I wanted to hold some paints in a box. Pretty simple requirement, but nicely demonstrates my process in creating something.
Crude mock-ups
I find this is one of the most important steps. When thinking just in my head, or even on paper or in CAD, it’s really easy to lose sense of scale and proportions and miss really obvious things like whether paints would even be removable etc. You don’t want to go through the whole process and then realize at the end up that there’s no actual way to grab a paint etc. Having something physical, I find, helps to get my mind find creative solutions.
It did pay off. I had expected that being at an angle would be a huge waste of space, but in my particular setup it would take 2 trays with height 120mm, to pack all the paints vertically with no space between them, so a total height of 240mm. Whereas if they are lying at angle it would take 3 trays, but with a height of 90mm so a total of 270mm. So only 12.5% higher. 12.5% higher in return for the advantage of being able to actually see the paints is well worth it for me.
Calculate on paper
Might not be necessary, but I enjoy the process of just playing with stuff on paper, and solving constraints by hand can give me a better intuition for what the limiting factors are.
Solidworks
Transfer that to Solidworks, keeping in mind that 3D printers want fillets on the top and chamfers on the bottom, and materials don’t want sharp angles.
Note my tolerances are super tight. The height needs to be less than 85mm to fit in the box I have – which is 90mm height, with a 5mm bottom. In this drawing it is 84.86mm. To strengthen the 1.2mm floor, I added 1mm walls on both sides. Thin, but again the tolerances are very tight and I don’t have any more than 2mm total to spare.
Use mirror features etc to make it easier to maintain and adjust later. Note the fillets to strengthen the walls.
And fillet everything, to reduce strain on the material and to give it a more professional feel. Noone wants sharp corners:
And render it, just for vanity 🙂
3D Print
In Bambulabs, I love the variable layer height. Print all the solid parts fast, and then slow down just for the tops. Adds only 10 minutes to the print, in return for high quality curves.
John Tapsell 