3D Printed Vices for Game of Thrones Jon Snow Sword Longclaw

This is a work in progress that I created to help me finish epoxy bonding my own version of plrmaker7's Jon Snow Longclaw blade model on thingiverse (Thing: 1150877). I had two halves of a sword and no easy way to allow the blade to bond fully in one straight piece. I made these vices to help me bond the blade properly. They are available for download on thingiverse (Thing: 3607763)

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3607763

Each vice makes use of hardware to use as vice:

x2 1/4-20 Hex Bolts 2-1/2"

x2 1/4-20 Nuts

x4 1/4 washers

These can be hand tightened when used to create solid bonding vice.

I printed these with Blue and Clear PETG filament on the Prusa i3 MK2, using 0.2mm layer height and 20% infill. Blade vices are labeled for each mating part in plrmaker7's models.

Will continue to improve, making it simple to create the full sword on your own with vices for each blade. Ideally, will be possible on one flat surface and you could complete in one bonding epoxy session. A second, third, fourth, pair of hands for the cosplay blacksmith in you.

WORK IN PROGRESS: Feel free to leave recommendations for how this can be improved!

3D Printed Deadpool Knife Holder (with timelapse!)

I made this Deadpool Knife holder for my brother to hold all his knives for cooking and because he's a mega-Deadpool fan. I can't thank BrittLiv enough for the great instructable (you can find it here: https://www.instructables.com/id/Deadpool-Knife-Block/)

This model was scaled down from it's original size so that I could print it in one solid piece on my Prusa i3 MK2. As BrittLiv's instructable shows, I used rectangle models measured to fit my brother's knives into and cut those out of the original model to create slots for each knife.

For 3D printing on the Prusa i3 MK2, used a larger nozzle size (0.60mm vs. 0.40mm) and a larger layer height (300 vs. from. 200 microns) to get the final part printed in just under 20 hours. After removing the supports I used a few coats of red spray paint. Then, I used acrylic paint for the mask details.

If you'd like to learn more, head over to www.ag3d-printing.com to find out more about AG3D. We also offer 3D printing, Reverse Engineering, and CAD modeling for Student Projects, DIYers, Makers, Entrepreneurs, Engineers and more!

Head over to our website to fill out our form and get a free quote to bring your idea into reality!

https://ag3d-printing.com/get-a-quote

Let’s 3D Print Something! Coat Hangers by AG3D

​For this episode of "Let's 3D Print Something" we decided to showcase a design from Alex's first year of 3D Printing - a set of 3D printed coat hooks made specifically for 3D printing. We also explain a design change for added strength some tips when using FDM 3D printed parts.

We show a time-lapse of the 3D print being made, as well as some 3D print details so you know how it was made. These parts were made on our reliable work-horse, the Prusa i3 MK2 3D Printer by Prusa Research.

The 3D Printability of this model is an 8/10. 3D printability is the score every part will have on "Let's 3D Print Something". It represents how well a part can be simply 3D printed. 10/10 means you can just take the part off the bed after it's done 3D printing.

​Let us know in the comments below some other models or things you'd like us to 3D print!

If you’d like to purchase your own set of x3 AG3D Coat Hooks (shown above), you can find them over in our Etsy store by going to ag3dprinting.etsy.com or by clicking the link in the show details. $13.50/x3 pack.

Buy a set of our 3D printed coat hooks by going to our Etsy page here: https://www.etsy.com/listing/521317666/3d-printed-hook-coat-hanger-set-of-x3

To find out more about 3D printing with AG3D head over to www.ag3d-printing.com to learn more and get a free quote on your next 3D printing project by filling out our form on our website: https://ag3d-printing.com/get-a-quote

Let's 3D Print Something | Rocketship Phone & Tablet Holder

Our first successful time-lapse of a 3D Print that didn't us make dizzy!

Here is our first of many video's where we 3D print something! It could be a design of our own, or promoting a designer's work from a place like thingiverse. We want to show people what it looks like to 3D print something, show how we made, and hopefully teach them something new about 3D printing in the 3 minutes we have for each of these videos. 

We would love to know what we could do to make these videos better, so please let us know in the comments below!

Our first 3D printed object for this "Let's 3D Print Something" is AG3D's own design - the Rocketship phone/tablet stand so you can keep your phone right where you need it when you're working at your desk of need to be handsfree! You can purchase one from our Etsy shop over at ag3dprinting.etsy.com for $15/ea with MANY color options!

BUY A ROCKETSHIP PHONE & TABLET HOLDER NOW!

