Jorge's Ponderings

I recently attended a Rapid Prototyping class at our local Vocademy.  Merle, my wife, gave me the class for Hanukkah/Christmas.  The class introduced me to 3D printing, Laser Engraving, Laser Cutting, CNC machinery and much more.  I learned that “If you can’t open it, you don’t own it!”, among much more.  It was a wonderful experience which encouraged me to buy a 3 in 1 prototyping tool.  I bought the version 1 of SNAPMaker.

I have enjoyed exploring the 3D printer to make elevation maps of mountainous areas, using free web sites TouchTerrain and Terrain2STL.  Here are 3 that I did of my brother’s home area in Mendocino County California.  I used 3 different scalings of elevation to test psychological realism.  I liked the times 2 and times 3 exaggerations best (actually I settled on 1.628; the Golden Ratio):

Other explorations include an artistic hummingbird (Broken Wing & Crooked Snout).  This was my first experience with 3D Printer Crutches:

And several Etchings, Engravings and a wonderful exotic gear arrangement:

Here are the Cubic Gears in action:

Here is a wonderful Spiral Gear arrangement from Thingiverse (a source of Open Designs)

And I’m using the Laser Cutting capability to make Boxes (thanks to ‘MakerCase’ another Open source for Designs):

And even more …

M.C. Escher Tiles

Who knows what lies in the future?  I’ve barely touched the CNC Carving (Router) capabilities of my SnapMaker.

Here are some lessons I learned at the Prototype class and where to find Information.

Lessons Learned:

Be aware that there exists a thriving community of help and free stuff out there.  I think that you should initially use only free software and designs, then later select your professional package.

Consider the NATIVE language and Computer platform compatiblity of a software package and the system/computer (Apple or PC or …) you wish to use.  By NATIVE I mean, the platform upon which the software was initially developed.  Ported software is rarely complete and error free.  By PORTED I mean,  written in one language, then translated to another.

Consider the hidden got-ya’s of the commercial software world.  AutoDesk FUSION 360 will give generous TRIAL use; to students and hobbyists, BUT they encourage storage of your designs on THEIR cloud.  You may have to buy a years subscription (~$400) to have access to your designs. UNLESS you were able to save to local media.

Consider the file types that a software package will accept as input and output.  Consider your total package of software/hardware tools and the formats accepted throughout.

Be aware that there a 2 graphic representation types in current use – Vector and Raster.  The difference can be significant when representing an image.  JPG, BMP, GIF, PNG are some Raster formats, while SVG and DXF are Vector formats.

Be aware that while g-code is the standard format for CNC and 3D-Printer applications, not all machines will accept standard g-code – remember the old IBM language enhancements hype (PL/1 was their universal language).  A little aside; I worked for an outfit that bought into IBM’s pitch to use only PL/1, later to find that all their custom software applications would only run on IBM machines. And that it was impossible to get a competitive bid when wanting to upgrade to newer hardware (Married to IBM and PL/1 until someone (me) translated their software into Cobol and Fortran).

Be aware that access to home CNC devices is very new and is providing great opportunity for innovative uses and applications.  Keep an eye out for imaginative and exciting news and events – like MAKER Faires, MAKER books and publications.

Computer-Aided Design Tools:   Information is:  HERE and HERE

AutoDesk FUSION 360       Very Detailed and Complete – More than Needed

TinkerCAD                           Very Easy to Use and surprisingly Complete

InkScape                              Free and quite Adequate

OpenSCAD                           Free and Interesting and Different approach (programming)

Blender                                Free and Very Detailed and Complete – More than Needed

Mathematica                      Free and Interesting

SketchUp                             Free and Interesting

CADMapper                        Free and Interesting

Photo Editors:     Information is: HERE and HERE

InkScape                             Free and quite Adequate

Retina Engrave                  Interesting

Slicers:                  Information is:  HERE

IdeaMaker                           Interesting, with Repair Capabilities

Formats:                Information is:  HERE

STL                                       Stereolithography – 3D Standard 

SVG                                       Vector Graphics Standard

JPEG                                     Photo Standard – Raster Graphics

G-Code                                 CNC Standard (somewhat)

