Blog 4 (practical 5)

Here we go, journey of practical 5 and to me it seems the hardest and has the highest weightage across all practical.😰

Through CA1 and week 5's lesson, I learnt to use Autodesk Fusion 360 and tbh, ITS KINDA COMPLICATED u see.😥 Just doing a photo frame and key ring took me so many tries and I hope for this practical where we have to make an egg holder for the quail egg drop challenge wont fail(or I hope plspls god pls send some help🙇🙏). But itsokay even if it fails, I can learn my mistake. 

To start off, I'm partnering with En Ting who is also from my group for this practical. We started brainstorming with a few ideas.

1. EggMcFly (sound abit like MCD)
   
2. Egg Baldaquino

   

   
   
3. Egg Heli

   

But we decided to settle on this design instead which is called “Egg Drop”.

This inspiration comes from a styrofoam box. The concept is when a fragile item is placed inside snugly, it will not move to prevent the item from breaking and holding its impact.

This is the case of the box 

Here is the connector piece

Team allocation:

1 case with JC initial + 1 connector done by Jasmine

1 case with ET initial + 1 connector done by En Ting

We have equal parts as 2 parts as both cases are unique as they have our initials.

Scope for this blog:

1. Step by step guide for the CASE

2. Step by step guide for the CONNECTOR PIECE

3. Converting to STL file

4. Preparing file for printing (slicing and preparing Gcode)

5. Preparing the printer (loading filament, turning on printer, settings, etc)

6. Shut down of printer

7. Hero shot + video of the case drop without the quail egg

8. Loading of quail egg + video of the drop with the quail egg

Part 1: Step by step guide for the CASE

Step 1: Create sketch and a rectangle of 65 x 75mm

• Click on "create" and in the drop down box, select "create sketch" and select one of the plane. (as shown in the photo below)

• Click on "create", "rectangle" and select "2 point rectangle" and input 65mm x 75mm

Step 2: Extrude the rectangle by 34mm

• Click on "finish sketch", "create" and select "extrude". Input 34mm for the thickness.

Step 3: Finding the middle point

• Click on the top plane and press "create sketch". 
• Click on "create" and select "line". On the sketch palette on the right, change to "construction" 
• Draw from the middle of the top to the bottom and from left to right (you will see a triangle when it is in the middle). Click on "create" and select "point" and mark it in the centre.

Step 4: Adding in the basic dimensions of the egg

• Click on "create" and select "line" and make sure it's in construction mode. 
• Starting from the midpoint, drag towards the right and input 12.5mm and repeat on the left.
• Starting from the midpoint, drag upwards input 17.5mm and repeat at the bottom.

Step 5: Creating the egg shape

• Click on "construction" to undo the construction feature
• Click on "create", "arc" then "centre point arc"
• Click on the centre first, then mouse over on the left and type 18.5mm and drag it to the right side

• Click on "create", "arc" then "centre point arc"
• Click on the right dot, then left dot and slide up(following the photo below). Input 30 for the angle.
• Repeat for the other side

• Click on "create", "arc" and "3 point arc"
• Select the point accordingly to the photo.
• note that the 3rd point do not need to be of certain height but has to be in the centre
• Click on "constraints" and "tangent". Select the blue line and the one with the 30° angle

Step 6: Creating the hollow part of the egg

• Click on "finish sketch" then "construct" and select "offset plane" in the dropdown toolbox.
• Select the top layer and input a value of -14mm

• Click on "create sketch" and select the offset plane(seen below)
• Click on "create", "point" and select the centre point
• Note: to change orientation, just select cube on the top right corner and move. To return to default position, just press the house.

• Click on "finish sketch", "create" and "loft" and select the egg and the point on the offset

• At the toolbox on the right, move your cursor to sharp and press the drop down and change to "point tangent" then select OK

Step 7: Edges

• Click on one of the 8 edges in blue shown below and right click and select "chamfer"
• Click on the 7 other shown below and select and input a value of 5mm

Step 8: Creating holes for attachments

• Click on "create" then "create sketch" and press on the side of the walls (left or right)
• Select "line". On the sketch palette on the right, change to "construction" 
• Draw from the middle of the top to the bottom and from left to right (you will see a triangle when it is in the middle). 

• Deselect the construction feature
• Click on "create" and "point" and click on the intersection point
• Click on "create", "circle" and select "center diameter circle" and input a value of 3mm

• Click on "finish sketch"
• Click on "create" and "hole" then select the circle
• Input diameter of 3mm and depth of 10mm. (Settings are shown in the picture below)

• Repeat on the other side of the box

Step 9: Engraving name(optional)

• Click on bottom on the top right hand to change the orientation
• Click on "create sketch" and click the bottom plane
• Click on "create" and "text" and drag from the top left end to the bottom right end
• Key in your initials and follow the settings on the diagram below.

• Click on "finish sketch" and click on "create" and select "extrude" and click on the name and input -2mm

TADDDAAAA one side of the body is done.

