Tuesday, April 15, 2008
Simple Hot Metal Valve
This is my prototype design for a field's metal extrude head. It uses the same brass tube that we use for the polymer extruder, and the same nozzle. The tube has a smaller silicone tube inside it and a notch filed in it. A solenoid clamps the silicone at the notch. There's a brass cup at the top full of field's metal (melting point 50oC). All the brass parts are heated by wrapping them in nichrome wire set in JB Weld in our usual way.
And it works! Here's the vid:
RepRap metal deposition head from Adrian Bowyer on Vimeo.
The heater (with no insulation) only needed a 50/50 PWM duty cycle at 12v to keep the metal molten, giving an average current about 600 mA.
Roll on electric circuits. Roll on electric circuits in full 3D...
Labels: extruder, fields metal, metal write head
