Plan

I really did not have a plan for this project. I chose my design by scrolling through thingiverse.com looking for designs I thought were cool. My two favorites ended up being a small lizard and a rolling knot. I ultimately decided on the rolling knot because I saw someone else doing a lizard and wanted to add something unique to the toy vending machine (little did I know that someone had also chosen the rolling knot).  The link for the stl file from thingiverse.com is attached below.

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:5873800/files

Process

I began by downloading the stl file onto the computer near the 3D printer at the ODEK. Then, I uploaded it onto 3DprintOS. I measured the capsule and determined a 30 mm long knot could fit into the capsule so, I scaled the piece down to be 30 mm in the z-direction. I then pushed the optimal orientation button and made sure the print was on the bed. I saved and spliced the file. I made sure that the settings were set to the recommended values and then I printed the file.  I only printed three knots using the original prusa printer because I planned to print the other two using the form labs printer. However, the formlabs printer was in high demand so I ended up printing a 4th knot using the prusa printer and leaving only one to be printed on the formlabs one. The first three knots were printed in around 5 hours. I then began the tedious process of removing all the supports. I removed all the supports using flush cutters and the sonic saber. The before and after of the support removal is pictured below.

To print the knot using the formlabs printer I collaborated with three other people to print all of our pieces in the same print. This made it take longer to finish my last object, but it was ultimately more efficient. The print failed because the bed wasn’t completely clean. I then reprinted the pieces with a different person. It failed again. Luckily Danny helped me use the Prusa SPEED resin printer. This involved using the Prusa speed application to create the supports. Then I downloaded that to a thumb drive and printed the piece. After it was finished I washed the object using the PRUSA CWIS washer. Then I took off the supports. The final object pictured with and without the support is below.

The final product in the capsule is shown below:

Reflection

Removing the support was my favorite part of this project. This is partly because the sonic saber was super fun to use.  I would love to learn more about the technology behind it because it worked so well. Removing support in general was kind of therapeutic.

I think if I had more time to play around with the print setting I would have tried to orient the piece in different ways to see if I could make the file print faster and have more easily removable supports. I also wish I had made the object slightly larger.

It was overall an interesting project and I was lucky enough to have no big problems.