This is the back view:

This is the front view:

Part 2: step by step guide for the CONNECTOR

Step 1: Create sketch and the base

• Click on "create" and "create sketch" and select a plane
• Click on "create" and "line" and input a value of 29mm

• Select line and make a line of 10mm on both ends

• Select modify and press "fillet" and input 1mm on both sides

Step 2: making the attachment

• Click on "finish sketch" 
• Click "create" then "pipe" and input diameter of 3mm 

Now its time to translate the finished design to a STL (standard tessalation language) file.

Part 3: Converting the design to STL file

1. Click on body on the left drop down menu
2.  Right click on "Body 1" and "save as mesh"
3. Click on "format" on the right tool box and click on "STL"
4. Click OK and save it in a desired place

Now its ready for printing. Let's head over to the 3D printing area.

Part 4: Preparing file for printing (slicing)

1. Download Ultimaker Cura on your laptop
2. In Cura, select the printer then click on "non networked printer" and select the printer to be used. (in W3, the printer available are "Creality Ender 3" and "ultimaker s3")
3.  Click on the  to select the STL file to be used. 
4. Input the infill density, speed and support(if needed)
   
• For our casing, the infill density is 10% and tri hexagonal infill, speed is 100mm/s. Support of triangles at 45° are used to prevent air printing and can be removed when done.
• For our connector, infill density is 20%, speed at 100mm/s. No support needed.
5. Click on "slice" at the bottom right to convert it into a Gcode file for the 3D printer to read
6. Insert the SD card in using USB adapter and "save in removable disk" at the bottom right.
7. Now, insert the SD card to the SD card slot on the 3D printer

Part 5: Preparing the printer.

Step 1: Preparing the filament

1. To prepare the printer for operation, first get a filament from the dry box. (take note: Ultimaker uses the 2.85mm filament while Creality Ender 3 uses 1.75mm filament)

2. Insert the filament into the heater and turn on all the printer (at the back) 

3.Press either one of the button in front of the heater (green arrow shown below) and the temperature will rise to about 55℃. 

• Loop the filament through the hole with the arrow pointing towards it. 

Note: when inserting the filament into the heater box, make sure the filament is in counterclockwise direction so it will not pull on the filament when in use

Step 2: Increasing nozzle temperature for filament loading

• After 30-60 min of the filament in the heater to remove moisture.
• At the front bottom right, there is a screen and a knob, turn clockwise and anticlockwise to navigate and press on it to select. Select "control", "temperature" and then set the "nozzle temperature" to 200℃ 

Step 3: loading the filament

1. Using a brush, brush off the bed surface to make sure there are no residue. (careful of the nozzle as it is at a very high temperature) 

2. After the nozzle has reached 200℃, cut off the part of the filament outside the heater and cut it slanted for easy insertion of filament.  


3. Straighten about 5 cm of the filament to allow easy insertion. 

Note: Do not straighten it too hard as you might bend it. 

4. Insert it through the hole by pressing the lever until there is filament coming out and make sure it is the colour of the filament you are using as it might be from previous print.

this it the lever

this is the hole to insert the filament inStep 4: Printing

1. Select "print" at the home page and select your STL file and start printing. 

It will take around 30s -1 min for the printer to register the gcode. 

Note: if the printed sample is not sticking to the bed properly, increase the bed temperature at "tune".

Here is a time lapse taken during printing

2. To remove, you can use a scraper to lift off the bottom and push it out. Note: Do not touch the golden layer with your hands. If it was done so, use alcohol swab and dab it to remove the oils on our hands.

Here's our finished product. 

The durian liked shape are support which can be removed afterwards.

Part 6: Shut down of printer

• After finishing, reheat the nozzle back to 200℃.
• On the screen, click on "prepare", "move" and "extruder" and input a value of -50
• From behind, press the lever and retract back the filament and place it back to the dry box and off the machine switch and main power supply.

Part 7: Hero shot with video 

Hero shot

Drop test without the quail egg

Overall it was a success as the box did not fall apart during the drop and everything was still intact however, we reprinted as there were come crack in our box.

NOW,  its time to load the egg and see if the case protected the egg.

 Part 7: Loading of the quail egg🥚

1. Hold one side of the case and place the quail egg in the seat
2. Cover with the other side of the case
3. Secure by inserting the connecting piece into the holes on each side

Loading of the egg can be seen in the two videos below.

Drop with first print with infill density of 10% and triangles infill.

Drop with second print with infill density of 10% with trihexagonal infill.

As seen in the video, the egg was raw and the design we created did not work and did not successfully protect the egg. 😢HOWEVER, fret not, it's okay to fail, its the process and the skills gained that are important. We are EGGCELLENT🥚

Reflection

Through this egg drop challenge, at first I thought it was going to be so tough but however after hovering and pressing ctrl z so many times, we manage to figure out our way through visio and managed to complete it within 2-3 hours. The hardest part was to make the hollow part of an egg and we spent more than 1 hour figuring it out.

It was my first time using 3D printer and woah its so cool and I really love the lesson so much. For our case, it went really well on the first try. During one of the lessons, we learnt about air printing and how to avoid it and hence we decided to flip the product over and add support for the hollow part to store the egg. However for our connector, it failed as we added brim. Here's a photo of our failed attempt.

Looks like spaghetti. 

We retried and made it without the support. As our initial design was rounded like a pipe, this didn't really turned out as planned. Overall, I would like to give myself a pat on the back.