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)

My assignment's idea for this week is to design and fabricate a pen and pencil holder using Fusion 360 and a3D printer.

Because I am a mechatronics engineer, I inspired the design from the compact double-acting pneumatic cylinder. I tried to make my design compact with many housing for pens, some as holes and others as columns. In the middle of the design, there is a big container for the big pens and other small tools ( such as eraser, ..).

Tool Chain

Which software/machines/materials did you use in the assignment? Why?

Softwares

CAD Software: Fusion 360 is a cloud-based 3D modeling, CAD, CAM, and PCB software platform for product design and manufacturing. It is used to convert the sketch to a 3 D CAD model. And Also, it has been used to export the STL file of the holder for the 3D printer. I prefer to use Cura because Fusion 360 unifies design, engineering, electronics, and manufacturing into a single software platform.

For more features, you can find them in this short video.

3D printing Software: Cura is used to perform slicing of the pen holder for 3D printers. I prefer to use Cura because it is Powerful, easy-to-use 3D printing software and compatible with Prusa i3 MK2 3D Printer.

Machine

3D printer: Prusa i3 MK2 3D Printer by MAKE

More details please back to week1

Materials: ESUN PLA

The Filament features :

- Printing Temperature: 190-220℃

- Density: 1.43g/cm³

- Melt Flow Index: 2.5 (190°C/2.16kg) g/10min

- Tensile Strength: 58MPa

- Elongation at Break: 300%

- Flexural Strength: 75MPa

- Flexural Modulus: 4000MPa

- Heat Deflection Temperature: 67 (°C, 0.45MPa)

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?

Design Process

Fusion 360 is used for designing the phone holder. The design steps are as the following:

1- Create Sketch 1 for the part base as shown in figure 1, the base it forms from polygon and 3 circular holes, that are created using the circular pattern.

2- After finishing the sketch of the base, I made extrude it with a 10 mm distance.

3- To craft the main pens container, I create a sketch on the base and drew a circle with a 50mm diameter at the center, with a height of around 50 mm, I made an offset plant to create the second sketch, where I drew a polygon with 6 edges. Finally, I made a loft for these two sketches to form the main container as shown in figures.

4- I made a shell for the main container in step 3 with a thickness of 2mm.

5- I created a new sketch on the base to drew 3 slots with two arcs and circles, and after that, I made extruded for them in cut direction as shown on the figures, the main purpose of making these slots to minimize the materials will be used in 3 D printing.

6 - To create the three outer columns, I created a new sketch on the base and drew a small polygon. And by using the circular pattern, the other two polygons have been created. After that, I made extruded for the three polygons with a height of 30 mm as shown in figures.

7- I made a shell for the three outer columns in step 3 with a thickness of 1mm.

8- In the final step, I made a combination for all parts to be one body. By right-clicking on the body and selecting appearance, from the appearance menu, the model has been customized using the appearance features: plastic material with yellow Color as shown in figures.

9- As an extra step, I bring a pen model from the Autodesk website, then I am created many copies of them. After that, by using the joint feature and attaching them to the pen holder as shown in figure.

3D Printing

Cura has been used to perform slicing of the pen holder for 3D printers. The process steps are as the following:

1- After I exported the STL file from fusion 36o, the generated STL file has been imported to Ultimaker Cura.

2- The position of the parts & orientation has been adjusted to select the best position for printing. The side face of the object was the best position to print the full part correctly, as shown in the figures.

3- the 3D printing parameters have been set to be 0.2 layer height and 10% infill with support and adhesion as shown in figures.

4- The object has been sliced, where the estimated time is 1 hour and 29 minutes, and the estimated weight is 10 grams with 3.25 m from the PLA filament. the estimated time and weight meet the assignment limitation ( ie. 30 grams or up to 90 minutes).

5. The sliced object has been previewed layer by layer to ensure that the part is ready for printing.

6- The G-code file has been exported to be transferred to the printer SD card in the lab.

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?

3D Printing

In the lab, the final sliced design of the holder on Ultimaker Cura has been verified by the lab specialist. Based on the lab specialist, the orientation of the design has been changed from the side to the base of the holder. This change in the position and the orientation of the design has been led to one of the three outer columns was not being completed printing ( the problem which I solved before), but I accepted this. And this is because I want to minimize the no of used grams as much as I can. This change minimizes the grams from 10 grams (if printed on the side ) to 8 grams when printed from the base. After the G code has been transferred from my laptop to the printer SD card.

