[Gta04-owner] Home printed cases

[Bob Ham]

Hi all,

When people started talking about 3D-printing cases I was surprised to
see them referring to commercial services, rather than printing at home
using a Reprap¹ or similar printer.  This, to me, home printing is in
perfect alignment with the ethic behind the GTA04.

Recently, I went to a maker night² at my local maker/hack/co-working
space³ where they have a Makerbot Cupcake CNC⁴.  I managed to print a
back plate using Slyon's back.stl model⁵.  Unfortunately, the Cupcake
has quite a small print area (about the size of a cupcake :-)  Because
of this, I was only able to print the part at 80% size.  I've
photographed the print and put the photographs here:

  http://settrans.net/~rah/gta04-0.8-print/

Ideally I would have split the back.stl 3D mesh in half and printed both
sides but I didn't have time on the night to get to grips with the 3D
editors I had available (you'd think it would be a simple task! :-)  I
will do this at home when I get some time and then print the two halves
at another maker night in future.


What I've learned from this so far, is that the print does seem quite
sturdy.  However, the definition of the 3D printer is nowhere near the
quality needed to produce a usable print of the existing case design.
Notably the tangs on the side of the back plate are completely missing
from this 80% print as they are too thin.

So, the future direction of my endeavour is to design a new case that
(1) is printable by a home 3D printer, (2) can house all the parts for a
GTA04 and (3) is usable as a daily phone.  This is no small endeavour,
not least because it involves building my own Reprap printer to make use
of the larger print area.

My intention is to start with a gross, simple design without concern for
aesthetics; just a rectangular block big enough to hold the phone
components and be strong enough to survive a pocket.  I expect to use
screws to allow access to a battery compartment.  Once this design is
usable, I will refine it to be more aesthetic.

I will also, of course, keep you all updated on my progress.

Bob


¹ http://reprap.org/wiki/Main_Page
² http://makernight.co.uk/
³ http://doesliverpool.com/
⁴ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MakerBot_Industries#Cupcake_CNC
⁵ http://www.slyon.de/CAD/

-- 
Bob Ham <rah at settrans.net>
Diaspora: rah at pod.settrans.net

for (;;) { ++pancakes; }
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 198 bytes
Desc: This is a digitally signed message part
URL: <http://lists.goldelico.com/pipermail/gta04-owner/attachments/20120502/7986cc81/attachment.bin>