Category Archives: Design
Shapeways’ Friday Finds: 3D Design Showcase
Looking for some impressive examples of 3D printing? Check out Shapeways’ Friday Finds, a curated collection of designs from the Shapeways community. Above picture is a Seed of Yggdrasil by by Joabalwin, inspired by a Celtic knot.
Thirty Interweaved Hexagons by fdecomite
Pixel Charcters by fpad77
More on the Shapeways blog.
Ponoko Team Demos Autodesk 123D and 3D Printing Made To Order
Yesterday, we attended a Ponoko webinar with community manager Christina Westbrook. Christina likes to make things and shared her passion for personal fabrication with us. Last year, Ponoko announced a partnership with Autodesk to host 123D in their Personal Factory App Gateway. In this webinar, Christina was showing us how to use 123D and Ponoko to make interesting products.
First Christina showed us some examples of what you can do with 3D design software and 3D printing. These ranged from jewelry to lamps to custom iPhone cases.
Below is an example product Christina made: a case for a Square card reader. This product costs about $10 in materials and she sells it for $18 on Shapeways.
This product was made out of durable plastic, but a variety of materials are available, including gold plating and stainless steel.
Durable plastic is cheap at $1.70 / cubic cm, and can be printed as thin as 1mm. You can purchase samples or make your own prototypes to test out different materials. http://www.ponoko.com/make-
How did she get the exact dimensions for a Square reader? She suggested either buying a digital caliper or taking a photo of a source object and measure digitally. We asked if you can import a photo into 123D in order to trace the dimensions. That might be on the roadmap, but isn’t ready today.
Autodesk 123D
In the webinar, Christina gave us a detailed walkthrough of 123D from Autodesk. 123D is free 3D modeling software that lets you create complex 3D designs. The exported files can be uploaded to Ponoko or other sites to be 3D printed.
What can you design? As Christina said, “Something simple can be made into an awesome gift.” Over the course of the 15 minutes, Christina designed a ring with an extruded heart shape.
Here are some screenshots of her design:
Expert 3D design tips:
- Adhere to the minimum thickness for your target material. When designing a product in 3D software, keep in mind the minimum wall thickness. If your design is too thin, your product may not survive shipping. For durable plastic, the minimum thickness is 1mm; for stainless steel, it’s 3mm.
- Color can be added to projects. This can be done in the design software or later with dye.
- If you do sell your 3D printed products, don’t forget to account for the extra time it takes you to finalize a product in the price. Some designers like to dye their products after they are printed to give them that extra polished feel.
- When shapes in a design overlap, combine areas and make the intersection hollow. This will save on cost.
- Clean up edges so your customer doesn’t get scratched by your product.
What’s coming down the road?
Christina wouldn’t divulge specifics from the roadmap, but it sounds like Maker Faire on May 19-20 will be a big event with more exciting announcements to come.
Thanks to Christina and the whole Ponoko team for hosting this informative webinar!
Demonstrating the Versatility and Variety of 3D Printing [Video]
We know that 3D printing can be used to manufacture a variety of different goods, but until now we have not seen the range of items that can be born out of a single printer.
In the video below, Objet’s Sam Green showcases his collection of favorite 3D printed objects. These include:
- Single material printing of complex finished assemblies
- Multi-material 3D printing
- Combinations of rigid materials for art pieces and product design
- Combinations of rigid and rubber-like materials for household tools
- ABS grade engineering plastic for performance
I personally like the intricately designed snake skeleton and gear designs. Since the objects are printed fully assembled, there are no seams or joins but still very complex moving parts.
From Sam Green:
In short, inkjet-based 3D printing is the only technology that can really simulate the true look, feeland function of complex assembled goods. And this is thanks to the wide variety of materials and the inkjet process itself – which can simultaneously jet different materials from the separate inkjet head nozzles. This enables you to combine materials to create different color shades, different Shore A values and even simulate engineering plastic durability. It also allows you to selectively place different materials within a single model.
Via Objet
How Big Can 3D Printing Go?
Here is an interesting infographic that shows how big you can 3D print various materials. As featured by Shapeways:
The infographic was produced by Guido Hermans who is currently pursuing a PhD in industrial design focusing on mass customization through additive manufacturing in the Design Research Group at Umea Institute of Design in north Sweden.
Via Shapeways.
Featured Design: 3D Printed Japanese Laquer Containers
Our featured design comes this week from nendo:
A small container created using a 3D printer that cuts, stacks and pastes sheets of paper one by one. We finished the surface with lacquer. The lacquer adhered thickly to the edges of the accumulated paper, and pulled at the paper’s surface, resulting in a mysterious texture like wood grain.
View all images of the design.
