…code, cg, electronics, 3d printing…

I always found it, humorous, when some Instagrammer got ‘X number’ of people and made some crazy post about it:  “LOVE you all, hugs and kisses”, etc.  I recently hit 100, and figured this would give me a good excuse to combine both my 3d-printing and newfound CNC-routing skills:

I’ve been wanting to do a piece that combined both 3d printing and CNC routing, some came up with idea of a routed background, with 3d printed text.  “The OneHundred” was thus created:

Info on the techniques used to make it:

3D Modeling

The model was created in Autodesk Maya:  I wrote a super simple tool to randomize the rotation and position of simple poly cubes that made up the background.  A 3d model of the text was generated, and Booleaned out of the background.  An stl was generated for both the background, and the text.  The piece is 12″ square, by 3/4″ deep.

3D Printing

The text model was sliced using Simplify3D, and printed on my C-Bot directly off the SD card (I recently was printing something via Octoprint, bumped the RaspberryPi, and it lost USB connection half way through a multi-hour print… don’t like that at all).  Settings:

• Filament: Makergeeks Orange PLA
• Extruded @ 230deg (hot for PLA, but per manufacturer recommendation), bed @ 60 deg
• 1.2mm E3D-v6 Volcano nozzle
• 600 micron layer heights, 1 shell, 20% fast hexagon infill.
• Print speed is 45 mm/sec : Sounds slow, but that’s a volume of 32.4 mm3/sec extruded.  For those keeping score, a the volume extruded of a .4mm nozzle with 200 micron layer heights at 90mm/sec is 7.2 mm3/sec:  Volcano is printing 4.5x as fast, crazy.
• Took about 1.5 hours.  (so, based on the above specs, it would have taken 6.75 hours on a ‘normal’ printer).

CNC-Routing

MeshCAM was used to generate the toolpath cut from the MDF background.  The gcode was sent via the Chilipeppr GRBL workspace.  MeshCAM settings:

• Roughcut:
  • 1/4″ 2 flute upcut endmill
  • DOC: .0625″
  • Stepover: .125″
  • Feedrate: 60″/minute
  • Took about 1.25 hrs
• Finish Pass:
  • 1/8″ 2 flute upcut ballnose
  • DOC: .0312″
  • Stepover: .025″
  • Feedrate 60″/minute
  • Took about 3.25 hours

The above settings are completely based on previous trial and error, and could be improved no doubt.  Things I noticed while cutting:

• Got some chatter on the roughcut, even when I turned up my DeWalt 611 speed all the way.  Guess I was cutting to aggressive.
• The final piece has more scalloping than I’d like:  Think I need to lessen the stepover next time.
• Having to babysit the machine for 4.5 hours was… not fun.  But I got to read some magazines I needed to catch up on.

Final Thoughts:

Great learning experience, I’m really getting the two-cut process down using my touchplate.  Can’t wait to do more!