Week 3 - Journal
Ideation
Tell us about your assignment's idea for this week. Why do you care about this idea? What inspired you? (Please include images or links to sources of inspiration)
I was thinking about pen and pencil holder that can hold pens with stability and gives the mobility option to the user. Besides, I decided to add a 'handle' to the holder for user comfort as if the holder seems like a 'mug'
I used Google for inspiration, and I decided to combine the features of the two designs I found here and here, and to add some modifications (The handle).
Rectangular cross-sectional pen and pencil holder
Circular pattern-theme pen and pencil holder
Design Concept for the pen and pencil holder with the final appearance
Tool Chain
Which software/machines/materials did you use in the assignment? Why?
I used Fusion 360 to design sketches of the holder. Typical used features are:
Revolve
Extrude-Cut
Sweep
Combine (for the generated bodies)
Fusion 360 Interface
Then, I used Ultimaker Cura for slicing the generated 3D holder designed by Fusion 360
Ultimaker_Cura-4.13.0 Interface
A software used for slicing 3D objects and export them to G-code file suitable for 3D printers
Finally, I used the 3D printer to implement the printing process using PLA material (filament)
PRUSA i3 MK2 3D Printer @ODC
PLA filament for 3D Printing
Design/Preparation Process
Explain the design and/or preparation process of your assignment. How did you use the tool or software to design and/or prepare your assignment before fabrication/implementation?
The first step is to do a fully defined sketch in XZ plane. This is the main sketch, by revolving it, the cylindrical shape is formed.
Holder main sketch
Then, the sketch was revolved around Z axis with 360 degrees.
Sketch revolving
Afterwards, a circular pattern of 9 mm. holes were sketched on the top surface of the recently generated cylindrical part.
A circular pattern of 9 mm. holes on the top surface of the cylindrical part
For generating holes where pens and pencils shall be put in, I used 'Extrude-Cut' to create holes with an extrude length less than the total length of the part (30 mm. only); thus, pens are held while moving the holder around.
Extrude-Cut of the top holes
To make the best user-experience of the holder, a handle was added to the holder to enable mobility of the holder.
Creating such handle took many steps as follows:
1- Creating a construction plane with a '30 mm' offset form YZ plane to draw handle sketches.
The new created sketch is tangent to the circumference of the holder.
offset construction plane for handle sketching
2- I sketched two ellipses on the offset construction plane. The two ellipses were identical, equally apart, and they represent the cross section of the handle.
Ellipses' sketching
3- The handle is to be executed with sweep feature, so a path must be present to finalize the part.
I activated 3D sketching of lines and splines from preferences to freely sketch the spline and to adjust it in the space with the right orientation.
Spline sketching
4- The handle was generated by 'Sweeping' the upper side ellipse through the spline path.
Handle sweep
5- The two bodies (handle and cylindrical part) were combined to become a single body using 'Combine' feature.
Body combine
6- After combining the bodies in a single body, the appearance of the holder was updated as follows:
Plastic: ABS (white)
Appearance Material
7- Finally, the holder (the combined part) was saved as a mesh with an (.stl binary) extension that is suitable for slicing by Ultimaker Cura for 3D printing parameters preparation.
Development/Implementation Process
Explain the development/implementation process of your assignment. How did you use the machine/tool to manufacture or implement the design of your assignment?
I used Ultimaker Cura to slice the exported (.stl) file and the parameters for the 3D printing process are as follows:
Layer height: 0.3 mm (Extra fast)
In fill rate: 10%
No support or adhesion
No Brim needed
Orientation: The part was put down on the virtual bed plate (in Ultimaker Cura) with 0 dimension in the Z axis, and it was moved in the right direction to avoid printing in the middle of bed.
Filament Temperature: 215 C
Build Plate Temperature: 70 C
Build Plate Adhesion: Skirt
Scale: XYZ : 45 x 45 x 35 mm.
Total number of layers: 117
Printing time: 1 hour 26 minutes
Amount of consumed material: 20 g.
Holder slicing in Ultimaker Cura
holder slicing-(no. of layers-time-material consumed)
slicing at layer no. 60 to show internal cross section
slicing at layer no. 20 to show the bottom side of the holder
After saving the file in '3mf' format after adjusting all printing parameters, it was saved in 'G-code' format which is compatible with the 3D printer.
G-code file has the full description with all needed parameters : New Pen and pencil holder_0.3 mm._10 Infill-grey PLA_20 gm_ 1 hour 26 min
The G-code file was copied to the SD card of the printer with all parameters set ( Layer height-Infill rate-Filament and Bed Temperatures).
The filament was loaded and the printer started to calibrate the base bed surface after reaching the target temperatures.
The entire process from turning the printer on till the final object printing can viewed through the following series of videos:
😃
Pen and Pencil holder finally printed!
Community of Learning
Did you ask for feedback? What are the ideas that others have contributed or suggested? What was someone else’s idea that you built upon? How did you help your peers? How did your peers help you?
I had a question if I can measure dimensions on sliced design on Cura to know the exact dimensions of some features like internal holes after scaling down or up. I had a fruitful discussion with Michael via Slack, and he advised that we can't measure on Cura, but I can manage dimensions with the suitable and right scale in Fusion 360 before slicing. Fortunately, the model of the mobile holder was printed successfully and did its proposed job! 😃
Pen and Pencil holder in action with a ✌️ sign 😃
Overcoming Challenges
When you got stuck, what/who did you turn to? At what point did you have to pause to research or learn more before moving on? What are some mistakes, pitfalls, or challenges that others can avoid if they were doing this assignment?
During my design process of the pen and pencil holder, I wanted to use 'sweep' feature to create a handle of the holder, but I was confused how to execute it while receiving several error messages! I joined the second optional support session, and I was advised by 'Ahmed Khaled' or Mego 😃 to make sweep 'perpendicular' to the section desired to be swept rather than 'Parallel' and it worked nicely!
Handle sweep technique
Final Project
How can you use the skills and knowledge that you've acquired this week in your final project?
I have learnt from video tutorials how to show the section analysis of the created 3D design in Fusion 360, and it's really helpful to check the assembly and design status of my final project hardware design before fabrication and correct errors if any without wasting material.
Section Analysis in Fusion 360
WOW!
What is the coolest thing that you've learned this week? What is something that you will never forget from this week?
One of the coolest exercises was to learn how to create a 3D parts using extrude and revolve features. Besides, the appearance features really take the design to the next level and it really looked great!
It was really nice to learn how to create a chamfered and revolved body through drawing a chamfered sketch from the beginning of the design.
Weekly Digest [OPTIONAL]
Tell us about any other cool things that you've made this week: in the Hands-on activity, tutorial examples, exercises, or any other cool mini-project that you tried out aside from the assignment.
Title of Media