3D Printing: Tetrahedral honeycomb? (3 Solutions!)
Channel: Roel Van de Paar
Date: 2019-06-27

3D Printing: Tetrahedral honeycomb?


The Question: I have an idea for a 3D printed project, but I'm a total noob in this area and
need someone to reality check it for me.
Basically what I want to do is a tricopter frame made of a 
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetragonal_disphenoid_honeycomb.
The whole model would be within 30 * 30 * 10 cm, the honeycomb edges would be
approximately 1mm thick and about 15mm long and it would be printed out of
nylon with SLS.
I have found Shapeways' design guidelines and my idea seems to fit it, but
still it feels slightly more extreme use than what they had in mind.
Is this doable? Does anyone else use a similar method? Is there some software
that I can use to generate honeycombs like this, or do I have to write it
myself?
Edit:
This is how two layers of the honeycomb look like: [honeycomb]
In the actual model there would be several layer of this on top of each other
and the shape would be kind of carved out of the honeycomb (+ some finishing to
avoid spiky surface)

Solutions: Please watch the whole video to see all solutions, in order of how many people found them helpful

== This solution helped 2 people ==
In short, I don't think printing the full tetrahedral honeycomb design is a
good approach considering the application of the part. Here are few things to
note when attempting to 3D print the tetrahedral honeycomb:
I wouldn't recommend trying to 3D print this with a an FDM/FFF printer as you
will most likely need supports and there would not be enough strength
laterally. You may be able to print the design using SLA, but handling would be
very difficult before post-processing as the part is very brittle post-print
until a heat treat or curing process is done to chemically solidify. The post-
process of the SLA could determine how strong the part is (ie. stainless steel
powder, infused with bronze in a heat treat process would be good for such a
part).
While SLS may be the best method for 3D printing this type of design, for that
size part (30x30x10cm) you're looking at an expensive print regardless of
whether or not you print it yourself.
Instead, I would highly recommend finding (or designing your own) a joint
connector that would allow you to join wood/plastic dowels in the tetrahedral
honeycomb shape. Not only will this be cheaper for you in the long run (easier
to replace a few broken segments than an entire 3D printed model), but it could
provide more structural strength for something that could potentially get
banged around, like a tricopter.
For example, www.thingiverse.com/thing:176263 on Thingiverse (not my
model) shows an example of how you can utilize 3D printing complex or custom
joints that allow you to connect dowels in the shape you're looking for. It'd
kind of be like building with K'Nex.
As far as designing said joint, you could model a single "inner" joint that has
18 connectors (8 on XY plane, 6 on YZ plane, and 4 on XZ plane). Below is a
crude example of what I mean drawn in Google SketchUp: _description
here]

With thanks & praise to God, and with thanks to the many people who have made this project possible! | Content (except music & images) licensed under cc by-sa 3.0 | Music: www.bensound.com/royalty-free-music | Images: stocksnap.io/license & others | With thanks to user tbm0115 (askubuntu.com/users/98), user fred_dot_u (askubuntu.com/users/854), user David Cary (askubuntu.com/users/994), user cube (askubuntu.com/users/1286), and the Stack Exchange Network (3dprinting.stackexchange.com/questions/941). Trademarks are property of their respective owners. Disclaimer: All information is provided "AS IS" without warranty of any kind. You are responsible for your own actions. Please contact me if anything is amiss at Roel D.OT VandePaar A.T gmail.com.