I just received a ELEGOO Mars 4 Ultra today. The "stated" resolution is, XY RESOLUTION 18 µm (0.0007086614) in. (8520x4320) ten thousandth=0.0001 inch equals 2.54 micrometers ten thousands is high quality machine production level I believe] Z-AXIS ACCURACY 0.02 mm (.0007874016 in.) The print area is small but really no real 100% fail as pieces can be joined. (6.037795 in. x 3.061417 in x 6.496063 in ^3) I got it for $189.99 USD. Cheap for what it can do. Supposedly. I haven't heard super bad stuff about it. I only pulled the trigger because Turkey day sale and possible tariffs coming up. I wish, really wish, I could afford a Bamboo mini A1, I think, and others think., the very best small filament printer. They are $200 USD. If they're not lying, which they probably are, then 0.5mm is no problem. In fact even if they are lying it may be that you can get 0.25mm across with the right settings, resin and holding your mouth right while you wait for it to print. If each pixel is 18 µm or 0.018mm then you have 13.8 pixels across the top of a 0.25mm skin cell(the face of the chain). I "think" you could still have enough strength if the back connectors were smaller but don't know. At twice that, 0.5 mm, I think would be much easier and likely would be fine but I think 0.25mm would be ideal. Look at a ruler, 0.25mm across for a skin cell (I'm calling it that) or even 0.5mm is really small. I will find out eventually. I warn you I will be VERY slow about this. I already have stuff backed up to do. I bought for long term use as a way to make parts in molds. I expect it will take me forever to learn and use this software to do so but once I get it maybe it won't be too bad. Make shell molds, fairly accurately, then fill with composites to make parts. The molds can even be made in sections and joined together with 3D printed built in wedge fasteners, or so I imagine. I expect the whole thing to be very tricky but I also expect the promise to make anything or close to it is there. Think about using chopped glass and/or carbon fiber with resin/epoxy. We're talking super strong stuff. With Japanese, and European, wood joinery techniques you can join lots of small pieces into very large pieces. In fact I have despaired that modern manufacturing does not use these methods in joining things with wedges instead of screws. Screws suck. I also ordered a pound of milled glass fiber, (1/16 inch, I think, very small), and a quart of silica fume, (extremely small, manometer sized), to mix with the resin. Have coming a liter of water washable egeloo resin. Excellent videos to watch on composites are by a guy, Tech Ingredients. I knew a bunch of stuff he talked about but he laid it out in such an organized and quality way that it really makes you think about the possibilities. Here's two very good videos to search for, Easy Tricks Using Fiberglass Strengthening! This next one bears watching several times. It's very good and if you get what he is saying it opens lots of possibilities. Super Strong Epoxy with Diamonds and More!

>>34589 >if you want to do robotics you should get an fdm printer Your not understanding my focus and what I'm trying to do. I'm not bashing FDM printers, I actually like them much better. But I can only afford one right now and the highest resolution is the winner. I do NOT want to make parts with the resin, only MOLDS.

>>34595 Holy shit, that is amazing resolution.

>>34595 ii think ill just make an hexagon mesh thats flat and experiment with that. it can be cut a joined(melted with a soldering iron..

>>34591 I mean exactly like the link in these comments. >>33010 >>33784

>>34596 for molds theres air dry clay and silicon mold making liquid too.

>>34597 >Holy shit, that is amazing resolution Yes it is, 'm amazed, and I do expect something close to advertised because it's a LCD screen that is projected onto the build plate. So it should be somewhat close, I hope.

