Welp… this little project is about 2/3 of the way finished in the “make” phase.
Any lessons learned?
Well, for starters, since there are large surfaces on the top and bottom, I would recommend using as much infill as you can stomach. I used a pretty sparse infill (the hexagonal “honeycomb” internal structures that strengthen the outer shell of a printed 3D object), and while this means that my build time was shorter, I’m less than thrilled with the quality of the top surface, because the sparse infill made it harder for the filament to span between the honeycombs (side note: gravity sucks). That said, for a first pass, all I can say is nicht schlecht.
The other finding of note is that tolerances are tight. As in, I had to hammer the pieces into place. I like this, but if you were designing a puzzle, for instance, you’d want to decrease the sizing of your interior pieces by – say – 1%-2%. But, I want this thing to stay together 4-evah, so I hammered away. Again, I’m very happy with the results so far.
We plan on printing the remaining black pieces and outside ring tomorrow.
Many, many thanks to Hendrix Student Travis Howk for his expertise and time in helping create this project.
Check back tomorrow!
But for now, enjoy some more work in progress snaps (below).
