Our June 2020 Hacker of the Month creates 3D printed BatteryBlocs – brackets used to assemble energy banks utilizing recycled batteries for sustainable off-grid energy.
For Shawn McCarty, science and experimentation have been on the forefront of all his endeavors. From operating a handyman enterprise, a gardening enterprise, a house shopping for/renting enterprise, a house recording studio, and dealing within the movie business as a digital imaging technician, Shawn has accomplished, and seen, all of it.
However Shawn’s present enterprise was began from a want to seek out the proper battery configuration for e-biking. With a deal with sustainability and self-sufficiency, Shawn used an e-bike journey across the USA as an experiment to find what limitations and servicing individuals might count on to come across when utilizing his new battery packs. However his journey began all around the world on his ‘push bike’ excursions of a number of international locations throughout a number of continents.
“On my ‘push bike’ excursions of Tanzania, Europe, Morocco, the East and West coasts, and the Canadian Maritime provinces, the motivation was as a result of I beloved journey and needed to journey. Bicycle touring was the one method I might afford to take such lengthy journeys. It is actually low-cost and also you see lots, particularly once you stealth camp and cookout.”
“After lastly touring Europe on a pushbike, I could not settle for that I wanted a automotive within the states. I had my girlfriend promote my automotive whereas I used to be out biking Europe, and used the cash to journey. Once I returned to Florida I wanted to cycle locations with out arriving in a drenched sweat, and so I constructed an e-bike. I might cost it with my rooftop photovoltaics simply. I beloved it and started questioning about marrying e-biking and cycle touring and hatched the Loop the USA Concept. However first, I wanted a 100-mile serviceable battery! There are all the time a number of repairs to gear when journey touring, and the battery was essentially the most crucial a part of an e-bike tour.”
So Shawn got down to design a battery pack that might be serviceable on lengthy highway journeys, was repairable on these journeys, and accessible by anybody that needed to cost their e-bike shortly and simply.
“I needed to make a battery pack that I might service, take aside, and restore whereas touring. I needed to have the ability to unfold a tarp at my campsite and take aside and restore my battery. I needed to have such a battery as a result of I needed to have the ability to journey an e-bike over 100 miles in a day. However I could not discover any, so I made a decision to construct my very own!”
“After half a yr of failing ahead, and two trash luggage of prototypes, I got here up with a design and constructed an e-bike and got down to loop the USA. I needed to indicate that e-bikes had been nice for longer journeys – that they weren’t simply fads or toys. I additionally needed to see if it was doable to tour with out realizing the place you’re going to cost; to see if there are sufficient open shops on the market to make that doable.”
So Shawn deliberate an unbelievable tour of America to check his e-bike battery pack in grand trend – with the Loop the USA tour. “The Loop the USA journey – from Florida to Southern California, to Washington State to Maine, and again to Florida – was to check my repairable battery idea and to check an e-bike as a touring bike.”
Proper after starting his large USA tour, he hit his first velocity bump. “The battery failed. I took it aside, found out why – electrolysis – repaired it and saved going. After 4 months and 10,000 miles I had circled the USA and arrived again at my dwelling. I charged without cost utilizing public shops. I camped nearly each night time. So I had a number of time to assume and I got here up with a greater design that didn’t use dissimilar metals, the supply of my battery failures. And that design turned at present’s BatteryBlocs.”
BatteryBlocs allow hobbyists to assemble batteries that they will bolt collectively and restore themselves. Manufactured from ABS printed with massive nozzle sizes, the BatteryBlocs are extraordinarily sturdy and able to withstanding excessive and low temperatures. “I used to be in search of a solution to make plastic instances to carry batteries. I checked out injection molding and subtractive machining, and I found 3D printing and was curious so I purchased a MakerGear M2. I used to be in love with the thought of transferring by means of design iterations in hours. I can design and 3D print an idea in a day, maintain it, take a look at it from all angles, give it some thought and check and proper it, after which print the improved design tomorrow. The design velocity is extremely quick and handy.”
“I assumed that with sufficient 3D printers and cautious administration that manufacturing at scale was doable. The challenges appeared extra manageable than injection molding or machining with the additional advantage of huge design flexibility. As well as, I’ve a lot of totally different elements in several configurations that I promote. It will be financially and organizationally burdensome to fabricate fifty totally different elements with fifty totally different molds, to order sufficient of them and hope they promote whereas storing them someplace. It’s so a lot simpler to fabricate on-demand, so I preserve a small stock of pre-made elements, normally sufficient to fill small orders. I pull from these and concurrently print alternative stock. It’s fairly near manufacturing on-demand.”
Presently, Shawn employs a number of MakerGear 3D printers, Creality CR-10s, and a LulzBot Workhorse for manufacturing of his elements. He additionally presently makes use of Matterhackers ABS after experiencing the sensitivity of PLA with temperature post-printing. “I used to be noticing that older BatteryBlocs had been turning into brittle. Then a buyer instructed me that he had left a battery product of BatteryBlocs within the sprint of his automotive in Texas, and when he returned the plastic had deformed. I wanted to alter plastics. ABS and the Lulzbot Workhorse with the 1.2mm nozzle permit me to create robust prints extremely shortly.”
Whereas he runs a profitable enterprise utilizing 3D printing, Shawn sees room for enchancment in 3D printing. “I wish to see machines which are designed for manufacturing. They’d take away the elements from the mattress routinely and return to printing. I’d love to inform my printer the variety of elements that I would like, the kinds of elements I would like, and return within the morning and discover sixty-three of them in a bin and my 3D printer shut off.”
“As well as, 3D printers are nonetheless actually fidgety, finicky machines. All that I’ve used no less than. Like pets, you get to know the quirks of every of your machines. They need to develop into extra like an ink printer, I by no means fidget with these.”
Along with the BatteryBlocs Shawn produces, he additionally designs and 3D prints different objects like Powerwall Caps and Fencepost tube batteries, which will probably be coming to his web site quickly.
If you want to study extra about Shawn and BatteryBlocs, please go to his web site right here:
You may as well see movies of Shawn’s earlier tour bike adventures, in addition to tutorial movies on BatteryBlocs right here:
