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I 3D Printed Origami [video]

When I got my first 3D printer one of the first things I learned, in a surprising twist, was how great they are at printing flat things.

7 days agoKevinMS

What other kinds of flat things did you print?

Tom Stanton printed directly onto tissue paper to make extremely light airplanes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4X6KYlQ7YQ

6 days agonoman-land

I make a lot of stuff using similar techniques to this guy[1]. Adding a mesh mid-print adds a good bit of structural integrity for thing pieces, and comes in handy for accessories like earrings and necklaces. Also fun to play with negative space when you start using optically interesting materials like iridescent or metallic meshes.

[1] https://thangs.com/designer/kaizen3dprints

3 days agocosmie

shims, plates (the hardware kind with holes), etc. It would be great for anything assembled together with plates and spacers (robots, stands, etc). The alternative would be cutting those shapes out of something, with lots of waste and dust.

5 days agoKevinMS

What a fantastic video! Thanks!

3D printers are good at printing snowflakes for Christmas too ;-)

5 days agobambax

I wonder how their slicer is handling the infill angles. I suspect the bridge detection is only kicking in on the top layer, which ensures the infill angle is perpendicular to the gap. The bottom layer is going to follow a global angle and eventually run parallel to a hinge as the design gets complex (hence a later design failing and requiring thick hinges).

Painting infill angles would be tedious. I bet with concentric infill and some clever zero width cuts you could make all of the hinges perfectly perpendicular.

5 days agodeckar01

Thanks for sharing! I absolutely adore the meshing of mechanical engineering and origami. I cannot believe I never considered it.

7 days agojamothy

Really cool!