Yes.
So, hey, I’m Pete, the Lead UX Designer here at 3D Hubs.
I was told on my first day here “you can print anything, so long as you write about it”.
Ok, jeez. Anything.
Anything??
Well, that gives me quite a lot of options, doesn’t it?
I’m not a 3D Printing expert.
So I can’t design products in Tinkercad.
At least not yet.
I found a .stl file on Thingiverse.com (other websites are available).
I wouldn’t exactly say it was a carefully thought out selection process.
It was more like this.
Ahhhhh, Athena.
Athena of Velletri, I presume?
The short excerpt from Neal Stephenson on the Thingiverse website reads, “She was the goddess of metis, which means cunning or craftiness. The word that we use today to mean the same thing is really ‘technology’”.
Goddess of tech? Sounds pretty appropriate to me.
So. What to print this on?
Well, I’ve seen the Makerbots, Ultimakers, and Leapfrogs in action.
Noisily whirring away.
Pushing down layer after layer of heated plastic filament.
But the Form1+ appeals to me.
It’s quiet.
A different breed.
It slowly pulls the printed piece out of a resin tank as lasers dance across it.
Which is way more sci-fi, and cooler.
At least, in my opinion.
I’ll be honest, this wasn’t the first attempt.
A cloudy smudge on the Form1+ resin tank stopped the lasers from completing a few layers.
So the print failed halfway through.
#fail #noob #cleanresintanknexttimeyeah #etc
But really, I think that the Leapfrog and Makerbot were so enthusiastically twerking away on the work bench that their vibrations upset the gentle Form1+ and so it left the party early.
Just to be safe I moved the model to the side of the build plate where the resin tank was still nice and clean.
The Formlabs software - Preform - is pretty good, right?
That’s Francesco in the corner, our designer.
Yeah, I see you.
“Hey, Francesco, can you arch one eyebrow?”
No. He cannot.
As I set up the model I sensed that a very tall man was watching my laptop over my shoulder.
It was Robin, our Head of Customer Support.
He’s very good at 3D Printing.
After some discussion, we rotated the model so that the supports didn’t touch the face.
We also made the point size as small as possible.
“This will make it much easier to remove from the supports when it’s finished.”
Said Robin in his heavy Dutch accent.
Much better.
Bedankt, Robin.
What a nice guy.
The print didn’t take long.
Maybe an hour or so.
After it had dried Robin used a metal spatula to pop the print off the build plate.
Quick acetone bath for Athena.
Then about an hour of drying off whilst I did some work.
Once it was no longer damp the supports easily clicked off in my hands.
If the resin finish gets too cloudy then it can be polished with paraffin to regain that shiny aesthetic.
I held the finished piece up to the light of the window and admired the print quality.
Then, and I’m not even joking here, I fumbled the piece and it fell out of the first floor window of our office.
#jeeeezus #noob #omg #whatareyouevendoing #youtotalidiot
I found Athena lying on the Amsterdam street with a look on her face.
“What the hell? What are you even doing?”
Sorry, my bad.
But Athena didn’t break.
Which was impressive.
So after my unplanned durability test it was just a matter of some quick filing to smooth off the points of contact from the supports.
Then I stuck Athena on the corner of my monitor.
Jeah gurrrl!
Gael, my softly spoken French colleague came over to my desk,
“…”
“Hey Gael.”
“…you made this?..”
“Yes”
“…no…”
“Yes”
“…no. you didn’t…”
“Yes, I did, Gael. Well, I didn’t model it, but I printed it.”
“…is good…”
He’s a man of few words.
So I took that to mean he was very impressed with the end result.
And to be honest, so am I.
I’ll have a go at something else soon.
Ask me any questions in the comments below, I’ll do my best to answer them.
uploads-84-21-76-85-86-20140706_Athena_Velletri_Full_Scale_by_CosmoWenman_0.obj (62.6 MB)
