Topic: Hinge (Proof of Concept)
I've been building a hinge set for a Pokeball for the kidlets (who are poke-crazy right now). I wanted to be able to print almost the whole thing (except for the springs, which I'm cannibalizing broken click pens for). To make sure that it worked, I needed a proof of concept that I could design the hinge back for the hemispheres. Doing so took considerable time as I wanted to be able to do this with minimal post process tinkering.
I'm proud to say that I've accomplished this. I printed the pieces last week and was satisfied with the results. The hinge moved with minimal effort, but I had to really cut down on the stringing that I was seeing. I set the pieces up to print along the bed and that made the thing look kind of kludgy and would have require considerable finishing, so I set on a new adventure: Proof of concept 2: Vertical placement of the pieces.
The hinge is 2 part which required that there be 3 hinge points; 2 on the edges and one central. Add to that the fact that the pieces had posts for mounting on the hemispheres and that adds up to supports. I didn't like the support structures that were being genereated by either slicer, so following in the footsteps of Lawsy (and his jigsaw replacement), I built my own into the models. Surprisingly easy once you figured out what could be used.
I present the proof of concept in STL. Should you decide to print this, do it at 100% as this is the correct sizing for the pieces. Any smaller and you risk throwing the support structures under the bus. As it is, they snap right off leaving very little to clean up after. A little filing and the thing should fit together nicely.
I say "should" since it worked for my machine and I'm still having that dang banding issue on the Z axis, but even with that the parts look pretty clean. Yes, it is almost 3m of filament at .3mm and a build time of over an hour and a half, but it was SOOO worth the time to see something that came out of my head come to life.
