Thread: Finally found a use for the 3D printer

Bought a 3D printer (Prusa Mk3) in November last year during the Black Friday sales. Have printed a few tool holders etc. downloaded from Thingiverse (online source of free plans and files for 3D printers), but nothing really useful or close to justifying the investment...

Every couple of years I get a pair of Hoya prescription safety glasses paid for by my health insurance. The lenses are shatter proof and the frames are strong, but they are adjustable in, out, up, down and I constantly have to readjust them to fit properly. Then they fall apart. The many joints just give way, so they end up being taped up and finally used with only one arm (temple?).

So, a few weeks ago I downloaded Fusion 360 and whipped up a rough sketch of one arm. Printed it out, fitted it, tried it on, and it was surprisingly close to being a workable substitute for the original arms. Two more design iterations and I had an arm that was better than the original.

I mirrored the design and printed a pair in black, then changed the look a bit and printed out another pair in orange.

The photo shows the broken arms, the ‘prototypes’ and the two final versions.

So - I’m thrilled with the outcome. I get the whole 3D printer thing a bit better now. While I could have made the arms out of say, aluminium, it would have been many hours of machining. Making 7 or so arms would have been probably a weeks work - assuming a few monumental stuff-ups along the way. With the printer, I was able to make small, incremental design changes in CAD in minutes and print them out over night (the final pair of arms took about 3 hours).

Still haven’t justified the investment, but incrementally closer...

Leigh








Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk