My impossible object is a gyroscopic keychain ring. It is impossible because it was printed all at once with no assembly required, has moving parts, and I do not believe any other methods apart from 3d printing could have been used to make it.
But….it didn’t start out this way. In fact, I initially wanted to make this:
Beautiful right? It reminded me of this:
This is an Onam Pookalam, or a flower rangoli, that my community makes for a religious, traditional celebration that we have every year.
But when it printed out on the FDM printer, the details were lost due to it being too small, and scaling it up enough that the details would be better visible would mean that it would be too big for the container.
I went back on thingiverse to find something articulated to work with and printed this out.
It was magnificent, but the raft was difficult to take off and I damaged quite a few of the functional parts while taking it off. I reprinted with a brim, and even tried without any support, and both of those parts failed. Additionally, at this size it was too big to fit in the container. If I couldn’t successfully remove the supports on the bigger model, there was no way I could remove them on the smaller model.
Again, I went back on thingiverse looking for something that I could print and found this:
Perfect. Something for me to fiddle with when I’m overrun with anxiety.
I downloaded this stl file into 3D printer OS.
Hit Layout, On Bed, and Center, and saw that the proportions of the file would fit within the provided container, so I didn’t have to scale it down. Yay!
Then, I sliced it with the following settings.
Then, I printed several ones out on the FDM printer. Check these out!
Success! Each print took 4ish hours, so they definitely took some time.
Moving onto the SLA printer, I set it up according to the instructions, set up a support for it on the system, printed it, then washed it, then cured it. And I ended up with this:
Failure. All the rings had fused together, and I wanted to try again, but the lab assistants stated that the rings were likely to fuse together again regardless of setting changes. So this is a fail. It also weighs a ton.
What I would have done differently? I would have picked an object that could have been easily printed on both the FDM and SLA printers. I also should have considered scaling the parts I currently have a bit more, because I think they would have still retained functionality and would have taken less time to print.
Financial Model
- PLA cost added from 3D Printer OS: $5.45
- Resin cost: I saw online that resin price is almost the same as PLA cost so for my print it would be $.58
- Labor – 5 hrs at $7.50 = $37.5
- FDM and SLA printers free from OEDK
- Total: $43.53
BIG TAKEAWAY: I AM BUYING A 3D PRINTER! I HAVE TO!
