I really wanted to test myself into printing as many different things as possible in order to generate a large pool of knowledge of which prints would fit together better.

Choosing my Designs

I chose my designs to be things I would enjoy looking at the most because I’m so excited to take these to my desk at work. We have printers at my work, but I am very strict on myself to not make personal items on the work printer. Therefore, the Octopus, Lizard, Monkey, Chain mail, and Truck were all things I could display and enjoy. I asked my work to use the SLA printer due to the high amount of traffic that the ones in the lab would use. Additionally, I thought it would be worth to use because of the fact it would be the most practical use out of my resources on a daily basis to get more familiar. I believe what I would gain most from this assignment would be the tolerance handling of the parts and really getting to know the environment the parts needed.

I have set the two printers I worked with were Voron printers. Here are the approximate sizes based on the size that would best fit the bubble given to us. I tried to keep at about 65%

Octopus 65%

Lizard 65%

Monkey 60% (Because of the tail)

(This is my only failure; the articulating joints were too thin and snapped while printing. Post processing was unsuccessful.)

Chainmail Approximately 60%

Truck Approximately 70% ( File was already very small)

These were running at the same time, and I was able to create an effective workflow of finding the part, creating the file with scaled dimensions to fit the printing table with the PrusaSlicer software using the tool pictured below.

Additionally, I printed all my parts with no supports in order to make printing easier. I set the frame of the FDM Printers to have their door open to allow as much cooling as possible in order to get the strongest parts possible due to the reduced layer count of the joints because of the reduction in scale.

The Formlabs printer I used to utilize an SLA style printing made my final part duplicate, the octopus named Gary. I used no supports in the print in order to above the downtime of printing the supports, clipping, and curing of material that I would most likely not even use. I set the percentage scale the same as the FDM print, 65%.  Here is the Formlabs software I used to print this. I used Clear v4 Resin with curing and 90% Isopropyl Alcohol wash. Finally, I researched the environment needed for the SLA printer and the toxins emitted from the device are carcinogenic, so the workplace has now invested in a fume extractor.

Wash

Curing

Final Products!

One of his legs (Gary the octopus) is broken because of trying to get the little guy off the build plate with a scraper ):

Cost Breakdown

5 Prints

(PLA) One red spool from Microcenter $14.69

FormLabs Clear Resin (Base cost) $149

5 Hours of labor 5 X $15 $75

Total Cost with raw materials if I wanted to keep all the materials.

$238.69

 

Thoughts:

I got to improve my knowledge over the environment needed for these machines and really learned a lot from the training that the OEDK gives on trouble shooting. Despite not making multiple of the same part I was able to try many different prints and figure out many different methods to print shapes I otherwise would not have tried. I think I was able to vastly improve my skills on figuring out why failures happen and apply them to workplace and personal projects!