>>34598 >hexagon mesh thats flat and experiment with that I agree that is a much faster and easier method. And I also agree that what I'm trying might be a big fail but not totally as I'll still have the printer and have lots of stuff I want to do with it so... But "long term" If you could make skin molds so that you could squeegee on resin in layers then you could make the whole skin suit in few passes. One layer, resin, another, resin, etc. then you have the whole skin in one piece, with the exception is has one joint or two from bottom to top. I think it very likely that one or more sections of the molds you put down will have to be something removable. Like low melting point metal, or melted sugar or mold release, something you can wash out. You can get metal that melts in boiling water. It's expensive but can be used over and over. I really like the idea of using it. The sacrificial parts would be like a metal screen laid over the lower parts. Lay it down, more resin, maybe another layer of metal screen, more resin, let dry then heat it with a heat gun and the metal runs out. Or throw it in a pot of boiling water. In fact your mold could BE that low melting resin which you recreate in another mold for every time you make a waifu skinsuit. My thinking is that each section of the skin could be made of repeating unit molds joined together. So print mold for making the mold. Make copies of this mold for flatter areas, meaning most body areas. But for entrances, eyes, mouth etc., you would have to think hard and maybe vary the angle or bend of the molds. So those areas would need special molds but could be glued to the normal molds. Most of the body skin could be one repeating mold structure.Think skinning an animal. The skin is one big sheet. If you think that I do not have this all figured out, you would be right. I have some ideas. One is to make where the two sections of the skin join have links and then run a UHDPE (super strong)fishing line to pull them together. So you undo one line at the head or on the feet or wherever and then you can separate off the skin. Once you do that the under layers can be easily taken off. For the line you may need some sort of latch??? I don't know yet. Have to make something and see what it does. I don't think you can visualize this. Have to build it and see.

>>34600 >for molds theres .... all sorts of stuff once you have the body printed. Or, even better, you print the mold.

>>34602 im printing the mesh. one regular piece of tpu amd one mesh with hexagons that are 5 mm in diameter. theyre both 100% infill. ill post the results soonish on yputube shorts. the 5mm gap is still sonewhat visible though. the slicer was giving me issues when the diameter was 1mm and below.

>>34602 well 3-5mm you know the slicer ruler isnt perfect

>>34610 and here are the results https://youtube.com/shorts/pjZJNI_y2Xc?si=GfhXKkaoCyCk75sv not sure but i think the smaller the gaps the harder it will be. overall i dont think regular 95a tpu is viable.

>TPU meshing coming up again Perhaps you could benefit from learning from my failures? >>24665

>>34618 interesting. Caight me printing spheres... the slicer might complain about this shape though.

>>34621 the sphere half spere grid is not too bad but it breaks too easily. itd also have tiny holes. also disregard the 20 newtons i got it mixed up it is 10 newtons.

5 newtons of force are required to open the mouth 1 cm with sophiedevs design. this mesh could work i guess. the holes are just not nearly as aesthetic if proper ecoflex or some other platinum silicone rubber was used.

>>34629 still what im thinking is that the only part of the face that really needs to be stretchy is the mouth. hannah dev has not made his files publicly available. I might borrow his design because it seems to work well enough. i might go as far as making magnetic linear actuators as well. i might skip back and forth though because after the eyes are done i will... work on the legs and that is robotics sacred cow because thats where you introduce a control system. that is where a lot of roboticist dare not venture and thats whats going to set what im doing apart along with the robot spine. because without those two things you can not make a sex bot. i expect that will make a lot of people upset. so ill be hardly surprised.

Looking at 3D chain mail I found a video I had looked at before but maybe now I see it in a new light. It's Self-assembling material pops into 3D https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vrOjy-v5JgQ Using slits cut into flat sheets, I think this is here on the site somewhere, but I can't remember where, but a repeat won't hurt to tie two ideas together. So when you cut, or print, these slots and pull on the material if done right the flat becomes a 3D structure and stays that way. I was thinking...what if you combined a printed NASA type chain mail "with" an underlying slit cut structure. So you print all these things out and the natural tension of the slits, and not slits, conforms the chain mail, attached to it, to be a part of the body. Gaming this I could see how form fitting skin would need far less "attachment" for it to stay in place. You might could also print in the attachments into another layer under the stilted one. Tying this all into a nice package together nicely.

