Blog 4: 3D printing
- Xavier Lim
- Aug 4, 2024
- 6 min read
HI AGAIN EVERYONE!!
Welcome back to yet another part of my ICPD journey! Sadly all good things must come to an end and today's blog will be be the last but definitely not the least!!🤩
Today, I will be sharing my experience on making my 3D design model using Fusion 360 and using a 3D printer to print out my design.
Overview
Fusion 360 is an 3D design modelling application that we use to sketch and construct our 3D designs. After designing our models, we will then use 3D printer here in Singapore Poly such as the UltiMaker Cura 2+ to bring our models to life. For some background information, me and my course-mates were handed out the task of designing our own 3D model that uses a hinge and print out that model using a 3D printer such as the UltiMaker Cura 2+ printer.
To design our 3D models, we must first do some research online, to be precise YoutTube, on some examples of designs that uses hinges in their 3D models. After many searches on 3D designs, I finally found the perfect design.
After finding the video of my desired product, I was still not satisfied as I wanted to use a different type of hinge from the video. Hence, I went to search other designs and models of hinges and had finally came down to my final decision which helped me make my final product design.
The Build Up
Having to make 3D models that uses hinges and then demolish and delete them is something that everyone including myself must find frustrating. This is why we have our build up stage which is an ideation stage we will take the time to research on videos and select the design that we want to make based on which design or video we like the most.
For me personally, even after finding the a design which I was satisfied with, making it was still very challenging as I spent many hours trying to figure out how to make my hinges work as I pulled my hair and wondered to myself why I have to go through this. There were also times where I would miss out parts and snippets of the video guides which then made me realize I had to go all the way back to the part where the mistake was made and redo it which added more to the hair pulling and mental spirals.
Before finalising on my 3D model which turned out to be a phone stand, I was exploring many other models such as a moving dolphin, cat, dragon and maple leaf. These options were definitely very attractive because of their intricate details, cuteness and coolness. However, I didn't want any of that because I had many considerations that I wanted to meet such as the amount of time needed to procure them and how useful the product would be.
For me personally, living with 10 people 😮💨in a household made me realize that I do not want to keep anything in my house that is not useful as there is already plenty of that in my house. Hence, I decided to make a phone stand which does not take too much time to create and print, and it can be used anytime and anywhere. Hence, I decided to go ahead and design a phone stand with a hinge at its centre.
Phone Stand designed in Fusion360
My Finalised Product
Having chosen my 3D model, and attempting to make the phone stand using the video guide, I came to realise that there was something that I wasn't satisfied with still. Of course, I like the design. But there was something that I felt had to go. And after pondering and maybe procrastinating I came to realise that it was the hinge used. The hinge which the video uses was not a normal hinge such as door hinges as they do not use a pin that drives through a sheathe. Instead, they made a small bump in one hinge knuckles and an indent in another knuckle. A pair of these 2 knuckles were then used as seamless interlocking joints for this phone stand model. Although this was still a hinge, I still wanted to make a regular hinge that uses a pin that drives through the hinge knuckle to make the interlocking joint. That was why, I searched for another video on how to make hinges and combined the video on the phone stand and hinge to make my finalised product design.
In conclusion, I finalised my design based on the idea that I wanted to make something that used a regular hinge that utilises a pin and knuckle, that does not take too much time to make and is useful in everyday life.
If you are interested in my design, you can use these links below to see how the hinge and phone stand were made.
Instruction Links:
Video on how I did it:
Why 3D printing?
For those of you who are wondering if 3D printing is the only way to make 3D models using hinges, the answer is yes. This is because, 3D printing which is a form of addictive manufacturing technology can easily replicate the complex internal structure and details of an interlocking joint. This is because, 3D printing creates designs by bonding successive layers of materials to complete the product. This makes it easy for 3D printing to create the small spaces within the hinge pin and knuckle without taking too much time and material as the materials can be layered some distances away from each other, resulting in a moving hinge.
Although there are other manufacturing options such as subtractive manufacturing technologies that uses cutting and carving techniques to shape a piece of material into the desired object. It is challenging for subtractive manufacturing to replicate the small features and internal structure of a hinge. This is because it is difficult for the cutting and carving technology to reach and shape out the internal structure that consist of a pin and knuckle. Not only that, but having to cut out a piece of material and shape it into the desired product results in a significant amount material wastage especially if subtractive technology is used to attempt to make the hinge as more material must be carved out to make the pin and knuckle. Hence, this type of manufacturing and technique takes more time and results in more material wastage which is not sustainable in manufacturing industries.
In conclusion, 3D printing is the most efficient and effective way to make objects such as hinges as they can print successive layers to make the to intricate internal structure of a moving hinge without taking too much time and wasting excessive amounts of material.
What printer settings were used?
For my design, I used the recommended settings for the wall thickness, bottom and top layer thickness, material, speed, travel and cooling as I felt that they provided a good balance of strength and printing speed. For this design, I also did not have to use any type of support or plate adhesion for phone stand design as there were no overhead structures that exceeded 45 degrees, and my design had a generally large surface area which did not need plate adhesion to accommodate to it.
However, I did change the quality of the printing by increasing the height of each printed layer from 0.1mm in the recommended settings to 0.3mm in the custom settings. This way, I can reduce the amount of time needed to print each successive layer as there will be fewer layers of 38 in the custom settings instead of 111 layers in the recommended settings to be printed. I also reduced the infill from the default 15% to 10% as there was no need for my design to use higher infill to achieve the desired structure. This not only allows my material to use less materials, but it also helps make my design printing to be more time efficient. Hence, using the custom slicer settings for printing my phone stand allowed me to cut down my printing time by 2mins.
Printing in action:
Phone stand after printing:
Despite the many moments of rage, craziness and depression from designing and printing. This assignment has made be realise how fun and interesting designing and bringing the design to life is. Not only that, but the best part was that I was able to gain a new skill as I now know how to properly operate 3D printer and what I need to do before operating a 3D printer.
This was truly the one of the most enriching things I have learnt this semester in my ICPD journey despite the stressful periods.
Thankyou for reading this! I hope everyone is doing fine and I wish everyone all the best in the upcoming exams!
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