Making a silicone lamp with a 3D printer
Is plastic printing boring? Me too, so today I will tell my idea how to make silicone products on an ordinary 3D printer.
Now I am participating in the same interior design project - we are experimenting with various technologies for the production of objects. Almost everything is initially designed in 3D, so 3D printing is the key technology.
But the 3d print itself has limitations. When we print using FDM technology (conventional 3D printers), then, accordingly, we are limited in the choice of materials, surface quality, printing time.
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Therefore, the task has long been brewing: bypassing some of the limitations of FDM 3D printing with minimal effort.
The essence of my idea is this: get a product from cast silicone, but pour it directly into a printed form!
What is the innovation here? And in that, what is usually created for this silicone form, and it is removed from the master model. That is, if you pour the silicone directly into the printed form, then we save ourselves from the cost of casting the mold, and the mold sometimes requires several times more silicone than the product itself. Let's get down to implementation.
I forgot to say - now we are experimenting with the manufacture of lamps. Therefore, the first thing is to think about how our product should function and how silicone will be poured. As a result of taking into account all the nuances of printing and casting, the designer has created just such a 3D model of the lamp:
This model is also a model for printing a form at the same time, here’s a trick. Clearly visible cavity inside which we will fill the material
The object turned out to be medium in size - 23 cm high and 11 cm in diameter. Let's print at last.
They decided to print on our large 3D printer, because It had a 1.0 mm nozzle - so the print was fast, and the shape turned out to be solid, albeit only 1 wall thick. Material - ABS. Naturally, we print only the walls - no filling.
By the way, here is a photo of this Tsar- printer:
Its print area is 1.2 mx 1.2 m, so of course printing such a small piece is a bit ridiculous. If someone is interested, I will write an article about him, it is almost finalized and has very interesting pieces.
So, the form is received:
From the bottom you can see how thick the line width is. The nose at the top is specially lengthened so that it is possible to cut it straight afterwards.
In general, it turned out gorgeous from the first time. Now you need to fill in the silicone. Do not forget to seal the form, pasting all small holes, for example, with hot melt.
Unfortunately, the casting process could not be removed, because Silicone gets very dirty, but it was impossible to delay it.
Then the silicone hardened and after a day we broke the shape, taking out the silicone product.
As planned by the designer, it should be a lamp with translucent spikes. But we did not pour the spikes and decided to just print. To insert the spikes, they made holes in the silicone.
Next, put a light bulb and now you can evaluate how it happened.
It turned out the lamp, for example, for a bar. As planned, he is not alone and is in a similar interior.
The surface completely repeated the texture of 3D layered printing, but since the layer was thick - about 0.6 mm, it is distinguishable by the eye and interestingly poured. The touch is very unusual - it is soft, and it seems printed from black plastic.
As a result, the design idea was implemented. In terms of time and money, it turned out quite economically, but the most important thing is that another way of using 3D printing has been tried, which means that more ideas can be realized.
As for printing from plastic, we also have a lamp which is fully printed. It takes a very long time to print, probably weighs a kilogram Here he is:
Its height is about 30 cm, so big enough. It shines well and draws an interesting pattern on the walls.
Other lamps can look at the project site.
PS It would be interesting to hear your ideas on the subject of production in this way. Next time I hope to tell you about printing directly by the silicone itself.
Now I am participating in the same interior design project - we are experimenting with various technologies for the production of objects. Almost everything is initially designed in 3D, so 3D printing is the key technology.
But the 3d print itself has limitations. When we print using FDM technology (conventional 3D printers), then, accordingly, we are limited in the choice of materials, surface quality, printing time.
')
Therefore, the task has long been brewing: bypassing some of the limitations of FDM 3D printing with minimal effort.
Idea
The essence of my idea is this: get a product from cast silicone, but pour it directly into a printed form!
What is the innovation here? And in that, what is usually created for this silicone form, and it is removed from the master model. That is, if you pour the silicone directly into the printed form, then we save ourselves from the cost of casting the mold, and the mold sometimes requires several times more silicone than the product itself. Let's get down to implementation.
The implementation of the idea of casting in a printed form
I forgot to say - now we are experimenting with the manufacture of lamps. Therefore, the first thing is to think about how our product should function and how silicone will be poured. As a result of taking into account all the nuances of printing and casting, the designer has created just such a 3D model of the lamp:
This model is also a model for printing a form at the same time, here’s a trick. Clearly visible cavity inside which we will fill the material
The object turned out to be medium in size - 23 cm high and 11 cm in diameter. Let's print at last.
They decided to print on our large 3D printer, because It had a 1.0 mm nozzle - so the print was fast, and the shape turned out to be solid, albeit only 1 wall thick. Material - ABS. Naturally, we print only the walls - no filling.
By the way, here is a photo of this Tsar- printer:
Its print area is 1.2 mx 1.2 m, so of course printing such a small piece is a bit ridiculous. If someone is interested, I will write an article about him, it is almost finalized and has very interesting pieces.
So, the form is received:
From the bottom you can see how thick the line width is. The nose at the top is specially lengthened so that it is possible to cut it straight afterwards.
In general, it turned out gorgeous from the first time. Now you need to fill in the silicone. Do not forget to seal the form, pasting all small holes, for example, with hot melt.
Unfortunately, the casting process could not be removed, because Silicone gets very dirty, but it was impossible to delay it.
Then the silicone hardened and after a day we broke the shape, taking out the silicone product.
As planned by the designer, it should be a lamp with translucent spikes. But we did not pour the spikes and decided to just print. To insert the spikes, they made holes in the silicone.
Next, put a light bulb and now you can evaluate how it happened.
Result
It turned out the lamp, for example, for a bar. As planned, he is not alone and is in a similar interior.
The surface completely repeated the texture of 3D layered printing, but since the layer was thick - about 0.6 mm, it is distinguishable by the eye and interestingly poured. The touch is very unusual - it is soft, and it seems printed from black plastic.
As a result, the design idea was implemented. In terms of time and money, it turned out quite economically, but the most important thing is that another way of using 3D printing has been tried, which means that more ideas can be realized.
Offtopic
As for printing from plastic, we also have a lamp which is fully printed. It takes a very long time to print, probably weighs a kilogram Here he is:
Its height is about 30 cm, so big enough. It shines well and draws an interesting pattern on the walls.
Other lamps can look at the project site.
PS It would be interesting to hear your ideas on the subject of production in this way. Next time I hope to tell you about printing directly by the silicone itself.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/363741/
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