Wall Clock Part 2: Real-world dimensions

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Welcome back to the second part of our 3D part series on how to design for 3D printing with Shapr3D. So in the first part we did our research and our inspiration boards and our ideation. So we did find our initial form and shape and use the quick edits.

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and direct editing features of Shapr in order to create an initial design for our clock. So in our second part, we need to create a design and create it in a way so that it interacts with physical real world elements. So for our clock, we bought these clock motors from the internet and these come in a few different sizes.

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and lengths so you can check for yourself which size and which product makes sense for you. And these are what I got and we need to now take measurements and bring this into Shapr in order to use the real world data. So let's do this. We don't need all of the details, but we definitely want to make sure we got the most important dimension. So

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We definitely want to start with the height and the length of this main body. We don't really need to create this cutout here for the battery because it will be anyways in the overall shape so it won't stick out. Um I did notice some small pins on the lower side so we need to definitely see if that makes the overall shape thicker. And then...

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The top part where it sticks through the hole of the clock face, we want to make sure that these dimensions are very, very closely matched and recreated so we can match the diameters and lengths exactly. So let's start with creating our new file. So in our clock folder, I'll just create a new project.

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And let's rename this project to clock motor. And we're going to start measuring our outside dimension. So I have a 56 by 56 millimeter motor or mechanism. And our largest height or largest measurement for the height is 6.5. So let's create a new sketch and

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from the top, put in a center rectangle from the origin and then use our measurements that we just made. So 56 times 56 and we're gonna go outside the sketch and use our extrusion tool for the thickness and that's 16.5. So this is the main body of the clock mechanism.

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Now the next most important thing is the cylinder with the thread. So let's measure, take some measurements. The diameter, outer diameter of the thread is 7.8. So let's create a scratch from this surface. So what we can do is click the surface and then click on sketch, which puts us already into or onto that surface. A circle and then go with the diameter of

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7.8. That's our sketch. Now we need to find the height and let me tell you it is around 14.2. Alright, these are already the most important dimensions but we of course have a few more things to add. So first thing is we are going to take an offset of this edge and that's this

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thicker part on the bottom which has a diameter of 14. Let me just create an offset and then what we are going to do is get rid of this offset dimension and just select this and type in 14. So this way we don't have to measure the offset but we just measure the whole diameter. So this way it's a bit easier but make sure that now it is still connected to the center and it's green.

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so it doesn't float around if we change anything. So that's okay for this sketch. Let's exit. And now we can extrude this for a few millimeters. Just measuring it. And that is around one millimeter. Extrude it one millimeter. And that's it for this part. So the next part is the element where the clock hand or hands for minute and hour

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need to attach and that's very important to get right. So let us create a sketch on this top face, create a sketch and then now we need to measure this very very precisely. So our lowest lower part has a diameter of 5.8 and I see that the there is a small step that goes down to 5.5 or 5.6. So

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We need two circles. One is 5.8 and the other one is 5.6 and exit that sketch and let us push this out for this exact for the exact dimension 4.8 and then we have another small piece that we need to push out. That's around 1.5.

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That's the part that takes the hour handle. And now a new sketch on the top surface for the minute handle. So again, we're going to measure very precisely. There again is a step and that step actually is here in order to make the hands kind of snap in place. And that is 4.9. And the top part, which should be a little smaller is

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3.9 and then the top part is 3.7. 3.9 and 3.7. Exit. And again, which is 3.4 in my case and this moves up 0.8. So I know this is very, very detailed, but in the end, these small details might

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decide over if the minute handle or the hour hand would fit or just be loose. Very important to have those dimensions correctly. It doesn't hurt to be overly precise here. And then we're just going to do a few cosmetic changes. We're going to add our radius on the sides, which is six millimeter. Just give that a small two millimeter

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radius here on top and on the bottom side there is a 2mm chamfer. Alright and that is it for the clock motor which we now are able to put into our final design and use the dimensions and edges and everything else that comes with it in order to inform our final dimensions and final design.

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Okay, now that we have created our physical or digital copy of our physical clock mechanics, we can now go ahead and start a new project and create the final design. So let's rename our project. And then the first thing that we can do is go into our insert tab and click project. Now our clock folder in our project folder.

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We can now see our motor or mechanics and then just click import. So now our clock mechanism is visible in our new project and we can reference everything that's inside. You also see that all the history has also been imported. So first let's create a new sketch. We always start here and then select the top view or top plane and start our first

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drawing. So what I'm going to do is project now the outer edge of our clock motor. So I'll just first click project and then select all these edges from the outside perimeter of our imported motor. So I want to link this because as soon as we change anything, we want that sketch to reflect the changes. So click linked sketch and then hit OK.

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So now you can see these violet frame around our perimeter. So now we want to do an offset, but instead of single edge offset, let's click the small arrow to the right and then click chain. So this way we only need to select the chain element once and drag it out and we need a 0.5 offset. So that gives us enough margin, enough space for the clock movement to sit

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easily inside this cavity. So select or click somewhere to accept that. And now we are going to create a circle from the center origin. Let's create a circle that encompasses everything and gives us a little more margin here on the outside as well. So I'm thinking 90 could be good. If we realize in the end that we don't need that much space, we can also make that smaller

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at later stage. So that's basically our first sketch done and that gives us a little bit of an indication of how far or how big the lower volume needs to be in order to encapsulate the whole clock movement and gives us the approximate volume that we need to work with. Now we can go on and create our second sketch. So first click sketch and then I'm going to go

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to the front view and let's create a new line from the origin all the way to the extent of our circle that we just created. So that already gives us a green line which means it's fully constrained. So as soon as we would change the diameter here of that sketch, that line would also increase in size. So that point, the end point is always um coincident with that circle. Next, I'm gonna click A

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for the arc and then click on that endpoint and go up somewhere over here and that doesn't need to be exact at all we can or we will change the diameter and everything later anyways. Then I'm gonna create a line which go up and that will be a construction line and the construction line gives us a center point so we can now click circle

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go to that center point or midpoint and then move down to the end point of our arc and that gives us a nice circular end of that sketch. So with a fully rounded edge for our clock body. So next we need to decide how deep our cut out should be and also where the top surface should end. And in order to make that decision, let's go to

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from the origin point up on the z-axis and click once. And then we now want or need to decide the distance between our topmost surface, which is this little higher part of the clock movement. And I'm going to just give it a little space of 0.5 millimeters. That should be enough room for any imperfections in the print.

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And from there we need another line going up and that is going to be our decision on how thick the material should be that holds the clock motor or mechanism in place. And that could be around, let's say, eight millimeters. And from there, let's create a horizontal, small horizontal line in order to give us a starting point for

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the other sweep. So now I want to really dial in this height so between the topmost point and the lowermost point and to do that I think I'm going to create a line from that end point of the circle horizontally to the z-axis and let's click that and make it a construction line. Now we can create some dimensions between

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certain points, for example this end point and this end point, and dial in the amount of depth that we want to achieve. First of all let's create some constraints. So for example this dimension needs to be fixed 5 millimeters and then we can try and click the circle center in order to move it around and see what's not fixed. So you'll see that this point and this

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circle need to be coincident and also this arc and the circle or actually the endpoint and the circle also need to be coincident and now when we move things around everything sticks to each other and it's not breaking so this is exactly what we need and now what we can do is basically change this height in a way that we wanted to look let's also

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click this dimension here and fix that to 8mm, our thickness of the material. And now we can select those two endpoints and make a decision on how deep the clock face should be. And another thing we can do is basically decide on the length of or diameter of our whole clock.

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And we can do this approximately with that line over here, but that only gives us the center point of our circle. So what I'm going to do is create another line and then basically put it around the edge of our circle, go down. So that needs to be constrained to the vertical line. And also we can select both of our elements. So the circle and the line make them tangent.

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And we can also go ahead and make the dynamic construction line. So this way now we have an element that we can move and that basically defines our outermost point of the clock. So now we can decide on the distance between here and this end point or any other point along the z-axis. And we're going to put in 120 millimeters because I know that my printer

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will not be able to print more than 24 centimeters in diameter. So that's my absolute maximum dimension. All right, so now we see that almost everything is green. A few blue points are this endpoint, which is defining our inner surface. And then this being the outer surface, and we can also change the radius and see how that changes the whole.

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look but also we need another arc over here so let's create that one so click arc and then go from that endpoint to the top endpoint of our circle and then go ahead with radius that feels correct and now we have a few parameters that we can play with so for example i know that i want this curve to end basically horizontal so what i can do is click that

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arc and then this construction line and make them tangent. That means that this arc is going to that endpoint in a completely horizontal way. We could also do this here in the same way to make them tangent. If I want that. So just see what feels right. For me, I wouldn't go over 90 degrees because here you see that we have our the smallest or the closest point.

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between those arcs is now somewhere around here so it gets thicker again to the end which I don't really want or like so something between here 70 or 75 degrees feels right we could now trim this inner point or inner arc of the circle and that way we just have the area that we really want to extrude or revolve

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So lastly, need to decide how this upper arc should look like. And basically, the one thing that we can change is the angle or the dimension of our inner surface. So this distance between the center and this endpoint. So I think that's the most logic way to constrain it. So let's go ahead and type in 30.

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that would make everything green and I feel like it's a nice way between growing from that small radius and getting thicker here at the base and we still have a good large enough space in order to create a nice fillet here in the end. Let's quickly touch on that why we are not creating another spline here to smoothen out that edge.

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because we could do it so we could create an arc between this line and the arc and then make those tangent, both of them and that would also create a nice S-curve that I'm going for but in this case I would prefer waiting for that step to create a fillet after effect in our extruded or revolved part because we have a little more

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control over this fillet. So let's remove that arc again and this is our fully defined sketch and with all the dimensions that we could change later on and enough flexibility to continue working. So let's exit the sketch and we now have a perfectly nice defined sketch which we can now revolve. Click Revolve.

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and then select either the Z axis or one of the parts of the sketch and it already creates a 360 degree revolve and be sure to create a new body. Hit done. This is our nicely defined main body of the tulip clock. So now we can hide our sketches and also we could rename this main clock body just to keep it tidy.

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So next let us do two things. We could go to the shader and click X-ray and we see that our clock mechanism or clock mechanics is inside this volume. So we need to kind of excavate it. So we can unhide our first sketch here and you'll see that we have our previously made sketch that's 0.5 of an offset of the circumference of the motor.

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To make the selection a bit easier you can hide the clock motor and also we could go in here, double click the inner line and make that a construction line. This is our projected line from before. Now if we exit we can now click once for the whole selection or for the whole area to be highlighted. Now let's extrude this into the main body.

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And we can go around here and approximate how far. Because what we can do now, go click somewhere and unhide the clock motor. We can go into our extrusion and go to extend to object. And we need to select the object that we want to touch. So fix that. And we need to select our top surface.

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and in order to do that it doesn't let us create or select the surface now, we just can select edges. But we can go to edit, select through, click here and then find the correct phase of our motor. This is the correct phase. It shows here we can select done. And another neat little thing is we can offset this endpoint by 0.2.

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And that gives us just a little space in between the furthest part and our end of the pocket in order to make space for or have some wiggle room, make space for some imperfections in the print. All right, now we can go into our shaded mode. We can also check our section view from the front and we see that our motor has been placed nicely into this pocket.

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Alright, you will see in our section view that we have some overlapping parts which are indicated in red and it's our next step. So let's click this inner surface and create a new sketch. We want to project this outer edge and create an offset. So let's project this edge, make it linked as well. Hit OK. We can already click it and make it a construction line.

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And then we are going to offset that. And as I mentioned, if we want to have a tight fit, we go for a 0.1 and that gives us 0.1 millimeter on both or either sides, which in total makes it a 0.2 distance. And that should be enough for a nice fit. So that should be a regular line and that's our sketch done. So let's select this area and then punch through.

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the body, but we want to make sure that the clock motor is not affected. So let's go into our extrusion, go to the subtract from, and we are going to delete this body from the selection. Now we have a perfectly clean section view, so nothing is intersecting. And if when we have the first print, we see that this hole needs to be a little wider.

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because of imperfections, we can always go into our sketch and increase that dimension here. So while we are here in the section view, I can just quickly talk about something that's different from designing for manufacturing in a traditional sense and designing for manufacturing for 3D printing or rapid prototyping. So you will be able to see that we have a body

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which has a varied wall thickness, so indicated by this green area. And this is usually not easy to replicate in any other material except maybe CNC machining. Because if that part is injection molded plastic, we need to ensure that the wall of the material is uniformly the same.

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Because we are creating something for 3D printing, we really don't need to worry about this and can take advantage of this technology. So all these green areas are going to be infilled by a pattern and therefore we are saving a lot of material and are still able to create the desired shape. So really this technology allows you to be very creative and think

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outside the usual restrictions. All right, let's finish our shape by selecting this edge. We are going to create a fillet as promised. So just pull out as far as you would like. I think I'm going to use a 50 millimeter radius. Right. So we now finished our main clock body, but there are a few things that we need to add in order to make it

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course the clock hands but we'll just keep that for the next step and for now we are trying to finish the clock body itself. Alright just a quick jump in time we have added most of the details such as the indicators and the wall mount. I have opted for a twist lock mechanism on this on the wall mount if you prefer a easier

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solution you can opt for a keyhole that is made for wall nails and not screws. This option is just a little bit more secure but both options work. All right now that we have added all these details that the clock body needed we are now ready to export.

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I'm gonna hide the motor and then go to file, export and export, which allows me to click on 3D printing and it already has preselected the 3MF file format. And what I'm gonna do is include or save the different items separately. So all these elements that we created, the wall mount, the main body and the inserts.

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are exported separately. All right, so now we are inside our 3D printing software. This might change according to your printer and settings and preferences. But I'm here in Bambu Studio and I have a few tips on how to get this printed correctly. So first you already see that I tilted the main body a little bit to the back.

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and that gives us the best layer lines for the front surface. Then I use a tree support which is automatically populated for all these little overhangs. And the last thing I want to do is I will click on the model and then I'm going to seam painting. Just go to the back here and then use a fairly big brush size and just try to

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Put all the seams at least here on the top, here in the back of the model and then maybe same here on the underside. That should avoid seams on the front of the clock. So let's check if that works. All right, perfect. No seams visible on the front. So all the seams are stored neatly in the back. No...

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disturbance in the layers of the front surface. So this will take around seven hours to print and I'm gonna send that off and during that time we're going to continue with our modeling.