Working Method - Jonathan Keep

Having just got my first printed ceramics outof the glaze firing I thought it would be a good time to offer a post on my current working method. On and off for the last ten years I have been using 3D computer modelling programs, mainly as a tool to train my visualisations memory and explore new forms. Using numerical transformations the computer can generate forms I would not otherwise conceive of. Scaling, particularly uneven scaling or scaling only in one direction I have always find interesting. The human eyes aptitude for responding to symmetries is another area I have explored both in 2D and 3D software. Morphology and the evolution of form is a third technique I use. The 3D program can calculate the transition from one form into another offering the possibility to capture a new form at any point along that transformation.

Recently I have started using Blender, an open source 3D program that offers great possibilities and I can see myself spending a lot of time with it. Unfortunately the most recent version does not yet have .stl export, the file type used to convert to code that the ceramic printer understands. So saved as .obj files I do the conversion to .stl in Netfabb Studio. What is useful in Netfabb is that the surface area of the form is given so I can make the necessary adjustments to make sure I will be able to print the object from one 60 ml syringe of clay paste. The saved .stl file is then opened in the BfB Axon program and finally the form is cut up to make a g-code file that goes on a memory card ready for the printer. The BfB Axon program has a minefield of settings that are required when using a self made printing head as with ceramics. This is another posting in itself and while I am still trying different syringes ( I want to be able to hold a greater volume of clay for each print) it will be a while before I know what my settled ceramic print head settings will be.

Three stages in preparation for printing – Blender, Netfabb and BFB Axon.

Morphology of glazed printed porcelain forms – height 9cm each.

Simple glazed printed porcelain scaled forms – 6 to 3 cm high.

Shipping robots

I unpacked one of our printers that came back from an exhibition in Abu Dhabi last november and found that two of the four corners where completely loose, thats four grub screws for each corner that popped out of their place so now the vertical bar slides freely in the corners.
Funny thing is that when I unpacked them in Abu Dhabi, the crate was damaged and not very rigid anymore but the printer wasn't. I fixed the crate before shipping back and now it is the opposite.

Looks like I will need to take this one apart and reassemble correctly again, he was a bit wobbly in the first place...

And I will need to look into ways to better pack the machines, I always fill the crate with foam. Also on the bottom there is 3 cm foam in which the feet are plugged so the foam sits flush with the horizontal bottom bars. Will need to look into ways to improve this.

So fellow robot travelers, how do you ship your machines?

Kilns part 1: OpenKilnController

Last Christmas I got a small, almost new 8 liter kiln from my uncle who owns a large dental lab. He got it when he bought a whole lot of material in a liquidation and it was to big for them. Small for us is large for their industry, they use tiny desktop kilns, maybe 250 cc that fit a few tooth in them. The only problem was that it was only the kiln with the heating elements and no controller, thermocouple or relays. Buying all the necessary gear through our local pottery supplier would have made us ± 600€ lighter! So having a little tinker ethos I figured that it would be easy to build something yourself using an Arduino as a controller and a Solid State Relay to switch the 2 Kw elements. Not being such a great programmer or electro-engineer I dived into google thinking that this must have been done before considering the prices of commercial controllers,  some code would probably be available to get you started. Well, google turned op close to 0 hits so apparently there are not enough potters with programming/engineering background or hackers that like clay? After doing lots of research, driving to holland to pickup some old analog industrial temperature controllers, thermocouples and relays, requesting manuals for gear from the 80s from japanese companies I finally threw in the towel and bought a 300€ controller kit that was a perfect fit for small kilns like ours. I found this kit through all the googling (so never a waste of time) and figured that it was not worth it to continue my search for a DIY solution since I really lack the skills to pull it off from scratch. The ST222 kit I bought included a controller, thermocouple and relays and was made buy the UK company Stafford Instruments. So here's our inferno in a box.

I still love the idea of a DIY kit controller, I calculated the costs of a DIY solution to be around 150€ (Thermocouple 60€, Arduino 30€, SSR 30€, Display for Arduino, buttons etc 20€) which was a quarter of the initial commercial solutions and would allow you to preprogram all curves from a computer instead of using the awkward interfaces of commercial solutions and even monitor the kiln with plotted curves on the computer. The solutions on the market are really basic in functionality. While the 300€ controller was a sweet enough deal for our small kiln I still think a DIY controller would be very interesting for larger kilns. So I hope someone wants to pick up my mission for the OpenKilnController.

