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)

The assignment idea is to design and fabricate a pen & pencil holder by using Fusion 360 and print it using the 3D Printer. I do use my pencil a lot during making a new project so I needed a stand that hold it perpendicular to the tabletop for easy access and also to have a unique design that reflects the look & feel of the projects we do.

So my idea is to make a holder base that looks like the electronic circuit breadboard with two positive and negative banana jacks (which is the pen and pencil).

My inspiration came from the breadboard and banana jacks.

My idea is to have a pen & pencil holder with the following features:

To hold one pen and one pencil stands still on the tabletop & does not fall with little vibrations.
A slot that holds the pen tight and also to be removable.
A place (area) to add some electronic components for storage or for demo.
A small place to store tiny screws and tiny electronic components during project makeing.

As we learned from the first week, I have started to sketch my idea using pen and Paper:

Getting the accurate exact measurements from the real breadboard and banana plug.

Tool Chain

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

Then I used Autodesk Fusion 360 to sketch the design and assemble the parts.

Used Ultimaker Cura as a software to prepare the STL files to generate gcode files for the 3D printer.

The Prusa i3 mk3 3D Printer to print the parts.

The material will be PLA. White, Red & Black.

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?

1- After getting the measurements from the sketch drown on paper.

2- I started to design the sketches of each part on Fusion, did a fully qualified design.

3- Then I did extrude shapes, used subtraction on some parts and used revolve for the jacks. Also added some user features (fillet).

4- Used the pattern feature to repeat the small square holes.

5- Added text to the design and did extrude and subtraction.

6- Added joints to the jacks and it's place in the holder to assemble the parts and make sure it fits well.

7- Exported the bodies to STL files to be prepared on Ultimaker Cura software and get the Gcode to be sent for printing.

Pencil Holder v14.mp4.mp4

On Ultimaker Cura,

1- I did opened the two STL files on one project

2- Adjusted the parts position & orientation for the best printing position. Moved the parts out of the center to avoid the machines bed plate screws.

3- Duplicated the Jack part and positioned it.

4- Adjusted the printing parameters to be 0.3 layer hight and 30% infill with no support and only skirt for adhesion.

5- Adjusted the temperature to 215 degree as advised by the PLA material sticker.

6- Sliced the project and previewed the layers to make sure everything is ok also make sure the time and grams meets the task limitation.

7- Saved the project, and saved the gcode file to be ready for the lab fabrication visit.

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 went to the lab, did make sure that everything is ok on Ultimaker Cura. Saved separate gcode files one for the holder base and one for the jack (cause I needed to print each piece in different filament color). and started the following process:

1- Transferred the gcode files to the machine SD card and inserted it to the Prusa mk2 3D printer.

2- Power on the machine and started the pre-heat for PLA.

3- Choose the first file (red jack) and started the print.

4- Unloaded the filament, prepared the other color (cut the end with a plier), and loaded the new filament.

5- Waited till the color is clear and clicked yes.

6- Choose the same file (Black Jack) and started the print.

7- Did the same for the base and started the final print.

8- After the print is done, I did turned-off the machine and cleaned the place.

3D Print is done.

IMG_0245.MOV

I did start to clean the parts from any extra fine PLA threads

I did start to color the parts using metallic color markers.

I add some of the electronic components to the breadboard and stored some in the drawer. Hope you like it.

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?

File -> 3d Print (Fusion 360)

I did ask my Instructor (Eng. Amany) about how to shell the sweep feature and she showed me the issue was my spline was too narrow in curves.

I did helped my colleague Ayman who didn't find the export as STL option on Fusion and told him to go to File -> 3D Print -> choose the body and chose STL and save the file.

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?

I did design the pen holder at first to be full area using the breadboard design and after I did export the files to STLs and opened Cura found that the design need more than 90 min to be printed and adjusting the layer height or infill didn't compensate the time difference also I could not adjust the scale as it will mess with the pen dimensions.

So I got an idea to get back to Fusion and design a drawer or a container to help reduce the material and reduce the travel time of the machine so it will reduce the entire print time and it worked perfectly.

Also it added a cool feature to my design.

On the side are two images of the first design without a drawer and the final design with drawer.

Final Project

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

An idea of a henge driven by servo motor.

I have learned some skills in designing 3D objects using Fusion 360 Software and that will help build henges for my 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?

I have learned to design 3D objects on CAD software. Thanks to the Maker Diploma team.

Also the pattern feature in Fusion 360 is an amazing tool.

I have learned that at that scale and using 0.3 layer height it is difficult for the machine to get accurate text.

As you can see on the left side image the "M" letter is not complete and there is a missing apostrophe after the first letter "I".

Same for the poping out text or the engraving in.

I need to widen the small holes of the breadboard as it was not even in the hole size and some of it was even nearly closed. I used a tool to open it up to accommodate the components.

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.

Found this amazing easy-to-make educational kit for kids.

https://cults3d.com/en/3d-model/tool/custom-learning-circuits

Assignment Design Files

Pen-Holder.f3d

Holder .stl

Banana Jack .stl

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