3D PRINTING! finally
End of the beginning.
Hello and welcome back to BLOG #4 of my chemical product design journey. This will be the last blog entry, for this module at least. As a wise man once said all good things must come to an end. However, it is still only the early stages of my larger journey as a chemical product designer hence I've decided to dub this juncture the end of the beginning.
Let's save the tear-jerking goodbyes for later. I still have a lot to share before I go, the culmination of my 3D printing knowledge, the trials and tribulations of turning ideas into physical objects, and most importantly the fun I had along the way.
This time instead of just talking about 3D printing l will be running you guys through what the process is really like for an amateur such as myself.
The task I was assigned was to design and print a 3D-printed artifact that has a movable joint that cannot be manufactured using subtractive manufacturing. With such a broad scope paired with the nearly endless possibilities of 3D printing truly anything was on the table. But I wanted to make something that would be 100% my brain-child from the design to the printing itself, this proved to be challenging but then again nothing worth doing has ever been easy.
Having too many choices promotes indecision. Sort of like when you don't know what you want to eat for lunch because there are like 6 food courts to choose from on top of 3 fast food joints. With so many possibilities enabled by 3D printing, the most challenging part of the whole process was figuring out what I even wanted to work towards creating. So I looked deep within myself and searched for something that would be truly me and after much soul searching and introspection I ultimately decided on creating a ball valve.
The perfect artifact to show my background and passion as a chemical engineer.
Boy am I glad I'm not a MAD student
Designing things is really really simple. Right?
Wrong, it is one of the hardest things I've had to do.
To provide an analogy, I would have to liken it to assembling IKEA furniture without the manual and only a vague mental image of what the final assembled product looks like. You tighten screws and put things together mostly based on intuition and guesswork. Only when you're finished and take a step back to look back at your handiwork do you realise you've somehow made a coffee table out of what was supposed to be a bookshelf and have to start again.
Anyway, the process is all about perseverance. And after many many many revisions, I finally came up with this final design
Here's a cross-section of the whole thing that better shows off the two different parts.
What I have learned from this process of designing something of my own is that I am most definitely not cut out to be a design student. This simplistic design took an embarrassingly long time to develop from the first revision to revision number 10,000. Truly has given me a renewed respect for designers.
The design I have come up with in the earlier section is possible to be manufactured by subtractive means. But only in parts, parts that would then have to be assembled. This is the method by which ball valves are traditionally made. To give you a better sense of how this is done below is a video that goes through the whole process.
As can be seen in the video. Ball valves are typically made by first creating the valve body and then separately the internal ball used to regulate the flow. These two parts are then assembled to form a single complete ball valve.
Creating the complete version of my design from a single block of material is simply not possible, because of the complex geometry, and the incredibly tight constraints between the valve body and the internal ball. The little allowance between the shaft connecting the handle to the internal ball and the valve body would just be impossible to manufacture by subtracting from a solid block of material
These limitations being overcome by 3D printing is precisely why it is so powerful. Imagine all the material, time, and money that would be saved if all products such as the ball valve which requires assembly from separate parts could be created in a single go from a fixed amount of material.
Create. Fail. Repeat
Satisfied with my design. It was now time to bring it to life. Easy right?
Just upload your file and hit print and et voila you have a perfect recreation of your design exactly how you envisioned it.
Wrong again. Even a medium as powerful as 3D printing has its limitations. Prints may fail due to poor design, issues with the printer, or just plain old bad luck. But it's not all bad, the nature of 3D printing means that you can try over and over. Each time refining your design further or fine-tuning printing settings getting ever closer to bringing your vision to life.
The first attempt I made to bring my design to life was using the Ultimaker 3 3D printer. It printed well and looked pretty good. But was far from functional.
What went wrong:
The tolerance between the valve body and the internal ball was too small causing both parts to fuse and create an effectively useless valve but instead a solid block of plastic
The valve handle was also too close to the valve body and also fused ( I snapped it off trying to turn the valve LOL)
Having learned from my mistakes I went back and altered the design increasing the tolerance between the valve body and the internal ball as well as between the handle and the valve body.
Another thing that I did was change printers from the Ultimaker 3 to the Bambuu Lab ones, these printers are much more modern and are capable of printing things much faster and more accurately. And this did help as evidenced by my second print.
