Hey guys, welcome to 3D printing week! I’ve been looking forward to this project all semester, since I’ve only 3D printed once before this and have minimal experience with different techniques. I ended up printing some pretty cute (if I do say so myself) birds that have movable wings and feet. Let’s get into the process!

First, I went on thingiverse.com and looked up movable objects, since we needed to print an impossible object. I stumbled upon this adorable bird and couldn’t resist not printing it, so this is what I stuck with for my five prints.

For my first iteration, I chose to do an FDM print on the Bambu printer since this is what I’m most familiar with. The only thing that I changed in the Bambu slicer settings was to make the inner wall speed 250 mm/s instead of the original 300 mm/s in an attempt to strengthen the internal joints that move the wings and feet. Luckily for me, the original sizing of the bird was small enough to fit into the gumball capsule, so I didn’t need to change any of the dimensions. On thingiverse, all of the “makes” of the bird advised not to add any supports when using an FDM, so I opted out of using any supports. The print only took about 45 minutes, and when it came out, it worked perfectly. So perfectly that I played with it too much and somewhat broke the legs on it, but its wings still work. And so I printed out three more with the exact same settings as before (and tried not to mess with the legs on the rest of them as much). I also noticed that the material was not solid black, it had some specks, which Pablo later informed me was because the PLA I used is reinforced with carbon fiber — neat!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Next, it was time to use the SLA Formlabs printer. This was also a simple process; I imported the stl file into PreForm, added supports this time (as recommended by the software), and pressed print. This one took a bit longer, about 2 hours, but came out just as I had hoped. I was a little nervous that the wing and leg movements wouldn’t turn out as well, but was proven wrong. After carefully taking the supports off, I put the bird into the wash for 20 minutes and then into the UV cure for another 20 minutes. Even after curing, the wings and legs still move pretty smoothly, which I was really happy about.

Overall, I had a really fun time making these birds. One thing I would change for next time would be slowing down the entire build for the FDM print. In the interest of time, I left most of the settings the same, but the legs on the bird are pretty fragile and easy to break. I imagine that slowing down the entire print would make my birds stronger.

COST ANALYSIS:

Cost Type	Cost	Price	Source	Quantity	Total
Materials	Black PLA + CF	$39.99/kg	Dynamism	50 g (estimate)	$1.99
	Resin	$199/1 L =  $199/1000g	Formlabs	12.5 g (estimate)	$2.49
Labor	3D Printing Technician	$21/hour	Salary.com	0.5 hour (slicing, adding supports, etc)	$10.50
	Prototyping Engineer (You!)	$38/hour	ZipRecruiter	⅙ hour (selecting 3D model, checking size in SolidWorks)	$6.33
Overhead	Facility Cost (Machine Time)	$50/year	UltiMaker	300 minutes (180 total for FDM, 120 for SLA)	$0.03
	Quality Control	$41/hour	ZipRecruiter	1/20 hour	$2.05
Design	Engineering and Development	$48/hour	ZipRecruiter	Included in 3D printer, prototype engineer	$0
	Iterations	Negligible	Negligible	Negligible	Negligible
Misc.	Waste and Scrap	Negligible	Negligible	Negligible	Negligible

 

TOTAL: $23.39