3D Printing

3D printing is a type of rapid prototyping technology. It uses materials such as metal and plastic and prints the product layer by layer. 3D printing is very suitable to print objects that could not be easily made subtractively. 

By the end of this exercise, I should be able to:

• Design an object on Fusion 360 that use for 3D printing. 
• Use the Cura slicer software to convert the stl. file to gcode that are ready to 3D print.
• Operated the FFF/FDM 3D printer safely and smoothly.
• Understand the requirements for 3D printing such as support and overhang limit.
• Print out the product using the 3D printer.

Procedure for this exercise:

1. Design a penholder using Fusion 360.
2. Convert the stl. file to gcode in Cura.
3. 3D print the penholder.

Design using Fusion 360

After I searched on the internet, I decided to 3D print a penholder. Before I sketch it in Fusion 360. I sketched it on the paper with the parameters labeled. This will ease my work on Fusion 360.

Sketches of the front view and side view with pen

Sketches of different parts with parameters labeled

I applied the parametric design when I sketch this penholder using Fusion 360. The first step I do is define the different parameters.

The next step is to make a cone shape with a small circle on top and a big circle on the bottom. This can be achieved by sketching the circles on two planes where the distance between two circles is the height of the penholder   Use the parameters that I defined at the start for the circle diameter and height. 

To make these two circles join together to become a cone, I use the loft under the create section. It creates a transitional shape between two planes. Which gives exactly what I want.

Now I have the shape of the penholder, the next step is to create the curve at the top that can hold the pen horizontally.  This can be done by extruding. To do this, I need to sketch an arc line at the top of the cone.

For the depth of the arc, I used the defined parameter 10mm. Then just use the extrude to cut away this section.

The next step is to drill a hole for the penholder, this can be also done by extruding. So I sketch a circle on the top of the penholder and define the diameter.

Select the hole and extrude downward, the depth of the hole is also already defined at the start.

However, To make this product non-subtractive. I did a hollow-out design at the bottom of the penholder. This requires me to download a sketch add-in tool for Fusion 360. I choose to use the Voronoi Sketch Generator to help me make this.

The link for this app is :

https://apps.autodesk.com/FUSION/en/Detail/Index?id=1006119760063675415

After downloading the Voronoi Sketch Generator. Select it from the create section and decide the plane, width, and height.

On the setting page, choose the most favorable design and click Publish to Fusion 360.

It creates a sketch on the chosen plane.  To make the hollow-out effect, just extrude it.

The design is non-subtractive as it is very difficult to make a hollow-out base using the traditional way which is mainly cutting. It will take a lot of time to cut all the holes. While with 3D printing, it prints the material layer by layer. Hence, This hollow-out design is easily made.

Final Product View in Fusion 360

CURA

Cura is a slicer software to convert the stl. file into layer and determine the print characteristic of each layer the convert it to gcode which is the printer can understand.

To prepare for the 3D printing. The penholder I design in the Fusion 360 must transfer to the Cura for the preview and convert to gcode for printing. The first thing to do is export the stl. file from the Fusion 360.

Open this stl. file using the Cura.

In the red circle part, choose the material and the nozzle size of the 3D printer. In the green box part, I can change the quality of the printing, infill percentage, support, and adhesion. For my penholder, I put standard quality, infill 20%, and no support and adhesion. 

Support is needed when the design needs to print the overhangs.it can be removed after printing. Adhesion is often used when the product is round in shape which is not able to stand firmly on the printing bed. My product did not require these.

Before converting to gcode, Click slice to preview the estimated printing time. Ensure that the time is around an hour as we are giving 1 hour printing time.

Insert the disk into the computer. Press Save to Disk to save the gcode to the disk. At this step, the product is ready for print.

3D Printer Machine Operation

1. Insert the disk store the gcode into the printer.
2. Select the correct gcode that shows on the LED screen of the printer.
3. Ensure that the X, Y position is at 0.
4. Ensure the Z position is at 25.
5. Preheat the nozzle
6. When the temperature reaches 100 degrees celsius press print.
7. After the printing is done, wait for the temperature of the bed to cool down below 40 degrees celsius.
8. remove the product from the printing bed.

Final Product Display

Reflection

In this 3D printing exercise, I did the whole process of 3D printing from the design to the product printed. I did some researches on the internet and sketch the draft work on the paper. With the help of the draft work, I sketch my product which is a penholder using the Fusion 360. The exercise is required me to make a non-subtractive product thus this must be achieved in Fusion 360. After I did my sketches on Fusion 360. I export it as a stl. file and opeh n it with the Cura slicer software. In Cura, I can change the setting of printing and preview the printing time. Then I can convert everything to gcode and proceed to operate the printing machine. The exercise is examined my CAD skills and my 3D printing skills such as how the use the Cura slicer and operate the 3D printing machine.

This exercise is very important as 3D printing is becoming more and more popular. As a student studying chemical engineering. 3D printing can help me to make my chemical product simply and quickly. Compare to laser cutting, 3D printing is able to make a product that is not easily cut. 3D printing is a layer built-up which can print the non-subtractive product smoothly. This makes 3D printing very interesting. For our end-semester project, the CO detector. We will use 3D printing to print the casing for the detector. Since we want the casing can assemble without glue or nail. 3D printing the casing is the best option.

At first, I thought that 3D printing is a very advanced technology and is very hard to operate. After the tutorial lesson and doing the exercise, I found that 3D printing is not hard at all. With good CAD skills, I can print out all my idea designs. In the future, I will use what learned in this exercise to develop my final year project.