Here's another, Why Machines That Bend Are Better https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=97t7Xj_iBv0 This about compliant mechanisms. What's magic about this is structures are built that have no hinges but the way they are structured they can snap into one, or many, positions. Once snapped into position, depending on how you made it, it can stay there. What I'm trying to convey is that by the magic of 3D printing you can use all these forces to do away with a huge mass of fasteners, bolts connectors, large slabs of silicon (not cheap) and use design to make simple things with complicated reactions built into them. They want to conform, yet are flexible. This of course means lower cost. Though it will not be rasy I supect you could use these structures to do away with silicon mimicking fat over the muscles and connective tissue with a slightly rigid plastic in a sort of tensegrity way. I suspect you would lower cost a lot and lower weight by using bending moments instead of bulk material. I'm reasonably certain that you could make a $2,000 USD robowaifu with a good look and controllable muscles "but" I'm not nearly so certain you could get one that would do much. It could walk around but...follow directions, likely not. I think the cost to get that would be, well I don't know. I expect it would be high. A good motherboard, processor, memory, etc. could easily run for something with a bit of power $1,000 or WAY more for the high end. That will blow the budget. I suspect for $2,000 a good waifu would sell fast, in volume, but as you go up in price I think it would thin out fast. Since inflation has been so bad maybe you could stretch that to $3,000 USD but I think much higher would sell, but not as easy.

>>34657 >>34658 These are awesome Grommet, thanks! >I think this is here on the site somewhere, but I can't remember where Any chance you could try a Waifusearch for it, Anon? It would be helpful to know what you're talking about. >tensegrity, et al YES! We've been concerned with using this approach to simplify, improve, and reduce the costs of robowaifu designs for years. I think this is a great idea you're conveying here to use resilient and lightweight, underlying tensegrity forms as 'muscles', 'fat', &tc. Thanks for the good ideas, Anon. Please keep them coming! Cheers. :^)

>>34659 >tensegrity There was a guy on here that made a thread about using that for his waifubot, but he disappeared.

yeah even if it did work it would not look good not worth pursuing. Anyways making microscopic plastic structures is clearly not viable. Silicone caulk from the hardware store is like $4 for 1/3 a kg silicone oil $4 per kg That is cheap really cheap. Its just the process is making the skin with silicone is hard and tedious. Just say that instead of saying you can't spend $8.

>>34661 forgot to post pic

>>34661 >yeah even if it did work it would not look good not worth pursuing... We'll see. I've made it clear that, to me, silicon feels like shit, attracts all sorts of crap and is hard to keep clean. It tears really easy. And while silicon and latex from the hardware store is not super expensive, the first class stuff, stuff I would want, from mask-makers, Hollywood class stuff is expensive. It just is, but it's good stuff. What I've after may not work but...I think it will and I think the durability, cleanliness and the smooth skin like feel will make it far more attractive. I wonder if you could get some thing that could just walk, maybe follow you around, a few set moves but open source the software, could you get people to give $3,000 for it??? I think maybe I could make money at that price with a super weak processor BUT provide a cavity and a upgrade capability. I could not write the AI software. There is the possibility I could somehow get an AI to do it for me. I read this forum where a guy who has been programming for a long, long time and he talks about how he has improved his productivity with AI sometimes over 10,000 %, Yes 10,000%. He, first knows what he is doing, so he can set up the AI in terms very precise and the AI writes all the boilerplate code. Does all the database integration, ties in his interface with all this other code, gathers all the needed open source software to do any data conversions and writes all this stuff pout to his specs immediately. It's extraordinary. You can actually feel the joy in his writing. BUT he knows what he is doing with the code and can aim the AI in the right direction specifically. I don't. I "think" (likely a super overestimation of my capabilities)(make that major)(make that even more major) but, I think I could do all the code to move it around. Walk. If only write the code and have the thing wallow around and reward it when it does right. No doubt at all I could easily, very easily be wrong about that. @Chobitsu What you are looking for is conformal sheets-paper-materials. I found a paper and it can be used for further search terms. Strong conformable structure via tension activated kirigami https://www.nature.com/articles/s43246-023-00357-4

