Embedded 3D Printing With Liquids On A Bricked Prusa FDM Printer

Recently [Riley] acquired his paws on an outdated Prusa i3 FDM printer that had clearly seen higher days, with a hot-end that had suffered an explosive blow-out. For the venture he had in thoughts this was after all good, as his intention was to exchange the hot-end with a syringe system for embedded 3D printing (E3DP), which makes use of a supportive medium to permit for the printing of supplies and buildings that might be not possible with simply air.

Generally in additive manufacturing (AM) strategies like fused deposition modelling (FDM) the fabric is extruded onto a construct plate or a earlier layer the place it solidifies. This works nice for supplies like thermoplastics, however for different supplies having solely the encircling air as help is only a recipe for an enormous mess. With E3DP the liquid is as an alternative extruded right into a supportive materials at a selectable depth and quantity, opening up a complete vary of prospects.

In a 2026 review article by [Rongji Tang] et al. in Frontiers in Materials present an outline of the state-of-the-art in E3DP, together with many ongoing analysis questions pertaining to print high quality, the sorts of supportive materials and their potential reuse, in addition to extrusion management. Applications for E3DP are many, with it seeing use in flexible- and delicate robotics, printing organic tissues and microfluidics.

While some sorts of fluids are simpler to print than others, Newtonian fluids like silicone oil pose points with dependable printing, as detailed by [Hejoon Jun] et al. in a 2025 paper in Applied Materials & Interfaces, whereas a 2026 paper by [Min Ye] et al. in International Journal of Extreme Manufacturing covers the challenges of printing residing tissues this manner, with a self-healing supporting medium described, creating a technique known as EPICS.

In the video by [Riley] the basics are defined in a complete method, earlier than constructing an E3DP setup, with an open supply Allstruder syringe pump and a Caribou Duet 3 motherboard changing the Prusa components. Following this a take a look at print is made utilizing cream cheese because it’s apparently a great take a look at materials.

After a profitable cream cheese take a look at, a print is began involving two-part epoxy, with the supporting materials being hair gel. The epoxy, as soon as combined, has solely a time window of about forty minutes earlier than it hardens, in order that’s on a regular basis you need to empty the syringe. As it seems, hair gel and epoxy aren’t associates, so for a last print the printing materials was switched to silicone, particularly Sylgard 184.

Although not an ideal consequence, it’s fairly cool to see the silicone trifold torus take form in what seems to be a void. Unfortunately the hair gel doesn’t seem like an ideal materials both, as a few of the components in it apparently inhibit the silicone from curing. As reported by [Riley] in a remark to the video, the silicone print was nonetheless goopy after a couple of days.

We hope that it’ll remedy earlier than lengthy, and want him luck find a supporting materials that’s extra supportive of printing supplies like silicone really curing.