3D Printing:

Objective: Making a 3D printed object that could not be easily made subtractively.

To begin off, I first have to have an idea in mind of what I want to make. After a short research on the items to make, I stumbled upon the idea of a hinged box, and by using these two tutorial videos shown below I was able to make the f3d file design for my 3D printed object. 

My object cannot be easily made subtractively as the pin that is in the hinge would require it to be in place when it is printed with a little gap in between the hinge, which cannot be made easily using subtractive manufacturing where the material is removed off so the pin is not able to be in the middle of the hinge which makes it harder to make subtractively.

 

[Tutorial Part 1]

[Tutorial Part 2]

Now, let me bring you through the step-by-step tutorial on how to make the hinged box. You can always check with the video at any point you are unsure.

Making of Box

To begin off, click on the "Assemble" and select "New Component"

Create a square box of 70mm x 70mm.

Click on "Modify" and select "Parameters"

Enter the value as shown below, but do keep in mind the "gap" value is best kept at 0.5mm or it will cause some problem later on.

Extrude the sketch of the box earlier by "BoxHeight" as stated in the parameters.

Under "Modify" click on "Shell".

Select all 6 sides of the box. Tick "Tangent Chain" and for inside thickness input "WallThickness", direction put as "Inside"

Under "Construct" click on "Offset Plane"

Select the top surface of the box, for distance set as "-BoxHeight/2", the negative there is to set the direction as downwards from the surface selected.

After that, click on "Modify" again and select "Split Body" this time.

For "Body to Split" select the box and for "Splitting tools" select the yellow interface that was being created in the previous step.

Now rename the bodies name at the side as highlighted in the picture below, as "Top Body" and "Bottom Body" or whatever you like as long as you can differentiate which is the top and bottom.

Left-click on the bottom body interface and right-click to select "Create Sketch"

Making of Hinge

Draw a line of 2.95mm from the center of the box, then draw 3 circles of any dimension at the end of the line.

Hit "D" on your keyboard which means dimension and click on the innermost circle. Set the parameter as "WallThickness", and then hit "D" again and select the innermost circle and the second circle and set the parameter as "Gap". Lastly, hit "D" again and select the 2nd and 3rd circle and parameter as "WallThickness". Hit on "ESC" key to exit the dimension command.

Hit on "L" for line and draw 2 lines tangent to the circle drawn. Ensure both lines are 45 degrees by hitting "D" for dimension again and selecting the line and to the box line.

Now select the two interfaces by pressing "Shift" while you select it, right-click and select "Press Pull". Changing Extent Type to "To Object" and select "Extend Faces" under Chain Faces, and "New Body" as the operation.

Rename the Hinge as "Bottom Hinge" and Hide it by pressing on the eye-looking icon. Click on the hinge sketch to show again.

Select all three circles, and the top hinge, right-click and press "Press Pull" settings will be the same as the previous step. Rename the body as "Top Hinge" and hide it again.

Select the inner circle and hit extrude, select "To Object", "Extend faces" and "New Body" as the setting, and hit OK.

Hide everything except the bottom box. Right-click the box and hit "Create Sketch"

Create a rectangle of 5.5mm x WallThickness. Create another rectangle of 5.5mm x Gap.

Click on "L" for the line and hit on "Construction" on the right-hand side to draw a line at the middle of the box. Draw another construction line down from the midpoint by 11.5mm. Drawing another rectangle at the endpoint of the line, 5.5mm x Gap. Turn off Construction.

Hit on the "Mirror" function and select all the rectangles by dragging over them, mirror line selected as the one highlighted in the picture below. Then hit OK.

Select all 4 rectangles with Gap within the parameters and hit extrude. Follow the settings as shown below.

Remove the bodies highlighted in blue below.

Right-click on "Top Body" and hit on "Create Components from Bodies"

Re-arrange the browser as shown below, where the Bottom Box and Top Box different components are separated respectively.

Select "As-Built joint" under "Assemble".

Select the Top and Bottom box as the "components" and the pin as the position with the motion as "Revolute"

The box is then finished.

After which I made some minor changes to the box by using the "Chamfer" function and made the box look a little nicer. I also added a Seal picture by using the JPG to SVG converter which can be found online. I then export the SVG file into Fusion360 which resulted in the following design below

3D Printing Settings:

The settings below are what I used for the 3D Printing itself, the printer I used was the Ultimaker 2+ but if you are using other printers, the settings might need to have some alterations but generally it should be about the same.

Reflection

I did enjoy the 3D Printing activity as we were not restricted to printing one object only and had the freedom to pick what we liked. Choosing the hinged box certainly was fun to make as the tutorial video that I stumbled upon was really insightful and I learned more functions that Fusion360 offers and I would definitely make something else during my free time as 3D Printing is really interesting due to the different filament that can be used and how much infill do you want it to have, all these different aspects would result in the different quality of the product that is being printed out. Lastly, the product that I printed was 53 minutes and it took only 1 print for my product to come out nicely which is quite fortunate. I would also definitely be making use of 3D printing in my future projects if needed as it is versatile and would be able to print any parts we need as long as the file is correctly drawn using Fusion360 or other softwares.

Finished Product:

Top View

Side View

Download for STL and Fusion File