Ceramic 3D Printing with Grasshopper

Keywords: Rhino, Grasshopper, G-code, Ceramic 3d printing, Clay 3d printing

If you have a 3D model built with Rhino and want to print it out using Eazao ceramic 3D printer, the Grasshopper plug-in that comes with Rhino can easily convert your model into G-code to print. Here we will provide you with some Grasshopper templates, and introduce in detail the principles of these templates and how to use them.

Rhino7 will be used in this tutorial.

First, slice your model.Here we suggest you use the isometric section line function of the rhinoceros (Contour)（Picture 1). First select the object you want to print, then select the direction of generation, and select two points to determine the direction of generation. Generally, we generate in the Z-axis direction. Finally, set the interval of the section line. It depends on your printer and the line width you want.(Picture 2) Take Eazao Zero as an example, 0.5mm-1mm is recommended.

Picture 1

Picture 2

Open Grasshopper, in rhino7, it is in the standard tab bar. Open the template 1 provided by us in Grasshopper. Right-click curve, click set multiple multiple(Picture 3), and select the coil you just created. Note, please move your model to the positive semi-axis of the coordinate system, and the coordinate is 1-2mm higher than the XY plane(Picture 4). At this time, the G-code you want will appear in the display box on the right of Grasshopper(Picture 5).

For different printers, the beginning and end of the G-code used are different. You can enter the start and end sentences that your printer is adapted to in the start and end boxes(Picture 6). The template is Eazao Zero’s style.

Picture 3

Picture 4

Picture 5

Picture 6

There are several parameters in template for you to set. The first is printing speed. You can adjust the speed by dragging the speed slider to suit your printing project(Picture 7). The speed is 20 mm/s. The second is the coefficient of extrusion amount, you can drag the k slider to adjust the extrusion amount(Picture 8). Note that the amount of extrusion in the template = Length/k, that is, the value of the slider is inversely proportional to the amount of extrusion.

Picture 7

Picture 8

After that, you can copy the generated G-code(Picture 9) to a printing simulation software (such as Repetier-Host) to check whether the G-code is correct(Picture  10).

You can also put the generated G-code code in a text file and save it as template.gcode. Note: Change the extension of the text file from .txt to .gcode.

After that, you can use clay 3d printer like Eazao to print the gcode. Have fun! If you have any questions, please contact: support@eazao.com.

Picture 9

Picture 10

You can download template file here:  template file.

Reference books:  Advanced 3D Printing with Grasshopper®: Clay and FDM