Good Morning from my Robotics Lab! This is Shadow_8472, and today, I’m starting a new project where I install some electronics while a project is still printing. Let’s get started!
This will be a much larger print than I’ve ever done before. I know that already. I’ll be laying out the pieces of the project and ordering them as I write, just to play with the writing style.
Different parts include: Blender modeling, Laptop repair, White filament, and Assembling a circuit. If I think of more, I’ll insert them where appropriate.
Project Concept: the final product will be a gift for a friend I’ve known for a long time. It will be roughly cube shaped light printed from white PLA with relief pictures of either Angels or Cats on the sides. For extra style and practicality, I want the top sculpted to look sort of like a curved roof. A long lasting light bulb will illuminate the whole thing from the inside from atop a custom circuit board, but anything inside won’t be accessible after the print is finished.
Laptop Repair: the other week, my laptop refused to accept my power chord. It looked like a bent power pin, but it was a large piece of plastic from the port missing. That will easily take up a post when the part comes in and I cover its repair.
White Filament: I have two colors of plastic right now, black and red, neither of which would look good for a light. The plastic needs to let light through, but also go with pretty much anything.
Assembling a Circuit: this is a topic that could easily take two or three weeks and will challenge and grow my abilities the most. Simply put, I have no idea what I’m doing here, except that I need it to move power from the power chord to the light bulb, and maybe some colored LED’s around the outside. I’ll want to thoroughly test it before final installation.
Blender Modeling: this one will happen in tandem with the previous one. I’ll need to establish a maximum size for the circuit board based on how big I can make the case with the printer. But I’ll need the final measurements of the final board before I start the final print. Unless I want to toy around with an induction based power chord, I’ll need a place to plug in a power chord. It might also help if I was able to screw down the board itself.
So far, I have a fairly good idea for the overall shape modeled in Blender; I don’t think I have a good mesh yet, the boolean operator didn’t exactly like two half-cylinders intersecting like I had them doing.
Final Question: How have you aimed for something out of reach, but not so far as to (hopefully) be unobtainable?