Agar Agar 3-D printing gun
Agar Agar 3-D printing gun:
The purpose of this project is to reuse material from her household or from the second-hand store. Ploy gets her inspiration from the opensource 3D printing culture and developed her own 3D printing device. The commercial 3D printing gun shares a strong similarity with a hot glue gun. The hot glue gun is hacked in the way the biofilaments can run through the heating element. This is how the ‘Agar Agar 3D printing gun’ is made. The device gives the user a free-form possibility to create a bioplastic object from Agar Agar.
Agar Agar 3-D printing Machine:
The printing process is relatively slow. To faster the process, Ploy decided to make this process automatically. By collecting unused materials in her surrounding, she created a new purpose for it. The objects are hacked and put together to fulfil the function of a 3D printer.
Additional information
How to make bio filaments:
The ingredients for the filament are in a ratio of 1/1/3 agar agar, glycerine, and water. The Agar Agar is a cooking powder that is easily found in Asian Supermarkets. If you want to strengthen the mixture, add cornstarch with less than 1 proportion of agar. In addition, she adds food colouring to the mixture to get more playfulness out of the material. The mixture is cooked in a non-stick pan on medium-high fire. After the warm mixture starts to get solid, she pours the medium in a long flexible vinyl tube. When the biomaterial is cool down, she puts high air pressure in the tube to slide the bioplastic out of the former. The filaments need to be stored in a fridge until it will be used for 3D printing.
After printing out the preferable shape, the bioplastic will get dry in several days. The material will shrink around 60% and will become a hard bioplastic.
Information submitted by the maker and edited by the Future Materials Bank.
Ingredients
Agar Agar (Red Seaweed), Water, Glycerine, Cornstarch, Food Colouring
Credits
Cirkel Sector