rapman-education's posterous

rapman-education's posterous

Dave White  //  A place for educators, teachers, lecturers and students to find "stuff" about RapMan,BfB3000 and BfB 3DTouch printers... The unofficial Blog by Dave White, Advanced Skills Teacher and Head of D&T in Clevedon School UK.

Feb 20 / 12:25am

CAD to STL for 3D printing

The usual steps in producing a 3D printed object is to produce the design in a 3D CAD program and export it as a .stl file ... This is because many of the post processing programs that generate the instructions to drive the printer (g-code) can not read the native CAD files. But how do you create a .stl file? It's actually quite easy, here are a few clues to how this can be done in a some of the more frequently used programs. (note that this can vary with different versions of the software... It might be slightly different in the version you use)

Autodesk Inventor

Go to the File menu, then select the ‘Save Copy As’ option

Select STL from the Types drop-down

Click the Options button, and choose the High detail level

Click the Save Button

Catia

Select the STL command

Set Maximum Seg to 0.015mm

Select the model and > select Yes

Select Export > type File name > OK

Creo Elements (pro engineer)

File > Save copy as

Select STL as the file type and enter a new name for the file

In the pop up box Set chord height to 0. (The field will be replaced by minimum acceptable value with smaller triangles for a smoother object).

Set Angle Control to 1

OK

Google Sketchup

Install the stl export plugin http://www.guitar-list.com/download-software/convert-sketchup-skp-files-dxf-or-stl

Open model to export select "Export to DXF or STL" from the Tools menu.

Select "millimeters" as the units for export.

On the "Export to DXF," pop up select "stl."

Enter a filename for your new STL file.

Rhino

File > Save As

Select File Type to STL

Select File Name > Save

Select Binary

Select Detail Controls from Mesh Options

Max Angle = 20, Max aspect ration = 6, Min edge Length = 0.0001

OK

Solid Edge

Open Model & select File > Save As

Select File type as STL

Options > conversion tolerance to 0.015 mm

Surface Plane Angle > 45°

Select Binary type and OK

Name & Save STL file

Solid Works

File > Save As

Set Save As Type to STL

Options > Fine > OK

Save

STL settings: How to change STL settings

File > Save As

STL > Options

For a smoother STL file, change the Resolution to Custom

Change the deviation to 0.01 mm

Change the angle to 5 (Smaller angles will produce a smoother Object but bigger file)

Filed under  //  printing   software  
Feb 19 / 5:49pm

Blogging and Tweeting

Clevedondt1

As many of you who regularly read by blog (I'm still amazed how many hits I get for my blog posts) will know I am the Head of D&T at Clevedon School in the UK.... And some of you will have seen that I tweet too!! But you might not know where to find me in the "twittersphere" or "blogosphere" (are those really words?) ... here goes with an update of my contacts

This blog: http://rapman-education.posterous.com/ (specifically about 3D printing in education, but with a few bits of news about other interesting developments thrown in)

My twitter name: @davewhite60 (usually about 3D printing in education, but other stuff sneaks in occasionally)

My school D&T department blog: http://www.clevedonschool.org.uk/blogs/products/ (not just 3D printing but also news of students, projects and developments in my school department)

My school D&T department twitter name: @clevedondt (just for tweeting about my department)

So, why not visit the blogs and maybe follow on twitter.... It will be interesting to see what develops.

Filed under  //  dt   media   teachingandlearning  
Feb 16 / 6:46pm

Buggy building with BfB 3DTouch

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 So, I'm the D&T teacher in my school who ends up teaching all the geeky stuff. CAD, CAM, electronics and programming PIC micro controllers. 

The students learn to program simple inputs and outputs using flow chart software and Picaxe chips on some simple circuit boards that I made (I would love to get the students to build their own but time is very limited). They then progress onto a project programming some buggies that I have built. These buggies were built at various times over the last couple of years... And here lies the main problem, they were all different (different wheels, PICs, micro switches and battery containers). It all got very frustrating so it was time to rationalise my set of buggies.

During my half term break I set about 3D printing some new wheels with rubber tyres to help prevent them slipping and a set of battery mounts with Velcro strips to support the battery boxes ( these are colour coded blue and yellow for the different types of chips in the buggies).

I now have a set of buggies that match and after their service / MOT they should be fit for a few more groups of students to use.

Of course the brilliant thing about 3D printing the wheels and battery mounts I have new parts that do the job I wanted. No need to make do with off the shelf parts.

Note: the buggies are available from http://www.rapidonline.com/ as a starter pack for the Toyota technology challenge.

Filed under  //  dt   education   printing  
Feb 4 / 3:28pm

More product improvements with 3D printing by students

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 Following my previous blog post I couldn't miss posting about this product model by one of my students.

As you can see from the photos this student has tackled a project to design an improved pencil sharpener.

This is intended to be a non functional model exploring the ergonomics of the design and some aspects of the functionality such as the hinged waste bin and aesthetics.

