Week 3: 3D Printer

For this assignment we were to model and 3d print something that could act as a joint for several 20mm wooden rods. As with the other assignments I used rhino to make the model and because of the size of it used the Lulzbot Taz printer to print it.

Step 1: Modelling

I went through several different ideas that were more like a component of a table, desk, or something but ended up wanting it to be able to self-stand. Since I went with hexagons in the laser cutting project I went with a pentagonal shape this time. I played around with the sub-d pipe and multipipe functions for a while before I got the hang of it. Originally the pentagon was a closed shape and the legs sticking off of it were connected but I soon realized that it was easier to work with the sub-d tools by disconnected them, building the pipes, then using the bridge function to connect it all together. I felt that at this point the model was a bit too symmetrical, so I decided to make it a bit more organic, dragging the corners around to make them a bit more uneven, and then added some extra pipes in the middle to fill that all that empty space. I did make sure that the rod guides would stay untouched though, so that I could print a second copy and make it into a complete structure. They were all made with the assumption that the rods would be 20cm long but since the holes don't actually reach all the way to the original corners of the triangles, they actually needed to be slightly shorter, around 17-18cm.

Step 2: Print/Assembly

Since it was a bit rushed the picture quality isn't great but the rods did fit well. I realized when trying to assemble the second part on the top though I did not account for the fact that it would be quite tough since the radius of the poles at the tip is slightly larger than the radius of the bottom of the holes (or about 1-2cm down the tip of the pole), meaning that it required a lot of very slightly adjustments for the two to finally connect. It resulted in 2 slight cracks in the printed portion but at least it didn't snap off completely.