AMS 2025

Artist Builds His Own 3′ 6″ Tall Delta Style Clay 3D Printer

RAPID

Share this Article

All of the parts needed for a home built delta style 3D printer.

All of the parts needed for a home built delta style 3D printer.

3D printing with soft materials like clay or food that doesn’t instantly harden the way plastic will isn’t easy to do. Despite the material only being printable in a lower resolution, it actually requires a machine that is more precise and steady. Soft clay can easily tip over if the printer shakes too much, or is bumped by the printing head moving too fast. That means that anyone attempting to build a paste extruding 3D printer needs to balance the printing speed with the texture of the material in order to make sure hours of printing won’t go to waste. Because it is such a tricky 3D printer to get right, there aren’t a lot of them on the market. In fact, most of the clay and paste 3D printers that I’ve seen have been developed from scratch by home builders and makers.

After enrolling in a Digital Fabrication and Craft class at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, artist Duncan Martin was given a “Machines that Build” assignment. Students were tasked with developing or reinventing an art, craft or design process using a machine. As a student studying ceramic 3dp_clayprinter_frameart, he decided to try building his own clay 3D printer. Martin chose a delta style 3D printer because it is easy to scale up or down, depending on the desired build envelop and he wanted to be able to achieve a larger print height.

“For the paste extruder I tested a few versions using auger screws and Moineau pumps ending up with one that worked the best.  My final goal was to have a large build area and an extruder that could control how much clay would be printed with a stepper motor,” Martin explained.

As with most home built 3D printers, Martin’s clay printer is made of easy to acquire parts, 3D printable components and an acrylic base cut into shape using a CNC router. The printer is pretty massive and can build object over 3.5 feet tall with an 11 inch diameter. For the most part the printer design is his own, but Martin did use the basic structure and scaled up parts from the open source Rostock 3D printer design. The total cost to build and construct the printer only cost him about $420, with the motors and electronics costing $150 and the structural parts costing $270. He has uploaded all of the 3D printable parts onto Thingiverse so anyone can try their hand at building their own clay printer.

Martin’s printer is still a work in process and he is continuing to develop it in order to get everything right. Because he has had problems with the clay not drying fast enough to maintain it’s structure, he has slowed the printing speed down considerably. Martin says that for now it will take about 45 minutes to 3D print a cup that is about four inches tall.

790

He is also trying to refine the process of getting the clay to the extruder. Currently he uses a pressured bucket to feed the clay through a tube and out of the extruder tip. Unfortunately with that method the clay that he has to use is too thin to be printed any faster than the speed he has currently been able to reach. However is he working on developing a way to feed a thicker clay material through the tube so he can increase the printing speed. Let us know what you think about this project in the 3.5 Foot Delta Style Clay 3D Printer forum at 3DPB.com.

 

 

Share this Article


Recent News

3D Printing Webinar and Event Roundup: February 9, 2025

3D Printing News Briefs, February 8, 2025: Partnership, Post-Processing, & More



Categories

3D Design

3D Printed Art

3D Printed Food

3D Printed Guns


You May Also Like

Sponsored

MX – Machining Transformation: Revolutionizing Manufacturing with Additive Technologies

The machining industry is experiencing a profound transformation, propelled by four key trends: Process Integration, Automation, Digital Transformation (DX), and Green Transformation (GX). Central to this evolution are Additive Manufacturing...

Sponsored

The Role of Multiplatform Solutions in Advancing Industrial Large Format 3D Printing

The past tumultuous year in the additive manufacturing industry have led to highs and lows for several companies. The magic recipe that continues to appear to lead to continuous growth...

3D Printing News Briefs, January 25, 2025: ESG & Sustainability, Layoffs, Furniture, & More

We’re starting off with some event news in today’s 3D Printing News Briefs, as AMUG has announced the keynote speakers for its 2025 conference, and Dyndrite starts its World Tour...

Sponsored

Investing in Tooling Innovation is Key to Reshoring Success

Outsourcing and retirement have dramatically shrunk the manufacturing workforce in the U.S., creating a challenge to efforts at reshoring production production. Pictured here is a toolmaker assembling an injection mold,...