Week 5 | Additive Manufacturing

Tutorial Cura

If you want to print something from the 3D printer, you have to download two programs. Fusion and Cura. With Fusion you make a 3D design and with Cura you place it on the printing bed of the Ultimaker. If it fits well, download it via this program to a USB stick that you put back in the 3D printer.

We learned how this process works in a small tutorial from Micky. We received an example 3D design that we had to upload in Cura. We went through the cura settings and then uploaded the cura file to a USB stick.

After choosing a material, according to me this was PLA, we turned on the printer and connected the material.

The next day the printer was finished and the object was ready. The next step is now learning Fusion and ultimately putting our own designs in Cura and printing them out.

Tutorial Fusion

After downloading Fusion at home, we started in class with a short tutorial on how Fusion works.

The teacher had an example ready for us to copy. Step by step, he explained how this worked after giving a general explanation of the functions and buttons that Fusion has.

Since I had never worked with the program before, I did not always keep up, but after asking enough questions, I was able to finish the example.

The second half of the tutorial, I tested some basics shapes which where not talked about yet. Laura helped me out with the donut you see on the left of the picture. On the right, I made a block. Then, I made a shell in it. That's a function in Fusion that you can delete the inside of the block. This is a perfect base for the mold I am going to make after this.

So now, I understand more or less the basics of Fusion. The next step is to make a mold in this programm.

The assignment: Making molds with the 3D printer

This week's assignment consists of designing and making 3 molds with the 3D printer for the open material archive that can be used for casting maerial samples. It is an assignment in duos and I did this with Kim Sinke. We both decided to make 1 of these molds and do the 3rd mold together.

The first mold is a 2.5D metamold object, for flexible material texture. We will use a vacuum former with this mold to create a mold of the mold. Kim was going to make this mold.

The second mold is also a 2.5D metamold, is the mold I was going to make. This one is for casting hard meterial structure. This metamold will be used to create a mold by casting flexible material to create the mold. This flexible mold will be used to cast a hard material.

The third mold, which we will make togehter, is a 3D mold consisting of two parts of a (poly)spericon or other geometric object. The design should include an airhole and a pouring hole for casting. The design should include fixtures for exact part placement, or the two parts of the mold can be nested.

The only requirements where that all 4 parts should fit on the printing bed of the Ultimaker 2 (20 x 20 cm). So each part is about 8cm x 8cm, height can vary.

End result

Kim made the mold which was going under the vacuum former.

I made the mold of a mold with circles in circles.

Together we made the 3D mold which was a robot.

The process

Making mold 2

I started with a block and used the shell function. This allowed me to make a good base of the mold.

It is important to pay close attention to the dimensions here, because the design must fit on the bed of the Ultimaker. The dimensions of the Ultimaker that we will use are 20 by 20 centimeters. Because it takes hours before 1 design is printed, the intention is to print 4 designs at a time so that everyone can finish their mold. This means that the size of each design should be approximately 8 by 8 centimeters.

I made a shell within a block of 8 by 8 centimeters. Then, I made a cylinder in this shell and extruded it by half a centimeter.

The donuts on the cylinder are evenly spaced in a circle. It was a hard to find out how to do this and whether this was possible at all. I asked Laura if she knew if this was possible and she said that it was indeed possible, but she no longer knew exactly how. She gave me a few clues after which I finally found it. I extruded these donuts as far as it could, and there, was my first mold to print.

Making mold 3

I made the third mold together with Kim. After looking on the internet and pinterest for inspiration, we finally figured out that a robot would be a nice idea. We have found a template that would be a good basis for a robot. We downloaded it in Cura, set support on and set it so that the print should work.

Unfortunately I went home sick this day after which I got the flu. Fortunately, Kim kept me informed.

The first print of the robot unfortunately went wrong because the plastic went up at night and the printer just kept going. Then it was uploaded to the printer again and this time it turned out fine!

Zine text

3D printing

Although the 3D printer has only recently gained public attention, the technology is not new. The technique of this printer has existed for more than 30 years. It only really became known among ordinary people when the price of the machine went down. This week, we also used the 3D printer for making a mold. I, a laywoman in 3d modeling, managed to make a mold on Fusion in no-time. This could mean that 3D printing can form the future, because it’s super easy and available for everyone.

What does this mean for the future?

If everyone has a 3D printer at home, it can be indirectly good for people and the environment. If small, convenient objects are made at home for peoples own use, causing the mass production to land in low wages and causing the CO2 emissions that the transport of all goods entails. The 3D printer also uses less raw materials. Printing is on demand, which means that the machine only comes into action when there is direct demand for it. Surplus products would be a thing of the past in an ideal 3D printed world.