So in the fourth week we got introduced to the additive manufacturing technique which is also known as 3D printing. 3D printing is a mehtod of production by adding layers on top of layers of the material to form in the end the three dimensional product. It is very much used nowadays for prototyping as it saves a lot of money and time. Very complex shapes can be produced by additive manufacturing and also with various sizes.
The 3D printer is a simple machine with simple components. I will explain the main parts of a typical 3D printer.
The frame of the printer is where the plate which on top of the layers is to be put. The frame also supports the motors which move the nozzle in three dimensions.
The nozzle is the device, with a small diameter size, from which the molten material comes out. The nozzle size defines the layers size that form the product, the bigger the nozzle opening, the bigger the layer formed.
The 3d printing material comes in a wire shape and rolled on rolls. There are many types of material used for 3d Printing like PLA, ABS, Wax, Nylon etc. We will be mainly using PLA and ABS in the lab. The main difference is that PLA is softer than ABS, ABS is tougher. So we use PLA for soft products which doesn't require a lot of strength and ABS for the tough products.
Now that we are familiar with the machine, how do we 3d print some product? which steps should one follow to reach to a final 3d printed product?
--> First of all, you begin with a 3D design. We went previously earlier through how to make a design. For more detail check CAD design.
Here is the design that i used for printing:
--> Now we need to export that 3d design file into an STL file and send it to the slicer, Ultimaker Cura. Ultimaker Cura is a slicer; a software that turns a 3d model into slices or layers. The output of the Ultimaker Cura is a g-code file, which is a 3D printer readable file.
To export your model into an STL file: --> go to the body you want to print from the parts list on the left --> right clock on the body --> choose save as stl file --> and then save it .
Now your model will open in Cura to check the printing parameters.
Here is how my model would look like when I open it in Cura:
Now that we have the file in Cura, we have to prepare it to print; exporting the STL file into the g-code.
There are many parameters to be chenged, here are the most important ones with the recomended values for them.
Having all the parameters configured, now you save the file as g-code which then you need to take on an SD card to the 3D printer.
Here is also an example of the g-code that was generated for my pipe clamp model:
Now the final step, the printer itself, but first make sure you choose the right printer with the right nozzle size.
Here are some photos of the process of printing.
There was a small problem that i faced with the priting, that is, one of the four parts(cylinders) of the base was not attached to the first layer, in other words it was loose. So I couldn't continue the print, I had to stop it usting the abort comaand from the printer menu.
The problem was that the radius of the cylinder, or the point of contact between the first layer and the rest of the body, was too small or was just a line which couldn't stick to the layer. We discussed the matter and concluded that the problem might be caused by either high speed or maybe the small size of the layer. I changed the speed first, but I still had the same problem, so now it was time to change the layer size. We did that by enabling the Raft comaand, which made the contact area between the first layer and the cylinder a bit bigger.
Before:
After: