Development of an Extrusion Based Additive Manufacturing

System for Thermoplastic Rubber

Olaf Diegel, Johan Potgieter, Frazer Noble, Deon de Beer

But First…

• An update on innovative additive manufacturing examples from the last year.

Beauty and the beak

May 2013: 3-D Printer Makes A Bionic Ear

The “inks” consisted of hydrogels mixed with calf cells and silver nanoparticles.

Michael McAlpine, Princeton University

Baby's Life Saved with 3D Printing

Researchers built a 3D printed device that saved the life of Kaiba Gionfriddo, born with a rare condition, tracheobronchomalacia, that caused life-threatening breathing problems.

polycaprolactone splint, Dr. Glenn

Green and Scott Hollister, PhD,

University of Michigan

Know your baby before its born…

Tomohiro Kinoshita , of FASOTEC, the company

offering the 'Shape of an Angel' model, even offers

parents a miniature version which could be a 'nice

adornment to a mobile phone strap or key chain.'

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Prototype engagement ring, in case she says “No”

FabCafe in the Shibuya, Tokyo offers custom-printed chocolate, that resemble a customer’s face. It’s done with 3D printing technology

“Eat Your Face Machine” (EYFM) is a 3D printer developed by David Carr and the MIT Media Lab

And, of course, it was only a matter of time…

The Justin Bieber

And, more recently, the liberator

No advantage to 3D printing guns

Virginia tech’s 3D printing vending machine

The DreamVendor is an interactive 3D printing vending machine for Virginia Tech

students to enable them to quickly make prototypes for their academic, or personal,

design projects. Insert an SD card with the 3D model into the machine; the

DreamVendor then prints your 3D part and dispenses it into a bin when it's finished.

And, as promised, something on 3D printed rubber…

The goal

To produce soft rubber customized orthotic shoe inserts on a desktop 3D printer

The market?

Sports shoe stores could have specialized desktop 3D printers in-store that allow them to print custom shoe inserts while the customer waits.

The manual way

More advanced data capture

Pressure data

And conversion to reality

The advent of desktop 3D printers

The goal of this project was to convert a cheap desktop 3D printer into a printer capable of printing TPR shoe inserts

Filament based experiments

• Problem 1: no grip

• Problem 2: no rigidity

Testing jigs

Change of direction

Student budget considerations

Problem: heat travelling up auger

Forced-air cooling system

Final student system

Proof-of-concept results

Latest design

Where to from here?

• Modify Up Software to control feeds and speeds

• Extend Y axis for full sized shoe

• Or make printer from scratch?

• Open-source design?

• CAD to combine bottom side of sole, from a library of brands and sizes, to the custom top of the sole.

Other thoughts

• Desktop 3D printers make incredible research platforms

• They are easy to hack/ modify/ improve and make fantastic learning platforms for students

FIN