To become a great teacher, one requires a great student
Sounds like a great deal of thought has to be given to how a complex project will be printed even before the design and modeling can start ā¦ā¦ā¦ a little more than simply hitting the print button
Dan,
This will be by far the most indepth project yet. You are 100% correct. Its not just a design and hit print project. This will likely have 20+ individual pieces. Designing is one thing. But at the same time I am employing my scratch building experience to āseeā how it has to be assembled.
So things like pins and sockets, recesses to mate parts, fitting the print bed, etc all have to be taken into account.
This is the first project I have designed that needs to be a functional kit assembly. And then add to that, this will be an entire line that will be assembly kits.
It will push my skills as a āmakerā to the limit
Sometimes what might appear to be a straight forward design project becomes quite complicated just to get everything printed properly. I find that complexity enjoyable as it develops new skills and thought processes.
Looking forward to following your progress.
And here I thought it was Idahoean for āYou need help drinking that, right?ā
[edit to add this:]
[edited again to add this to say Iām sorry for sidetracking:]
Devon,
Take that idea of interlocking parts and make it triple complicated by having said parts need to also be flatā¦
My never ending snow dozer project in CAD has flat etched parts that fold into shapes but then those folded shapes also interlock with other folded shapes.
My advice make sure the interlocked parts have some tolerances built in. Donāt know how fine tunes the 3D printer is but Iām sure thereās some tolerances that creep into it.
Devon, work smarter, not harder. Build your original CAD models at 1:1. It is easier in CAD to scale from 1:1 than across already chosen scales.
Suggest:
At the beginning, more smaller parts are easier to massage to fit right than larger parts. Once the fit worked out, then try combining two or three smaller parts into one part.
It might just be me, but your firebox door looks a tad small.
Nuce work Devon.
photos is of 1906 Willamette 2 speed compound yarder
Looks like you might could be right Bob
Above photo taken from this link:
https://forestryforum.com/board/index.php?topic=47072.0
photos about 1/3 down page
as always YMMV
Exactly how I have been doing it, Bob. I learned this a few builds ago. I design everything in Fusion 360 at 1:1 and then use a program called matter control to scale it. Inhave a conversion chart (posted in the tech category under my stl catalog) that then allows me to go from 1:1 to whatever scale by scaling in percent. Works great.
Oh and as to the small parts verses big ones. I agree completely. Not only from design but print and assembly. I am showing you guys the āassembledā model. The boiler is one piece. The base another. The drums will all be separate with separate side frame. The support rods that tie the boiler to the base another. This will be a kit of many parts.
So to show not only where I am at but how it is āput togetherā her is a bit of an update.
this is the āassembledā model to date. One thing it doesnāt show is all the rivets. For some reason when I zoom out in Fusion it looses the rivet detail from view. There are a lot of rivets.
Here are the individual components so far.
this is the base. the outer brackets are four separate pieces that have recessed notches in the base plus pins and sockets for attaching them. The skids will be real wood so you can fit them and then add the side brackets instead of trying to force wood between them and potentially breaking them off.
the braces that lead from the boiler to the front of the base will be seperate pieces that have ins and sockets for attachment.
and here is the drum assembly. there will be two of these. I havenāt designed them yet but on each side of both drums will be single brace that holds both drums. These will be individual pieces as well.
And I agree about the firebox door. After you mentioned it Bib I went back and looked it over it does need to be bigger.
Great start Devon on an obviously popular project. Looking forward to your next steps.
So thanks to Bob C making me take a look at that fire box door it got me to looking at something else that was bugging me but I couldnāt put my finger on it until this morning. The drums are too small. They are anemic compared to the prototype. I really didnāt want to redesign the entire drum and I am not sure how, if at all, I can scale an entire piece in Fusion 360 ( i made several unsuccessful attempts) I exported the drum and used Matter control to scale it and then brought it back to Fusion. Thatās why it looks funny in the picture. But the result is a much better looking drum.
That in turn got me looking at the base of the prototype closer. It is not a solid flat top like I thought. Its not a deck but rather just a frame. Which actually does make sense to me and not ever sure why I thought otherwise. This will allow the forward drum to sit lower. I will make a flat area where the boiler fits for strength and assembly but only in so much as it holds the boiler. The rest forward of the boiler I will open up to make a frame.
If this will be a kit just print the two anchor points and the kit builder can use a piece of brass for the rod.
That maybe an option depending on how thin they end up being. I am certainly not opposed to that idea and likely maybe what happens. I have done this for other things as well. Its stronger for sure. Thin resin is pretty fragile.
heres a little more progress
Why use third party? Save the part as a āderived partā and scale the part when you save it.
In Fusion I can save the part. But when I try and scale the part it wants to scale it in all three axis. For what I needed to do, I needed to scale it in only two. The width was fine. I needed to increase only the height and depth, leaving the width as is.
Now I am not saying it canāt be done in Fusion. I just donāt know how. I tried to figure it out but couldnāt get it done. And I knew I could do it in matter control in a matter of a minute. Its very easy there.
But in doing so you lose the ability to further manipulate it in Fusion. Now if it can be done its something I really should learn to do.
Devon, if you are using the āScaleā function on the āModifyā toolbar, you should be able to change the āScale Typeā to āNon Uniformā and select the scale factor you want for each individual axis. This only works for bodies so you will have to select the bodies within the individual component. Let me know if you have any questions.
Oh if that would just work in real life. I have a body that Iād like to scale non-uniformaly in different axes.