Foam Printing

This is a quick-and-dirty attempt to print foam using pressure-canned PU, commonly available in hardware stores.

Canned foam is used in building industry to seal insulation around doors and windows and such. Foam comes in a variety of types. Basic model expands a lot after spraying (200%?) and hardens. Some types remain elastic.

Obvious applications for foam printing are custom packaging and structures that need material attributes of the foams. For example, RF fields are absorbed by dense materials, airy PU may be usable as constructing unintrusive structures for RF measurements.

Initial prototype will use commercial metal tool, clamped on to a control motor.

Tips received from professionals:

• Foam tends to dry and lose stickiness. This could affect FDM printing so that layers wouldn't stick. A workaround for this is to spray water on the foam to delay the drying.
• Foam sticks everywhere and will clog the nozzle. Nozzles will be single-use or can be flushed with a cleaning fluid.