In the meantime, you can already 3D print this fantastic Terminator head at home. “Now I want to expand on that and show that you can make these really complicated embedded structures that have multiple layers and multiple components, other than just LEDs.” “The circuit inside this guy is really simple, but it does show the capabilities of the material: it is embedded, it shows that I can go down, over, up, out, and go to a couple of eyes,” Flowers said. The Terminator head (based on this T800 head model by machina) perfectly showcases the material’s potential. Right now, they have found particular success with Electrifi and are extensively testing its limits. “This lab has a long history of working with copper – copper nanowires, copper particles, copper nanoparticles – so we’ve got a lot of little tricks that we use to maintain the conductivity,” Flowers added. To overcome this obstacle, Flowers and his team are therefore mixing copper with other materials to help it stay conductive throughout the extrusion process. “Copper is really conductive originally, but if you try to extrude it out of a hot nozzle like you have to do in order to do this 3D printing, then it quickly loses all its properties,” Flowers explained, adding that using those heat-resistant conductive materials like silver are too expensive to use on any larger scale. Of course copper-based materials can be found all over the place, but as Flowers explains there’s a lot more to conductivity than simply mixing some copper with PLA and pressing print. According to the company, Electrifi is about 100 times more conductive than other metal-based 3D printing filaments on the market, and they have already taken out a provisional patent on the material. Together, they are pioneering a number of copper-based 3D printable filaments that stand out for their extreme conductivity levels. The startup is being run by Flowers and a few labmates from Duke, where Flowers is a PhD student in the Benjamin Wiley’s lab. This cool filament is being developed by startup company Multi3D, with Electrifi being their first filament on sale. While cool in its own right, the head is simply a vehicle for a very potent new copper-based 3D printer filament called Electrifi, which was 3D printed into the circuit that lights the Terminator’s glowing LED eyes.

The rubber pieces can be pressed into the recesses with the help of a small screwdriver.If you haven’t decided on this year’s Halloween theme just yet, how about a Terminator-style party? Duke University graduate student Patrick Flowers could be doing that himself, as he just 3D printed a very cool Terminator head complete with shining, blood-red eyes.

but not too short on the gum, so that corrections can be made later. Now you can cut off the overhanging threads. In any case, do not adjust too tightly, as it will cause the stand parts to bend over time. When all 3 threads were almost evenly tightened, I have placed it upside down and made the fine 'tuning'. I started with it while the top and bottom were lying flat. Without thinking about the alignment at this moment, I did the same with the remaining 3 threads.Īfter all 3 threads had been prepared that way, I started aligning the threads. To prevent the thread from slipping out too easily, I pierced the needle through the rubber again from above, not too close to the first stitch. I took the first thread, a sewing needle, inserted the thread through the eye and pierced one of the small rubber pieces from below, as shown in the pictures. I placed the top and bottom pieces so that I could pass the 3 threads through the 'top' ring from the outside. It makes setting the tension considerably easier!

These pieces will serve as an 'adjuster'. As I did in previous projects, I cut 3 small pieces out of a canning gum. Unfortunately, simply tying a knot in the 'right' place doesn't work. One difficulty with tensegrity projects is always the tightening of the threads.

Led halloween 3d printed