The column problem

Implementation process

The fabrication process steps are as the following:

1- The SD card has been inserted into the Prusa mk2 3D printer.

2- The holder g code file has been selected and the printing process has been started.

3- I used the red filament which was already attached to the machine to print the holder

4- I am waited until the printer prints the first 5 layers to ensure that the printing process goes well.

5- I waited till the printer finish the printing of the holder, which was around 1 hour and 11 mins.

6- After the part has been printed, I turned off the printer and cleaned the workplace.

7- Finally, I remove any extra materials, and the pen holder now is ready to use.

The fabrication process steps

The final pen holder

print pen v3.mp4

The fabrication process video

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 have learned from the instructors in the Saturday session how to Personalize any figure such as LEGO Minifigure and give it a 3d part in Fusion 360, as shown in figures.

Also, we discussed the fabrication methods of the LEGO Minifigure, we concluded in two methods:

1: First method: by drawing the figure on fusion as a sketch and extruding it, after that, I should print it on a 3D printer with 2 filaments with different colors to figure out the part of the figure. This is because we want to convert the figure from just photo to part and generated the STL of this part, and after this object will slice by Cura, after that will convert to g code, the langue which the printer understand because the printer can not be working with the photos

2: The second method is to cut it as a sticker using Vinyl machine and attached it to the part after 3d printing.

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?

The challenge

After importing the STL file of the assignment design to Cura and making the slicing for the 3D printer. One of the three outer columns in the design was not complete as shown in figures.

Title of Media

The solution

After searching and watching many tutorials, and back to the videos of week 1 which related to the 3d printing, I found that the problem happened because of the orientation of the part, and after I changed the face which align to the building plate from the base to the side, the problem solved as shown in the figures.

Title of Media

Final Project

How can you use the skills and knowledge that you've acquired this week in your final project?

3D parts in Fusion 360

I have learned how to use Fusion 360 Software to design the objects in 3d space with exact dimensions and assemble them. Also, I learned how to export STL files for 3d printing. These skills are necessary for my final project, where there are many 3d parts in the body of the project, and these parts will be fabricated on the 3d printer.

In the final project, there is a 3D part for a pen holder, so I think this week assignment is good practice to design this part in my final project.

Pen holder part from final project

WOW!

What is the coolest thing that you've learned this week? What is something that you will never forget from this week?

The Wow and amazing thing in this week, I explored that I can use fusion 360 to make slicing application for 3D printers as a Cure, I made slicing for this week assignment using fusion 360 as shown in the figures. It is really nice feature.

If you want to learn how to do this, you can watch this short video

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.

On the Saturday session, I was enjoyed with the activity of the LEGO Minifigure. I learned more tips and tricks from my group members and instructors to finish the Model the Head and Torso of the LEGO Minifigure. It was tricky, especially the Torso part. I am sure that what I learned during this activity will help me a lot in my final project, which has many 3d parts.

Assignment Design Files

3D Printing [.STL]

3D Printing [3mf]

Design [.f3d]

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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)

Tool Chain

Which software/machines/materials did you use in the assignment? Why?

Softwares

3D printing Software: Cura is used to perform slicing of the pen holder for 3D printers. I prefer to use Cura because it is Powerful, easy-to-use 3D printing software and compatible with Prusa i3 MK2 3D Printer.

Machine

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?

Design Process

3D Printing

Cura has been used to perform slicing of the pen holder for 3D printers. The process steps are as the following:

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?

3D Printing

Implementation process

The fabrication process steps are as the following:

1- The SD card has been inserted into the Prusa mk2 3D printer.

2- The holder g code file has been selected and the printing process has been started.

3- I used the red filament which was already attached to the machine to print the holder

4- I am waited until the printer prints the first 5 layers to ensure that the printing process goes well.

5- I waited till the printer finish the printing of the holder, which was around 1 hour and 11 mins.

6- After the part has been printed, I turned off the printer and cleaned the workplace.

7- Finally, I remove any extra materials, and the pen holder now is ready to use.

The fabrication process steps

The fabrication process video

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?

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?

Final Project

How can you use the skills and knowledge that you've acquired this week in your final project?

WOW!

What is the coolest thing that you've learned this week? What is something that you will never forget from this week?

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.

Assignment Design Files