HWK F3: 3D Printing

Umbo (In the Flesh!)

A picture of Umbo the Elephant after being 3D printed and assembled.

Umbo the Elephant in all his glory, now with ears!

With the help of an Original Prusa MK4, Umbo was brought to life with PolyTerraTM PLA. In order to optimize Umbo’s creation, his material and print time were minimized by printing him as separate parts and assembling him, rather than printing him in his final form. If I were to print Umbo as his final assembly, there would have been an enormous amount of PLA wasted on supports in addition to an increased print time, as most of his body is elevated off of the ground. The final print time ended up being 4 hours and 58 minutes. For some reason, the slicer would not show the estimated print times for both the final “part” print and the initial “assembled” print, so I do not have a numerical comparison to give (I will try again tomorrow and provide a value if I can get it to work). The most difficult part of the printing process was making sure that the print wouldn’t fail. On my first attempt, I was 30 minutes into a print when suddenly the printer decided to stop working mid-print. On the following attempt, I was 20 minutes into a print when some of the PLA began to build up and streak across the print, ruining the following layers. On my final attempt, the line of PLA that was printed at the very start to clean the tip was printing in the middle of the air and streaked across the print bed, which I was able to catch and rip off before it could affect the rest of the print. Additionally, I forgot to account for the tolerance on the print (holes being smaller and rods being thicker). As such, I had to sand down the rods in order to get them to fit into their respective holes. Traditional fabrication techniques have difficulty creating objects with complex surfaces and intricate details, as they heavily rely on the user’s own skill and artistic capabilities. Such objects include Umbo’s head and his trunk, which were printed without issue.

Additional Pictures of Umbo’s Creation

A screenshot of the final assembly of Umbo in SolidWorks.

Umbo’s final assembly before printing him.

A screenshot of the parts for Umbo's printing and assembly in the slicer.

The parts for Umbo laid out in the slicer.

A picture of the parts for Umbo after they finished printing, showing that the print time was 4 hours and 58 minutes.

Umbo’s parts on the printer bed after being printed. The print time is hard to see, but it shows that it was 4 hours and 58 minutes.