Here is what I have found so far, kiln controllers are PID controllers (I never heard of them, remember my lack of skills) and they appear to be very common in industrial control systems.  There is already a pretty decent PID library for Arduino. (http://www.arduino.cc/playground/Code/PIDLibrary) that could be used as a starter. The hardware is straight forward as mentioned above, you need a thermocouple as analog sensor, the Arduino with PID library as controller and a SSR as switching mechanism for the kiln. The tricky part looks to be the 'tuning' of the P, I and D parameters.
I also found some rforum posts over at arduino about DIY Arduino PID controllers so at least some people tried like PWillard.


UPDATE: While typing this post I revisited the forum thread I mentioned above and apparently GlennD did build a kiln controller for a glass fusing Kiln. Unfortunately only after I bought the ST222.

Introductions - Jonathan Keep

Jonathan's post (Read An Englishman in Antwerp bellow first):

I am an artist potter based in Suffolk, England and for some time have been interested in studio based 3d ceramic printing so to find out earlier this year what Unfold have been doing was a revelation. Eager to replicate their system I visited Claire and Dries and now have my own RapMan oozing porcelain paste in my UK studio. With a desire to continue Unfolds generosity in sharing knowledge I plan to post my printing progress on the Unfold-fab blog to keep all the information in one place on the web.

My RapMan supplied by Bits from Bytes, Somerset UK is version 3.1.0 loaded with software 4.0.2. Building the flat pack went ok and I had it moving in three or four days. Not interested in printing plastic I have not put the print head together. Wanting to concentrate on printing clay I got on with putting that together.  My ceramic printing head is very cobbled together with bits of gas kiln equipment as I am well aware that there are still lots of development work to be done and so I just wanted to get started to develop from experience.

My starting point is, as developed by Unfold, a 50/60 cc plastic syringe held in a self made cradle attached to the RapMan printer head mount. The syringe is then pressurised from an air compressor -  that I fortunately already had as I have a spray gun for glazing. The one thing I had to go shopping for was the 1K Ohm resistor that bridges two points of the unused print head cable connector plug on the printer control board. This gets RapMan software to think a pen tool is fitted.

Differences from Unfold –

• I am using a manual switch at the printer head for air pressure control rather than an electronic solenoid valve. This is for simplicity and so far has worked well as I can stop and start clay ooze as I want.
• I am using a 1.5 nozzle size as my prints are single walled. My thinking is to duplicate conventional pottery coil building techniques. I have set the Z (vertical axis) increment to 1 mm. So a syringe takes about 20 minutes to empty/print and a tall form can be about 10 cm.
•  I am printing onto pre prepared wades of clay so do not print a base. This does mean I need to get into the gcode in text editor and cut out some code.
• I use a (not very good) hairdryer as I print to stiffen up the form as more clay gets layer on. 

It has been a week since I got clay oozing and the learning curve has been steep but things are happening and the development put in by Unfold has been invaluable. In which direction all this might go I do not know as ideas and possibilities keep coming but I am making pots. There are still lots of problems, with gcode, with how RapMan behaves, with the limitations of the syringe size but I have a tool I understand and can customise to my ends and that I feel has fantastic creative potential. 

There have been post on how to fill a syringe; well I have to add to that. Having a wall mounted clay extruder in my studio I made a simple turn and lock fitment to take the syringe on the base plate. I fill a plastic bag with the clay paste (my mix is 1 water to 2.5 porcelain clay powder) and stuff the bag into the rather rusty extruder. Put in the plunger and extrusion arm and pull down. Result filled syringe, and so easy to attach the next syringe for a fill.

For further information on Jonathan’s work see – www.keep-art.co.uk

Thanks for sharing Jonathan!

