All Seeing. Powder Bed Fusion. 4/5

To print the eyes, I chose powder bed fusion, though it is not suitable for practical parts and is known for being fragile. This method would be more than suitable for creating full-colour textured spheres. Furthermore, eyes not strictly functional pieces even though they have a functional purpose and as they are small solid spheres, would be difficult to break.

The printer I used for the eye spheres is the Gypsum 660 inkjet powder bed fusion printer. I exported the sphere as a textured OBJ which also created an MTL (Material Library File). These files, as well as the original texture source image,  had to be taken into Materialise Magics (Materialise, Belgium) and exported as a ZPR which is compatible with the 3D Print (3D Systems, South Carolina) software to be oriented and sent to print.

The print itself took 59 minutes and each eye contains 237 layers of powder and post-processing extended the entire process to just over a day. The models had to be removed from the powder bed and transferred to the cleaning station to remove powder with compressed air. As the pieces are solid I could use a solid bristle brush to scrub the excess off the surface without risk of breaking them.

After all excess powder was removed, the models must be hardened with cyanoacrylate infiltrant 500/ superglue. I held the models over a box and poured the glue evenly over the surface area; repeating this process twice allowed the glue to absorb into the powder to harden the overall shape. The models are then dried under the in-built heater of the cleaning station overnight before being sanded with various grades of paper. This resulted in a smoother performance from the models when moved around in the eye cups, which would benefit the eyes used in the resin models due to the sharp residue from the support structure causing some resistance when articulating the eyes. With more layers and mixing sanding techniques, the models could have a smoother finish.

March 16, 2019March 24, 2019 by itschelseajune Categories: CAD Modelling and Product DesignTags: 3d, 3d print, 3d printing, animation, autodesk, CAD, colour, eye, eyeball, maya, powder bed fusion, print city, stopmotion Leave a comment

All Seeing. SLA. 2/5

This test was SLA (Stereolithography Apparatus) printed on Form 2 (Formlabs, Massachusetts). The material is black V2 resin and the files were orientated in PreForm (Formlabs, Massachusetts)

As the material is liquid resin, any cup geometry would cause a vacuum and damage the machine. I had to carefully angle the prints to ensure there is no cupped geometry facing into the resin, consider where the support structure is and how it will affect the interior of the eyecups and the magnet chambers.

The print took 16.17 hours for both the files in the orientation shown above with an additional 30 minutes in the Form Wash bath filled with IPA (isopropyl alcohol) and 20 minutes in the Form Cure UV (ultraviolet) chamber. The support material was removed prior to the alcohol bath as it is soft and comes away easily. It also creates a softer edge with reduced sharp surface bumps left by the support structure. I tried later removing some of the sharpness however this left more abrasions on the black resin and did not contribute to the model’s function. The print turned out very successful and with the high precision of Form 2’s completely negated the PLA print as the eye plate fits cleanly into the base holder and sits flush to the eyecups. Though this print is much heavier than PLA and would need a stronger armature to hold it in place.

 

⤜(*ᨓ*)⤏

March 6, 2019March 24, 2019 by itschelseajune Categories: CAD Modelling and Product DesignTags: 3d, 3d print, animation, autodesk, black, eye, eyeball, form 2, formlabs, fusion 360, mmu, print city, resin Leave a comment

All Seeing. FDM. 1/5

My first test piece took 7.31 hours and was FDM printed on the ULTIMAKER extended 3. The base holder and the removable eye plate are loaded into ULTIMAKER Cura (ULTIMAKER, Geldermalsen) and adjusted the file orientation to best suit the structural integrity of the piece. As the design printed without support material there is some stringiness and rippling in the model base.

The model is made of white PLA (Polylactic Acid) filament (GoPrint3D, Ripon) and despite an uneven finish, both the eye plate and the base slot together. However, the pieces do not fit flush together at a straight angle as the design intended; the eye plate must first be placed in vertically and turned 90°. There seems to be no clearance with this material and the pieces hold tightly together making magnets unnecessary for this version. The missing material on the back face of the eye plate causes large gaps, however, this has doesn’t appear to have affected the function of the design.

The post-processing procedure wasn’t complex however the pieces were difficult to scrape off the build plate and the frayed edges required significant clean-up. Reversing the angle of the eye plate may fix the missing material problem but may result in breakage when being removed from the build plate. The base holder is fit for purpose and very lightweight with the only issues being the sharp edges. As this piece is intended to go inside a puppet head, aesthetics is not a major issue in its usage.

