F*ck around XL

F*ck around XL

A longterm project in which I'm turning the Prusa XL into an experimental platform for combining all kinds of different materials with the goal to find new use cases.

Active

When you think about multi-material 3D printing, you might think of multi-color printing or combining materials like PETG and TPU. That's cool and all, but I want to take this further. I will explore printing of non-plastics, like concrete, and ceramics or plastics in a different form like glue, foam, resin and epoxy. The more cursed the better. And more importantly, combining these materials.

I believe that this approach, in combination with sharing this in my youTube videos will result in use cases that wouldn't have been found otherwise.

3D printing has roughly 3 significant benefits over other methods of manufacturing. These are:

  • Personalization, so one-offs
  • Complex geometries
  • Multi-material in a single part

This is because this technique builds parts layer by layer. During the process the parts can be manipulated, but I feel like there is still much to explore when it comes to multi-material. This is exactly what I'm going to do in several upcoming videos.

Some projects in the past, like 3D printing with resin and printing with hot glue, will be revisited and will become part of this bigger project.

Deliverables & Results

Related Videos

This is the first video in which I started modifying the Prusa XL by placing custom extruders on it. This approach helped me understanding the printer and how I can adapt it for different tools. I had to find a way to fit each tool (which was an extremely tight fit) align them and being able to home the Z-axis using the existing load cell sensor.
Here I decided to build a custom controller using LabVIEW. LabVIEW is a graphical programming interface that I used in my previous life as an electronics test developer. It's very good at controlling hardware, and in this case a 3D printer. This opens up a lot of possibilities because I have a central computer capable of controlling all kinds of hardware in parallel and I can add functionality that wouldn't be possible otherwise.

Related Designs

Prusa XL TPU mod

Prusa XL TPU mod

Gallery

F*ck around XL

Additional Notes

Co-funded by the European Union

This project is co-funded by the European Union through the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) and supported by the Northern Netherlands Alliance (SNN).

Funding & Partners