We show a timelapse of the 3D print being made, as well as some 3D print details so you know how it was made.

The 3D Printability of this model is an 8/10. 3D printability is the score every part will have on "Let's 3D Print Something". It represents how well a part can be simply 3D printed. 10/10 means you can just take the part off the bed after it's done 3D printing.

Let us know in the comments below some other models or things you'd like us to 3D print!

To find out more about 3D printing with AG3D head over to www.ag3d-printing.com to learn more and get a free quote on your next 3D printing project!

Spread love, Spread science

Design of a 3D model from a 2D image for 3D printing

In this video, Alex shows how he took the 2D image of our new engineering logo and used Fusion 360 to create a 3D printable version. The design was intended for multi-color 3D printing with the Prusa i3 MK2.

Please let me know if this video was helpful and how we can make it better in the comments below!

A Slice of Raspberry Pi: Getting to know our hardware

ENGINEERING UPDATE

With quite a few robotics and engineering projects ahead, it's important to get familiar with some of our hardware. The better we know our hardware, the more we can leverage it to solve our problems, and troubleshoot any problems we might have along the way. In this update I want to go over some of the hardware we'll be using and give a quick overview for both those who are new to robotics or just want to learn more about our upcoming 3D printing engineering projects.

If you missed our last post, this year we are focusing on engineering projects! See our last post to learn what 3D printing and engineering projects we have planned.

---

HARDWARE

RASPBERRY PI

The core of our projects are centered around the RaspberryPi, which is an affordable and completely customizable computer that in this case, is no larger than a deck of playing cards. The RaspberryPi was created by the London-based charity the RaspberryPi Foundation whose goal is to "put the power of digital making into the hands of people all over the world, so they are capable of understanding and shaping our increasingly digital world, able to solve the problems that matter to them, and equipped for the jobs of the future.". There are plenty of free software, tutorials, communities, and apps you can use to learn and use your RaspberryPi to it's full potential.

We will be using the Raspberry Pi 3 Model B, as it's the latest model on the market. It has the ability to connect to Wifi, which will make operating and developing on the fly much easier.

Here is a list of it's features:

• 1.2GHz 64-bit quad-core ARMv8 CPU
• 802.11n Wireless LAN
• Bluetooth 4.1
• Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE)
• 4 USB ports
• 40 GPIO pins
• Full HDMI port
• Ethernet port
• Combined 3.5mm audio jack and composite video
• Camera interface (CSI)
• Display interface (DSI)
• Micro SD card slot
• VideoCore IV 3D graphics core
• Switched Micro USB power source (now supports up to 2.5 Amps)

All of that packed into a tiny computer you can purchase for under $50. 

If you've been around the engineering block and know all about these tiny miracle computers, you might ask "Why RaspberryPi"? The short answer is support and simplicity. The Raspberry Pi community is large so there are lots of resources out there if things get confusing. There are also a lot of sources out there for programming in Python. But most of all, it's the availability of custom hardware that we can choose and program to solve the problems we're looking to solve. I also have found the amazing Adafruit shop, that not only supplies custom hardware for electronics projects like the Raspberry Pi, but it has tutorials and educational kits so that you can get started learning as soon as you get your parts. A big thank you to Lady Ada and the Adafruit team for their high quality products. I am not sponsored by them, but I definitely believe they have high quality products and it's why I chose them for most of our project hardware.

BREADBOARDS

CREDIT: ARDUINO ÖRNEKLERİ

In order to make sure our projects work, we'll need to test them along the way. In order to do that we'll need to use something called a breadboard. As the legend goes, they are called 'breadboards' because back in the day an engineer needed something to create an electrical circuit for a project. Looking around they found the closest thing to them, the wooden breadboard. Wood, as you might remember from science class, is NOT a good electrical conductor. So it was a decent thing to use since it was readily available (not to mention, cheap). It's not the safest thing, but they get an A+ for ingenuity!

Today, these boards are made from plastic like ABS, the same material Legos are made of. They have little metal clips in each hole that allow for electrical components to be mounted and tested WITHOUT needing to solder them to the board itself (i.e. solderless boards). This makes testing very easy and will allow us to help troubleshoot and explain some of the inner workings of our robotic equipment. 

There are various sizes available, the largest in this picture is a full sized board (left), where the more square white breadboard is a typical half-sized board. There are also miniboards like the blue and orange ones. Most come with clips on the side that you can attach together (right) to make a more complicated project. It's pretty interesting to see how such a simple thing like this could be so useful for so many things. There's even an adhesive on the back so if you want to mount the board inside of, say, a 3D printed remote controlled car or drone, then you can!

