Week 3 - 3D Printing and Scanning
Reinventing the buckle apparently
This week we went over 3D scanning and printing. In the group assignment, I printed overhangs with and without support.
With 3D printing all figured out, I started working on what I wante to make. I wanted to make a modular snap-on rack to better organize the workspace for Space Enabled. This is what it looks like:
It's not ideal. I want to organize the cables, change to a smaller breadboard and make new jumpers so it's neat and tidy. I want to print a rack to hold them all in place, as well. The idea is simple, make a T-like rack with some sort of snapping mechanism where I can choose which part to snap in place.
Before making the whole thing, I had to figure out the snapping mechanism. For this, I made a simple double hook on a square to hold it in place, and then did a negative to be the other side of the mechanism. I made it on Fusion 360, extruding the shape to 3mm. The idea is that the PLA plastic can bend enough to allow it to slide into place and then snap shut. In theory this sounded easy and great.
I used Fusion360 to design the hook.
I printed them and tested. They did not fit. I somehow forgot about tolerance.
This kicked off a series of prints doing the tiniest of nudges on offset and thickness to find the sweetspot of lose enough to slide in but tight enough to snap on. Have you found my error yet?
The hook part has a square all around it. I was sliding it in and out from above, not actually sliding the hooks through the opening and snapping them in place. I couldnt do it with the current shape. So I cut that off and tried again. It is now looking suspiciously like a plastic buckle. Am I just reinventing the buckle?
So I adjusted the sizes again to try to get a better fit, taking into account the bending that needed to happen for the hooks. This meant I made them much thinner, basically. The other piece needed a top, now, to restrict the hooks from moving up and down.
After some other test prints, I did it- it snapped on!
Aaand.... I can't snap it off lol.
While I could change the design and make it suspiciously more like a plastic buckle, I realized I did not need the flexibility form a belt buckle. So instead of changing the design, I started working on a tool that would push the hooks to the middle and unbuckle the pseudobuckle.
It was not the most ergonomic design, so I fiddled with the size of the handle and the angle of the tool to see if it coul be smoother to operate.
For 3D scanning, I downloaded an app called Polycam. This easy app allows for photometry scanning. You just need to hold the phone in different angles, and the app will stitch them together.
I scanned a tape dispenser, and it looks like this.
Then I started wondering if my 3d print actually met the assignment requirements. After all, a plastic beltbuckle could be manufactured in an injection machine. I started spiraling about what could be uniquely 3D printable. I stared at my desk and then it hit me. In hand of having something to organize my life, I had my dock in my desk just basically floating.
I could design a dock that would be hard to machine, and hopefully also hard to inject. So I got to measuring and at first I made a very simple dock.
Then I decided this was boring and actually easy to do in other manufacturing methods. So I decided to give it some sparkle and make a pattern on it. I got some drop image from Shutterstuck, captured part of the pattern using Inkscape, inverted it with some added shape, and exported it as a SVG. I then uploaded this SVG into fusion, where I used it as a source sketch to reshape my original dock design. Behold:
The print failed and it's almost class time but it's okay, surely he won't call on me. (He called on me).