HI! This week our homework was to explore different methods of 3D printing. We got to experiment with different types of printers and, in my case, different objects.

As most of my projects have been, this one too was going to be puppy themed. Originally, I found a really cute 3D jointed puppy:

This design was really cute and indeed impossible… at least on a small scale. The supports needed were a little crazy for someone new to 3D printing.

When submitting the files to the SLA printer with the suggested settings, there wasn’t extremely high hopes because the joints would likely fuse together. As expected, this happened, and the legs also broke off while removing the part from the plate as well. Multiple times.

still a cutie

When first printing on the Bambu Carbon printer, this dog came out perfectly – when tried on a larger scale. He was really really cute and all of his joints worked perfectly!

When trying to print smaller versions on the Prusa’s that would fit in the gumball capsule, the tiny legs proved to be extremely difficult and ended with a graveyard of tiny pups… So in order to 1- save time and 2- save material, I decided to be done playing around with this pup for now and switched to a design I knew would be easy to implement on the printers. The new pup was flat, wouldn’t require crazy supports, and only bent minimally so seemed like a safe bet while still being impossible. I would like to go back and play with my last design, but on my own time and materials instead of taking time away from students also trying to get their assignments done.

The new design:

This pup was super quick and easy to print. I wish I would have printed him just a tiny bit smaller to better fit in the gumball capsules, but he still printed well and worked especially on the Prusa printers. The Bambu printers also did mostly a good job, but I found that with them he flexes better one way than the other due to the base of the print. I did make sure to print him tinier for the SLA printer knowing he may not flex enough to be curled into the capsule ( and I also printed two of him knowing he may break being so small … and he did).

Again, I think this project definitely ignited some excitement surrounding 3D printing and I can’t wait to play with more designs in the future!

The cost analysis for my pups are as follows:

Cost Analysis for 3D Printed Pups
Material	Cost	Amount	Quantity Needed	Total Cost
Resin	$20	1kg	60 g	$1.20
PLA	$12	1kg	20 g	$0.24
Facilities	$250	31 Days	8 hrs	$2.69
Protoyping Engineer	$38	1 hr	.5 hr	$19
3D Printing Tech	$21	1 hr	2 hrs	$42
Quality Control	$41	1 hr	.5 hr*	$21
			Total	$85.63
* indicates estimate of amount based on only successful prints