Week 5: Additive Manufacturing
5 t/m 11 maart
5.1 How do you print objects with a 3D printer?
What's needed to make a 3d print? A 3d printer, filament and a gcode file of an object. To get a gcode file of an object you either need to make a 3D object in a CAD program or download such an object from elsewhere. After the object is done it needs to be exported into Cura. Cura sets the maner of printing and afterwards it can be printed wuth the 3D printer.
5.2 What is Fusion 360?
Fusion 360 is a CAD program. It works simular like any other CAD program. A CAD (computer aided design) program is computer software that can create, modify, analyse and optimize 3D designs. It helps to communicate design or make them production ready.
5.3 What is Cura?
Cura works with STL. files. The STL file can be exported into Cura and from there on you can choose how it should be printed. Cura has a lot of options, for instance the speed it's printed, the quality of the print, the infill percentage of a solid object.
How do you export an object to an STL file in fusion 360? Click on file> export> types> STL files (*stl.)
5.4 How does a 3D printer work?
Step by step guide to print Before you start: you need a 3D printer, material (filament) and a gcode file of an object. First remove the material from the 3D printer. On the ultimaker there is a button to the "change" the material. The printer then warms itself first to spit out the material that is left in the tube. The material can then be placed on the back of the printer. The filament (material) can be placed in the printer. There is an opening at the rear where this happens.
Materials The ultimaker 2 3D printer can work with a variety of materials such as:
PLA
ABS
CPE
CPE+
Nylon
PC
TPU 95A
PP
All these materials have different settings in heat, meaning you can't choose the wrong material and expect it to work perfectly, or at all.
More information on the usage of materials in the Ultimaker can be found here.
Solid prints: infill To make an object less solid you can choose to use an infill. An infill will make the inside of the object in a pattern with space in-between. This will save both time and material. How much % of infill is used is to be chosen in the settings.
5.5 Test print
To start of the 3D print week we made a test print for the Ultimaker. The test print is made from PLA filament. The test print shocases 18 different test.
Overal the test print looks quite good. The printer did not have any mishaps and we did not need to stop it anywhere midthrough. The results of the 18 test prints:
Warp: The warp made a bend and connected well on the top.
Overhang: The overhang was possible, however the layers in the overhang turned more rough at the most sloping ones.
Spike: The fine details of the spike were not completely visable. It did not turn out square at the root, it started of round.
Pyramide: The pyramide worked better than the spike, the shape turned out how it should be.
Rounded print: The rounded print had the resolution that was expected. The rounding in the middle turned out smoothly.
Nut: The nut had almost the exact measurements that was shown in the 3d model.
Star: The star does have sharp edges, however the edges are less in format for the star.
Text: The text turned out a little less wide than expected, but it's still nicely readable.
Hole size: The hole sizes are a smaller than they should be, with a difference of about 0,3mm.
Minimum distance: The distance of the cuts are a little smaller than they should be. The printer also rounded the edges at the end of the print, instead of making them square.
Sphere: The sphere turned out as well as the rounded print (5).
Minimum walls: It is very clear where the printer began printing the layers. The line starts rounded on the left of the print. It also did not print the walls that had a less width than the material.
Wave: The wave turned out better than the minimum distance (10). The ultimaker prints rounded shapes better than straight ones.
Bridge print: The bridge was printed without the use of support. The filament is printed in the air at this point between the bridges. There is not difference between the smallest and longest bridge point.
Surface: The surface is rather flat, however it is not as smooth.
3D print font: The lines did not merge. The numbers are readable, however it did have some problems with the holes of the 8 and 6.
Hole: The hole printed without the need of support and did not fall flat. The round was 0.2mm thinner than it should have been.
Z-height: The difference between the steps were accurate. The ultimaker made a layer around the entire print, making it impossible to tell if the first step turned out the way it should.
Conclusion: The biggest difference is that the print has small differences in the width of the material that's spit out by the ultimaker. This might be different if there's a more fine setting used or a different material. Another important detail to take into account is that the printer will not print lines that are wider than the material width that comes out of the printer.
5.6 Mold 1
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. 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.
I worked together with Duncan on this assignment. Neither of us had ever used an Ultimaker 3D printer before. I have a lot of experience in CAD programs, Duncan did not. This is why we decided to both be working on the 3D printing together. We made agreements on what we wanted to make for the 3D printer, then seperately made them in Fusion360 and helped each other where necessary.
For mold 1 we were inspired by the Bauhaus chess set. We made the bishop of the set as our first mold. For this print we used black PLA. The settings for this material are programmed into the 3D printer. (Mold 1 is made in fusion360 by Duncan)
NOTE: This print still needed to be vacuum formed but is not possible anymore due to school being closed.
5.7 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.
I made mold 2 in Fusion360 and me and Duncan both printed it.
This mold was based on an artpiece from Boris Tellegen.
I used to artpiece to draw the lines in Fusion360 and then made my own heights with it and gave it an outer edge.
This is supposed to eb a gif on how it is made in Fusion360, it only plays once on my computer, if it does so on yours too I'd recommend you download the gif.
Unfortunately this video is the only evidence i have of the mold before it was completely melted during the bioplastic week.
5.8 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.
The third mold is made by both me and Duncan and resembles some iconic chair design. We followed a tutorial found by Desiree and Thijs on how to make a cast found here.
NOTE: this print has not been printed due to two mishaps with printing and school currently being closed.
5.9 Zine
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 it’s (an aspect of) this week’s work.
Er zal wit/créme/off-white papier gebruikt worden met daarop rood en blauwe inkt. De kleuren zijn gebaseerd op 3D beeld/films, aangezien het thema van de week 3D-printer is. Verder is iedereen vrij in het gebruik van foto’s, tekeningen, lettertype e.d.
5.10 Quality foto's voor de liefhebbers/What's gone wrong
What could be wrong to have your print come out like This monstrosity: • Your file could be wrongly filled with too little support. • You could have the wrong material put into the machine giving the wrong temperature. • The machine could have had a mishap and printed one mm wrongly which in turn made everything after turn into spaghetti. • The bed could be shifted during the printing making the same result as above. • The printer might have been calibrated wrongly. • The printer might have tried to print into the air.
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