Week 5 - Additive Manufacturing
Additive Manufacturing
Last updated
Additive Manufacturing
Last updated
This week we are getting to know the 3D printers and I'm an team with Thijs. We have to write 150 words about this or about the reading material that was about what you can do with the 3D printer and where the credits should go to/ who is responsible. Next to that you have to make an original image that fits your text. This week the editors for the zine are Kaz and Duncan.
This week we talked about the responsibilities of 3D prints and the impact it has on people, society and the environment. I think that everybody can decide for themselves if they want to have credit for something that they've made, and that other people have to respect their wishes. I think the responsibility also lies by the maker of the design. Itās your job to tell people where things could go wrong, or that you haven't tested it yet. In other words, be open and truthful. Then people know to be aware and take precautions. I wouldnāt mind if people were using or changing my designs as long as they give me credit for it. I would also like it if they tell me that theyāve used or changed it, so I can see how many people like it and how the design could be improved. If you change some of the work you copy from others, youāll have to tell others in the credits that youāve changed the design and from who.
Desiree van Dam
Produce a class zine on the RISO printer together, 2 people will be editors this week. Individual contributions in the form of zine spreads (minimum 150 words + original imagery).
Reflect on what your responsibilities are as a maker/designer for making objects and the impact they have on people, society and the environment. Create your own maker manifesto. Discuss how you used this in your making process this week, and how itās (an aspect of) this weekās work.
Document the in-class assignment on your gitbook documentation page, include the tips and tricks that helped you understand Fusion 360, Cura and the 3D-printer.
Write for each mold a tutorial with instructions. Include useful images with annotations to show each step of the design and print process. Another person should be able to follow your steps and reproduce your design.
Design and print 3 different molds for the open material archive that can be used for casting material samples.
Requirements: 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.
Mold 1
2.5D Metamold object, for flexible material texture. You will print the object itself and experiment with textures for the casted material. We will use the vacuum former to create mold of the mold.
Mold 2
2.5D Metamold for casting hard material texture. 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.
Mold 3
3D mold (2 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.
Later in the week we also found out that the Ultimaker with an square was not calibrated correctly. So that's probobly why the design failed.
I also wanted to finish this assignment in the last week but because of corona that plan failed so this is al I did.
Thijs was making the first mold in Fusion 360 which was an monkey. It looks really cool.
For the 3D model, Thijs wanted to make monkey's face. To make it, he used two 3D spheres and connected them to each other (joined). Than cut it in half by using a square and delete the bottom half. For the eyes and nose he added spheres as well (joined). To make the nose holes, he used circles and used the 'cut' function to excavate in the bigger sphere.
Additionaly, he made a mouth and eyebrows with lines. He added a circle in the middle and than a sweep on them (I helped him with that), so they appear as 3D tubes. He made the ears with toruses and attached them to the head.
Maybe you can read this on Thijs his page.
I made the second mold that was an mold within an mold for the plasic assignment in two weeks. This was about making an structure in the plastic. So I made an round design with zig zags, when the first zig would be on top and then the next was under the surface. This goes back and forth.
First I made an square from 8 by 8 cm and extruded that up 2cm. Than I made another square from 7 by 7 cm and cut it down by 1 cm and with a degree of -20. I gave the corners an angele so it's easier to remove the inside when you fill it. This is the outer mold. For the actual mold I made an circle from 5 by 5 cm and extruded it by 2mm. On that surface I made the zig zags by using lines, than you make a circle in the size/ thick you want your line and than use the sweep tool to make them round. I alternated the zig zags. The first is on the surface (join) and the second under the surface (cut) and so on.
Don't make sharp angles, but always give it an degree. This way it's easier to get the mold out.
I made al the zig zags one by one. I was told that if you make it a body, you can copy it.
For the third mold we wanted to make an star. And on that star we wanted to make some icons/ structures to make it look beautiful and intersting. Sadly the program quit a couple of times but eventually we made it work.
First we watched a video on how to make an star. You'll have to make two polygons, one big (6cm) and one small (3cm) in the middle of that. Than you connect the two polygons with lines and delete the outer lines. Select everything and join them. Select everything and extrude it (3cm) with an degree (40 degrees). Than you have an nice star. We decorated it with little roundings on the side. You make these by putting a circle on the surface and extrude it by 1mm with an degree. When you're finished with your design you can mirror it.