MOTORS

We have two sets of motors to start:

1. A SET OF FOUR (x4) HOBBY TOY DC MOTORS that we will use to develop our first drone. We will be 3D printing the blades, frame, and body of the drone.

A set of four DC hobby Motors from Adafruit

Both of these motors wires has their tips pre-soldered and ready-to-go for breadboard prototyping (thank you Adafruit!)

These motors can operate from 4.5V- 9V which is a wider range than most toy motors. They will be able to deliver 4500-6000 RPMs and initial testing for the drone will begin soon.

2. A SET OF FOUR (x4) TT MOTORS that we'll be using for our 3D printed remote controlled car project

These motors are ready for us to simply get up and start making our car quickly. As fun as it would be to develop these from scratch, the focus here is to learn how to get software and hardware to work together. I chose these motors for the car project because I want to rely on my hardware while I develop the software side of things. Steering will need to be addressed, but we'll be able to design that later when we 3D print the frame and body.

We also may need to change the end terminals of these wires depending on how we move forward with the project. In the meantime, we'll leave these easy terminal ends so we can test everything before we decide the final design.

Set of four TT Motors from Adafruit

WHEELS

Enough said. Orange wheels with a sweet silicone tread. We may paint the rims another color, but for now, these will do nicely. Thanks again to Adafruit for the great looking, inexpensive option for our robotics project.

Set of four Orange and Clear TT Motor Wheel for TT DC Gearbox Motor, from Adafruit

TROUBLESHOOTING-GEAR

L293D Driver by Texas Instruments, from Adafruit

In order to better understand what's driving our motors we decided to get the Dual H-Bridge Motor Driver for DC or Steppers - 600mA - L293D created by Texas Instruments. This driver allow us to run the DC hobby motors for our drone project. With the use of a Pi Cobbler, we'll connect our Raspberry Pi to a breadboard that will wire our DC motor and L293D driver (and battery pack). There is still some research to do, but we're looking to use Python to program the motors get the drone to do it's first hover manuever from a stationary position. 

Here is our setup for our drone motor testing using (from right to left) our Raspberry Pi, Pi Cobbler(Adafruit), a half-sized breadboard, L293D driver, and DC hobby motor. Batteries not included.

Pi HAT

The Raspberry Pi (center-back), Pi Hat from Adafruit (center-front), wheels and TT motors. Batteries not included.

We can start anything we want with just the breadboards, L293D drivers, and some DC motors. But, with a PiHat from Adafruit we can do so much more! Everything is in one compact circuit board. With some screw terminals we'll be able to attach our motors easily. The cool thing about this 'hat' is that it also needs some DIY work. I'll need to solder our connecting pins so our Pi Hat can connect to the Raspberry Pi.

At the moment, we're intending to use the breadboards and L293D drivers to troubleshoot and learn more about the hardware. We'll be using the PiHat for our final hardware which will give us more freedom to create 3D printed mounting options and frame and body design considerations with a compact combo of the Raspberry Pi and Pi Hat.

Here's a quick overview of our first two projects

FIRST TWO PROJECTS:

1. RaspberryPi-driven 3D printed Car

   • 4 motors will drive each wheel
   • 3D printed chassis, body, etc. 
   • Focus will be to get the car to drive both programmed paths as well as manually driven with a controller
      

2. RaspberryPi DIY 3D printed Drone

   • 4 DC motors programmed for drone hover maneuver from a stationary position.
   • 3D printed frame, blades, and body
   • Focus is to make drone a DIY project for others to build, test, and improve upon

OVERVIEW: 

We hope you enjoyed this hardware-heavy post and have a better understanding on what's inside our upcoming robotics projects. If you have any questions about either our 3D printed car/rover or 3D printed drone please leave it in the comments below or email us at ag3d.engineering@gmail.com. 

---

NEXT UPDATE:

We'll start testing the motors and code to see if we can get the motors running and maybe start planning a course for the car/rover to travel. That way we'll be able to plan out the different moves the car will need to make, and what variables and commands we need to create to complete our 'mission'. 

Until next time, please share this with friends and family and let us know what you think in the comments below! 

Spread Love, Spread Science.
Alex G. Orphanos

START MAKING TODAY!

