New toy, Afinia 3D printer

[njhussey]

Geoff...Sketchup is easy once you get the hang of it, belows a drawing of my cheap and dirty balsa router I'm making...

[Robin Hewitt]

Have you tried sketchup?

I am not hugely au fait with Sketchup but I believe it only moves in one direction. You build up a complex shape but 20 minutes down the road when you find the duff dimension you inserted in shape #1 you can't go back, edit that dimension and have everything that connects to it, qoes around or through it, sort itself out automatically. Many machines are drawn with Sketchup and look wonderful, but when it comes to cutting perhaps all you have is a convenient outline and hole plan that can be copied item by item into a CAD program.

[martin54]

I am not hugely au fait with Sketchup but I believe it only moves in one direction. You build up a complex shape but 20 minutes down the road when you find the duff dimension you inserted in shape #1 you can't go back, edit that dimension and have everything that connects to it, qoes around or through it, sort itself out automatically. Many machines are drawn with Sketchup and look wonderful, but when it comes to cutting perhaps all you have is a convenient outline and hole plan that can be copied item by item into a CAD program.

Robin to be honest I have no idea as I don't use it myself, just read about it on here as some people use it plus it has also been mentioned on some of the 3D printer sites I have looked at. Should really download it & have a look for myself but it's finding the time & I hate having to learn to use new software as well.

[Robin Hewitt]

I hate having to learn to use new software as well.

Me too. Perhaps your next step could be to wait and see if the Sketchup users come back to tell me I am wrong

[GEOFFREY]

You are so right about it not being easy to let go of the 2d thought train. I feel that I am too set in my ways to think outside of the box, and would learn 3d far quicker with some personal training, preferably face to face so that any problems can be directly explainned. That is why I would like to find some form of nightschool (at age 69) etc. If I did learn 3d I would ceratinly want to be able to put cutter paths on. I know that with my router I would only be able to contour a flat sided (base) model, but that would still be awesome.

[njhussey]

Well I use it for visualising what I'm proposing to make, I haven't got into it enough to be able to tell you, I'm still learning it and far from proficient!! You can get plugins i believe to export as a DXF and also a STP file.

[wilfy]

if you look in the discussion for google sketchup.. someone posted a links to videos for me... i literaly watched these 3 videos and went from not a clue to building my cnc machine in sketchup... there are a few clunky things where you resize one thing and it'll drag the rest of the pieces connected to it in ways you wouldnt imagine.. but simple uses of the group tool, and locking can prevent things like that from happening.

it's got to the point now where i will draw something, and then group it straight away, even if its a piece of box section, you will find out ways to make it work for you.

however.. i aint got a clue how to export it to a cad/cam program and produce a real item from it.. heck i dont even know how to produce a flat piece in to a real item yet

[Robin Hewitt]

That is why I would like to find some form of nightschool (at age 69) etc.

The first step in creating a fancy 3D object is a drawing. A perspective drawing which has the shape you are trying to achieve and the critical dimensions.

I use a large white board and lots of different colour pens. A large white board means you can draw it another way then decide which one to erase.

Do not even look at a 3D CAD program until you have that picture and a strong desire to turn it in to reality.

When drawing freehand you are not constrained to one plane, everything is possible.

If you sit down at a computer and try to design something, all art is lost because you have invested time getting to the point where you realise the mistake, the better way to do it. You are loath to rip it all up and try it another way.

Before you start drawing on the computer, decide how you are going to draw it within the softwares capability. Do not start with an arbitrary line, you will be drawing interconnecting shapes. You must have a clear idea of what you are trying to achieve and how you are going to achieve it.

The computer should only serve to inject reality. After all, everything has to fit and you must be able to assemble it.

[Musht]

& they'll be bogged down in that lawsuit till the money runs out. The kickstarters 'might' get their machines but I doubt they'll risk any kind of mass production & I doubt they'll win the lawsuit. Which is a damned shame.

Patent appears to be a software rather than hardware one:

BBC News - Kickstarter sued over 3D Systems' printer patent

ok possibly a significant feature , but U.S patent suit only popular one when LED patent wars were still hot was to relocate the H.Q. , at least on paper, to Canada, outside reach of U.S. patent system.

Form Labs don`t seem overly bothered, but with 2.8m USD of investors money, stay calm and carry on ;-)

FORM 1: An affordable, professional 3D printer by Formlabs » Our Number One Priority — Kickstarter

Patent expires in 2 years anyway, the DLP SLA cat is out of the bag, some places there into mixing their own photosensitive resins.

Afinia looks like a very useable FDM design for actually making parts, ABS being straight off useablle for things like gear cogs if can do resolution.

[Musht]

I am not hugely au fait with Sketchup but I believe it only moves in one direction. You build up a complex shape but 20 minutes down the road when you find the duff dimension you inserted in shape #1 you can't go back, edit that dimension and have everything that connects to it, qoes around or through it, sort itself out automatically. Many machines are drawn with Sketchup and look wonderful, but when it comes to cutting perhaps all you have is a convenient outline and hole plan that can be copied item by item into a CAD program.

Sketchup will scale in any direction, and its possible to group objects and scale them independently, it`s quite capable, but its a drawing program with its roots more in architectural than mechanical design, so it treats things as wireframes rather than solid objects like Solidworks or Inventor do. Though its very extendable with things like Sketchy Physics.

It`s fast to pick up the basics because the push/pull tool is intuitve. For modelling the 3D warehouse is unbeatable.

Catch for machining is its STL and DXF export can be poor, in the end sprung for Viacad 2D/3D, as reccomended here, it has the push/pull tool and decent DXF export.