batteries Archives - Perfect 3D Printing Filament

New Products 6/5/19 Featuring SPIDriver by Excamera Labs! #adafruit @Adafruit #newproducts

Browse through all that’s new here!

NEW PRODUCTS THIS WEEK

Mini Oval Speaker with Short Wires – 8 Ohm 1 Watt: Hear the good news! This wee speaker is a great addition to any audio project where you need 8 ohm impedance and 1W or less of power. We particularly like this speaker as it is small and comes with nice skinny wires with a connector on the end. It has a handy “Molex PicoBlade” 1.25mm pitch 2-pin cable, which makes plugging into a board easy. Or you can cut off the connector and just solder/clamp onto the wires directly.

Lithium Ion Polymer Battery with Short Cable – 3.7V 350mAh: Lithium ion polymer (also known as ‘lipo’ or ‘lipoly’) batteries are thin, light and powerful. The output ranges from 4.2V when completely charged to 3.7V. This battery has a capacity of 350mAh for a total of about 1.3 Wh.

Lithium Ion Polymer Battery with Short Cable – 3.7V 420mAh: Lithium ion polymer (also known as ‘lipo’ or ‘lipoly’) batteries are thin, light and powerful. The output ranges from 4.2V when completely charged to 3.7V. This battery has a capacity of 420mAh for a total of about 1.55 Wh

Micro Servo Arm and Horn Set: If you bought a servo from us you probably got a bunch of plastic add-ons that you can snap onto the rotating part of the servo. These are called ‘servo horns’. For many robotics projects you’ll end up drilling or gluing to the horns to attach it to your armatures. But maybe you messed up, or you want to recycle the expensive motor part? This product comes with just the horns! No servo is included, so you can reuse the motors you’ve got.

Standard Servo Arm and Horn Set – 25 Spline: If you bought a servo from us you probably got a bunch of plastic add-ons that you can snap onto the rotating part of the servo. These are called ‘servo horns’. For many robotics projects you’ll end up drilling or gluing to the horns to attach it to your armatures. But maybe you messed up, or you want to recycle the expensive motor part? This product comes with just the horns! No servo is included, so you can reuse the motors you’ve got.

They mate with 25-tooth servo axles. We’ve found they’re compatible with our standard-size servo motors

Brass Heat-Set Inserts for Plastic – M3 x 4mm – 50 pack: Wanna improve the connection strength between your project’s 3D-printed parts, and also have nice clean surfaces? Instead of gluing bits together, or screwing plastic screws directly into your 3D prints, use strong and reusable machine screws and heat-set inserts. Heat set inserts are only a few cents a piece and have a grooved outside, with threads on the inside. Originally they were designed for injection molded parts but they work fabulously for 3D printed plastic as well.

Brass Heat-Set Inserts for Plastic – M3 x 3mm – 50 pack: You could use a plain soldering iron to try to heat-press these in – Heat up the iron and use it to press the insert in, wait for it to cool, then use like a hex nut that’s embedded inside the plastic. We strongly recommend our heat-set insert tool for soldering irons because it’s really hard to insert them straight otherwise and you risk damaging your print!

Plastic Micro Servo Adapter for LEGO Cross – 16mm long: Who doesn’t love LEGO and compatible bricks? Nobody! Except when we accidentally step on them. There are soooo many mechanical things one can make with those ubiquitous bricks, plates, gears, pulleys. Say a 13-meter high LEGO London Tower Bridge…

But what do you do when you want to add LEGO-compatible bricks and parts to your servo arms and horns? This is the adapter you need! Just push the axle housing end onto the shaft of your Micro Servo, and it’s ready to adapt to the standard LEGO-compatible cross axle parts, including gears and wheels. So easy, we think this will enable many creative endeavors.

Comes 1 x per order – fits our Micro Servo only! Not guaranteed to fit with any other kind of servo splines, and definitely doesn’t fit our standard servos.