Adafruit DC & Stepper Motor HAT for Raspberry Pi - Mini Kit

Adafruit

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Raspberry Pi 3 Model B Motherboard

RASPBERRY PI

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Adafruit Dual H-Bridge Motor Driver for DC or Steppers - 600mA - L293D [ADA807]

Adafruit

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Adafruit Full sized breadboard [ADA239]

Adafruit

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3D Printing the Start of Something New

Since the start of AG3D Printing in 2016, we have been using 3D printing to bring ideas into reality. We've leveraged 3D printing to solve all types of problems, including: 

• Problems and fixes for around the house
• Customized science experiments
• Custom parts for hobbies and gifts for loved ones
• Repairing, restoring, reverse engineering
• Helping entrepreneurs create prototypes they can showcase to future investors and let them experience the idea before they invest
• Helping DIYers, Makers, and Inventors 3D print their latest ideas and prototypes
• ...and so much more!

We look forward to another year of helping others bring their ideas into reality! I thank all of our customers for choosing AG3D - we couldn’t have done it without you so thank you for putting your trust in us.

NEW FOCUS ON 3D PRINTING PROJECTS:
ENGINEERING

Starting this summer, I want to focus on the educational and innovative side of our company. For those of you who don't know me, my name is Alex G. Orphanos and I am the founder of AG3D and our parent science communication company, Today In Space, LLC. I studied Aerospace Engineering in college with a focus on spacecraft and cubesats. I also worked as a lead R&D engineer for a plastics manufacturing company in CT for 4 years. A major reason why I started a company, more specifically this one, was to be able to work on the projects that interested me. To use engineering to solve any problem, but more specifically, the problems I believe need solving. 

In order to do that, I need to learn more. I need to develop my skills and experience so that I have a chance at solving these problems I want to work on. That is the driving mindset for myself over the next year. I will be writing short update blogs regularly to update you on my progress with various engineering projects that will use 3D printing, CAD design, Reverse Engineering, 3D scanning, and RaspberryPi's that make use of all types of hardware through custom software. 

The first two projects will include a RaspberryPi driven 3D printed car and a RaspberryPi DIY drone. Both of these projects will be challenging for me as I have never applied my full programming knowledge to real-life applications. In college I was a designer for a prototype iOS app to create paperless lab reports, but I've never programmed something to move a motor or drive a car, never-mind to pilot a drone. It's going to be a lot of fun and I hope you follow along and join in!

When you see this logo you'll know it's an AG3D Engineering project

LEARN TO 3D PRINT AT HOME!

If that's not enough, we'll also be doing a series of videos focused on helping anyone who wants to start 3D printing at home. The wave of the future could be desktop 3D printers, but it can't happen without a knowledgeable public who can take advantage of this amazing technology. We hope to cover most of the basics and some of the troubleshooting steps we've learned along the way. The purpose of these videos is to take the sting out of the steep learning curve that is 3D printing and make it possible to start creating from your very own home.

This next year or so will be a great learning experience for me and I hope you learn a lot too. This project of projects is not just about creating a 'digital resume', it's about making myself better and putting myself in a place where I can actively solve problems with science, engineering, and innovation....and oh ya, 3D printing!

To stay up to date make sure to subscribe to this blog, our Youtube page AG3D Printing, and on our Instagram page @AG3Dprinting

Please stay in touch and leave us comments, questions, or recommendations on what to work on next! We'd love to hear from you and look forward to seeing you involved!

As always - spread love and spread science!

Alex G. Orphanos

Using 3D Printing to fix a pair of high-heeled shoes

A customer reached out to me recently to see if it was possible to fix a pair of high heel shoes with 3Dprinting. The original heel top piece fell out of the shoe one night, but other than that the pair of shoes were perfectly fine. Not only was the replacement heel top piece possible, but it was a great opportunity to try out some exotic flexible material. 

Tools used:

• Mitutoyo manual calipers

• Prusa i3 Mk2

Credit: Prusa Research

• Fusion 360 design software

Get it free as a student, educator, or academic institution! 

• Simplify3D Slicing Software

• SemiFlex 1.75mm TPU filament from NinjaFlex

DESIGN:

The 3D printed heel top piece was reverse engineered from the remaining top piece and the bottom of the exposed heel. I simply used a caliper to measure various parts of the bottom of the rubber heel shape, taking into account wear from use. After some initial measurements a few minutes of designing in 3D the bottom of the top piece was designed. 

One of the more challenging parts of this project was deciding how to properly reattached the top piece. Luckily, the original heel was designed with inserts and locating pin holes. This would make sure we could attach a new top piece in the right position in the heel without worrying about it spinning around in place and detaching after a few nights on the town.

