commercial printer has a different support material that breaks away and/or dissolves in a chemical vat. It's still an extra step and I definitely can't normally take a part out of the printer and hand it over without extra work. Not like it's a big deal but I can understand the aesthetic desire and artistic challenge.
posted by muddgirl at 1:30 PM on July 7, 2014

I am always amazed by the things that are printed to have moving parts without assembly. I have excellent spatial intelligence (for all the good that's ever done me), but I still find it hard to conceptualize! I'd link to a friend's Shapeways account for some examples, but I don't want to get in trouble...
posted by wintersweet at 9:32 AM on July 10, 2014