LEFT: A toroidal coil sculpture printed out of pure sugar on the CandyFab. THIS PAGE: The 24"× 13½"× 9" build volume of the sugar printer is a rectangular pit in the middle of the canvas liner. While printing, the two stripped-down pen-plotter mechanisms move the hot air gun over the bed of sugar in the pit.

deeply enough to fuse to the layer below. As the process repeats, true 3D objects are produced.

We started with two junky old pen plotters that we stripped down to their useful parts: quadrature-encoded motors, belt drive systems, and sturdy mounts. To these we added an electric automotive jack (for the vertical motion of our heavy box of sugar) and a plywood frame. The tricky part of this process was designing the plywood parts — and the overall scale of the machine — to fit the found plotter parts. Past that, we added a flexible canvas liner to keep sugar from leaking out, and micro-controller-based drive electronics. Our low-velocity hot air gun “print head” was made from parts including the heating element from a soldering iron and a small aquarium pump that provides airflow. With a few late nights and a lot of luck, this crazy idea actually worked.

Since we got it working, we’ve used our new fabber to print geometric sculptures, a flexible chain of links, and a sugar bowl — made of sugar. We’ve even decorated a cake with fabbed snowflakes. More recently, we’ve been experimenting with printing plastic and have made real progress in improving the precision of the machine.

Beyond mere refinements, we’re taking this project

We were really after a device to play with, not some uber-expensive industrial system.

open source. To that end, we’ve launched the CandyFab Project at candyfab.org. Its goals are to reduce the costs associated with solid freeform fabrication, and to promote the use of fabrication technologies for culinary, educational, and artistic purposes.

The opportunities for participation are diverse: sewing, programming, gastronomy, and materials science are just a start. We are redesigning the machine to use off-the-shelf components controlled by collaboratively engineered hardware and software. Project participants are already trying out new designs and researching materials. With all this help, we plan to release plans for a new and improved model next year, so that everyone else who wants a 3D sugar printer can build one too.

Windell Oskay and Lenore Edman have a website called Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories. evilmadscientist.com

Make: 39