DesignSpark Mechanical Applications in 3D printing Boston 3D Printer Users Group 7/24/2014

Branden Gunn engunneer.com engunneer@gmail.com Printers: Cupcake (Octopi and RAMPS-ish) OpenBeam (my design, RUMBA) North Boston Makers (Meetup.com) I’m an engineer and hacker. I also run a meetup group called North Boston Makers

What is DesignSpark Mechanical? Free (sponsored by RS) CAD (Direct Modeling, not parametric) Proper Dimensioning/Resolution Create Manifold STLs SpaceClaim (lite) Powerful engine Spin-off company from Solidworks

Direct Modeling Select Pull Move Fill Extrude, Cut, Sweep, Rotate, Fillet, Chamfer Move Translate, Rotate, Create Pattern Fill Remove, Simplify, Repair

Pull The Pull command in action. Shown here: - Extrude surface into a solid - fillet an edge - pull an edge into a surface - chamfer multiple edges - Sweep a surface along a curved path - Change size of a hole

Move Move command in action - Moving a hole - rotating a hole (even into other faces) - moving only one end of a hole (making an elliptical hole) - Creating a pattern in a sketch - Creating a pattern in a solid

Simple Part Examples Simple parts that I have 3D printed For scale, most of the holes shown are around 3mm diameter

Complexity Capable More complicated parts

Augmenting STLs Filling in the corners of an STL from thingiverse to improve prints (Adhesion issue caused by filleted edge)

Assemblies Assembly comprised of Thingiverse STLs and designspark models. components and subcomponents can be in the same file or in multiple files.

Other Uses - Measure STLs Imported STL from thingiverse - DesignSpark was able to reconstruct the arcs in the geometry (STLs don’t have arcs), and dimensions were added to fully understand the geometry and transfer ideas and dimensions to other designs.

Other Uses - Edit Sketchup Files NOT MANIFOLD! A phone case from thingiverse designed in sketchup. Sketchup has a habit of making bad STL files with non-manifold geometry or flipped faces. Designspark can import the geometry as surfaces or solids, and the edited geometry can be exported as an stl within designspark for a more reliable export. This file has many errors and needs a bit more work to be printable, but basic editing is shown

Sketchup Import (Manifold) A nice manifold part from sketchup. Again, the lack of arcs and circles is noticeable, but these are editable solids that can be modified and reconstructed as needed to make the desired object. This is the source file for a modified part shown in an earlier slide.