This week, we are 3D-printing! This was the section that I was most excited about in the class, especially since I’ve only had exposure to FDM printers and only used PLA for printing previously. I was excited to learn more about different types of printer and actually get a hand at trying it! I thought that this would be a really simple assignment, but it unfortunately was not.
My chosen design for the assignment was an impossible infinity cube. I liked the geometric design of it, and figured I could get a really good print out of it.
Thingiverse Infinity Cube
I did a test print, as Dr. Wettergreen suggested, to see if the design was actually feasible and if it printed correctly. Here’s the normal version of the print:
Test print (normal size)
It printed pretty well! Some of the detail didn’t show due to the smaller size, but it was pretty solid and didn’t take too long to print as well. There was also very minimal support to remove, which cut down on post-processing. With that in mind, I decided to start 3D-printing a scaled up version of it. Because the print was so simple, I figured I could print several at a time to knock this assignment out. That wasn’t the best idea – somehow the raft for one of the prints got removed from the plate, so the extruder was printing into air. I ended up canceling the whole print to prevent filament from being wasted and to make sure I didn’t end up with a huge mess. I ended up with one good print from this try.
Messed up print because the raft of one lifted from the plate
While this was printing, I decided to get a head start on my printing and try out a second print method. I settled on the resin printer since it produced a really sleek final product (based on Kaira’s prints). I wanted to make sure that this printer would work with the cube, so I printed the smaller version of the design. It worked for the most part, but collapsed at the end:
Collapsed resin print
After discussion with Dr. Wettergreen, I decided to try again but scaled up. This time, I did the scaled up version (about 1.6 inches in height), and it turned out great! After printing, washing, and curing, the final product looks like this:
Completed resin print with supports still attached
I loved the finish of this, and really enjoyed learning about a new technique. However, for the sake of time, I decided I would have 1 resin, and the rest would be FDM printed by the Prusa. This didn’t go quite to plan.
For my FDM prints, I tried printing the cube again, this time one at a time. For some reason, each time I tried, the print failed (I tried 3 different times on different machines). Once, the beams of the cube just broke off. Twice, the raft lifted up from the build-plate and moved around (even after changing and cleaning the plate). It was weird that this was happening, especially considering my successful print previously, and the successful prints other students were able to get.
Messed up print because the raft of one lifted from the plate
Fernando suggested using the Ultimaker for my prints instead, since the prints usually stick pretty well to the buildplate. In a way this was good, because I was able to try out a new 3D-printing method, but it was frustrating the my prints were not working on the FDM printers. There were some initial issues with the Ultimaker (the filament was not feeding in correctly) that a lab tech helped me figure out. After that though, the print turned out great.
Overall, I made 1 print with the FDM Prusa printer, 2 with the Resin, and 2 with the Ultimaker:
Resin prints, Prusa print, and Ultimaker prints (in order)
The biggest thing I learned is that things in 3D-printing can fail for a bunch of reasons, from broken filament to incorrect temperature to too many things on the bed. Figuring out what and how to fix it was the biggest challenge.
Cost breakdown:
- Prusa = 0.01+0.1+0.1 = $0.21
- Failed FDM prints = 0.29+0.14+0.17+0.06+0.03 = $0.69
- Resin print = $0.75 (at $50/kg)
- Ultimaker = 0.1 + 0.1 = $0.2
- Labor = 10 hours * $7/hour = $70
Total = $71.85
