3D Printing

Seeing the a concept going from design sketches to a physical model is exciting. The KIPS design requires many different elements to be built in isolation before being integrated into the final working device. This week seen the physical components are starting to become reality. A case design, chosen from various concepts, was analysed against the system requirements.

Ultimately, the model's design had to be carefully thought out as 3D printing needs supports and a printing pathway to be created. Extensive considered on the CAD software of how the parts will be printed was pretty time consuming. Training on using ‘Slicer’ (a pre-printing programming software) was completed which allowed the printing of a stereolithography (.stl file) to be analysed and printing pathway created. The green in the picture is the supports which are required to build the model.

Seven hours later however, and with lack of experience in this area only one component was printed successfully. Learning from this experience the second attempt shown a lot more success; thankfully!

Stay tuned folks!