One day, our Marketing Associate wanted more pictures and examples of 3D prints to post to social media. We also needed another detailed 3D print for our lobby area. So, Jason, our trusty engineer, took to printing a chess board that had already been designed by Big Bad Bison on Thingiverse. We will describe to you a little bit about the goes into 3D printing a prototype below.
One must have all of the materials ready, and understand the amount of time, filament and colors they would like for the finished product. Jason made sure the prints were doable on our printers and decided to print with the classic light gray and black filament for the chess pieces. It took numerous hours for all of the pieces to print, and there is usually something bound to go wonky with a printer or the filament.
For the white pieces, most of them turned out well, except two pieces had spiraling parts, which had broken off easily. As for the black pieces, they looked beautiful and shiny, but the two tallest pieces did not finish printing completely because the black filament ran out. Jason had to reprint all of the failed pieces. He even had to print the white ones a third time, because half of the print somehow failed and was not printing in the desired chess piece shape.
The bed in which the prints are built in layers upon, must be flat and have a minimal amount of dust or material particles on it. Even a small bump, crumb or an issue with the nozzle or filament, can throw off the entire print. Printing the entire set within working hours, along with the reprint of pieces took us two days. Jason also created a chess board to go along with the pieces. All of the combined black and gray squares, as well as a board for them to fit into took another two days.
It is truly amazing to see how 3D printers work, as well as the detailed mechanics and design that go into them. As you can see, the final result is beautiful and practical! Anyone who visits our office can now play chess if they’d please and can also see the hard work that goes into creating a print.
This is just one example of how we can create a prototype at Innvoaum. We could have designed the entire chess set ourselves, or used any other design of a chess set available through Thingiverse. Of course, if a customer wants something completely customized for them, we can make that happen. We hope that this gave you an inside look into the 3D printing process and how much work goes into creating a predesigned or regular prototype.
Do you have a product idea and would to have it made into a tangible product? Check out our contact info or give us a call!