Week 13 - Wildcard - Composites

Assignment for myself: Design and make something with composite wet layup

For wildcard week, I'm working with Alfonso to learn composites and wet layup. To make a successful composite part using wet layup, the object should be a smooth continuous surface. I added my previous generative design and made the chassis of my drone A LOT simpler. Just a ball with 4 arms coming out. Everything is parametric of course and the size of the ball is 100% depedent on the size of my battery because that is the biggest thing I have to fit in there.

Designing

Even with this design, my arms will not be made using wet layup. I used the surface editting feature to isolate the center sphere (tools: offset 0mm, unstitch, hide unwanted pieces, stitch). I was experiencing trouble thickening the walls to make my mold so Alfonso told me to export them and we were able to easily thicken them in Rhino.

Making

1. 3D printed in detail (0.1mm) on Prusa mini and sanded to 5000 grift

2. Isopropanol cleaning: helps remove the particles, also the wet parts are so shinyyy

3. Wax spraying: sets up a surface for me to take the final part out of the mold easier

4. Cutting the fabric (1x carbon fiber 3x glass fiber)

The Setup

5. Compositing with resin: layer each fabric and then generously put resin over it with a brush

6. Vacuuming: set up a vacuum chamber to suck all the air out and make our composite fit the mold perfectly. This also sucks the resin out through the paper we connected all the parts with

How it looks after a day

7. Taking it out: took out the pink layer which does not stick to resin but is also porous which let resin flow through, used a scissor to cut the excess and a chisel to break the composite out

8. Here it is taken out, I trimmed more excess and sanding again for that shinyyyyy surface

9. Final Product after some resin post processing

Week 13 Final Thoughts

I'm glad I started early and was able to adjust my design to be something that could be made from wet layup. Wildcard week definitely allowed me to explore a skill that I never thought I would so soon. Excited to have learned the capabilities and limitations of composite wet layup and I'm excited to apply it more in the future! From here, I have to make an inside skeleton bracket to connect the shell to my arms...