Dan Shirley

The smoothieboard looks like an awesome piece of kit too

Something like this is just what i’m looking for, so an open source design for a PP 3d printer would be amazing!

These flat splodges might be a way of making bottle caps and milk bottles easier to turn into flakes without a shredder- I’m going to try planing the edge with an electric planer. It would be great to make small, uniform flakes with just a sandwich press and a planer. Can’t test it now though as its the middle of the night.

I did another experiment, this time with the caps on baking paper in the bottom of the air fryer bowl. It kinda worked, and using my half-finished press I was able to make my biggest useless splodge so far at about 200mm diameter. However, I’m not convinced that the air fryer is going to be very useful for my needs. The heating is too uneven and…[Read more]

@s2019 wow that hurts by brain AND my mind!

@ppboys seems haptic actuators are a cheaply available component now:…[Read more]

but hey thats all stupidly complicated. Why not just 3d print the QR code and then toss it into a round mould and squash some melted plastic on top of it?

Alternatively to produce a flat bi-coloured coin it could be an array of 3d printer-type filament extruder nozzles pointing up into the bottom of the mould, extruding with one colour, with a larger injector sending a different colour plastic into the top of the mould. The same stacked array approach might be neccessary.

@ppboys Fun stuff indeed! Not sure the bowden cables are necessary, there are tiny stepper motors available very cheap which could be stacked in offset layers and drive the lead screws directly. Sketch represents 8.5x9mm steppers in 4 layers to give a 10×10 grid in under 50mm square (but yes I can see 20×20 would be required)

@eugeneb50 Very cool, maybe could be based on haptic display technology? In that scenario the pin things are called taxels- check out the BlindPad or the shapeShift on youtube…

There is a trend for companies to start their own crypto-currency as an alternative to selling shares. There are thousands of them out there now. As an open-source, decentralized movement, PP cannot sell shares, but a PP coin could be a good way for all of us to generate funding out of the growing appetite in society for initiatives which address…[Read more]

@s2019 Thanks! Yes you’re right, I might need to beef up the bottom rails. But I think I’ll go side-by-side again, I’d like to find a thick flat plate to put each side and leave a space in the middle so I can fit long things vertically into the press. Maybe one day I’ll add an adaptation with a heated tube and plunger running down through the…[Read more]

@s2019 yea I’m using a baby version of that jack… definitely will look to upgrade. Hopefully the pic will upload.. you’ll see I’m not great at welding but it’ll hold 🙂

From what I’ve been reading it seems that the main way to reduce air bubbles, aside from having the plastic clean, dry, well melted and mixed; is of course to use enormous pressure. The press I am building is currently only set up with a 2 ton jack. I am wondering if anyone can share their experiences about how much pressure is necessary? Is it…[Read more]

@s2019 It’s a great idea, air fryers come up cheap secondhand here in the uk because they are basically not very good for cooking as the capacity is usually quite small. For normal cooking it’s easier to bake in the oven.
I’m on the lookout for one and will definitely test the idea as soon as I can. It could be ideal for my purposes as I can put…[Read more]

@s2019 I like the idea of an air fryer, any threads or links on this?

@ppboys very useful thanks

I am also interested in this subject, I am currently aiming to produce cylindrical HDPE billets or blanks, around 150mm diameter and 60mm deep. This is fairly ambitious and bubbles will probably be the main problem, particularly as I hope eventually to turn the blanks on a lathe.

I have read that making sure that the plastic is extremely dry is…[Read more]