Presearch
In this Big Idea project, as a 3D redesign project, we were given the task to create a speaker holder to make sure it doesn't fall on anyone's head. I did some presearch to find a general idea on what to do. I found this image to the right and it gave me the idea to attach my speaker bracket to the wall. So that's what I based my design off of.
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I started my design with a 5.1 in by 2 in rectangle block. I put a hole in it too so it could be screwed or nailed up on the wooden beam that goes across the wall.
I then extruded part of the block to be able to hang off of the same wooden beam that the block is planned to be screwed or nailed in.
Next I created a platform for the speaker to be on and holes for the speaker to be held in place on the platform. I also added a better and smoother connection between the platform and block.
After that, I extended the platform to create better stability and more space to work with to hold the speaker holder on the wall.
Then, I worked on giving the platform more places to be screwed or nailed into the wooden beam and overall stabilty and rounding out the 90 degree angles in the design.
In these next pictures, I did more smoothing out of 90 degree angles and filleted the angles I couldn't adjust.
This is the design once it was finished on Inventor. After I finished, I moved on to preparing the design to be 3D printed
These are some pictures of my design printing. It had some problem with loading the filament of the machine.
This is the project once it has finished printing.(Yikes)
This is it once I got it off the printer and it didn't work so well. As you can probably tell it is very warped and misshapen. If I had more time I would work more to improve my design with more precautions and more measurements but this doesn't work very well but I'm sure it would if I executed it correctly.
What I learned
I learned that before doing a project for a certain purpose I should make precise measurements and take extra precautions while designing a large design in Inventor because large designs can warp much easier than smaller designs. I'm also fairly sure that my design didn't fit on the wall as intended due to me scaling down the project to fit in Makerbot so I'll be sure to not do that ever again.
Second Chance
Mr. Willauer gave our class a second chance on the redesign project because the majority of the class didn't do very well on them, this majority included me as you can see above. The following are the steps I took in order to redesign my project efficiently to make it actually work.
I decided to start a new file completely but do a similar design because everything in my first design was all in different parts so it made it hard for me to edit the design. I found it easier to start a new file but try a very similar design.
I then smoothed out the edges like I did on my previous design but Mr. Willauer showed me that I could use the fillet tool to be able to smooth out the design which made it much, much easier and more efficient to do.
I continued filleting the sides.
Once I finished filleting, I made a hole on the top going down through the bottom like in my original design.
I added more holes that resembled my original design and added some finishing touches on the design.
I then got the new design ready to print, with supports this time so the top part doesn't mess up like last time I printed it.
This is the design printing, as you can probably see, I chose a different printer this time just to make sure.
This is the design once it printed and after I cleaned it up to the best of my ability. And it fits on the wall this time!
What I learned
In this project I learned that printing large designs takes a lot of precision and planning and I payed for that in my first design. I am 90% sure that my design didn't fit on the wall largely due to the fact that I scaled my design down so it could print. I should have taken more time on the design and now I know how to do this. I have learned NEVER to scale down my project and if it says to then I should go back into Inventor and change it myself because scaling the design down in Makerbot can damage the functionality of my design.