2CDriver by Excamera Labs: I²CDriver is an easy-to-use, open source tool for controlling I²C devices and a great tool to help with quick driver development and debugging. It works with Windows, Mac, and Linux, and has a built-in color screen that shows a live “dashboard” of all the I²C activity. It uses a standard FTDI USB serial chip to talk to the PC, so no special drivers need to be installed. The board includes a separate 3.3 V supply with voltage and current monitoring. It’s kinda like a Bus Pirate with a display and great Python support.

SPIDriver by Excamera Labs: SPIDriver is an easy-to-use tool for controlling SPI devices and a great tool to help with quick driver development and debugging. It works with Windows, Mac, and Linux, and has a built-in color screen that shows a live logic-analyzer display of all SPI traffic. It uses a standard FTDI USB serial chip to talk to the PC, so no special drivers need to be installed. The board includes 3.3 and 5 V supplies with voltage and current monitoring. It’s kinda like a Bus Pirate with a display and great Python support.

New Products 6/5/19 Featuring SPIDriver by Excamera Labs! #adafruit

Stay in the loop at Adafruit.com/New!

Want to get this info beamed straight into your inbox?

New nEw NEWs From Adafruit is an email newsletter sent once a week to subscribers only.

It features new products, special offers, exciting original content, and more.

Sign-up for the Adafruit weekly Newsletter here: https://www.adafruit.com/newsletter

Researchers Tailor Graphene Content in Bespoke Filament for 3D Printed Porous Anodes in Batteries

[Image: Wikipedia]

Long-lasting, rechargeable lithium-ion (Li-ion) batteries have a high energy density and low self-discharge, and are finding their way into aerospace and military applications, among others. As the demand for energy consumption rises at the same time the pressure for reducing our usage of fossil fuels is, our society is working hard to find innovative ways of manufacturing energy storage devices.

3D printing has been used in the past to fabricate porous electrodes for lithium-ion batteries, and even the batteries themselves. A collaborative group of researchers from Manchester Metropolitan University, China’s Central South University, and the University of Chester recently published a paper, titled “Next-Generation Additive Manufacturing: Tailorable Graphene/Polylactic(acid) Filaments Allow the Fabrication of 3D Printable Porous Anodes for Utilisation within Lithium-ion Batteries,” about their work applying Li-ion anodes within 3D printed Li-ion batteries, made with a bespoke graphene/PLA filament that allows the graphene content to be easily tailored.

The abstract reads, “We demonstrate that a graphene content of 20 wt. % exhibits sufficient conductivity and critically, effective 3D printability for the rapid manufacturing of 3D printed freestanding anodes (3DAs); simplifying the components of the Li‐ion battery negating the need for a copper current collector. The 3DAs are physicochemically and electrochemically characterised and possess sufficient conductivity for electrochemical studies. Critically, it is found that if the 3DAs are used in Li‐ion batteries the specific capacity is very poor but can be significantly improved through the use of a chemical pre‐treatment. Such treatment induces an increased porosity, which results in a 200‐fold increase (after anode stabilisation) of the specific capacity (ca. 500 mAh g⁻¹ at a current density of 40 mA g⁻¹). This work significantly enhances the field of additive manufacturing/3D printed graphene based energy storage devices demonstrating that useful 3D printable batteries can be realised.”

Many researchers are working with novel nanomaterials like carbon nanotubes and graphene for the purposes of 3D printing novel energy storage devices, such as Li-based batteries, as the technology can be used to create structures with a large surface area – helpful when it comes to energy capabilities. This particular team used FDM (extrusion-based) technology to create Li-ion anodes out of bespoke 3D printable graphene/PLA filaments. They also performed electrochemical and physicochemical characterization, to make sure that the graphene content was optimized for controlling the conductivity, electrochemical activity, and 3D printability of their 3D printed freestanding anodes, or 3DAs.

The researchers stated that “…this approach simplifies the components of the Li‐ion battery negating the need for a copper current collector.”

The team used Autodesk Fusion 360 to create the 3D printed designs for this work – a circular disc electrode, 1.0 mm thick, with a range of diameters – and printed them at 190 °C, with a direct drive extruder, on a ZMorph 3D printer. The 3D printable graphene/PLA filaments were made with a range of 1, 5, 15, 20 and 40 wt.% graphene nanoplatelets, which were validated using thermogravimetric analysis (TGA).

Physicochemical characterisation and optical images of the graphene/PLA powders, respective filaments and 3DAs. A: Thermogravimetric analysis, B: Resistivity vs. graphene content, C: TEM analysis of 20 wt. % graphene/PLA, D: 3D printing process of the 3DAs (for electrochemical characterisation), E: Raman (inset) and Raman Mapping of the 3DA.

“In brief, the fabrication of graphene/PLA filaments containing percentages over 20 wt. % are extremely brittle and highly unreproducible in terms of both homogeneity, printability and structural integrity; additionally filaments with a wt. % of graphene below 10 % did not offer sufficient percolation (i. e. high resistivity),” the researchers wrote.

“Therefore, we have found that 15–20 % is the optimal wt. % when one is considering graphene nanoplatelets…where the resistivity decreases and conductivity increases.”

After they optimized the graphene content, the team used the filament with 20 wt. % graphene to 3D print test anodes for more physicochemical characterization. They also completed a Raman analysis on the anodes, as well as an XPS analysis; the latter involved taking high-resolution scans “over the C 1s and O 1s photoelectron peaks,” which were broad and strangely shaped. The analysis showed that PLA was present in two forms, at roughly the same levels, as in the graphene/PLA samples.

“In summary, XPS analysis reveals that the high volume of graphene within the graphene/PLA filament is fully dispersed within the PLA creating a conductive pathway throughout the sample, thus corroborating with aforementioned electrochemical and physicochemical characterisation,” the researchers wrote.

SEM images of a typical graphene 3DA pre‐ and post‐NaOH chemical treatment displaying their respective charge‐discharge profiles. The setup used to test the anodes is simpler over traditional coin cells as no copper current collector is required.

Finally, the team evaluated the energy capabilities of the 3DAs in a Li-ion battery setup, and found that that the graphene 3DAs have a relatively low electrochemical response. To further understand, they analyzed the graphene 3DA’s topography, which showed that its surface doesn’t have good porosity for wetting electrolytes. By introducing a simple chemical pre‐treatment of NaOH to the 3DAs for 24 hours, the researchers were able to induce porosity and get past this limitation.

To further understand, they used X-ray diffraction to analyze the crystalline structure of the graphene/PLA both before and after this pre-treatment, explaining that the SEM images and XRD patterns show that the material didn’t lose its 3D structure, “but now offers an excellent electrochemical behaviour/performance.”

“…we suggest that the graphene incorporated within the 3DA, is predominantly graphene‐like in its electrochemical behaviour, and that the increased surface area of the graphene nanoplatelets within the composite provide the improved energy outputs,” the researchers stated. “The results presented herein enhances the field of additive manufacturing/3D printed graphene‐based energy storage devices with the utilisation of a tailorable graphene/PLA filament, and with a simple chemical treatment of the 3D printed anode can exhibit a 200‐fold increase within the specific capacity (after anode stabilisation).”

The team determined that the 3D printed freestanding anodes with a 20 wt. % graphene content had the most effective 3D printability and conductivity.

“The results presented herein significantly enhance the field of additive manufacturing/3D printed graphene based energy storage devices demonstrating that useful 3D printable batteries can be realised,” the paper concluded.

Co-authors are Dr. Christopher W. Foster, Dr. Guo‐Qiang Zou, Yunling Jiang, Dr. Michael P. Down, Dr. Christopher M. Liauw, Alejandro Garcia‐Miranda Ferrari, Prof. Xiaobo Ji, Prof. Graham C. Smith, Prof. Peter J. Kelly, and Prof. Craig E. Banks.

Discuss this research, and other 3D printing topics, at 3DPrintBoard.com or share your thoughts below.

