• TLDR: chocolate doesn't stick to apple pulp very well

    Adam06/01/2021 at 20:47 0 comments

    I had this idea to cut designs into apples then fill them with chocolate to make something like an Edible Arrangement. To do the carving, I swapped the extruder on my 3D printer for a rotary tool, and mounted the x-axis motor to the print bed, so I can rotate the apples as they cut. I used Inkscape -gcode tools for the gcode and Repetier-Host for the controller software.

    Here it is in action.

    These cuts turned out nicely, but I couldn’t make too intricate of designs because the apple was too weak and would start to break apart.

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    I found it much easier to use the tip of a knife to remove the cut pieces of apple than having the CNC remove it for me.

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    I melted chocolate and tried my best to pipe it into the cuts. This proved to be difficult. It didn’t stick very well to the apple’s wet flesh, but it did stick to the apple’s peel. I had to wipe off excess chocolate without removing it from the cuts. As the chocolate cooled, a large section would pull out of the cut as I was wiping. I wouldn’t call this a complete success or a complete failure, but it was interesting.

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