3D Printing with (Ersatz) Moon Dust

When the people of Earth set up bases on the moon, you can imagine that 3D printing will be a key enabling technology. Of course, you could ship plastic or other filament at great cost. But what if you could print with something you can already find on the moon? Like moon dust. NASA thinks it is possible and has been doing tests on doing just that. Now [Virtual Foundry] wants to let you have a shot at trying it yourself. It doesn’t really contain moon dust, but their Basalt Moon Dust Filamet has a similar composition. You can see a video about the material below.

It isn’t cheap, but it is probably cheaper than going up there to get some yourself. At least for now. The company is known for making PLA with various metal and ceramic materials. Like their other filaments, you print it more or less like PLA, although you need a large hardened nozzle, and they suggest a prewarmer to heat the filament before going to the hot end.

They recommend printing at 210C and 135% flow rate. The material contains about 60% basalt, and after sintering at a very high temperature, the remaining material is all basalt.

This isn’t the first time we’ve looked at filament that mixes in metal or ceramics. We’ve seen copper-laden filament from Virtual Foundry used to make rocket nozzles.



from Blog – Hackaday https://ift.tt/LQ78RPX

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