Final Fabrication

3D printing is an amazing technology that has been out since the late 1980's, but has not been pioneered until recently. This technology is still pretty expensive, yet there are still lots of flaws with 3D printing. For example, the creation of a simple Frisbee can probably take a few hours and can be very costly. However, 3D printing is great for making one-off products or prototypes because it can literally make anything as long as you have the instructions for it (CAD formats).

For this project I took on the idea of making my final something I can use, so I decided on creating a phone mount for my bike. I had to measure and draw out the dimensions for my mount that was originally meant for my flashlight, and I made the design in Inventor. I took a OnePlus One case design from the internet because I do not know how to measure the angle of the back of my phone to fit my phone. I created the STL file and I had Fictiv fabricate this for me. At first there a few problems, like dimensions (Inventor turned the design into cm instead of mm) and I had no idea what material to use, but the guy at Fictiv recommended PLA since it was the cheapest and it printed fast.

The 3D printed took about 3 days to make and 2 days to ship. The total cost of all of this was $32.07. During the printing process, the guys at Fictiv realized that PLA was probably not the best material for this because the print was rough and inaccurate. They recommended ABS as the material to use, but I told them to keep using PLA because I was not willing to spend more money on the material and the faster shipping in order to showcase my design on the day of the final.

I had Paras fabricate my product. To be honest, I didn't expect much because making a phone case that fits my phone and a mount that fits my bike mount is extremely hard due to the exact dimensions required for everything to work. However after looking at the finished product, I decided that 3D printers are probably best for jobs that require such accuracy and precision. However for objects with little functionality (like an icosahedron) it would probably be more practical for a human to fabricate it because it would be faster to make and cost much less. Work drawings are very vital to communicate the design of the product, but I think that the finished STL file or CAD file is much better. Programs like inventor can open these files and you can take a 360 view around the object, and you can also measure wherever you need, whereas on the drawing you fully depend on the views and measurements that the creator provides you with. Animated assemblies shows all parts of the assembly and gives the fabricator a better understanding on how the part comes together. Beyond the design process, it just looks cool for the consumer to look at and it could probably also show the consumer on how the part came together.