May 20, 2015 | By Simon
Between the thousands - if not millions - of customized objects that have been created on home-based 3D printers to the range of more professionally-developed product design ideas, such as those that have ended up as Kickstarter campaigns, the widespread accessibility and low cost of 3D printing has helped literally anybody with an idea manifest it into a physical object easier than ever before.
Of course, whenever a new technology (or access to a particular technology) presents itself to millions of people, there are likely to be more than a few ingenious inventions and other oddball creations that sprout up. For one design engineer, this came in the form of a 3D printed motor design that’s built to last for one-hundred years - and he even admits that fabricating them wouldn’t have been possible without 3D printing.
Created by YouTube user “3D_Printing”, the 3D printed motor isn’t just simply designed to last for one-hundred years - it is also designed to be able to do so unattended! The two solar-powered EZ Spin Motors, which “3D_Printing” hopes will last long “after he is gone”, are completely identical - however each spins in their own opposite direction.
Each motor makes use of a 5V solar panel, a readily-available part that is commonly used in many DIY projects that call upon solar energy. Each of the motors contain a circuit board however one of the motors contains four diodes and four 5V supercapacitors while the other only contains one diode and one 5V supercapacitor.
The motors make use of the diodes by keeping the solar panels from discharging energy after the sun has gone down; when the sun is up during the day, the motors run off of power that is mainlined from the solar panels - alternatively, the motors run off of the supercapacitors at night.
Considering the amount of CAD modeling, 3D printing, wire soldering, assembly and other project details, this is certainly a project that was taken seriously from its inception - and only two of them will ever be made according to 3D_Printing.
The motors highlight another shining example of just what is capable when a 3D printer is put into the hands of somebody that knows a thing or two about science and physics; something that might not have ever been able to have been produced without the technology.
“Not only do you really need to 3D print the design, I found that if I hadn’t had a 3D printer, I wouldn’t have been able to make them, and I certainly would not have been able to make ‘the one on the right’,” added 3D_Printing.
Posted in 3D Printing Applications
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baz wrote at 5/20/2015 11:15:35 PM:
It should last about 10 years. Most reed switches are rated at max of about 1 billion cycles. I estimate the reed switch is undergoing around 3 cycles per second, so it should hit about about 1 billion cycles in 10 years.
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