A very promising project... I will hopefully post some more as it develops, so keep checking back here!

Filed under  //  casestudy   dt   printing   student  
Feb 2 / 9:03pm

Improving products with 3D printing

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 Our AS Level students at Clevedon School are doing some fantastic coursework projects. Their main project is to design and model an improved version of an existing product... Including some innovative ideas.

As you can see in the photo some of the students have chosen to design improved kitchen products including bottle openers and a pizza cutter. These products need to be ergonomic (designed to fit the human body) and made to a standard where they can be tested.

The products shown in the photo are not their final finished designs but have been made to do some initial testing to check the ergonomics, that the sizes are suitable and most importantly that they will work. To help the students with this they decided to make their prototypes by designing their products using Creo Elements/pro 3D design software and then 3D printing them on our RapMan and BfB3000 printers.

I can't wait to see what their final designs look like!

Filed under  //  casestudy   education   printing   student  
Jan 26 / 6:08pm

What is 3D printing about? ...A primer on 3D printing.

Wondering what 3D printing is about?

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“2012 may be the year of 3D printing, when this three-decade-old technology finally becomes accessible and even commonplace. Lisa Harouni gives a useful introduction to this fascinating way of making things -- including intricate objects once impossible to create”.

Have a look at this TED talk..... it sums it all up very nicely.

www.ted.com/talks/lisa_harouni_a_primer_on_3d_printing.html

Enjoy!

 

 

Jan 25 / 8:25pm

Axon manual and video clips

When starting out with 3D printing there are often questions about generating the g-code that is used to drive the machines.  With BfB machines this is done with the Axon 2 program …. So it looks like the guys at BfB have created a very comprehensive manual for Axon and some supporting videos. Worth reading as many of the problems have simple solutions that have been fully documented already.... And there is some great advice about designing your objects, rafts, fills, layers, speeds, support material, wall thickness etc.

The video clips can be found here www.youtube.com/axon3dsoft

And the manual can be found by visiting the "Support>technical resources" section of the website (button on the blue bar at the top of the BfB website pages) then click on the "how to print" link alongside the pictures of the different printers, and finally click the Axon picture at the bottom of the page (sorry for the long description, I couldn’t post a link as you would need the login details and password for that section of the site)

Jan 22 / 1:44pm

Bespoke USB sticks

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 The students in my year 9 CAD/CAM integrated project groups have all come together with different amounts of experience, some having done work with the 3D program Creo/elements pro and others having done none at all. And very few have experience of actually designing for 3D printing. So we did a fairly quick introductory project to help get everyone to the same skills level.

This introductory project was to design and 3D print a custom case for a USB stick. As you can see from the photos there are some very interesting designs. Hopefully some more photos will be posted when the students have printed their design.... And then on to the main project!

 I have posted some Free to download teaching and learning resources for this project on the Bits from Bytes wiki http://wiki.bitsfrombytes.com/index.php/Bespoke_USB_Stick

Filed under  //  education   printing   resources   student   teachingandlearning  
Jan 16 / 10:34pm

Iterative designing for 3D printing

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 One of my GCSE students (15 years old) decided that for his final project he would design a fitting to hold an iPhone on his bike handlebars. I think he must have seen one produced by another student last year and featured in an earlier post on my blog!

So he went away and started to produce some ideas using Google Sketchup I would have much preferred him to have used a proper CAD program for the reasons you will probably see later. Anyway, he finished his design, exported it to .stl format, created the gcode with BfB Axon and printed the first parts. As you can see they were far too big and chunky... This was a real surprise to him as in Sketchup the design looked ok. So, back to the drawing board! ... I wonder if he would have realised his mistakes if he had used Creo Elements/pro or Autodesk Inventor?

His next designs look far more promising, the size is better and somehow it all fits together... So what will the next version look like? ... Well, this is where the power of 3D printing lies. The simplicity, cost effectiveness and relative speed allowed this student to start down the road of an iterative design process. For this him it would have been almost impossible for him to test and visualise what his product would turn out like without printing his first draft design. The jump he made in improving his design would probably not have been possible if he had to have invested heavily in skill acquisition, time and materials for CNC milling. 

Filed under  //  Student   dt   education   printing   teachingandlearning  
Jan 7 / 7:09pm

Kideville. A 3D printing project in UK primary schools

Kideville is a fantastic 3D printing project for primary school children using 3D Systems Bits from Bytes printers.

This YouTube clip is an interview with Dejan Mitrovic talking at the Victoria and Albert museum in London, UK about his Kide project. Dejan talksabout using a 3D Systems, Bits From Bytes BFB3000 3D printer to build houses for his Kideville project. Each building is designed by a student in primary education before being draw in to a 3D CAD package and then 3D printed with the Bits From Bytes machine.
 
 
More details of the project can be found here http://www.kideville.com/
 
Filed under  //  casestudy   dt   education   printing   video