Then we wanted a box around the star with two holes for the air and fluid and a couple of markers so you can click it together. We asked Sander and watched a video to figure this out. To put the box around the star you first have to make an square in te middle of the star and extrude it both ways, make it a body. Than add a mid plane in the centre of the box to cut the box in half. Make the top invisible and make 4 spheres, one at each corner (join). Make the top visible again and cut the spheres out of the top. Than make the holes by selecting one half of the box and press H, than click on the screen where you want the hole and adjust the settings to your liking.
Watch video's while making this. It will save you a lot of time.
Make sure you leave one or two surfaces black so you can make the holes there.
To make sure that everybody could use the Ultimakers we printed our designs with other groups. The first time we shared with Andrei and Kaz and the second time with Kim and Anoush. This went really well and we worked together to get the settings right and to get the machine working.
Save your Cura file as a gcode.
Make sure that if you have to mirror or turn something, you do it correctly.
When using the 3D printer, you have to consider a few parameters.
Filament / material (2,85mm)
There are different kinds of materials you can choose from. The most common are:
PLA
ABS
PVC
PET
Printing speed
When adjusting the printing speed, you can manipulate the duration of your print. Keep in mind that a faster printing speed has a lower print quality.
Infill
To save material and to make a design more rigid, the inside of your print consists of infill. This infill is a polygonal pattern with a lot of empty space in the middle. You can adjust the pattern and percentage of infill in cura.
Nozzle temperature
Depending on the filament you are using, the nozzle can heat up to the temperature that fits the filament the best.
Plate temperature
The plate where you're printing on is heated as well. When the plate is heated, your print will stick to it, granting stability during the printing process.
Fan speed
Above the nozzle are two tiny fans whose speed can be adjusted. The fans cool your print, providing it more stability.
These settings can be selected when you start printing, but also when the printing already has begun. When you select 'tune' on the Ultimaker display, you can tweak the different parameters. For example, for our second set of molds, we cranked up the fan speed because the filament on the plate didn't solidify. What we didn't expect was that our filament was blown away by the fans. We had to stop the print and start over.
This week I learned to work with fusion 360. We got an introduction class from Sander which was really nice. He explained all the important functions and after the class I could really make something of my own. I still find it an annoying program and than especially how you move on the screen but I can make it work. And I made something a bit to big and I didn't know how to make it smaller, so I started over again. In addition to that I know how Cura works. We got a class from Micky and Cura is pretty easy. It mostly is experimenting with the different settings and figuring out what is means. Of course we could make our desgin smaller in this program but that didn't matter. Also by making the star, I accidentally mirrored the design wrong. The star came in Cura with de star at the bottom, so I wanted to flip it. By doing that I did something wrong that made the attachment balls in the wrong place. We could print it again but because of corona there was no time so I ended up filing the balls off it and tape the construction together.
And of course we learned how the Ultimaker works. I find it very unpredictable things. Sometimes you install everything perfectly and it still goes wrong. This happend to us three times. The first time when we send something to the printer everything went right, except that we had the speed a bit to fast so the board started to shake. This made the design shift its position a bit, but that didn't matter to us. By the second design it went wrong the first time because it wasn't calibrated correctly. It took Kaj and Henk an hour to calibrate it (Kaj is an topper). The second time it was because there was a kink in the cord (Sander has a picture of that). The third time it went wrong because there was a thick part somewhere on the board and everytime the nozzle went over it, it came 1mm further on the board. This meant that the design was printed at an angle. So we stoped the machine and tried it again. This time it went right and we were very happy.
In Cura you can see how much material you need and how heavy that is. Next time I am going to weigh the pla (or other material) instead of rolling it out and checking how long it is. Henk told us that rolling it out was a good idea but by doing so we had to roll it in again which was harder and went a bit wrong. Because of this Kaj had to sometimes adjust the roll to make sure it didn't go wrong. And I also want to look sooner at video's on how to make something in Fusion. Otherwise it takes to long and the internet gives you all the answers.
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