If you look at the paper you can see how slits make conformal structures. I believe, that there would be no blocks to making these conform to a waifu. Imagine these structures with stiff areas(the folded parts, maybe made of fiberglass sheets), the outer skin could be one, with some sort of latch or hook to the inner muscle. Separating, actually gluing it together, would be something like TPU or silicon, a proper place for it , inside. Some kind of TPU or other elastomer would likely be best. It needs to not tear easily. There's all sorts of urethanes that do this I believe. So you could pour them in molds. Then you have a structure that can be tuned for to be soft or firm depending on it's structure. I think the best way to sell these would be a pile of parts in a box with good instructions. I "think" that would cut off a lot of feminazi complaints, well not their complaints, those will be voracious, but their ability to do anything about it legally.

I forgot to point out the exact search terms to find that paper "slits in paper to make conformal"

the slicer is really picky and unless the dimensions are the dimemsions it wants it wont print the grid pattern. it also doesnt want to print a 1mm flat layer. but i tricked it by raising the honey come 1 mm and adding supports. i made a slit on the honeycomb pattern abd i did notice that does allow it to stretch more. it moving up and diwn might not be an issue one of the issues i see doing certain vowels like the letter "o" and im rewatching hannah devs video amd he didnt manage to make the letter o either. pic related is supposed to be o. im only focusing on this cause im out of gas($$$) until december the 11th or else id be getting the iron and working on the robot eye.

>>34667 no im afraid adding a mere 1mm layer makes it way more rigid. anyways its worth experimenting with silicone caulk and silicone cause the costs will add up for the entire body. chatgpt is decent at coding btw but worthless at stem. anyways assuming the body is 5*2*1 feet its volume is 10 feet^3 1 cubic foot is 29 liters. 290 liters *(270ml/1000ml)=78.3 silicone caulks but itd used a fraction of that unless it was filled so lets divide it by 5. lets say 16 silicone caulks. tbh here 270 ml of silucone caulk is like $2 so $32 def worth looking into...

>>34663 >>34665 >>34666 Thanks for the additional info, Grommet. >>34667 >>34668 Good luck with your work, peteblank.

>>34667 What slicer, nozzle size, and wall thickness are you using?

>>34684 creality slicer, 0.4 mm, 0.2 mm standard(thats the wall thickness one right) not saying im opposed to using regukar tpu if it works, thatd be conviniemt. I just see no reason it should work. Soecially after playing aroubd with the honeycomb pattern and all that. >>34683 ty

>>34685 That's weird, it should work. Maybe it's something with the file?

>>34668 >no im afraid adding a mere 1mm layer makes it way more rigid I'm not sure I understand exactly what you are doing(printing), so this might not fit, but, as a general rule try to make everything you print (after you get the shape you want)a "mold". Not the finished product. Why? Filament is weak unless you spend a fortune on picky hard to print stuff. Mold materials, as you stated, are cheap in comparison and the mold can be thin, with honey comb or slat supports on the outside to strengthen the mold. The outside supports could also act as print supports. The counter to this is, it's damn difficult to get the object into mold form for printing. I suspect, somewhere, there's software to make negatives of whatever you are printing. I haven't got to that point yet. I know there are negatives of basic shapes you can enter into another shape, like a erasing negative mold object brush if you can imagine that. If you could make the, let's say, face, then push it into a block as a negative mold brush...that block would be the mold. Once you print the mold you wax it or use some other mold release then you can experiment with all sorts of materials you pour, put, push into the mold. I'm willing to bet once you have this negative mold brush, or shell creation task thought out and the actions needed in software to do it then it would be fairly fast and routine to do this. Kiwi lite a neuron in my brain when he talked about this using meshes. He talked about how fast it as to make them and thin shells. You could do the same with this molds. Print fast, use less material and rapidly printing prototypes is the key to rapid advancement. A quick idea I found about NASA chain mail. Some people are printing these sideways. The faces of the chainmail are vertical, then stacking them side by side, with one side of the loops being on the floor. I could see how this could get you far better resolution and pack way more chainmail in the same space. Possibly you could print one layer, then have another over the first, and another, etc. This is if you could work out the supports so that they could be removed without screwing up the whole thing. One layer with vertical faces I know can be done. I looked at the specs for a bambu A1 Mini, FP, and it has a standard layer height of .02 mm. I expect that this means you could print a vertically faced chainmail at a fairly high resolution even with a filament printer. It doesn't have the x-y resolution listed in the main spec page. As long as this is accurate you can get "mold" resolutions far higher than the nozzle resolution because we are only printing surfaces.

