Creating an (Almost Only) Digitally Fabricated Artwork

What tasks have been completed, and what tasks remain?

Drawing up the idea—completed

The work is inspired by Wassily Kandinsky, marine animals and a sunny day at a dutch beach. I drew up two sketches. One sketch shows an asymmetrical wave and a glowing ball hovering over it. The wave should be made of 4 mm thick laser cut wood. Two sides would support a flexible shape of a wave. I would laminate a digital color print on it. The yellow glowing ball would be hollow and casted. The other sketch shows a shape faintly reminding of a sea star or octopus. It would have 5 red glowing tentacles and be 3D-printed. The yellow object and the 5 tentacles object are light objects and would shine brighter, the lower ambient light would be. All objects would use a press-fit construction system.

While working on these objects, shapes and concept changed. The yellow glowing ball got a shape reminding of an umbrella. I decided to minimalisticly and abstractly design both light objects. They got similar features like the battery case. Finally, I combined these elements as wall objects. The wave didn’t change. In the end, I desgined the digital color print black and white.

Drawing up the technical and technological concept—completed

As mentioned above, I planned to make two light objects which would use electronics. These objects would be 3D-printed and integrate a microcontoller board controlling LEDs with a phototransistor. The lower the ambient light, the brighter LEDs would shine. The umbrella object would additionally have a thin casted umbrella. Umbrella, batteries and PCBs would be attached to the 3D-printed body using a press-fit construction system.

The asymmetrical wave would be made of 4 mm thick laser cut wood. The wave and the supporting side elements would be assembled using a press-fit construction system as well. The digital color print would be laminated with some glue.

Drawing up a detailed production plan—completed

I wrote down all tasks and drew up a production plan using GanttProject. I noted these tasks in my digital calender and booked necessary machines. Emma provided a machine calandar which I used more than one time. Due to technical issues, some machine tasks had to be redone.

I had to edit my production plan and rebook machine slots. Laser cutting and especially 3D-printing with an Ultimaker were a real challenge. Finally, I completed all tasks.

Fabricating and assembling the artwork—completed

5 Tentacles Object

The body is 3D-printed. The 5 red LEDs are flexible and attached to the PCB using connectors. I had to recalculate the resistors’ value using an online calculator. They were wrong in my schematic. I could use maximum 3 red LEDs per pin (maximum current per pin 40 mA). The 3 and the 2 red LEDs should have the same brightness.

2 red LEDs2 × 470 Ω resistor parallel235
3 red LEDs3 × 499 Ω resistor parallel166 Ω

The resistors are soldered on top of each other in order to parallelly connect them. Three parallel 499 Ω resistors give 166 Ω. Two parallel 470 Ω resistors give 235 Ω.

Designing and machining these boards worked well (please see Electronics Production for workflow) but the traces were rough due to an old end mill. In order to smooth their surfaces, I gently moved a ruler over these. The microcontroller board didn’t work. Removing and replacing some components, cleaning the traces, I succesfully debugged it.

3D-printing the body of the 5 Tentacles Object worked well. The battery press-fitted very well into its case. Sanding off the PCB’s edges a little bit, it press-fitted well into its case as well.

3D-printing settings

Layer height0.1 mm
Shell thickness1 mm
Retractionenabled
Bottom/top thickness1 mm
Fill density50 mm
Print speed100 mm/s
Print temperature230 °C
Supportnone
Platform adhesion typenone
Filament diameter2.85 mm
Flow100 %

Printing speed

Outer wall80 %
Inner wall100 %
Fill100 %
Support120 %

Tools

Bill of materials

Please download original design and production files here.

Umbrella Object

The body is 3D-printed, the umbrella is casted. The phototransistor and one white LED are flexible and attached to the PCB using connectors.

Designing and machining these boards worked well (please see Electronics Production for workflow) but the traces were rough due to an old end mill. In order to smooth their surfaces, I gently moved a ruler over these. The microcontroller board didn’t work. Removing and replacing some components, cleaning the traces, I succesfully debugged it.

3D-printing the body (press-fit construction system) of the Umbrella Object was really, really challenging. The Ultimaker 3D-printer didn’t properly work. It took 3 days and 4 to 5 attempts to print the object and was a real pain. The printer wasn’t well calibrated. I had to calibrate it adjusting all 4 screws of the bed. The filament got stuck and Emma and I had to remove it with force. The machine stopped printing. Probably a G-Code error caused it. On June 9, I started a last attempt with a freshly built model and succeeded.

I wanted to make a 1 mm thick umbrella. I designed a 3D-mold and used the ShopBot to machine it. Beforehand, I melted different leftover waxes and casted 3 customized wax blocks. To machine the wax mold, I used a 4 mm end mill. Please see photos below for settings.

Designing and making a 1 mm thin umbrella mold

The wax mold turned out quite well and I casted a soft mold using PMC 121/30 DRY. Then I casted 2 yellow (Smooth Cast 310) and 3 red (Smooth Cast 300) plastic umbrellas. The yellow ones got some bubbles, the red ones turned out better.

Tools

Bill of materials

Please download design and production files here.

Asymmetrical Wave

First I tested a laser cut living hinge and joints. I redrew a wave flexures sample found here. The flexure didn’t bend sideways. So, I used some proved flexures (please see Computer-Controlled Machining for details). Joints got an offset of 0.3 mm (10:9.4 mm). This offset gave a tight press-fit.

I redesigned the wave's flexures. I had to do a lot of calculations to place the joints. I used Rhinoceros’s unroll surface function to get the shape of the digital color print as well as the shape of the wooden flexure. To get the right sizes, I used different offsets of the wave. The wooden flexures got an offset of 2 mm (half of the wood’s thickness). The paper got an offset of 4 mm.

Laser cutting settings

Speed0.8
Power100

Cuts well 4 mm thick wood

Speed20
Power100

Cuts well 180 g/m thick paper

For the graphic, I measured the wave’s curves. I split it into straight lines and arcs and patched these points. The graphic is based on these lines. I tried different colors and decided to use black and white only.

Finally, I would like to revise the joints. One tenon tongue isn’t enought. I would need at least two tenon tongues next to each other to get a tight grip. I had to use glue to fix it.

Tools

Bill of materials

Please download design and production files here.

What tasks have been completed, and what tasks remain?

All tasks were completed.

What has worked? What hasn't?

Using an Ultimaker, 3D-printing was a pain: The filement got stuck, the calibration was faulty and the G-Code processing broke down. I spent 3 days just to print one bigger object. Now, I know some error sources.

On Saturday, it was 30 °C hot. The laser cutter stopped working several times and I lost the position. I couldn't complete my work that day and wasted some sheets of wood. It was a pain too.

I would like to improve the joints of the Asymmetrical Wave as well as the Umbrella Object. Additionally, I had to use some glue as mentioned above.

What questions need to be resolved?

I would like to delve into the subject of digitally fabricated art and explore how digitally fabricated objects influence our perception, reception, feelings, society and culture.

What will happen when?

I would create a body of work and probably, answer my questions.

What have I learned?