Hello everyone,
It’s a busy day at the Wayne makerspace. Students are beginning to design and print model rocket parts for launch day on the 23rd. Dusty and Andrew are tutoring engineering students how to design rocket bodies and nose cones in Creo, AutoCAD, and SolidWorks (thanks, Dan, for getting SW at Wayne!). Students are learning not just how to design objects in CAD, but objects that will print well on a 3D printer.
We are also trying something new, printing room labels that affix to brackets outside some rooms in the Student Life Building. These placards are dual-color, an engineering challenge that involves creating two designs and then precisely merging them into each other:
The problem is that the placard is so large, that while it fits on the print bed (diagonally), the printer needs to print blue and white plastic “walls” to keep the extruders primed while it changes colors. These walls do -not- fit on the print bed and fall off the side, the print head tries to move past its extremes, and funny noises happen:
Yesterday, we noticed that the Makerbot exhibited a new problem; the first layer shifts 1-2mm from the rest of the object, resulting in a thin overhang at the bottom of the object. Andrew to the rescue! He learned how to re-align the gantry, re-tension the pulleys and belts, and lubricate the overall system. Thanks to Yoda’s guidance, now the printer works perfectly again:
Stay tuned as things heat-up at Wayne C³, especially as Launch Day draws near!
Tom