>>34697 In my experience, standard PLA is pretty good for most applications. Sure, it isn't Terminator durable, but fortunately we're making domestic robots, not Terminators.

Has anybody considered incorporating keratin based materials as a skin? I understand that it is not exactly something a garage tech would have access to, but as our projects get larger and larger, eventually we'll be able to create synthetic skin to cover the droid. To me, having self healing or at the very least easily repairable skin is going to be a majorly important part of the marketability of these machines, especially if they are going to be used for things outside the confines of a bedroom. My idea would be to create some kind of TPU based substrate layer that contains bioactive compounds and amino acids. The body would then be dipped in a bath or sprayed with layer of fluid containing keratinocytes that would attach onto the TPU and form chemical bonds. This would then be cultured until the desired skin thickness is met and the keratinocytes would be killed via heat sterilization. This would give us a seamless skin along with a durability very similar to human collagen-keratin based skin. It would also feel way more realistic than any purely artiifcial solution. When the robot's skin is damaged, depending on the severity, if the TPU layer is still intact, a bandage containing keratinocytes could be applied along with a spay containing amino acids and other molecules needed for the keratinocytes to produce new skin.

>>34724 Bro's making a T-800 Jokes aside, that's an interesting idea. But I wonder how nail/hair based skin would feel. Maybe if some VERY ambitious people in the future are trying to make bio-androids, they can use that to make the nails and hair.

>>34724 Not sure how this would work. But it strikes me as interesting. Interesting idea, thanks. For what are such keratinocytes being used? Where could we get them? I crosslinked this in the cyborg thread >>2184 here >>34790 after looking into it. Since I don't think this will be possible without dabbling in biology, probably using something like "epidermal stem cells in the lower part of the epidermis". I'd guess we would need to grow these in some kind of bioreator?! These layers also only last 50 days and are then normally being shed, because the cells die automatically. They come into life in one way and transform till they die. If we would want to use them longer we would need some cream for that, to make the skin last way longer. I assume they would also need to be genetically altered to not go through the process where the become "corneocytes" and then die. Alternatively the bot could consume and distribute such cells every few days inside it's body underneath it's skin, Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keratinocyte

I was looking at solar cells and then how they are made and it led me to a plastic they use to sort of glue/encapsulate it to the glass/frame/solar cells and make it a solid mass. Now this stuff has some great properties and the more I read the more favorable it seemed to be. They use this in solar as I said because it's very long lasting with extremely good UV properties and come to find out after looking around this stuff is all over. It's also used for shoes like crocs and all sorts of water based toys like floats and stuff. One of the properties it has is it doesn't hold bad smells, hence it's use for footwear. Then I found it's used in, they say, higher quality paint that is water based. It's used in medical devices and medicine so it's not harmful that they have found to humans internally or externally. WOW even better. So I'm thinking you could get this stuff and paint it on. It also can be made into foams. So you have a tough, water based foam and film. Sounds ideal. And no I don;t know the deficits yet or haven't run across them yet. This magic stuff is called, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethylene-vinyl_acetate Another long line of miraculous vinyl based plastics. BTW I found prices on some solar cells that are out of this world. These are new and the 400 watt or so models start at $0.29 a WATT. I liked this model at $0.38 a watt. Damn that's cheap. You can not buy electricity this cheap if you figure it over a 6 year or so time frame. https://a1solarstore.com/mission-solar-410w-solar-panel-108-cell-mse410ht0b.html

