Tethon ceramic powder
Posted: Fri Jul 17, 2020 6:02 pm
There has been quite a powder printing silence for the last few months. I have been busy, but not everything worked, and not everything was sharable.
On of the things that I now can share, is that I am working with 3D printed ceramics from Tethon. I got samples of stoneware, terra cotta, and porcelain, and their binder. I have not yet printed great amounts with it, but I do intend to do so.
Printing experience of this material in my inexperienced view. Great. It does pack a little, holding the part firm in the powder. It deposits new layers without disturbing previous layers. I have printed a test cylinder to test the dried properties. It is drying in the oven as I type. I have no idea what the white specks are, they do seem to be in the powder.
For cleaning more complex parts with powders that are actually fairly bad for you, I do have a proper negative pressure depowder chamber. Again, this is untested, but I hope it works fine. I is a foldable chamber (small gaps are hopefully no issue since the chamber is negative pressure) with a cyclonic separator on the back. I could have bought mine, but I wanted to try printing one. This version has 8 parallel cyclones. I do plan on adding an extra stage with even smaller cyclones on the back, but first I will see how this performs. If the front arm gaps leak too much powder I will add brushes. When the chamber works and there is interest I can share the plans for the woodwork and the cyclone.
All powder handling is done with respiratory equipment, since silicosis does not seem very desirable.
For the first few prints I will get a feel for the green and dry strengths, and how to handle this powder. I will then make prints that I will actually fire. I have a pottery workshop fairly close with a kiln that I can use.
More information will be shared when I have more progress.
On of the things that I now can share, is that I am working with 3D printed ceramics from Tethon. I got samples of stoneware, terra cotta, and porcelain, and their binder. I have not yet printed great amounts with it, but I do intend to do so.
Printing experience of this material in my inexperienced view. Great. It does pack a little, holding the part firm in the powder. It deposits new layers without disturbing previous layers. I have printed a test cylinder to test the dried properties. It is drying in the oven as I type. I have no idea what the white specks are, they do seem to be in the powder.
For cleaning more complex parts with powders that are actually fairly bad for you, I do have a proper negative pressure depowder chamber. Again, this is untested, but I hope it works fine. I is a foldable chamber (small gaps are hopefully no issue since the chamber is negative pressure) with a cyclonic separator on the back. I could have bought mine, but I wanted to try printing one. This version has 8 parallel cyclones. I do plan on adding an extra stage with even smaller cyclones on the back, but first I will see how this performs. If the front arm gaps leak too much powder I will add brushes. When the chamber works and there is interest I can share the plans for the woodwork and the cyclone.
All powder handling is done with respiratory equipment, since silicosis does not seem very desirable.
For the first few prints I will get a feel for the green and dry strengths, and how to handle this powder. I will then make prints that I will actually fire. I have a pottery workshop fairly close with a kiln that I can use.
More information will be shared when I have more progress.