3D printed furniture has generally been a rather tough sell for most 3D printer owners. The main problem is size obviously, most desktop 3D printers have rather small build envelops, so in order
There are very large volume 3D printers that are capable of printing smaller pieces of furniture in one piece, but those are prohibitively expensive and still limited to the available materials. Sure there are 3D printing filaments made of wood materials, however, durability is still going to be a concern. In order to make sure the furniture is strong enough to hold any weight the parts would need to be printed mostly solid which would equate to hundreds of dollars in material costs depending on the size object that is being fabricated. Not to mention the fact that it would take several days to print anything large enough to be called furniture.
“Of the systems I’ve created, version 108 has so far been used to create the largest usable objects. The bench pictured is actually in my foyer. It’s incredibly sturdy and load bearing. Three people can sit on it. You can stand and dance on it. It does not bend or crack. My kids throw their backpacks and shoes on it daily. It consists of roughly 1068 blocks (mostly 2×6 “ell” shapes and 2×6 bars) and had a print time of a little under 400 hours (spread across 5 printers),” Allen explains.
Allen’s Construction System was modeled in Solidworks and then he sliced the parts using Simplify3D or Makerbot desktop. He sends the parts to a 3D printer farm of six connected Makerbot Replicator 2’s using wireless SD cards. Over the course of developing his modular constructions systems he has logged thousands of 3D printing hours and has run afoul of just about every limitation that desktop
“Other than the practical matter of printing a large number of parts, there is no reason this could not be used to create desks, shelves, cubicles, tables or cat palaces. The shape of the components in this bench were actually chosen for a combination of the fastest print time with the greatest strength,” Allen assured me.
Allen initially intended to apply for copyrights and trademarks for his Construction System but has decided to release the files as an open source design for anyone to use and modify. And despite this being his 108th version, he is going to continue to improve and optimize the 3D printable parts to maximize strength and lessen the required printing time. He is also in the process of building several more pieces of furniture, including a side table that will feature a tempered glass top. Let us know what you think of Allen’s latest design on our 3D Printable Modular Construction System forum at 3DPB.com.