Hi Madein3D Dashboard Members! I am on the SIMULIA Marketing team and have little 3D Printing & CAD experience in my day-to-day, focusing most of my efforts on promoting our brand’s accomplishments & advances to our served industries via our digital and social media outlets. That being said, I found the lull period right before the holidays, a good opportunity to work with and learn from my engineering colleagues, @ZS & @Daniel Kane, to mesh a CAD file and then print the design in 3D in the Waltham Fab Lab. I posted this as Zen mentioned we can use the lab as long as we show the community what we’ve created. The inspiration for printing a ring is attributed to my colleague @CL who explained to me he has a ring that according to tradition was made from a fallen bridge to remind him how important accuracy & excellence is in his engineering practice. While I am not an engineer but contribute to the company in a marketing capacity, this idea resonated with me and I wanted to bring this idea into my work ethic as well. The end-to-end process took only few hours and the project was completed in one day. I put together a quick compilation of short videos and photos (taken on my iPhone) throughout my 3D Printing journey. Thanks Zen, Dan, Chris & the Fab Lab!
My 3D Print Process | Beginner’s Guide
1. Download a CAD File
I went online to grabcad.com and searched a very simple ring that wouldn’t take long to print in one of the Fab Lab 3D printers. There wasn’t a simple band on the search, so I thought this infinity ring created in SOLIDWORKS looked like a good option to print: https://grabcad.com/library/wedding-ring-28
2. Refine the Meshing using SIMULIA PowerDELTA Software
From here I worked with Daniel Kane to resize the ring to 15.6 mm in diameter. At first we began refining the edges so that it would print nicely, but then decided we wanted it to be even more simple, without the infinity emblem. We cut the design in half and duplicated the round half to make a full size 5 ring in SIMULIA PowerDELTA.
3. Export to .STL
When we finished the meshing, we exported the design to an .STL file and placed it on a thumb drive to bring downstairs from our desk space to the Waltham Fab Lab for 3D Printing.
4. Upload .STL File to Printer
Zen Sugiyama helped me throughout the entire process in the Fab Lab, explaining step-by-step how to properly use the software and printing hardware. Once uploading the .STL file into the printing software, we flattened the file so that it would print securely on its side.
5. A Few Go’s at Printing
Because the structure we were printing was so small, the printed result came out as a ball of plastic on the first two tries. Determined to print the item, we made adjustments to the printing settings. On the third try, we found that widening the ‘raft’, which is the material connecting to the plate of the printer to the printed object, allowed us to properly print the ring.
6. Complete
I was able to remove the raft from the ring and the printed item was luckily able to fit on my finger. As an outcome, I successfully 3D print a ring with the help of SIMULIA’s awesome Engineers & access to the Fab Lab!
