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Design flow for 3D printing
rune_thorsen229
Member Posts: 182 ✭✭
Designing for additive manufacturing - scalable, 3D printable
Onshape is great for designing 3D printable objects (additive manufacturing) and allows an easy way of collaborating (co-designing) as well as being a place where designs are stored for others to find (repository). As long as there is a free subscription it enables anybody to get started, contribute and develop 3D models.0
Comments
Background:
As the Onshape has become full of features and the ‘advantages’ of ‘redundant’ workflows, my observation and experience is that the beginner or occasional user may spend too much time and create less than optimal designs.
Aim:
The objective of this topic should be to arrive at a simple and best practice for starting with an idea, draft the model and arrive at a print plate for 3D printing the thingy.
A sound engineering approach is to use parametric design principles in the sense that dimensions are driven centrally (by reference drawing, variables). That allows others to change the object according to changing needs.
One challenge of additive manufacturing is that parts may have to be designed in one position (functional) and laid out in another (manufacturing).
A further specification is that the workflow should be accessible to the Onshape newbee without having to be expert on Onshape specific features. That means, remembering that not everybody ‘lives’ in Onshape and respect that they may have limited time to learn the advanced features.
Lastly to avoid the pitfalls of Onshape that may cause people to insert absolute values or resort to workarounds.
Workflow outline
Drafting the idea in a part studio.
Import them into an Assembly to simulate moving parts in two positions.
1. Functional - checking moving parts, dimensions, collisions etc.
2. PrintPlate - layout ready to slice for 3D printing.
Example design: a bracelet:
https://cad.onshape.com/documents/5d3ec3499edd9a69425580c4/w/c064bcf1c8a1328847fa43cb/e/aa6f46d25eb5a5c89b1ded1f
RE: Curious - How Many Users Use OnShape for 3D Printing Design?
RE: Turning one part into a bunch of smaller parts for 3d printing
RE: How to 3D print a model?
My 3D Printed Peristaltic Pump
RE: How to create a 3D model from orthogonal projection (Orthographic projection) ?
RE: Learning CAD for 3D Printing
Positioning parts - the catch
The position in which parts are designed is maintained in the exported STL
Give we have a Part studio with this model
You can export that and import it into the slicer in two ways:
1 As one part
2 Export unique parts as individual files
1 will result in the object to slice (A)
2 will result in 4 parts that you have to assemble on the slicer print plate
Say, you want them to be printed as 4 different parts in the following layout made in Assembly
Export type 1 will result in a solid (B) export type 2 will result in the 4 separate parts randomly placed. In CURA you can ‘merge models’ and they will unexpectedly be assembled as C rather than B.
That means that exporting assemblies does export an STL where the ‘build’ positions rather than assembly positions are coded into the STL.
A workaround
is to (thanks @john_mcclary )
1. ‘Create part studio in context’
2. In the new part studio ‘Transform’ using ‘Copy in place’ of the parts to print
3. Export the parts as individual files