my latest video was about diy silicone rubber from hardware store silicone https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=xoFGHcsb1_Q

i added less silicon oil and the difference is night and day. By that i mean worse. Dont do this unless you plan to get silicone oil. For those of you with short attention spans. 16 parts acetone, 4 parts silicone caulk, 1 part silicone oil. Although you can use less acetone tbh.

>>35099 Thanks, very interesting.

Ran across another possible skin material. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plastisol It's PVC with additives. Apparently you can silk screen, pour or dip this stuff as a liquid, you then heat it to 180 °C (356 °F). When cooled becomes a rubbery substance. They used to make children's dolls from these and like most plastics I suspect it has a huge range of properties depending on what sort of plasticizer used. If you could get a hold of the stuff it might be economical. A lot of materials like this if you buy 300 gallons it's really cheap but they charge a fortune for a pint. Sigh. And there's always the problem that you will be likely to have a seam,. Which for some reason really bothers me, though it may not others.

Wow I looked this up and you can get a gallon for making bait for fish for US $46.98 on ebay. Interesting. They make all sorts of formulations. Think plastic worms for fishing. I'm thinking something that feels like TPU Filament, maybe. Even better I looked around and found a site XSOL (Gallon)- Liquid Plastisol Resin For Fishing Lures (1 Gallon ,128 Fluid Ounces) $33.50 https://fusionxfishing.com/store/ols/categories/plastisol-resin---xcubes-plasti-x-liquid That's cheap. It comes in all sorts of colors and I think it can be somewhat clear. This might give you an opportunity to add cheek and lip colors by putting a redder layer base under the top layer of skin. The blending would give natural look while not being easy to rub off like painted rubber. The beauty is this stuff can be screen printed, they also use it on T-Shirts, making it cost effective. This is really interesting. How come I never heard of this???? These guys even have small samples in 400!! colors. They also have no Phthalates, I think this stuff is non toxic. They have scented, apparently drives the fish wild, maybe it drives Men wild too. :) (The fish scented plastic...it's killing me. I couldn't make this up if I would have even thought of it.) They have Microwavable Formula (1 Pack melts in 2-3 minutes), If this stuff works it may be the key, seam or not, the price/utility is too good to ignore. Maybe you could combine the NASA chain mail in layers with this stuff underneath to provide more stretch. Make the chain mail out of this with a harder top surface for durability and feel.

I've been looking at the site above. They have a hardener that you can mix. So my thought is (I haven't confirmed anything) that you buy the softest and hardener and then up harden the softest plastisol. It's not expensive. XSOL - Plastisol Hardener 8 oz. $4.25. https://fusionxfishing.com/store/ols/products/xsol-plastisol-softener-wsoft-xx/v/WHARD-04 They say it will take 4 oz. to raise the shore hardness of a gallon of the medium (Shore OO 13) to firm (Shore OO 22) My thinking is buy the extra soft and add hardener to firm it up so to have flexibility. They have a slightly more expensive version MAXSOL Premium Liquid Plastisol Resin and they say it is not tacky. That sounds like a winner. I've complained about tacky feeling silicon, a lot, so much, I hate it, I wouldn't use it, but...this stuff is so cost effective it's hard to pass up. I, off hand, can't see that it would take you more than 4 gallons and likely 3 or less to make a 5'-3" tall waifu. Another thing I saw was you can pay and get it precolored BUT you can also order the powdered pigment by itself. So I think getting the clear and pigments separate would save you a lot of money. Make small batches to get the firmness and pigment right. Once you have that you could go bigger. . BTW I have no financial interest alt all in them and likely some other source night be better but these guys look good. While I never thought about this before it occured to me to ask a search engine,"what is the shore hardness of women's breast" and the AI at duckduckgo said,"...The Shore hardness of women's breast tissue can vary, but specific values are not commonly provided in general resources. Typically, breast tissue is softer than many materials measured by Shore durometers, which are used for harder substances." So the Super Soft - For small and ultra-finesse lures (Shore OO 6) might be the way to go.

