First Ever Parts Emailed To Space






24 thoughts on “First Ever Parts Emailed To Space

  1. Now this is sexy!!! (Various catcalls and someone saying “I’d tap dat” in the background)
    My prediction is that there will be no difference for extruded parts, but sintered parts will be a different story.

    1. I think extruding in space will be much more exciting. Think of the incredible overhangs without supports you could do in zero-g!.
      Of course there shall be all shorts of necessary tricky refinements, speed, shrinkage, angle vectors to get tuned, but I can see an extrusion printer in space perform some very nifty stunts.

  2. I’m a little surprised that there isn’t a 3/4″ wrench on the ISS already. Also a little concerned that the ISS might be held together with plastic nuts and bolts.

    Slightly more seriously, how does 3d printing even work in microgravity? Does the extruded plastic not need to ‘fall’ onto the plate/model? Perhaps the nozzle is close enough for the plastic to stick?

    1. Actually, using plastic nuts and bolts is a good idea seeing as you wouldn’t have to worry about thermal expansion and contraction coefficients that would be normal for metal versions.

      As for your questions, I’m thinking high pressure/vacuum helps with that but I could be wrong.

    2. It relies on a certain amount of compression from to extruder to force the layers together. So if yoj have a .3 mm nozzle you put the tip .15 mm away and the extruded layer will melt with tbe previous. Subsequent layers can be farther away, but all rely on compression to join the layers.

    3. In FDM the plastic doesn’t fall. It’s forced out of the Nozzle at some pressure and is squidged down onto the plate / previous layer by the flat around the hole in the Nozzle.

      You can run 3d printers upside down on earth as long as you have good enough bed adhesion. Not sure how well bridging would work upside down on earth, but is one of the things that I’d like to see how it works in microgravity.

    4. Well before they sent an actual printer to ISS, there was a video of a simple test – turn the printer upside down and print. Worked with no problems whatsoever.
      The nozzle is very close to the print bed and later the printed part, just like in earth-based printers, you do not need gravity for anything.
      Natural hot air convection might cause a few problems (in microgravity hot air doesn’t rise, it just sits there) with big parts, but it’s nothing a small fan can’t fix.

      btw if you are concerned about plastic nuts and bolts – I’m pretty sure there is a fair bit of glue used for structural purposes, just like with modern airliners, since bolts are not the best for fiber composites :P



  4. There has to be at least 2 snap-on USA made 3/4 ratchets on the freaking space shuttle. This is just more hurr durr 3d printing nonsense. Ratchets made from steel fail often enough, you’d have to immediately start printing another plastic one as soon as the first is done, the plastic one will fail to ratchet in a hot second.

    1. I think the point is to test and show the level of speed and complexity they can achieve in a way that is just a little more presentable than a test bauble or a small gasket or knob that looks like nothing we use on our pale blue dot.

      Right off the bat I can see how this can impact various types of ISS experiments in the near future. Instead of having to send hardware for all possible outcomes, one could simply send the bare necessities and print out what you need based on the outcome.

      Imagine the cost reduction if they could actually repurpose used parts as filament again over there. Seeing as every gram counts in keeping this puppy up-and-running, I’d say that this semi-publicity show was done for all the good reasons.

  5. Most NASA and other government agency stuff is not copyrighted nor patented. So, can the public download the actual 3D models used for this ratchet and the 20 other objects that were printed?

      1. Thats just a non functioning lookalike from photos.
        Im sure what we are really after is the files for the functioning ratchet.

        There are plenty of ratchets on the usual repositories.
        Theyve probably just bortowed one of those and tweaked it for there use.
        Would be good to find out which one.

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