This time, the print failed. However, the valve was actually sort of working as the handle was able to rotate the internal ball independently of the valve body. What went wrong:
I sliced my file horizontally causing a lot of unnecessary supports to be generated. Effectively making the printer's job harder than it needed to be. This is likely why the internal ball also had a print failure and turned into a blob of spaghettified PLA
I also realised this time that I could upscale my design to better accommodate the tolerances and have a bigger and better artifact overall while still staying under the 1hr print time limit
And then finally. After the first two rounds of trial and error to dial in my design and print settings. Followed by waiting another agonizing 50 minutes of waiting to know whether this was the time it would work exactly as I designed it to, this time slicing the file vertically to minimise supports and scaling it up a bit more. It finally happened happened
Here's a picture of the final design compared to the previous prototypes. Finally bringing my design to life in its true and complete functioning form was incredibly rewarding. Learning bit by bit from each failed print as well as understanding the limitations and advantages of each printer model.
Attached is a short video showing it off in action. Yes, I did realise that it probably would not function as an actual ball valve cause of the gap when it's closed but it was good enough for me. It proved that it can be done.
Reflection is like chicken soup for the soul.
And with that, we have come to the end of my 3D printing journey. Upon reflecting on this whole journey, from conceptualising to designing to finally printing and fine-tuning the actual print itself. I would have to say it was incredibly enriching and I learned a lot of new things about materials, design, and methods of manufacturing as a whole.
Even as an amateur with barely any experience in 3D modeling let alone using advanced and powerful software such as Fusion 360, Cura, and Bambuu Studio I would have to say that it is only as challenging as you want it to be. If you want to make something more complex and unique it will surely be more challenging than following an online tutorial or downloading STL files off Thingiverse and sending them off to print.
But there is nothing wrong with that and I think that's the beauty of 3D printing as a whole, you can make something simple or something complex. The only limit is your imagination, and of course maybe the school's print time limit of 3 hours. It is always accessible to you at any level, and the software involved is intuitive and is not too difficult to gain proficiency with. The large online community means you can reach out to online resources for advice or troubleshooting steps. All of these culminate in making 3D printing more accessible than ever.
My 3D printing journey isn't the only thing that is coming to an end. This is also the final entry in this series of blogs as I've mentioned at the start. I would like to spend some time reflecting on this module and my whole chemical product design journey before closing off this series. If you recall in BLOG #1 UNSDG and ME. I had set some learning expectations for myself at the start of this journey, so I feel it is right to reexamine them at this juncture and see if we've truly achieved them.
For those of you who have forgotten here are the expectations that I had set
1. Having a more complete understanding of how Chemical Products are developed and the research and development processes behind them. I will know I have achieved a greater understanding when I can fully describe the process of creating a Chemical Product from start to finish including the thinking frameworks and thought processes involved
2. Become more competent in applying chemical engineering principles to solve problems I will know I have achieved competency when I am able to understand how to fully apply the CDIO framework and chemical engineering principles in a practical application to real-world problems
3. HAVING FUN! I will know I have enjoyed my time working through and completing this module when I have finished it and look back on it with fond memories and no regrets!
Looking at these, I can say with complete confidence that I have smashed all 3 of these learning expectations.
I learned a whole lot about the processes involved in the conceptualisation, refinement, and actual development of chemical products. I talked about it extensively in BLOG #2 where I mentioned how I had learned how to use tools such as the Engineering Decision Matrix (COWS) to make tough decisions in an objective manner as well as how to conduct feasibility studies.
I learned how to apply chemical engineering principles as well as applying the CDIO framework during the brainstorming session that I also covered in BLOG #2.
Lastly, I definitely had fun during this module. Learning new and interesting things, seeing things differently, getting hands-on knowledge by actually using equipment such as 3D printers and laser printers, and going on learning journies to broaden my horizons. I had so much fun that I am sure my group members also shared the same sentiment.
With my final reflections and thoughts about this module and my chemical product design journey now out in the open. It is time for me to say goodbye. I sincerely hope you have enjoyed reading through all my ramblings and incoherent thoughts, laughed at my witty section titles and several attempts at humor, learned a whole lot about chemical product design, and most importantly of all I hope you all had as much fun reading my blog as I did writing it. I'll leave you with a fond memory from the first blog as I sign off Goodbye.
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