>>35259 >>35260 OK, this seems really interesting, Grommet. Thanks for the info! Do you anticipate you'll make the attempt to fashion some kind of mold and do some experiments with this stuff? If so, please keep us here up to date with your progress, Anon! Cheers. :^)

>>35270 >Do you anticipate you'll make the attempt to fashion some kind of mold and do some experiments with this stuff? It takes me forever to do physical experiments. I've bought some of the stuff needed do experiments. It's progress but slow. I don't have the time, energy (I'm old) to do the making parts "fast", but I have time to look stuff up and I've slowly been gathering materials. I do have fiberglass and canvas for experiments. I am going to order some of these plastisol resins. I "think", if what they are selling is what plastosol is normally by name, that this is PVC that is pour-able and activated by heat. I'm interested if you can vary the hardness far above "worm cast" level in the plastisol to make a harder substance with the hardener. How hard can it get???? The quarts are $15 or so, so they are not too bad. The cost of these is super reasonable compared to most other plastics you can cast. Though they do require heating to react. Another experiment I want to do it to pour this stuff between two thin glass sheets to make a strong window for my boat. Normal boat windows are acrylic (super expensive) and it scratches. With two glass faces and clear PVC in between you would think it would be super strong. Of course this remains to be seen. Some stuff I have ordered, some I have and why I have and/or need it. I just ordered some 12,000 grit aluminium oxide(Al2O3) to attempt to make gears, functional parts in 3D printed casting molds. I believe using carbon fiber/fiberglass and/or some combination you can make gears/bearings/functional parts. I talked about this here, and I think I have a game plan for accomplishing this. >>28200 You use the Al2O3 to provide a very hard facing which also fills in gaps in the carbon fiber. I also have fumed silica and milled fiberglass to add to this(these having different micron size). I believe there is a vast amount of things that can be made out of composites traditionally made with machining of metals but using the strength of carbon fiber/fiberglass with fillers for facing. Some of these could not be made "easily", or at all, with machine tools but I think can be trivially done(in comparison), with 3D printed molds and composite materials. Here's the general idea. When you make super strong concrete, you need to fill all the spaces and have very little of the concrete "glue" paste. The same goes for composites. Carbon fiber is super strong, but not necessarily a hard facing. It can be abraded. The key, I believe, is to have the general shape of functional parts like bearing/gears and have an outer layer of super fine, well packed, hard, strong materials, like noted above, as a very thin film, (note, this is VERY thin). Only enough to fit in the pores of the carbon fiber mesh that is placed above it. Below this could be, not sure yet, some layers of carbon fiber and below that fiberglass. As you notice, you are making a layered material varying in hardness/stiffness and using less of the hard stuff (and mostly more expensive). You end up with a super accurate, hard finish, with a more flexible interior on your parts. EXACTLY what you need. Textbook super strong composites with hard , and strong, faces. You need this for ball and socket joints, gear faces, bearing faces, etc. some micron sizes, stuff I have or is on order fumed silica 5–50 nm 12,000 grit alum. oxide 1.5 micron or less Milled Fiberglass 1/8 in.=3.175mm I also have a small, 2' x 12" sheet of carbon fiber cloth on order to experiment with this. cont.