 

( ﾟᗜ ﾟ)

March 1, 2019March 24, 2019 by itschelseajune Categories: CAD Modelling and Product DesignTags: 3d, 3d print, animation, autodesk, CAD, eye, eyes, FDM, FFF, fusion 360, PLA, ULTIMAKER, ultimaker 3, ultimaker extended Leave a comment

Artefact Prototyping.

With the intent of exploring different additive manufacturing technologies, I am creating prototypes for 3 printable artefacts. I intend to create components that assemble into 1 object.

 Deciding on the main theme, I have explored aspects of historic artefacts within the realm of animation and character design. My current major project revolves around printing stop-motion armature joints for character puppets so this module would be ideal for experimentation and research.

I also created a humanoid character head with multiple iterations in an attempt to gain an editable body in Fusion 360.

Meshes do not translate well into Fusion, it seems.

( ᐛ )و

February 25, 2019March 15, 2019 by itschelseajune Categories: CAD Modelling and Product DesignTags: 3d, animal, animation, autodesk, design, digitisation, fantasy, fusion 360, head, human, industrial, maya, project, skull Leave a comment

Special Collections + ReCap Photo

The initial introduction to Autodesk ReCap Photo using artefacts, courtesy of MMU special collections.

I took 80 photos of a small sculpture by Catrin Mostyn Jones.

The results are impressive with only some minor inaccuracies in the geometry. With steadier lighting and camera work this may be used to gather scan information without scanning programs. This using this with data from CG imaging techniques may have interesting results when documenting CG models.

 

﴾๏෴๏﴿

January 15, 2019February 23, 2019 by itschelseajune Categories: UncategorizedTags: 3D modelling, 3d scanning, autodesk, CAD, cgi, experiment, mmu, modeling, photo, print city, ReCap, scanning Leave a comment

The Black King

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( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

December 5, 2018March 24, 2019 by itschelseajune Categories: Industrial Digital TechnologiesTags: 3d, 3D modelling, 3d printing, additive manufacturing, autodesk, black king, cgi, chess, chess piece, design, digitisation, experiment, fusion 360, industrial, king, mmu, prototype, surreal Leave a comment

The Evidence

Fusion 360 has been a new experience in general as my experience with 3D modelling software has previously been centred around programs dealing with polygonal modelling; models designed for a virtual environment rather than a physical one.

 

Test Print Analysis

I created 2 test prints; the first (white) printed cleanly with some sharpness around the edges while the locking pins became loose and I pushed the offset of the ‘eye’ slots inwards rather than outwards. For the second print (green), I edited most features in small ways that resulted in major developments regarding the final print. This green model was, for the most part, intended to be faulty. This is so I could quickly test extremes practically rather than trying to anticipate results.

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Fusion sketch lid

Fusion model lid

Physical print lid

Physical print base

The figures above illustrate how I set the pin offsets on the lid to varying degrees:

(top left –  0.09mm) (top right – 0.06mm) (bottom left – 0.08mm) (bottom right – 0.1mm)

From the physical print, we can see the only pin to remain intact was the 0.1mm pin. the others were too tight and snapped off while trying to separate the two halves. As originally stated in my first print experiment, the 0.1mm is the best option for the final print.

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The ‘eye’ offset for the first print were set in the wrong direction and upon trying to fix this I ran into some extrusion errors as this part of the sketch was also used as a projection guide for the back stacking indents. The green print allowed me to see that the offset only calculated the ‘x’ (across) axis but not the ‘y’ (vertical); the dimensions in relation to the sketch were not properly defined resulting in fusion having trouble calculating the new measurements. The eyepieces are the correct width but are too long to fit. Given the errors occurring with the main body sketch, I realised I could simply modify the pieces themselves without causing further problems as seen below.

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My next step is to print this fixed model and assess how these changes have affected their function.

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The final print turned out to be the highest quality print in terms of aesthetic and feeling when handled. However, the thicker filament made the locking pin adjustments redundant and the pin access ports fit but remain very tight. Given time to make further adjustments, I would increase the width of the top pin access ports and decrease the diameter of the locking pins. I would also like to overhaul the design into something far more intricate now I am familiar with design strategies in Fusion given the option.

