Alternative Materials

[awerby]

This printer does seem like a more versatile machine than most of the hot extruder type printers I've seen. I looked at the site, but it wasn't really clear about how the non-filament materials were handled. Is there a heated hopper that feeds them down a tube? The videos I saw showed the material flowing out, but not how it flows in. Is there one I missed that gets into that?

It seems that if you could utilize plasticine, wax or some other soluble material as a support material for the filament plastic, it would be quite useful, and eliminate one of the main drawbacks of this type of printer. Have you tried that, or is there some reason it won't work?

Andrew Werby
www.computersculpture.com

[Davo]

Hi, awerby.

As we are using a customized version of Repitier Host, we feel that support material support could be made much easier. We will be working on that this spring.

The EMO-25 is a 25cc tube, screw activated, which is loaded by hand and prints at room temperature. The VOL-25 is a version of this which heats up to 100C.

Feel free to ask any other questions.

-Davo

NOTE: Split from other topic.

[awerby]

Are you (or anyone else) selling these EMO and VOL tubes separately, or does one have to purchase your machine to get them? Are they something that can be incorporated into a home-built machine, or are there special issues with setting up and running them?

Andrew Werby
www.computersculpture.com

[Davo]

We have not sold them to anyone without a Hyrel printer; that does not mean that we will not eventually do so.

As the print heads are controlled via CANBus, I don't know how difficult it would be for others to integrate them into non-Hyrel equipment.

We are not an Arduino-based machine.