An englishman in Antwerp

Early last summer we got a friendly email from Jonathan Keep, a British potter who was very enthusiastic about what we achieved with 3d ceramic printing. His email kind of popped out between all the other emails of various people who are interested because Jonathan had been playing around for some time with the same idea of a robotized coiling machine based on a Reprap. Unfortunately he did not find time/budget to pursue the project at that time. Luckily for us ;-)
This was before Bits from Bytes started lowering the barrier by offering an easier (than starting from scratch with Reprap) platform to bootstrap this kind of experiments from. Without an XYZ robot to toy with, Jonathan managed to do some 'analog 3d printing' using a hand operated syringe and the results that he attached to his first email where fascinating and impressive to see:

His email ended with the plan to apply for a grant that included buying a BfB machine and doing a field trip to Unfold's office in Antwerp....

Fast forward: Jonathan came to Antwerp with his wife last october and we had a great afternoon (with tea mind you), it was great to exchange ideas. Here you see him using the virtual pottery wheel from L'Artisan Électronique like only a real potter can.

And a great snapshot of Unfold/Keep work:

Jonathan finished his Rapman last week and crafted the first objects with it. He will be posting to the Unfold ˜fab blog too and we are looking forward to what he will produce and post. We already feel the urge to finish the next claystruder prototype of which many bits 'n pieces are laying around in our studio because of the healthy 'competition' Jonathan put forward :-) 

The first post will be copy paste below until we can find how to add contributors. We also want to put a bit more effort in the Unfold ˜fab blog and post a bit more frequently from now on.

3d printed ceramics and video on show at Digital Solid expo

3d printed ceramics and video on show at Digital Solid expo at the Galerie de l'Ecole Supérieur des Beaux-Arts in Valenciennes, France.

info in french:

L'exposition  » Digital Solid / Design numérique » présente les travaux de plusieurs designers et de plusieurs ateliers numériques académiques ; François Brument, Ammar Eloueini, Mr Mann, UnFold/Claire Warnier et Dries Verbruggen, Studio lo, Innovathèque, François Clochiatti, Digital Knowledge/Studio de Projet de Master 2/ Ecole nationale supérieure d'architecture de Paris – Malaquais, l'ISD Institut supérieur de design et le Laboratoire numérique de l'Ecole supérieure des beaux-arts de Valenciennes. L'exposition comporte un volet pédagogique et didactique sur le prototypage rapide réalisé en partenariat avec Innovathèque du FCBA. Elle s'inscrit également dans le programme semestriel du Laboratoire numérique de Valenciennes et de l'Atelier numérique de l'Ecole supérieure d'art et de design de Saint-Etienne.
Ce projet ambitionne d'initier un réseau de compétence permettant la conception et la réalisation à distance de projets de design, la mise en place d'une plate-forme de recherche.

Certaines hypothèses seront expérimentées dans le cadre du projet « L'appartement, une métaphore du monde » au centre d'art Lab-Labanque, à l'occasion de l'évènement culturelBéthune 2011, Capitale Régionale de la Culture.

Lieu :
Galerie de l'Ecole supérieure des beaux-arts de Valenciennes
132 avenue du Faubourg de Cambrai
59300 Valenciennes

Infos :
http://ecoledesbeauxarts.valenciennes.fr

‘Yes, we’re open.’

UDATE: The full setup of L'Artisan Electronique will be only on display at the opening and the weekend of october 14-16


Friday October 14, 9.30u-15 u
Saturday October 15, 9.30 u – 15 u
Sunday October 16, 14 u – 18 u.

For those who are in the neigbourhood, tonight is the opening of ‘Yes, we’re open.’ An exhibition curated by our long time friend Thomas Lommée from Intrastructures who you might now for his open-standards-for-things project OpenStuctures. We will be showing a new compact version of L'Artisan Electronique (v1.5) which we have been developing along side an improved clay print head and new virtual throwing wheel software (not included yet, those will premier in at Abu Dhabi Art beginning of november).

‘Yes, we’re open.’ is an exhibition on how our networked society is reshaping the way we create, produce and consume.  You can download a great Exhibition overview + open design manual done by Thomas at http://www.intrastructures.net/yes_we_re_open.pdf

EXHIBITION
8 october - 25 october, 10h - 21h
Budascoop, Kapucijnenstraat 10, 8500 Kortrijk

OPENING
8 october, 18u30 - 22u30

Please be welcome!

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The exhibition ‘Yes! we’re open.’ is part of the Innovation Festival Kortrijk.
www.innovationfestival-kortrijk.be