3D Printing Metals Onto Fabric for Inexpensive Antenna, Sensors and Wearables

A group of researchers from Imperial College London has developed a technique for 3D printing metals such as silver, gold and platinum onto natural fabrics. The process could also be used to incorporate batteries, wireless technologies and sensors into paper and cotton textiles. These technologies could have several applications, including new low-cost medical diagnostic tools, wirelessly powered sticker sensors to measure air pollution, or clothing capable of monitoring the wearer’s health.

This isn’t the first time that metals have been printed onto fabrics, but in the past, the process would coat the fabric with plastic, which would leave it waterproof but brittle. The researchers’ method, which they describe in a paper entitled “Autocatalytic Metallization of Fabrics Using Si Ink, for Biosensors, Batteries and Energy Harvesting,” allows metal inks to cover entire fibers rather than coating the surface of the fabric.

“Fabrics are ubiquitous and some forms such as paper, are ancient,” said Max Grell, PhD candidate in the Department of Bioengineering. “With this new method of metallizing fabrics it will be possible to create new classes of advanced applications.”

The researchers first covered the fibers in microscopic particles of silicon and then submerged the material into a solution containing metal ions. The process is known as Si ink-enabled autocatalytic metallization, or SIAM, and it allows the metals to grow through the material as the ions are deposited on the silicon particles. The technique coats metal throughout the fabric, allowing paper and textiles to maintain their ability to absorb water and their flexibility while also providing a large metallic surface. Many advanced technologies require these properties to function, particularly sensors and batteries, where ions in solutions must interact with electrons in metals.

The researchers, for a proof of concept study, dropped the silicon ink by hand onto the fabrics, but they also say that the process could be scaled up and performed by large conventional 3D printers.

As an example, the researchers printed silver coil antennas on paper, which can be used for data and power transmission in wireless devices such as contactless payment systems. They also deposited silver onto paper and then added zinc to form a battery, and used the technique to produce a range of sensors, including a paper-based sensor to detect the genetic indicators of Johne’s disease, an illness that is fatal to grass-eating animals and is associated with Crohn’s disease in humans.

The researchers say that sensors made within natural fabrics would be cheaper and easier to store and transport, and could be used in clothing that monitors health.

“We chose applications from a range of different areas to show how versatile and enabling this approach could be,” said Grell. “It involved a lot of collaboration and we hope we have demonstrated the potential of this method so people who specialise in different areas can then develop these applications. The beauty of this approach is that it can also combine different technologies to serve a more complex application, for example low-cost sensors can be printed on paper that can then transmit the data they collect through contactless technology. This could be particularly useful in the developing world where diagnostic tests need to be conducted at the point of care, in remote locations and cheaply.”

The researchers demonstrated that creating a coil antenna using their approach cost as little as $0.001, compared to conventional methods which cost $0.05. The team has applied for a patent and is looking for industry partners. The next step is to demonstrate the use of the new method in real-world applications.

Authors of the paper include Max Grell, Can Dincer, Thao Le, Alberto Lauri, Estefania Nunez Bajo, Michael Kasimatis, Giandrin Barundin, Stefan A. Maier, Anthony E.G. Cass and Firat Güder.

Discuss this and other 3D printing topics at 3DPrintBoard.com or share your thoughts below.

Bright lights of 3D printed lithium-ion batteries demonstrated by DukeU and Texas State

Already incredibly versatile, rechargeable lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) are reaching new levels of flexibility thanks to 3D printing. Using a desktop 3D printer and PLA filament, researchers at Texas State University and Duke University, North Carolina, have found a cost-effective way of fashioning LIBs into wearable devices and coin cell batteries. A study of the process has been […]

3D printing creates “major advance” for longer life batteries

Scientists from Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) and Missouri University of Science and Technology have applied 3D printing to produce high capacity lithium-ion batteries. Deemed “a major advance in 3D batteries” by the study’s authors, the findings have the potential to transform all portable electronic devices, from smartphones to laptops and games consoles. 3D printing a potential world first […]