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Le projet RepRap : le moteur de la révolution de l’impression 3D

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Episode 4: Happy foot

So I got to thinking. “Why am I selling perfectly good 3D printing filament back to the rich in Metro, when I could be using it to make things I want myself?”

Looking at the web on my solar-powered computer again, I found plans for my very own 3-D printer - then I would not need to get parts from Doc Roy.

I made the deltabot kind. It has three long legs that hold motors and idlers that use a belt to go up and down. These up and down motions on each leg move the head centered with rods. The head is just a hot piece of metal – like a really tiny recyclebot head. A motor pushes the filament I made with a recyclebot into the head and melts it. This happens as the head is moving around in a pattern. It prints just a 2D layer, then moves up a tiny bit and does the next pattern. It keeps repeating this until it prints out the solid 3D object I send to it. “What did a I send it?“ you ask.

A prosthetic leg! 

I have really been wanting one. It will make getting around this dump a lot easier and the web had free plans. 

I took careful measurements of my leg stump and my good leg, input the numbers into a parametric computer aided design and then loaded up the designs. Next I, sliced it with free software to turn the 3D design into 2D layers and the instructions were sent to the printer. Luckily they are really energy efficient and my solar panel could power it with stored up juice in the battery. It is mesmerizing to watch, it moves so fast – leaving plastic in perfect patterns in its wake...but the hum of it working puts Slick to sleep. He is on my good leg.

Now my right leg is asleep too!

The new prosthetic leg looked amazing on the printer. I wonder how it will look on my actual leg?

It has been so long since I had a leg – I have just become used to limping around the wasteland with my crutches.

My hands tremble as I slide my new 3-D printed leg up over my stub. I had done my measurements right – it was a perfect fit. I closed the clasps and it felt like the leg was becoming part of me. I stood up carefully as the clever 3D printed locking mechanism let me put weight on it.

I was standing on two legs! 

I took a few tentative steps towards the mirror. I still limped, but I didn’t need the crutches.

“What do you think Slick?”

Slick is speechless.

I can’t get a goofy smile off my face as stare at myself in the mirror. It has been so long since I could stand up without the crutch – now I can even walk and maybe even dance again.

I am so happy, I grab Slick in a big hug.  I squeeze him tight and take him outside and spin him around. He licks my nose and it tickles. I am doing all of this on two legs – no crutches. I can’t remember being this happy since I was back in Metro with my parents. I miss them.

Now I have Slick.

“We are going to be ok.” I say.

He makes a short yip.

Don’t get me wrong, trading Doc Roy shredded plastic for food was working. Slick and I were eating better and by belly was not rumbling any more. I still went back to the computer at night and looked up other things I could make. One caught my eye, called a recyclebot. It was a little robot that eats plastic and makes spools of filament for 3D printers. Whereas I could only get a few credits for giant bags of shredded waste plastic if I could turn it into good filament I could start making real money!

At first I was excited, but then I realized it needed a custom compression screw. Even with Slick’s help I knew the odds of finding one in the scrap heap were tiny.  Back to the web – I found designs for a free rig that could make custom screws -- I could make it  from scrap wood and an angle grinder. We saved up credits for a few weeks until we could afford the angle grinder from Doc Roy. 

We had to make other sacrifices too. This was going to use some real power running the grinder, so no late night web surfing. Every drop of sunshine our panel could collect went to the battery. I ran the screw maker on my stored up solar power at night, while Slick was asleep, so the sparks would not scare him.

Luckily, he sleeps like a rock.

My compression screw came out perfect!

Now we were ready. Slick and I scavenged the rest of the parts and built a recyclebot from 3D printed parts I traded Doc Roy to get. It works! First, Slick throws plastic shreds into a hopper that we made out of an old 2-liter bottle I had cut the bottom off. Then this plastic went into an old pipe where it was moved forward by our screw turned by a motor. The plastic goes in and is transported down the shaft to get squeezed in between the screw we made and the pipe. This pushed the plastic into a ‘hot zone’ where I had wrapped some nichrome wire from a broken toaster. In went plastic confetti sprinkled by Slick’s little paws – out came a long piece of plastic spaghetti.

 “No you can’t eat it Slick!” 

This spaghetti has to have the right shape so I copied the plans to have it cooled in a metal tray by fans and pulled at just the right rate. I even found an old webcam I could use with some free software to monitor it. Finally, it was spooled up at the end by this perfect winding machine.

We sorted the waste shreds by color - and we made spool after spool all weekend for as long as the solar power held out.

Slick and I were first in line at the Doc’s trading post on Monday. Doc Roy was flabbergasted. Almost never did the jects bring him new stuff. He didn’t say a word. He took the spools gave me stack of credits and closed early. I could now get a day’s rations for a single spool! I might even start to be able to afford vegetables again. Yummy vegetables! Oh, how I dreamed of the elusive pea, broccoli and carrot every night as I picked dried bacteria protein from my teeth. No more, I think I may even have enough money to have Roy smuggle me out a salad.