Airless Basketball

I made an Airless Basketball; I realized that pumping air into basketballs can be a lot of wasted effort especially when you could be using that effort playing basketball. This idea was essentially the reason why I made the ball, as another durable playmethod in the game basketball.

Supplies: Flex PLA - PLA-HR (from BIQU), Prusa XL printer (Legacy Version), Fusion 360 (3D Modeling Software).

Step 1: Acquire Flexible PLA as it is needed for the bounce of the basketball. The Flexibility is essential as the material needs to withstand the rigorous uses of the sport. Flexible PLA is specifically designed for durability and flexibility. That is taken advantage in the printing of the basketball

To be more descriptive, Use a reference image for Cadding the ball. I used the Wilson Basketball as the reference image to CAD the 3D basketball. It is important to know that I have incorporated hexagonal double lattices to take advantage of the durability and Flexibility of the Airless Basketball.

Above is my fully Cadded Airless Basketball. Note that I did make some adjustments to the PLA setting that was being used to slice the model in PrusaSlicer. PLA-HR has a bed temperature of 60 degrees celsius, and to heat the PLA, it was a minimum of 220 degrees C* and a maximum of 240 degrees C*. Fan Speed is 100%. For infill, keep it at a setting of 15%.

By the way you might have to wait for like a little longer since this is a remarkably a big project. It took 2 days for mine to finish printing.

You will need supports to successfully print the basketball. Removing the supports were a hassle for me. I had supports inside the ball, so I had to cut in half and hot glue it back together.

This is important as the Basketball needs to work in order to be a desirable product. It is important to also conduct error-analysis in order to evaluate what is wrong about the ball. Ex. If it does not bounce correctly, then it must print with the wrong material. This heavily depends on the material used and the bed temp and printing temp.

Enjoy your basketball. It is successfully printed if you reached this step.

The finished product should be an airless basketball which has a strong double hexagonal lattice structure. It should bounce uptil 4 ft at the very least. Mine did, so I hope yours did too.