3D Printing News: TPU Robot Legs, PrusaSlicer 3.0 & More
By Dynafabs
3D printing news: robot legs with printed TPU muscles, Northwestern's DIAL method, PrusaSlicer 3.0 alpha 13, Prusa firmware 8.0 and a backpack printer.
This round of 3D printing news is packed with clever ideas. Japanese researchers have printed working robot legs from a single flexible filament, Northwestern has a new hybrid printing method, Prusa has pushed out big software and firmware updates, and a student has designed a printer that folds into a backpack. Here's what happened and what it means if you get parts printed.
Robot legs with printed TPU muscles and ligaments
A University of Tokyo team has 3D printed the muscles, tendons and ligaments of a life-sized pair of robot legs from one material, 3DPrinting.com reports. The soft parts are TPU 95A printed on a Prusa XL, and only the bones are PLA. Each part gets its behaviour from its internal geometry: lattices fill the muscles, and the ligaments start as flat grids projected onto the curved surface of each joint. The legs have no bearings at all.
Hung from an overhead rig that took some of their weight, the 0.95 m legs took alternating steps with strides of 0.4 and 0.8 m. They can't walk unsupported yet, and the researchers are honest about the limits. The printed structures survived 999 loading cycles without rupturing, but their stiffness drifted, with print orientation and creep (TPU slowly deforming under load) both playing a part. One life-sized muscle takes 20 to 40 hours to print, but a worn one can simply be printed again.
It's a great example of something we see in everyday orders too: with TPU, the infill pattern and orientation shape how a part flexes just as much as the material itself. Our TPU flexible printing guide covers how to get that right.
DIAL: light meets paste
Northwestern Engineering researchers have published a new method called direct ink additive lithography, or DIAL, in Science Advances on 4 November, according to Northwestern's announcement. Instead of squeezing out thick, paste-like inks one line at a time, DIAL spreads them into thin sheets and hardens them with patterned light, layer by layer.
In side-by-side tests, a porous grid that took 124 minutes with conventional extrusion was finished in 30 minutes with DIAL. The team also printed lattices with walls as thin as 150 microns and interlocking chainmail, and showed it working with battery electrolytes and hydrogels. It's research for now, but it points at faster, finer printing of functional materials.
PrusaSlicer 3.0 alpha 13 and Prusa firmware 8.0
Prusa has been busy. PrusaSlicer 3.0.0-alpha13 adds a Plugin Marketplace inside the app, where Lua plugins can be installed in one click. Every plugin bundle is cryptographically signed, publishing needs a Prusa Account and a basic review, and Prusa says the marketplace launches empty. A new Print Goals dialog lets you state an intent, such as vase mode, soluble supports or breakaway supports, and temporarily override the relevant settings without permanently changing your profile. FilamentFeed's write-up has more detail. It's still an alpha, so the plugin API may change.
On the printer side, the stable 8.0.0 firmware release went out on 3 November for most of Prusa's current range. Its headline feature is OpenPrintTag support on the CORE One and CORE One L: with Prusa's separate NFC reader upgrade, the printer reads filament details from a tagged spool and writes usage back to it. It isn't available on the INDX models yet, and reading is switched off while an MMU is enabled.
A printer that folds into a backpack
First-year student Ethan Gao is designing P2, a folding printer meant to carry its own filament spool inside, 3DPrinting.com reports. Folded, it should measure about 300 x 300 x 80 mm, and open it should print up to 175 x 180 x 200 mm. By Gao's own maths, 87 percent of the machine's size becomes build volume. It uses fishing line instead of belts for its CoreXY motion and a scissor lift for height. There's no price, kit or launch date, and much of the design is still a plan, but the prototype already prints.
What it means if you're ordering prints
Two threads run through this week's news. Geometry matters as much as material: the Tokyo legs show how infill and orientation can turn one filament into soft muscles and stiff tendons. And software keeps getting smarter about intent, so it's easier to say what a part is for and let the settings follow. That's exactly how we work: tell us what your part needs to do and we'll suggest the material, orientation and settings to match. If you're unsure where to start, our guide to layer height, infill and walls is a handy primer.
FAQ
Can Dynafabs print flexible TPU parts? Yes. TPU suits grips, seals, bumpers and anything that needs to bend. Tell us how soft or stiff it should be and we'll tune the infill and walls.
Do new slicer features change how my order is printed? Not directly. Alpha releases like PrusaSlicer 3.0 are previews of features still being tested, so they're interesting to watch, but what matters for your order is the material, orientation and settings chosen for your part.
How do I get a quote? Upload your file or describe your idea on our quote page and we'll get back to you.
Got a part in mind?
Whether it's a flexible gripper, a replacement bracket or a one-off prototype, get a quote from Dynafabs and we'll help you choose the right material and settings.
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