Process Part III

For the bottom,- this was tricky one-, I had to sketch circles on the exact scales so that later it's extruded cylinders can hold Arduino which have holes.

Exporting Designs

First, I saved as .stl or .obj which are formats for exported design by right clicking each body of designs.

Then, imported the design datas into Tinkerine Suite in which I'll use to slice the designs and add more details for 3D printing.

Finally, saved the designs that have been imported and sliced with details such as thickness of the wall, speed of printing, percentage of infill, temperature, and etc. I used a sim card to save the data and place into the Tinkerine 3D printer.

The menu I used was only ... it also shows percentage of completion, temperature, elapsed hours, and remained hours

The First Design

Design

Made bolts and nuts to make the bottom and top case stable together.

Printing Designs

Bolts and nuts did not fit together as well as with the case.

The bottom of the product was lifted.

The Second Design

Design

The top has two snaps on both sides instead of using bolts and nuts which are tricky to make them fit together. Snaps are designed to fit into a hole in the bottom case as it is shown below.

Bottom case was lifted again.

The excluded cylinders for holding Arduino Circuit were too big to fit in.

Snap joints are not available with the filament I use for 3D printing since the filament is not flexible and the snap joint parts on the top case were broken when I tried to bend it.

Front of top and bottom case.

The hole for the temperature sensor wire fits well.

The LED screen's wide fits well in this case but the length is too long to fit in; so I had to adjust the size.

I could've made the square hole smaller to expose the switch and the cylinder holders that are inside as well.

This printed sample has brim around the product's bottom line. It prevents the products from being lifted.

There is a dense brim around this sample product.

Through the printing app 'Thinkerine', I had to increase 'Brim Line Count' to a maximum of 20 so that I can prevent my product from being lifted up during the printing procedure.

As you can see, before I knew there was an option for a brim, my product only used one brim line which is around the actual product; it can barely support the bottom of products while they were printed.

Printing Designs

Main problems:

Snap joints are not available with the filament I use for 3D printing since the filament is not flexible and the snap joint parts were broken when I tried to bend it.
When the bottom case was printed, it was lifted like the first designed case. I found out that I had to increase brim lines that support the bottom of the printed product as shown above.

Thinking Processes

With the printed case, I tried to use magnet sheets to close the case as assuming I'll make a hinged case. Then, the magnetic sheets were not strong enough to hold the top and bottom case . So, I had to come up with another idea. I saw the latch of the storage of the car inside and I searched up a hinged case with a latch. Based on the design on the website called Thinkiverse.com, I started to the third design.

The Third Design

Design

This case design has a hinge and latch to close and open easily rather than using bolts and nuts.

Website/video I used as a reference to make a hinge: https://youtu.be/gzF2QgMh6nw

Overall Design

Problems during the processes:

The opened case design did not fit in the 3D printer. So I had to make this slightly closed to fit in the 3D printer's size.
Latch's parts on the top and bottom case did not fit together since the filament is not flexible. I made a curve on the side so that they can go through well.

Top _ right section

Bottom _ right section

Top

The pin and hinge are attached to the top case.

Bottom

As leaving a space between each part of hinges, it will allow the pin rotate inside of the hinge. The case can be opened and rotated as hinge acts as a fixed point.

Printing Designs

I made sure there were supports for inside and exterior of the products when it was printed out. 20 counts of brim lines and 8% of support infill were planned. The support type was line so that it would be removed easily.

This is how looks like when I import the design in the Thinkerine program for 3D printing.

There are brims that are extra layers on the bottom to prevent the product's bottom from being lifted up during printing progress.

Because I printed the top slightly open, the top case's bottom line is not even.

The design was supposed to break only a support line inside the hinge to make the only pin remain. However, all the hinge was broken when I tried to rotate the case to close it because the pin was very small like the support line.

I decided to sand it down and attach a metal hinge.

The holes of the Arduino board did not fit well to the holders on the bottom of the case. So, I had to sand it down with a knife.

I also made the snap joint thinner by sanding down the snaps so that it can easily open and close.

Mr. Harmon helped me to sand the printed hinge down and put metal hinge.

I glued the switch and LCD screen so that they won't come out later.

I had to cut one of holder on the bottom of the case to make the bolt and circuit fit.

I found out that my circuit does not work and had to fix connection and place another battery.

Since I decided not to make the whole thing fit onto the faucet in case when it could be exposed to water, I remained the temperature sensor's wire longer so that it can measure liquid temperature from distance.

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