Computer aided design Revisited

Experiments with the with the FPE flexible filament for a jobin the Lab weren't as smooth as we hoped. Lots of clogging and extruder disassembly.

When we were taking the extruder apart, whe heard a little cracking noise. Inspecting it, found that the piece of plastic used to support the extruders along the linear guides could be a possible guilty

I used Rhino and a calliper for modelling purposes, maybe this was better suited for scanning, but the model was also easy enogh to model by hand. It also helped that a .STL file was available so i could check for inconsistencies in measures.

I was trying to get some work done in the Fab with grasshopper. A client asked for a 3D printed prototype of a construction kit they were developing, but they had no 3D modelling skills, so they needed some assist. As it was a game for kids, they were trying to get the click of the parts when being assembled just rigth, no to much force to push or pull them, but strong enough for using them for some large structures.

I found the design they gave was quite easy. It was a simple extrusion of the profile, so I could concentrate on getting a parametric profile that handled the parameters that I found critical in the ergonomics, and then extrude it.

Here is the Grasshopper instruction, with grouping detailing its funtion.

Some end results.