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Design for 3D-Printing

(blog.rahix.de)
837 points q3k | 2 comments | | HN request time: 0s | source
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hengheng ◴[] No.43888730[source]
Great article. This is all above the skill level of the average part on thingiverse or printables, but the good parts on there are going to follow similar ideas. Love the mouse ears, press-fit holes and step-by-step alignment of layers to build impossible bridges.

Notably, in fusion 360 this would all be designed in "plastics" mode, and yet that mode is oblivious to whether the part is printed or moulded. I wonder if any CAD engine can do "production-aware design" that constrains design to the capabilities of standardized machines, e.g. keeping a metal part 3-d millable. I've seen strict design rule enforcement with PCBs, and I have seen sheet metal macros, but nothing for general mechanical CAD.

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WillAdams ◴[] No.43891414[source]
I'm actually working on something along the lines of:

>CAD engine can do "production-aware design" that constrains design to the capabilities of standardized machines, e.g. keeping a metal part 3-d millable.

by modeling a part by only using subtraction based on tooling:

https://github.com/WillAdams/gcodepreview

you'll need: https://pythonscad.org/ but it's allowed me to do pretty much everything I've tried out in it thus far, and I'm putting the finishing touches on a joinery module which should let one make pretty much anything of wood, and metals should be much the same --- even turned out a thread cutting program as a proof of concept a while back.

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1. gragundier ◴[] No.43895362[source]
Never heard of pythonscad before, but I've always thought it would be a good idea (if only I honestly had the skill to make this myself). Thanks for the links!
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2. WillAdams ◴[] No.43896025[source]
It was absolutely game-changing for me --- I'd been flailing at this for a long while, and was most of the way there w/ RapSCAD, but stuck on it not being very popular --- within a week of release I had a working version of my library --- it's been nothing but upside since then.