The DIWire Bender is a rapid prototype machine that bends metal wire to produce 2D or 3D shapes. Wire unwinds from a spool, passes through a series of wheels that straighten it, and then feeds through the bending head, which moves around in 3 dimensions to create the desired bends and curves. Vector files (e.g., Adobe Illustrator files), text files of commands (e.g., feed 50 mm, bend 90° to right…) provide DIWire’s instructions. It’s essentially a 3D printer that describes lines, instead of volumes, in space, and it could be used for anything from prototypes to customized products.

[via Core77]

In the Maker Shed

14 Responses to Arduino-Powered Wire Bending Machine

  1. Adam Flaherty on said:

    This is so cool! Similar in utility to a CNC hot wire. I wonder if folks even realize the usefulness of a CNC wire bender. There’s just so many cool things you can make with wire. If you’re handy with a torch, you can make all sorts of rigid 3D shapes. Add some sheet and some pop rivits to skin stuff.

    We had an industrial version at a place I used to work at. They used it all the time.

  2. That was very cool!

  3. This is brilliant. It should be be named Calder.

  4. I’m sure Rhino3D love that they are using an Educational version of their software

  5. suggestion on said:

    the wire straightening section could be better implemented, as its shown doesn’t do much. taking a look at industrial straighteners should help

  6. It would be awesome to see this ramped up to bend Al Tubing up through say 1 in.

  7. Ron N on said:

    Verry Cool

    What software are you using to run stepper motors also what software
    generats the code to form the wire ?

  8. bborne23 on said:

    This makes me smile – I’m sure it’s practical in some way, but I mostly just like the thoughts-into-immediate-reality aspect of it.

  9. Hannah Lynn on said:

    wow very interesting. i want the S#!? on a wallmount lol

  10. Pingback: MAKE | DIWire Build Plans Available for Download

  11. Pingback: Make Your Own CNC Wire Bender

  12. Pingback: CNC Wire Bending | & such & such

  13. Pingback: MAKE | The Inside Angle on DIWire

  14. Pingback: The Inside Angle on DIWire - IT Clips

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out / Change )

Twitter picture

You are commenting using your Twitter account. Log Out / Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out / Change )

Connecting to %s

%d bloggers like this: