Recycled PLA Photo Frame by innomake

Last crawled date: 3 years, 4 months ago

Summary:

Everyone involved in 3d printing knows how much waste is produced (failed prints, end of filament spool, rafts and scaffolding etc) Here is an option to reuse some of those waste bits to produce and abstract design on a photo frame

Extra Equipment
A panini press used specifically for melting PLA. They can often be bought second hand from thrift stores at cheap prices. I would recommend devoting this to plastic recycling and to not use it with food preparation
Baking parchment paper (can be picked up at grocery store)
Transparent plastic or glass front. These can be purchased cut to an appropriate size through online hobby suppliers [1] [2]
Command Strips for mounting. These can be purchased online [3]
Frame turn buttons x4 [3]
Waste cardboard
Instructions
Print the frame
Line the panine press with parchment paper.
Trace the frame on the parchment paper (WARNING: When using permanent marker I found the marker ink would stick to the PLA. Consider using a pencil)
Place waste PLA scraps in the frame outline
Heat until soft and tacky
Press the frame into the hot PLA with the prongs facing down.
Touch up the design by cutting any part of the frame that might obscure the photo
Cut a back piece of cardboard to match the shape of transparent front
Assemble the frame
Hold the frame in place using the four turn buttons
Mount with command strips (due to the narrow frame size, I found it best to cut the command strips in half)
Final thoughts

I find the frames look really good when a limited colour set is implemented. I especially like the black and white tones with a black and white picture

[1] https://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/B07J59DKRB/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o03_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
[2] https://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/B07J4WX7BH/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
[3] https://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/B073XS3CHW/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o07_s01?ie=UTF8&psc=1
[4] https://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/B07T1L3NFT/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o04_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1