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.
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Design Before Eleven 