Blog entry 4

💥 Practical 5 💥

The software my group used for this project is Fusion 360.

Firstly, I will be describing how I am able to completely set up the printer as well as how to prepare the file for a proper print.

How to prepare a file and change to gcode format to  💭😵

Click on the file icon on top left, then click Export.

This window will pop up, click the arrow downwards under Type and scroll down to select the STL. file format. Then click Export. You are now able to save a file in STL. format on Fusion 360 

You can find your saved file in the Fusion360 folder on File Manager on your computer.

To change this STL. file into Gcode format, Do install the slicer software(Cura) for 3D printing first. Once you have installed the software, you can see that the icon of the STL. file on the left of its name has that icon, which is the icon of the slicer software. Open the software.

Click on the arrow down on top left, on the right of the File icon to add printer.

This window will pop up, then click on the Add a non-networked printer and find the brand and the model of your 3D printer, click Add. A lot of information will be presented after clicking Add, but I will just ignore it.

Once the printer has been added, click on the File icon on the top left, and select your STL. file.

Once you click on the your own file, a model like this will appear, then click you can click slice and save it in a Removable Disk(thumbdrive). To change the infill density and other settings, click on the top right of the same bar. 

When you click on save on the Removable disk, it will automatically save the file into gcode, and the model is ready to be printed.

Set up of the 3D printer for printing 👀

Turn on the main power switch.

Grab a suitable filament(1.75mm PLA) from the dry box and place in the heater box(right picture). To turn on the heater, press one of the two buttons below the screen once power supply is turned on. Ensure the heater is set to 55°C. To change the set temperature, hold one of the buttons for at least 3 seconds, then the right button input will increase the temperature whereas the left button input will decrease the temperature. 

Before placing the filament into the heater box, ensure that the tip of the filament is sharp. Once the tip has been cut to sharpen the tip, insert the filament into the heater box, and then insert the tip onto the top hole of the heater box as shown in the right picture.

After the filament is ready, turn on the 3D printer by flipping the switch at the back as seen in the left picture. Then set the nozzle temperature to 200°C. At the bottom of the screen on the printer, the left value in °C represents the nozzle temperature whereas the one directly on the right represents the bed temperature.

As seen in the top left picture, insert the sharp tip filament into the hole. There will be a lever, as seen in the top right picture that will be able to open the 2 gears that would be blocking the filament from entering the printer. A clearer picture of the where the hole is as well as the 2 gears can be seen in the bottom picture.

The reason why the tip has to be pointy is so that the filament can enter with ease. In addition, before actually inserting the filament, we need to straighten at least 8-10cm from the filament tip which can help ease the insertion of the filament.

Keep pushing in the filament until you can see filament coming out of the nozzle(that is if the nozzle is set at 200°C). Keep pushing until all residue from the previous user is pushed out and you can see the same color of the filament you inserted.

The printer is now ready to start printing!

To actually start printing 😆

Use the SD card that you previously saved the gcode file in, and insert it into the slot as shown above.

Select print and select your file and you can start printing your 3D model!

To remove print from the 3D printer safely 😬

Unfortunately, I do not have pictures to illustrate how we can remove the print but I will describe it in point form. 😥

• Wait until print is done
• Wait until the temperature of the nozzle has dropped to at least 30°C. By this time, the print would've cooled down as well. 
• Grab a PLASTIC scrapper nearby the printer and you can scrap off the print from the cooled bed.
• Alternatively, you can also grab a pair of tweezers and pick up the print once it has cooled down. 
• The cooling down process is important because you wouldn't want to damage your print while removing the print. This is because when it is hot, the print is still soft thus even slight force applied to it can cause deformation of the print.
• In addition to the reason above, it is also for the safety of our hands. If the nozzle and bed is still hot, we might accidentally touch it while attempting to remove the soft print, which could cause injury(minor burns) on our hands.
• For the Creality Ender 6, I feel that removing the print is cooler and more convenient than the others. This is due to the bed having 2 layers, the solid bed below followed by a thin magnetic layer on top. To remove the print, of course after it has cooled down, we can simply remove the clips at the side and bend the magnetic layer, which will actually remove the print from that layer.

To shutdown 😎

Unfortunately, I also do not have pictures to illustrate the shutdown, but I will describe it in point form. 

😥

• Set the nozzle temperature to 200°C, then pull the lever at the back and start pulling the filament out once nozzle is at 200°C. 
• Let the nozzle cool(cooling is also a function on the 3D printer!)
• Turn off the 3D printer using the switch at the back.
• Open the heater box and remove the filament from it.
• Place the filament back into the dry box.
• Turn off the main power supply(same picture as the first picture in start up)
• Perform housecleaning at the printer as well as the lab.

Now, I will be showing you my final design of my product, the Tesseract!

Firstly, the outer hollow cube, done by Hong Yi

Next, the egg holder(body, cover and staples to join them together), done by Hong Yi

Lastly, Chains and Chain connecting points, done by Hariz. Putting all the designs together, we get:

This is the parts and design in Fusion 360.

After Hong Yi and I have printed out all our necessary parts, I assembled it together, creating this:

THE DROP!! 😱😱

Sadly, the egg cracked, which you can barely see at the end of the video. 😭😭

Well, there were a couple of mistakes that we made that caused the egg to crack. I would say that there are 4 problems that led to this outcome in my opinion. The first problem is that we overestimated the size of the quail egg. The egg we used was a lot smaller than the capacity in the egg holder box. This lead to the egg cracking due to the inertia exerted onto the egg. The second problem is actually the cover. The staple connecting the cover and the egg holder was already very loose when we decided to do the egg drop. Thus when the Tesseract landed, the cover actually fell out, causing the egg to fall out of the egg holder. However, we soon realized that the egg cracking was only because of the inertia, thus the egg actually survived when it flew out of the casing. The third problem is actually the chains. I feel that the top chain link was too short, thus the chain is actually quite weak which caused it to snap after the drop. I feel that it requires more chains for the whole chain to be stronger, but not too many. Thus, the outer cube has to be made larger to accommodate more chains. Last problem was actually me not being careful and gentle with our prints. When I wanted to detach the top and bottom part of the outer cube, I applied to much pressure onto the legs, resulting in the protrusions to snap and fall out. This resulted in the protrusion being much shorter and the tightness reduced severely. Moreover, before our drop, while I was assembling the chains, I also accidentally snapped off one 2 legs connecting to the top square face. Hence we had to resort to gluing the whole outer cube together, which definitely affected its integrity significantly.

As a whole, this practical has been extremely fruitful to me as I have really enjoyed the entire process from start to finish. I have to admit though, I thought that this entire practical will be boring and will be extremely draggy. However, as I went through the entire process, I felt very proud and that this whole process was really fun! This whole experience will forever be memorable to me

You have come to the end of my blog, thank you for reading all the way!! 😁