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~ (▀̿Ĺ̯▀̿ ̿)

November 8, 2018March 24, 2019 by itschelseajune Categories: #3, CAD Modelling and Product DesignTags: 2018, 3d, 3d printing, additive manufacturing, arduino, autodesk, design, digitalisation, enclosure, experiment, fusion, fusion 360, industrial, mmu, print city, prototype, robot, uno Leave a comment

Arduino Uno Test Print

 

The first test of this Arduino enclosure printed evenly and only requires minor cleanup around the edges. However, there are some major issues that require modification; most notably the ‘eye sockets’ printed too small – this way my error as I hadn’t released the offset was +00.1 instead of subtracting it. The two eyepieces themselves are usable but require smoothing out. They fit very tightly into the back face cutouts which will also require modification.

This modified shape widens the stacking space. Cleaning the support material from the back vent was quite difficult and still looks slightly messy so I have also reduced the vent hole amount but widened the diameter from 4mm to 6mm while also removing the inverted extrusion to remove the need for extra support material.

As for functionality, the box’s holding pins slot perfectly flush to the base but after repeated use they have become loose and risks the box coming open upon being picked up. To remedy, I have reduced the offset of the pin extrusions from 00.2mm to 00.1mm. This may still run the risk of coming loose over time so I will look into alternative methods of clipping the box together.

(ง’̀-‘́)ง

November 4, 2018March 24, 2019 by itschelseajune Categories: #2, CAD Modelling and Product Design, fusion 360Tags: 3d, 3d printing, additive manufacturing, arduino, autodesk, design, digitalisation, experiment, FDM, fusion 360, industrial, mmu, print city, prototype Leave a comment

Arduino Uno Enclosure Design

This assignment objective is to create an enclosure for an Arduino Uno that is safe for children to use in education.

 

As this is my first major opportunity to experiment with Fusion 360 I planned to keep the design simple, to begin with so it could be built upon and improved as I became more confident with the software. To begin the build, I followed this tutorial by BinarySchool to first understand the basics of creating a sealable enclosure. Even following it closely I would mess up a lot with the first template Arduino Uno as the model imported slightly too big. Instead, I used the drawn schematic measurements of the Arduino to place the locking pins (found here).   Having to properly constrain the pin locations is the part that I finally got my head around how constraints affect the construction and ability to make modifications.

 

 

My first few ideas kept the overall shape as a simple single feature with stacking extrusions. The sketches above are quick design ideas – 2D drawing allows me to work out the physical possibilities of how to build a design and troubleshoot it before translating it to 3D. The two ports on top seemed to hinder the freedom I had to design because if the walls are too thick then the ports would be unreachable. With the holes on top taking up so much room I figured I could incorporate them into the design somehow. Children respond well to faces and I thought it would be quite fitting to sculpt the design into a little friendly robot face. This seems like a marketable choice as it opens the demographic to older children too. The inner mouth was originally a solid plane but suggestions from my peers said to get rid of it to allow ventilation and the ability to see into the box. another suggestion was to make the ‘eye’ pieces thick enough to grab as it would be difficult considering it is a friction slotted component. I projected them onto the back face, offset by 1mm and extruded inwards to allow stacking and allowed an opportunity for more ventilation holes.

 

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♪~ ᕕ(ᐛ)ᕗ

October 21, 2018March 24, 2019 by itschelseajune Categories: #2, CAD Modelling and Product Design, fusion 360Tags: 3d, additive manufacturing, arduino, autodesk, design, enclosure, fusion 360, mmu, print city, robot, uno Leave a comment

Legacy Hex

This assignment was to build a ‘legacy hex’ as an introduction to Print City’s Industrial Digitalisation. The hex must immortalise the name, the year beginning the study and must represent an aspect of the individual’s personality.

My hex is designed in homage to the Castlevania series. Using the original logo in Adobe Illustrator and the pen tool, I created my name in the same typeface and imported it into Fusion 360. Illustrator allows SVG export allowing intricate designs to be created for print. I see many ways to utilise this and am excited to use illustrator and fusion together for future projects. I was particularly excited to mix current skills with new software to create something fun that presents a part of what inspires me creatively.

Original logo reference image > http://logos.wikia.com/wiki/Castlevania

October 13, 2018March 24, 2019 by itschelseajune Categories: fusion 360Tags: 2018, 360, 3d, autodesk, castlevania, digitalisation, fusion, fusion 360, gif, industrial, ma, mmu Leave a comment