Sources:                Information is:  HERE

Terrain2STL                       Good Source of Map Data

TouchTerrain                     Better Source of Map Data

Thingiverse                        Great Designs

MakerCase                          Boxes made Easy

Filaments:           Information is:HERE

PLA                                       Biodegradable

CNC Devices:        Information is: HERE and HERE

Snapmaker                         Toutorials HERE

The approach I took to using my SnapMaker is as follows:

I am working on an Apple computer, the original SnapMaker, using only free software packages, and doing very basic operations.  What follows is a record of my discoveries.  These tools and capabilities may no longer exist, and more efficient ones are being offered regularly.  Please use the following as a guide only.

FORMATS …

CNC formats

I started by identifying the FORMATS of the files required to communicate the information. I only considered 4 file formats (STL (stereolithography), SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics), JPEG (Joint Photographic Experts Group), and G-Code (computer numerical control programming language)).  The rest can wait for later.

3D printing requires an import of a STL format file.  STL is the standard format for communicating 3 dimensional information.  The engraving and carving requires an import from a JPEG or SVG format file.  JPEG is a common 2 dimensional photo (raster) format.  SVG is a common 2 dimensional image (vector) format.  The remaining format of interest is G-CODE which is the standard CNC (computer numerical control) format.  These are the only formats that I concerned myself with initially, there are many many more!

SOURCES …

Next, I concerned myself with where I would find sources of designs in the appropriate formats.  I will eventually create my own designs using CAD (computer-aided design) software, but I needed to see results now.

For 3D printing, a perfect starting source is THINGIVERSE.  Makers donate finished designs to this free website.  The designs are presented in STL format, so all I needed to do was download the files and then import them into SnapMaker.  I had a desire to make 3-dimensional maps of mountainous terrain.  I found TERRAIN2STL and TOUCHTERRAIN, two free websites that provide STL format files which import directly into the SnapMaker. 

I also wanted to make boxes using the SnapMaker laser cutting capabilities.  I found MAKERCASE another free website which produces SVG format files which import directly into the SnapMaker.  However a wrinkle developed when the box design assumed a Laser Cutting bed larger than the 125 mm by 125 mm bed of the SnapMaker.  More about that later.  

For laser engraving I found that PHOTOS (an Apple utility) would produce JPEG files from imports from my camera, my phone, the computer screen capture (CMD+SHIFT+3), Google images, and any other photo site.  Usually the editing required was accomplished in PHOTOS.  More about manipulations later.

SOFTWARE  …

I next searched for free software packages that would enable me to design products and export file formats compatible with SnapMaker.  The following diagram identifies the software packages which I found and used: 

Rarely will you find a single package to make all the manipulations you desire.  The following flow chart identifies the steps and tools used to accomplish my 3D terrain mapping design:  

I obtained the basic 3D map from TOUCHTERRAIN.  I next wanted to remove the water from the lake so that I could fill in depth information.  This activity required a lake outline, which I obtained using a Google Map image captured in JPEG format.  I imported the Google map into INKSCAPE where using the Bezier curves tool I obtained an outline of the lake.  The outline (in SVG format) and the Terrain map (in STL format) were imported into TINKERCAD or BLENDER where a Boolean difference was performed to accomplish the removal of the lake.  The resulting STL file was imported int SnapMaker for printing.  The outline (in SVG format) was converted to STL using TINKERCAD or BLENDER for editing to add water depth information.

The problem of restricted bed size mentioned above, was solved by ungrouping the components of the box (top, side, bottom) into separate SVG files using INKSCAPE.  

YOU

Your imagination and creativity will guide you to the appropriate, efficient and safe tool as experience grows.