This update is pretty quick, as I’ve been swamped with all of my other classes. I’m putting the whole thing together this weekend (hopefully), and just have a few more parts to make sure will work together before I can be ready for expo. I’m certainly not going to be ready to demonstrate a functional printer by April 23, but I’ll definitely have enough put together to show the aesthetic I’ve explored and how it will function.
An interesting lesson I’ve learned is imperial and metric fasteners have their own characteristics beyond thread size and pitch. Most relevantly, metric hardware has generally smaller head and nut size. This wouldn’t be much of a problem, aside from all of the parts out there (the designs I’m adapting from and printing) use metric sizes and I have to completely redesign some parts to use imperial sizes. Turns out I’m just going to try to find metric parts, which unfortunately costs more and isn’t as patriotic.
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I like the simplicity you’ve been able to keep going with this; it looks clean. Using pure white melamine I would have thought might be boring, but using the curves and angles you did makes it look really inviting actually. I think that choice of aesthetic works really well as a universal living room piece. Simple white can be put in any room, making this project/product much more applicable for the common man. Plus, it’s a blank canvas for any additional personal flair should anyone feel so inclined.
I think the fact that you are making a 3-d printer for your project is very impressive. Even though you won’t have it complete by expo, do you think you will potentially have it complete by the time that you need to present? I am sure that everyone would be excited to see it in use, especially with all the hype around 3-d printers these days. If not, I definitely understand where you are coming from with the swamped from other classes part of this. I am also curious as to how functional it will be at expo? Will you solely focus on the aesthetic aspect of it, or will there be some moving parts along with it?
It sounds like things are coming together well for you, Chip! I think it’s good that you are being honest with yourself about which aspects of your project will and will not be ready for the expo.