First meeting about the explanation of the printer. Checking all the options from the printer.

This meeting was on campus.

#oncampus #clayprinter #explanation

In the tests, we saw that the head of the printer is clogged with egg shells.

By testing it, we learned to work with the printer and saw what was wrong.

#Testing #Eggshells #printer #problems

Testing without the motor, by pushing the eggshells through the head. We saw that only water is pushed out because of a clogged nozzle.

#Manualtesting #clogged

On this picture you can see mussel shells in an oven. We bake the mussel shells to make them more brittle, this not only makes them easier to shred but also allows us to grind the shells to a finer powder. This first batch was baked at 180°C for 30min.

#Musselshells #Oven #Wash #Bake

Here you can see Arne in the IDC shredding the shells with a blender from the bio-lab. Ideally we would want to use a coffee grinder but for now we hammered the shells, then used the blender as shown and proceeded to sift the material to get a finer powder.

#IDC #Bio-lab #Hammer #Blender #Sift

When extruding material with a seringe, the nozzle gets clogged when pressure is applied. We increased the nozzle size up to 10mm but even then only water could be extruded. Lengthening the mixture with water made extrusion easier, but this ment the mixture was to viscose for deposition modeling.

#Seringe #Dejavu #Ratios #MacGyver

The first highlight represents the supply of eggshells we got at a local bakery in Kortrijk. It was completely free and the are open for a future collaboration between UGent and. Furthermore they even gave us a tip about eggbreakery’s. This may be an interesting angle to research.

The second highlight represents a possible loop, following an archetype. There is a reinforced loop between encouragement and positive results and a balancing loop between positive results and low resources due to heavy use. The limited condition applied to the low resources is that refilling the stock, may take some time. Which leads to less supply and less positive results.

Because of corona and trying to meet coronaproof, our last highlight is our online teammeeting. In this meeting we discussed possible surveys to question our fellow students, professors and helpers in the IDC regarding issues, problems and actions around our project.

This material is made with mixed eggshells, xanthan and destilled water.

The eggs (360 pieces) are from the local patisserie Geers, we cut up the eggs and used a sief to get the small parts of the eggshells.

#Eggshells #Xanthan #Binder

We tested the material with a syringe. Because the syringe has a too small opening, there is a nozzle printed of 8mm. The material went very fast through it and it also sticks together with each other well.

Because of that, we can create a geometry.

#Syringe #Testing

We created a parameter based nozzle, we can change the diameter of the nozzle with a slider.

We 3D-printed 4 nozzles with a different diameter (2,4,6,8 mm).

With these different nozzles, we can test what nozzle of the printer we can use.

#3Dprinting #Nozzle #Rhino #Grasshopper

First test with Xantaan was very promising, extrudable mixture, stackable layers and hardens but not so fast as to cause problems for printing.

First test print fully hardened (1 week later). The print could easily be shredded and used again for printing. Prints are sturdier than with alginate-mixture, very similar properties to clay prints.

Printing with stoneflower printer, extruding works but finetuning is necessary. If printing with nozzle size 3mm or less, the eggshells must be siffed to prevent clogging the nozzle.

One of our teammates (Eline Voskuilen) posted a short video of our 3D printing process with eggshells on LinkedIn. As you can see a lot of people have already seen the video. Sixteen people even liked the video, which means there is a lot of interest around the video.

The second highlight represents a the first step regarding a LCA, lifecycleanalyses. We analysed the different materials used in our filaments and how they are produced. Further analysing will determinate what is important and what isn’t. (Arbitrary choice.)

The last picture is the filament our group made one, almost two weeks ago to test the 3D printer. We wanted to know that if we sealed the mixture airtight, we could still use it a few weeks later. In week 7 we discovered that the mixture could still be used. This means that in a later stage of our process, we can make one batch of the mixture, seal it airtight in a container and use it at different times.

We went from a stl file to a print with the clay printer. We used the program Pronterface to connect with the printer. After “playing” with the settings from the printer, we got a good result.

#Eggshells #Printing

Because the print has to dry a few hours, we thought on a way we can print and remove it fast.

We used a little wooden plank where we can print on and after the print, the plank can be placed in a rack to dry.

This gives the opportunity to print a lot. A problem can be that the little plank has to be secured so it can not move while printing. A metal plank with magnets can be another solution

#Drying #Wood #Metal

We created a system for using the printer. We thought about schedule slots, about the creation of the material, about the collection of the ingredients for the material. We also thought about how can we instruct and help the people with printing

#3Dprinting #System

The first highlight shows an online meeting through teams were our team and team coffee grounds are discussing the last things in preparation of our workshop on the 28th of April.

The second highlight is our open invitation for our workshop. This will be taking place the 28th of April, on campus and coronaproof. We choose to do this on campus to ensure the most fun and informative experience.

To make sure the students that follow our workshop won’t forget the information their given by us, we prepared footage of our whole process so they can watch it back and use it for their own projects. This can also be a useful tool for further development of 3D printing with eggshells and coffee grounds.

Creating a Youtube channel to collect every video about printing with bio-materials. With these video’s, we will make posters with QR-code to instruct the people who would like to print.

#Youtube #Instructions

On the workshop, we explained how to work with the printer. All the participants of the workshop saw how to assemble the 3D printer. Everyone liked to see how the printer works. We also showed the 3D printing with eggshells.

#Workshop #Assembling #3Dprinter

On the workshop, we explained how to make the filament with eggshells and the filament with coffee. After the explanation, we let the participants make the two filaments by their own. With this made filament of eggshells, we printed.

#Workshop #Filament

During this course, Glimps asked the coffeegrounds group if it was possible to convert there granulate infused with coffee into a working filament. After trying a few times, Jenthe succeeded in creating a filament that could be used to print.

Now that we did a workshop and are certain our material can be used to fill the stoneflower clayprinter, we decided to experiment a little more in terms of design requirements. We tested if other forms were possible, how high could we go, would it be able to print an overhang, …

To hand over our knowledge, we already organised a workshop. Now, to keep our knowledge available we started a youtube channel containing our instruction video’s. This way students can look back when they have questions or aren’t sure how to print anything with eggshells.