This project focuses mostly on creation of materials needed for printing with hydroxyapatite a printer to go with it. This project will be divided in two parts. First one being construction of a 3D powder bed printer, and second one being creation of materials. As hydroxyapatite is quite expensive and 3d printed bones being quite useless on a regular basis I will try to make all material concepts usable with other materials (eg. ceramics and metal powders hopefully).
NOTE: This project is not for the faint of heart (i have been actively working on it for more than a year, and I am still struggling on a regular basis). If you are certain that you have enough experience with making things I strongly encourage you to try to make it as it yo will learn a lot. If you think of making this 3d printer yourself feel free to discuss it with me.
This project focuses on creation of a 3DP (binder jetting powder bed printer) which can print with hydroxyapatite (material that makes up to 70% bone weight). Beside the printer I will be making the needed material to print out of. I will also try printing with some other materials that are more commonly available (maybe even metal powders). When I will be discusing results of material testing I will also write a bit about the usage of other materials (eg. ceramics)
The idea of this project came from realization that 3D printing is a method, that has a lot of potential in biotechnology and medicine. By saying this i'm not just saying that we can print organs, but we can use this method to make parts used in very expensive equipment. For example we could use this method to make porous elements used as bioreactors, biofilters etc. I started with bone printing as it seemed as the simplest.
I designed the printer so it can be CNC milled. Most of the parts can be salvaged. I also tried to design the printer so it is cheap to build. I will also try to replace all expensive parts with cheaper ones that don't impact the performance too much.
Note that I am just a young enthusiast, so there is going to be plenty of things to improve. By saying this I am asking everyone who is thinking of building this printer to use their own minds and be ready to fix some of my mistakes.
I will be posting project logs everyday (at least I hope so) where I will be talking about material development and printer creation. I will alternate between these two topics so one day I will talk about printer and the next day about materials.