Nice meeting Sam Cervantes, CEO of solidoodle - the low cost 3D printer which although it’s not the best model, has the best price and does enough to be useful… defo my choice
One for @bartv and the @shapeways team - new prototypes, more wine, learning the lessons of articulation, 0.2mm tolerances and materials
a whole load of typographic 3D printed cufflinks - finally put the vid on tumblr
Spore prototypes arrive: 2 piece interlocking design (thanks @shapeways)
The Spore is my first experiment with interlocked printed components. It’s a 12 point hollowed-out conical star inside a 2mm thick spherical shell with 24 holes cut in it. It was a material test as much as anything - I wanted to get a feel for alumide, transparent plastic and sandstone.
As you can see, it’s worked out quite well. The really interesting thing is how sturdy and usable the sandstone is (the white one) and how good the definition of the alumide is (the grey one).
The next step is working out how to link them so I can 3D print a whole necklace… stay tuned ;)
Day #4 - why prototyping is important
The process of working up these coat hangers has illustrated an interesting issue for 3D prototyping - making practical choices about the design process based on real world issues. The logo idea ‘up’ for example, doesn’t work unless the hole in the ‘p’ (or the ‘counter-space’ as it’s called in typography) has a support - like you used to see in old cut out Letraset templates. So that means re-working the logo to match the contraints (which mean about 2mm is the smallest support you can print reliably). It also means fixing small supports to be between 2-5mm to give them a chance of being robust, this also affects the overall dimensions for creating 3D type etc.
I’ve gone for a 15mm thickness for the coat hanger frame - with a 45mm width across the whole hanger so it’s wide enough to fill everything. It might be too big and hefty in reality, but that’s why real world testing is so important.
Images will post later once I’ve sent them off for printing…
Unique Platstique is the work of designer and tech geek Andrew Walker as he tries to get into 3D printing products. I'm interested in creating typographic art, jewellery... the sky's the limit. This is my product development blog. You can buy my stuff here at our new 