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 trade as a digital imaging technician, Shawn has achieved, and seen, all of it.
However Shawn’s present enterprise was began from a want to search out the right battery configuration for e-biking. With a give attention to sustainability and self-sufficiency, Shawn used an e-bike journey across the USA as an experiment to find what limitations and servicing folks may count on to come across when utilizing his new battery packs. However his journey began everywhere in 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 cherished journey and needed to journey. Bicycle touring was the one means I may afford to take such lengthy journeys. It is actually low-cost and also you see lots, particularly if you stealth camp and cookout.”
“After lastly touring Europe on a pushbike, I could not settle for that I wanted a automobile within the states. I had my girlfriend promote my automobile 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 may cost it with my rooftop photovoltaics simply. I cherished 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 variety of repairs to gear when journey touring, and the battery was essentially the most vital a part of an e-bike tour.”
So Shawn got down to design a battery pack that could possibly 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 may 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 baggage of prototypes, I got here up with a design and constructed an e-bike and got down to loop the USA. I needed to point out 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 attainable to tour with out understanding the place you’ll cost; to see if there are sufficient open shops on the market to make that attainable.”
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 residence. I charged free of charge utilizing public shops. I camped virtually each evening. So I had a variety of time to suppose and I got here up with a greater design that didn’t use dissimilar metals, the supply of my battery failures. And that design grew to become as we speak’s BatteryBlocs.”
BatteryBlocs allow hobbyists to assemble batteries that they will bolt collectively and restore themselves. Made from ABS printed with massive nozzle sizes, the BatteryBlocs are extraordinarily sturdy and able to withstanding excessive and low temperatures. “I used to be searching for a approach 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 shifting by way of design iterations in hours. I can design and 3D print an idea in a day, maintain it, have 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 benefit of huge design flexibility. As well as, I’ve numerous totally different elements in several configurations that I promote. It could 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, often sufficient to fill small orders. I pull from these and concurrently print substitute stock. It’s fairly near manufacturing on-demand.”
At the moment, 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 changing into brittle. Then a buyer advised me that he had left a battery manufactured from BatteryBlocs within the sprint of his automobile in Texas, and when he returned the plastic had deformed. I wanted to vary 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 want to see machines which are designed for manufacturing. They’d take away the elements from the mattress mechanically and return to printing. I might love to inform my printer the variety of elements that I would like, the sorts 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 a minimum of. Like pets, you get to know the quirks of every of your machines. They have to turn 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 gadgets like Powerwall Caps and Fencepost tube batteries, which will probably be coming to his web site quickly.
If you need 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 educational movies on BatteryBlocs right here:
