3D Printing

3D printing is one of the most accessible making processes out there. Although Lasercutting is my preferred method, ever since I got myself a Prusa, the sheer accesibility and ability to play with 3D modelling and printing is unparalleled.

Characterization

I downloaded a selection of stls from the FabAcademy page and prinnted them out on the Prusa.

The 5 primary properties I tested were

1. Bridging

Upto 20 mm ling bridges are printing perfectly fine.

1. Unsupported angle Unsupported angles all the way down to 10 degrees look fine, while thumbrules say not too go beyond 45 degrees. I am very pleased to find this out, I will now print a lot more unsupported structures.

2. Unsupported Cantilever Unsupported cantilevers don't do that well, showing hanging strings from 2 mm onwards.

3. Printing widths All negatives upto 0.1 mm print fine. Positives of 0.1 mm are lost but 0.2 mm and upwards are fine.

4. Clearances for in-place printing

Still printing.

Weekly Assignment

I love Math Art and Complex Geometry. It is one of the reasons I got into Coding as well.

I am making 2 models for this assignment.

The first is a fractal Menger Sponge, that I have coded in Processing.

The second is a modular interpenetrating surface that I am modelling in Fusion initially to understand it better, but I hope to move this to grasshopper for better control of the parameters.

A third non-subtractive application is 3D printed chain-mail, which I have modelled here in Fusion and printed out.