cont. My priorities are: 1.tree trimming/felling/removal robot.(not humanoid, more like a insect/squid/thing that climbs trees and "shears" off the limbs. Not cut with a chain saw. Far more efficient, quieter, less mess) 2. gears, wenches, tackle, inductive reactance electric motors, fiberglass or other structures for the above and for my sailboat (which is so radical I fear to talk about the hair brained ideas I have. If I were to do so the sailboating community would hunt me down like Frankenstein with torches and pitchforks) :) robowaifu However all of the above are all necessary to build the parts for a robowaifu, and DIRECTLY related. So it may be I will mesh all of these at the same time as I learn. As you can imagine this will take...a while. I can see the robowaifu last, as I haven't a clue how to build the software to get this thing to do what I want. It's, I think, a huge leap far above making the motors, body, etc. I can see a clear path to all of the mechanical side. Maybe not easy, but I can see a path. The AI, I have no idea without spending a damn fortune which would torpedo the whole thing. I REALLY would like it as it would be a great addition to the first task, tree trimming/felling/removal. Sailing my boat as a sort of auto-pilot and other unmentionables. As you've seen me commenting over a year, I was spitballing ideas. I like to write these down even if they are a bit hairbained. For some reason writing them down, even if it makes me look foolish at times, helps me "see" them and organize my thoughts. Hard to explain. I now believe I have a basic game plan, and I'm now accumulating the tools, materials needed. I have the 3D printer and the beginnings of the materials needed. So soon I should start experimenting. I also have ordered and received, some ESP-32 microcontrollers. I still need a few more things. Lots of bits and pieces. I will definitely be getting some of this plastisol resin. Some of this stuff I talked about I ran across a guy, tech ingredients, who has this great video. I didn't get all my ideas from him but he puts a lot of them in a nice package, which I'm not so good at. Most of the ideas I have are just common sense and thinking about it leads people to the same path. If you want to understand how to get low cost strong stuff, you have to see it. He's doing something different, making body armor, but the basic principles are the same. The first video is about hard surfaces, tight material packing and different materials needed. The second is basic composites and good but someone who already knows about composites might could skip it, but I think it's useful. Super Strong Epoxy with Diamonds and More! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6KjlyXKeo8c Easy Tricks Using Fiberglass Strengthening! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Pc-Sd_J26E Some notes about abrasives, hard coatings I found. He uses silicon carbide. Great stuff but expensive in micron sizes. I read up on abrasives and found while the SiC is harder, it also flakes, fractures, easier. The Al2O3, while really hard, but not as hard, does not flake or break down as easy and is far cheaper. He also uses diamond powder. This is actually not too bad price wise if you consider you are only using a very thin outer coating. One other tip, if you are going to make strong, accurate parts you need to vacuum cast it. I have a vacuum pump I ordered. You might be able to get away with a 3D printed peristaltic pump. Not sure. It only provides 10 torr of vacuum. The cheap rotary vacuum pumps cost $80, to industrial ones at more like $300 or more but get close to a vacuum of about 1 milli Torr.

One other thing I have already. I've been working on accumulating stuff I need slowly. Cerrosafe Metal | Low-Melting Point 158-190℉ Bismuth-Based Alloy I have a pound of this. So you make a mold and put this in the mold. My thought is the areas in the NASA chainmail that are internal. Stuff that can't be molded. I make a negative mold of all these interior parts from this metal, place in outer mods, pour resin, matrix, then melt the metal out with hot water. It's reusable indefinitely. I only have a pound but it's plenty to test with.

The topic here was originally "sensitive skin". The thread for materials is here >>154 and for armatures >>200 and the main thread for someone showing off the prototypes he has build is here >>28715

>>35291 >>35292 >>35293 Great information, Grommet! I wouldn't dream of criticizing your goals, except in this one detail: they're not expansive enough yet!! >tl;dr Go big, bro! :D >>35300 Fren NoidoDev is right. For the sake of being able to locate such information in the future more-easily for every'non, perhaps move each subsection of this discussion to the appropriate threads? <---> Thanks, NoidoDev! You're always there for us all, to help keep things better organized. That's much-appreciated, bro. Cheers. :^)