The rest of the top piece design was simple: 

1. Make a vertical piece in the center to go into the heel and provide most of the strength including preliminary positioning.
2. The three pegs would be used to put the top piece in it's final position for bonding.

For the sake of saving time, I took the initial measurements and made a prototype to test the design and fit of the part so far. It may not seem intuitive at first, but this iterative step allowed me to see how close my measurements were for the real life thing. So instead of finishing the design completely and then making the 3D printed part, I tested a smaller concept piece to see how the flexible material works with the heel.

Once I had the prototype made, I could make design decisions on things like:

• The shape of the vertical guide piece
  • Should it be solid and stiff, or flexible and strong enough?
• The height of the locating pins
  • Should they be as long as possible for added strength, or do they simply need to fit in place?

I could have spent a while trying to guess these things ahead of time, or simply spend less than an hour 3Dprinting a prototype and testing it on the heel itself. This is the power that 3D printing gives you when you design iteratively. Build and tweak your design faster and more purposely. Don't spend your whole time trying to finish the whole thing, because it will take you that much longer when the product is not what you wanted and you have to redesign the whole thing in reverse.

In total I spent an hour designing this from start to finish, including all of the minor tweaks and details for the second prototype. 

3D PRINTING:

Flexible Material:

It may not look like much, but tieing a knot with 3D printing filament is impossible, unless it's flexible! This gives you an idea of just how flexible SemiFlex is.

3D printing with flexible materials is not easy. Even if you manage to 3Dprint properly with it, you have to print very slowly (35% regular speed) which can be cumbersome on larger or high detail projects. In order to get around the speed factor, I used a 0.60mm nozzle and a 300 micron layer height (default is 200 microns). This cut the print time in half to under an hour for each prototype because each layer is 50% larger. 3D printing flexible material is almost impossible on a Bowden style 3D printer, but with a direct drive extruder like the Prusa i3 MK2, simply shut off retraction and let it run!

Since the design doesn't require high detail I was able to successfully use both a larger extrusion line and layer size. I found that the semiflex material printed much easier when compared to using the default 0.40 mm nozzle. In retrospect that's not surprising, as the material will have a larger hole to exit the nozzle requiring less force to push it through the nozzle. This helps with flexible materials because they can get stuck and jam in smaller nozzles.

Most of the time, the flexible material will fail because it will bend if too much force is trying to extrude from the nozzle. It becomes as difficult as pushing on a rope (which if you've ever tried, is impossible). You have to find the right balance of "pull" from the extruder gear and pushback from the filament squeezing through the nozzle. With a bigger nozzle, the same settings worked just fine to extrude the flexible material.

WHAT DID I LEARN?

What I learned from the first prototype was that the vertical guide did not need to be a solid stiff piece, but worked much better as a hollow tube with 2mm thick walls for strength and flexibility. This way the top piece wouldn't just snap off one day. It will have room to move before it breaks, meaning it should last longer and be more durable. 

Comparing the two prototypes. The first (left) was made shorter so we could test some ideas. The final part (right) has shorter locating pins and a taller, hollow vertical part for stength inside the heel. 

PROTOTYPING:

The first prototype also showed me that the locating pins didn't need to be as long as they were. These pins could be shorter and would not serve as a structural part of the heel. Some glue or sillicone could be used on them to keep them in place, but again, only for positioning, not strength - that's the job for the vertical guide piece.

The final prototype was 3D printed in under an hour. The most difficult part of making these was removing them from the build platform. Flexible materials like TPU stick to your (PEI) surface TOO WELL. Be careful not to set your first layer too close. This will create a stronger adhesion and you could damage the machine or yourself trying to remove it. A thin layer of glue stick can help by being the weaker layer the TPU attaches to so you don't ruin your PEI surface.

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VIOLA! 

The final heel top piece was 3D printed and fitted to the heel. The customer was very excited that she could fix her shoes for $40 (design & 3D printing services), where a new pair could easily have cost her $150 or more. 

If you have any ideas for my next 3D printing project to fix anything - please share in the comments below or email me at ag3d.engineering if you have a project that 3D printing can help accomplish!

Thanks
Alex G. Orphanos

SemiFlex TPU 3D Printing Filament - 1.75mm .50kg - FIRE

Fenner Drives

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Mitutoyo 530-104 Vernier Calipers, Stainless Steel, for Inside, Outside, Depth and Step Measurements, Metric, 0"/0mm-150mm Range, +/-0.05mm Accuracy, 0.05mm Resolution, 40mm Jaw Depth

Mitutoyo

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