3D Printing

Hot glue gun becomes handheld 3D printer with some help from Lego

Hot glue gun becomes handheld 3D printer with some help from Lego
Vimal Patel has shared his Lego extruder design on Redbrickable
Vimal Patel has shared his Lego extruder design on Redbrickable
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Vimal Patel has shared his Lego extruder design on Redbrickable
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Vimal Patel has shared his Lego extruder design on Redbrickable
Once assembled and attached to the hit glue gun, it feeds the filament through to the nozzle at a steady rate
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Once assembled and attached to the hit glue gun, it feeds the filament through to the nozzle at a steady rate
The Lego/glue gun double act stemmed from a university project aimed at looking into making products from just one 3D printing filament
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The Lego/glue gun double act stemmed from a university project aimed at looking into making products from just one 3D printing filament
The Lego/glue gun handheld 3D printer can be used to create decorative objects like this helmet
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The Lego/glue gun handheld 3D printer can be used to create decorative objects like this helmet
An intricate multi-layered design 3D-printed using the handheld Lego/glue gun printer
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An intricate multi-layered design 3D-printed using the handheld Lego/glue gun printer
An intricate multi-layered design 3D-printed using the handheld Lego/glue gun printer
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An intricate multi-layered design 3D-printed using the handheld Lego/glue gun printer
The extruder is made up of 112 Lego Technic parts including an electric 9 V battery box and a 9 V motor, five different sizes of toothed gear wheels, and numerous beams, connectors, axles, bricks and bushes
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The extruder is made up of 112 Lego Technic parts including an electric 9 V battery box and a 9 V motor, five different sizes of toothed gear wheels, and numerous beams, connectors, axles, bricks and bushes
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Given some biodegradable 3D printing filament and tasked with doing something creative with it, Vimal Patel built an extruder using Lego, attached it to a rather ordinary hot glue gun and ended up with a pretty funky 3D printing pen – a DIY 3Doodler if you will.

The Lego/glue gun double act stemmed from a university project aimed at looking into making products from just one 3D printing filament, to make end of life recycling a relatively simple matter, as opposed to multi-material products that can pose a recycling challenge.

Before embarking on his Lego adventure, Patel did some preliminary work using the university's UP 3D printers to find out if he could incorporate zones of different stiffness into his single material objects. Though this proved possible, the layer by layer approach was found limiting and modeling and programming robotic assistance for extrusion along a path in multiple axes looked complicated, so he simplified the process.

The extruder is made up of 112 Lego Technic parts including an electric 9 V battery box and a 9 V motor, five different sizes of toothed gear wheels, and numerous beams, connectors, axles, bricks and bushes
The extruder is made up of 112 Lego Technic parts including an electric 9 V battery box and a 9 V motor, five different sizes of toothed gear wheels, and numerous beams, connectors, axles, bricks and bushes

The extruder is made up of 112 Lego Technic parts including an electric 9 V battery box and a 9 V motor, five different sizes of toothed gear wheels, and numerous beams, connectors, axles, bricks and bushes. Once assembled and attached to the off-the-shelf hot glue gun, it feeds the filament through to the nozzle at a steady rate. Then the artist can work on the creation of objects like a fruit bowl, a bracelet or a helmet, with joints being secured by heating the filament where two filament lines cross.

Patel has posted extruder build instructions and a full parts list on Redbrickable for tinkerers who might want to try and build their own handheld 3D printing gun. You can see Patel putting together the extruder and some of the 3D-printed objects he's created so far in the video below.

Source: Vimal Patel

monomateriality

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1 comment
1 comment
MQ
Great hack.
It is fairly obvious that a solid doodler is merely a "glue gun" in a sketch-friendly format, and a fused filament 3D printer is 'only' a computer controlled glue gun (sure, the material is slightly different).
Now anyone can be creative with the use of Lego technic, mindstorm and a glue gun.