Part 4: Slipping into a new idea
Walking about the computer area on a Friday as I waited for my Army Transport Tray to finish printing, I was getting annoyed at picking out the guest slips that patrons put in the slip basket that we have the scrap paper in for patrons to use. Ok, this is just me being particular and wanting to keep the desks clean for patrons and while we do have trash cans around the computer are, the little baskets are very convenient as trash receptacles. So, after I sat back down, I started to think...well what can I do to fix this.
I decided I would open up TinkerCAD and see what I could make. I thought first would be a better holder for the paper slips, so I took a basic box and sized it up to what I felt was a more appropriate size then I duplicated that box shrunk one side by 6mm, shift it forward by 3mm and then elevated it by 3mm again before making the box a "Hole". Now readers will know what "hole" does, but I will remind those that are not binge reading these, in TinkerCAD one of the options for shapes is to make them a solid color of various shades or to make a Hole which would carve out anything it merged and overlapping with, so when I merge the two boxes here, they became a 3-sided box.
Now I had the juices flowing I thought what else does the computer stations need, they had paper but not everyone brings something to write with and it would be mean to have our patrons come and ask us for a writing utensil, especially since we have a box full of those funny half pencils golfers use. So now I made another box, this time though it was long and thin and right up next to the the paper slip box, now for what would be the pencil hole along the top of this new box, I mean I could make a cylinder and top it with a cone so the pencil's graphite is not holding the pencil up...I mean the sharp end could be facing up but who hasn't impaled themselves with a pencil at some point in their life....seriously?...just me?....well shoot.
Well instead of designing a pencil I just looked into TinkerCAD's shape files and found one right there, plopped it onto the work plane aligned it centered on the new box on one axis and duplicated a few copies along another and bang. Now as I was doing this I thought I needed to add a little more and what came to mind was I wanted some way to keep the current basket from slipping around and having two floating items on the desk is a bit much. I started looking around the more complicated shape files and decided to try using a ring shape that I could slice off what I did not need and have a hook. Well after a bit of fiddling...I hated what I had added, the paper and pencil holders were a boxy utilitarian, but the hook was shapely and elegant and just wreck what I was seeing and that was before I knew what the support for the overhanging hook would be. Left with only one real option, I scrapped the curved hook and go for a simple peg in the horizontal plane, I also thought that might help the emptying of the basket as it shouldn't require two hand to separate.
Now I had a free-floating peg elevated up and off of the build plate, so I thought I should try making a print support. Some "quick" back story, I have been 3d printing for almost 3 years now and it took me a full year to get successful print and another 6 months before I got the software I was using to generate enough supports for the STL files I had to be stable. Ok, bit of a mislead as when I first got my printer I didn't have a lot of time to focus on it as I was in grad school with a 4.5 hour commute each week and a laser engraver that was having some progress on fine tuning, two cats, a newly minted fiancée and a 80 year old neighbor who got her first iPhone and asked me to explain things to her...me....the guy who only ever gets androids since the Windows phone was nixed...I had a lot on my plate. I was able to get presupported STL file and that printed perfectly, so I knew I was the source of the error, and I found that the support density was a variable option and found a good balance about 6 months later.
Alright than now with that "quick" diversion to explain why I wanted to make the supports myself, I opted to keep it simple another box, but super thin...1mm... and had it under the peg without touching the pencil box for a clean break. I was kind of proud to have it turn out as good as it did. Now I had to see what my manager thought of the idea and find some time in the shrinking window of availability in which the 3d printer seems to be having to see how good my design in.
My manager got back to me faster than I was expecting, they loved the idea and now I had to find some time to print while not trying to delay my Army Transport Trays by weeks. Guess I was going to have get creative with the printing schedule.