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 finished, and seen, all of it.
However Shawn’s present enterprise was began from a need to search out the right battery configuration for e-biking. With a concentrate on sustainability and self-sufficiency, Shawn used an e-bike journey across the USA as an experiment to find what limitations and servicing folks 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 nations 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 wished 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 quite a bit, 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 might cost it with my rooftop photovoltaics simply. I beloved it and commenced 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 at all times plenty of repairs to gear when journey touring, and the battery was probably the most vital a part of an e-bike tour.”
So Shawn got down to design a battery pack that may very well be serviceable on lengthy street journeys, was repairable on these journeys, and accessible by anybody that wished to cost their e-bike rapidly and simply.
“I wished to make a battery pack that I might service, take aside, and restore whereas touring. I wished to have the ability to unfold a tarp at my campsite and take aside and restore my battery. I wished to have such a battery as a result of I wished 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 12 months 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 wished to indicate that e-bikes have been nice for longer journeys – that they weren’t simply fads or toys. I additionally wished to see if it was attainable to tour with out realizing the place you will cost; to see if there are sufficient open retailers on the market to make that attainable.”
So Shawn deliberate an unimaginable 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 huge 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 without cost utilizing public retailers. I camped nearly each evening. So I had plenty 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 as we speak’s BatteryBlocs.”
BatteryBlocs allow hobbyists to assemble batteries that they’ll bolt collectively and restore themselves. Made from ABS printed with giant nozzle sizes, the BatteryBlocs are extraordinarily sturdy and able to withstanding excessive and low temperatures. “I used to be searching for a option 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 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 believed 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 a lot of totally different elements in several configurations that I promote. It might 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 alternative 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 have been turning into brittle. Then a buyer informed me that he had left a battery product of 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 sturdy prints extremely rapidly.”
Whereas he runs a profitable enterprise utilizing 3D printing, Shawn sees room for enchancment in 3D printing. “I want to see machines which can be designed for manufacturing. They might 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 need, the varieties of elements I need, 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 at the least. 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 might 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 can even see movies of Shawn’s earlier tour bike adventures, in addition to tutorial movies on BatteryBlocs right here:
