Hello Everyone,
Today I'm super excited to share this project that I've been working tirelessly on for the past nine days.
The project was proposed to me by 
Work ethic is important to me, so I started the job immediately.
Let's discuss what this job entailed, and what exactly it is that I was employed to deliver.
I was asked to produce a palm sized dice to be placed next to one of my windows.
I accepted his offer, because I was confident I could deliver what he wanted.
First I will show a photograph of the completed project, and then this post will extensively outline the process.
It was decreed by Emperor Hsuan-tsung, (britannica-dotcom information article on the emperor) the 7th of the Tang dynasty to have these red dots in place. In this link below you can read the story of how this came to be with some really cool photos of different dice.
https://averweij.web.cern.ch/averweij/china.htm
I could have easily found someone else's design for a stand, but thought that I could design one myself, and this would make for a one of a kind creation.
The dice would not be so easy to design for a beginner in CAD like myself, and is also a rather standard thing, and so I went on a search to find the appropriate model. It took six hours of searching on thingiverse, but I found it.
The dots were not included in the print, and the print is much smaller scaled than what I produced. It became clear that I would need to figure out a way to create black and red dots.
With plans to print in a fine resolution of 0.12 millimeters, I began small test prints.
Above is one the various test prints I produced.
I probably produced 20 test prints, most of which I stopped before completion because the intent was to test for different effects of altering the 3D printing slicer settings, which wouldn't require full prints. It's a meticulous process that most people in 3D printing can relate to. Things like infill, shell thickness, top/bottom layers and more..
The above print was one of the later prints where I was really getting it dialed nicely. We can see it has a rather smooth look to it, this was the intention.
After about 5 days of vigorous testing, I felt confident that I could begin what would be a 30 hour print!
Above we see some different photographs of the build process. When all was said and done, it took a total of 29 hours to print. Slicer estimated 30, it was pretty close.
The end result was the nicest print I have ever produced on the Ender 3 V2.
There is not a single layer shift or blemish of any kind. It is quite perfect in my opinion.
I'm very thankful that this happened this way, because a 29 hour print is a lot of time.. And if it screwed up 20 hours in, I would have needed to troubleshoot the problem and start all over.
Now I had to figure out:
How do I fill the holes?
I was actually considering melting PLA with manual process and dumping it into the holes.
I'm not a physics major, but dumping molten PLA into PLA.... could have caused some serious problems!
I thought long and deeply on this..
Then realized, the holes are quite large...
So why not just design some simple cone shapes that I can just glue in? :D
This what the method I decided on.
I decided to take off the tips in the design for two reasons:
It's difficult to make perfect tips with PLA, the nozzle will stay in the same area and not allow the previous layers to harden, causing this blobby look.
A little pocket between the base of the hole, and the cone would give some room for a little extra glue. (and reduce seeping out of the top.)
I started working on the holes by using a micrometer to measure. It wasn't a perfect process that involved a little guesswork here and there, and even a little sanding in some areas of the cone. The ultimate goal was to get the cones nice and flush with the surface of the die.
I worked on one side at a time, because each face of the dice has different size holes.
Once I had all the cones done, I would glue them in and move on to the next side.
At this point it was starting to come together and I felt my excitement rising!
When I took this photo, the last red dot (the large one) was printing, and all of the others were glued in place. You can even see a wee bit of glue stringly in the photo on the red dot :D (no biggy that came off during the final clean up process.)
After the main die was done, I needed to begin designing a holder.
I was a little nervous about this...
Seemed like a big task for me, but also felt I could make it happen with Tinkercad.com (Entry level browser based CAD site)
This is what I came up with.
The holes serve two purposes:
- Aesthetics ---> Allow more visibility on the dice.
- Material cost.
The material cost management wasn't the major consideration in this, since I was paid generously for the job, I just wanted to make it look as nice as I could, so the primary consideration was aesthetics.
I ran some tests with this as well but didn't get any photographs of it. Basically I just printed the top to make sure the die would fit just right, and see if any modifications needed to be done. The only thing I needed to modify was the thickness of the top, because it was a bit too thin. After the modification it turned out just right.
At this point (last night) I needed to go to bed, so I snapped some photos at this stage.
A minor layer deviation can be seen at the base. I was not very happy about this but decided to let it complete anyway because it's a relatively minor layer deviation that I knew would be not very visible with the final print. Someone walking past it is not likely to notice unless they are finely inspecting it.
I also figured "This will let me know if there are any other problem areas upon waking up."
This was one of those prints I was a little worried about "sleeping on." because of the complexity, but I just post up on the couch a few feet away, and hope that if any major problem occurs, that it will likely wake me up :D
When I woke up, the print was done and pretty sharp looking!
I placed the die in there just to see what it would look like :D
The stuff around it is support material.
This is necessary for some prints, because we're working with a melted plastic like substance that will encounter overhang areas and will droop if not supported. I used this support structure called "tree" which I love because it incorporates a "natural" building process reminiscent of nature. It's like nature meets machine :D
The supports came off super easy. It looks like a lot of filament but it's not, it is hollow and extruded more thinly to minimize waste.
There were a couple areas in this print that could have been better. Some minor layer deviations but overall it still looks very nice. The intense white light really brings out the minor deviations, but this will not be under intense light and is hardly noticeable.
It was printed at 0.2 mm layer height and took 8 hours, bringing the total print time of the completed product to 37 hours for the main prints. (Not including all the dice test prints.)
Also, we can see the left over support material, and in these cases sanding is appropriate.
So I rolled up a little piece of sandpaper and started cleaning it up.
We can see here how those minor deviations are not even noticeable, and anyone who walks in my kitchen is going to notice that giant dice over the stand holding it, but I still feel the stand came out very nice, and love the color change filament.
For now I have it propped up on some 3D stacking containers, I'm still brainstorming a more proper way to place it, but I still think it looks really good even sitting on top of those black containers.
I'll go ahead and wrap this post up now with a few more photos from different viewing angles.
What do you think
Thank you for being my first customer to employ me in creating something custom! You are now the owner of a truly one of a kind palm size dice which now sits next to my window, per your request! :)
What does the community think of this of this project and how it came to be?
I would love to hear everyone's thoughts on it!
