Transcript:
Hi. I’m Alex and welcome to Super Make something today. We’re making a 3d printed business card dispenser as I get ready for the Cleveland Mini Maker Faire. Let’s get started. I will be attending the Cleveland Mini-maker Faire at the Cleveland Public Library on November 3rd, 2018 to get ready for the event I designed and ordered some Super Make something business cards that contain information about where to find me on social media and a QR code. That will take people to my Youtube channel. My current plan is to demo the robotic drawing machine that I built in the previous episode through a podium presentation, so it may not be possible to personally hand my business cards to everyone who attends the talk therefore. I decided to build a spring-loaded business card dispenser to easily. Share my contact information with everyone who is interested while I am presenting. The business card dispenser is made out of the following components for rubber Suction Cup feet, 14 3/8 inch Long 440 screws 7 1 inch long 440 aluminum Standoffs 1 3d printed baseplate, several compression springs, 1 3d printed carriage plate, 1 3d printed top plate and several 440 washers to keep the screw heads from eating into the plastic components. Let’s begin by designing and 3d printing the dispenser. I first measured the width length and thickness of my business cards, using a set of digital calipers. Next, I open up Solidworks a solid modeling computer-aided design software package that would allow me to create a 3d virtual model of all of the Despenser’s components. I first created a sketch from the measured business card dimensions and use this to create a top plate that standoffs could attach to using a set of screws my next designed a matching base plate that the standoffs would mate to on the other end, which also contained a feature that only allows one business card to slide out at a time to keep feeding the business cards up automatically. I then designed a carriage plate that sits on a set of compression springs. The operating concept in this design is that the stack of business cards, it’s on top of the carriage plate, which in turn sits on top of the compression springs that are pre-loaded by the stack of business cards as a card is removed from the stack. The springs decompressed slightly translate the entire carriage, assembly upward and move the next card in the stack into position to be slid out of the dispenser. In this design, the Standoffs play a triple role first they are spaced along the top of the plates in such a way that they perfectly contour a stack of business cards and prevent them from translating around the display. Second, the Standoffs Act as guides for Compression Springs that slide over the standoffs and third. The standoffs also act as a guide for the carriage plate, constraining it to only move up and down the file. A component in the design is a set of rubber suction cup feet, which thread into the base plate and allow me to stick the dispenser on to any horizontal or vertical surface once. I was happy with the overall design. I saved the top plate carriage plate and base plate as an STL or stereo lithography file, which reconstructed the 3d geometry of each CAD file into a triangular mesh. I next opened up. Pura, a free 3d slicing program imported the STL file for each piece, adjusted the print settings so that the objects would print at a point, one millimetre layer height for a nicer surface finish and exported the resulting set of print instructions to an SD card. I then plugged the SD card into my 3d printer and started the print. The files generated by cure are print instructions written in G-code, which tell the 3d printer how to make each object one layer at a time using the fused deposition modeling or FDM additive manufacturing process in an FTM additive manufacturing process. The printhead moves along a print bed and continuously extrudes a thin line of melted plastic filament as it travels around while this process is slower than traditional subtractive manufacturing processes, which remove material from a large block of raw material. It has the advantage that it is relatively cleaner, which makes a good for desktop prototyping, waste, less material and that akka manufacture complicated geometries more easily for these pieces. The total print time was approximately 10 hours. After all of the parts have printed, it was time to assemble and test the business card dispenser. I began by inserting 7 4 40 screws into the recessed holes on the bottom of the base plate next. I grabbed 7 1 inch aluminum standoffs and screwed them onto each screw. I Nix took four rubber suction cup feet. Flip the base plate over and screw them into the remaining base plate holes after this. I dug through a collection of Springs that I bought from my local hardware store and placed four of them onto the four corner. Sandoz. I then slid the carriage flight over the springs and inserted a stack of business cards between the standoffs while pressing down on the cards. I next attach the top plate. To the other side of the standoffs, using more screws with washers underneath there in order to prevent the screw heads from eating into the plastic. At this point, the assembly was done and it was time to test out the dispenser. I stuck the dispenser to my table and tried to slide out my business card. The cards easily slid out of the holder one at a time, making this accessory ready for the Cleveland Mini Maker Faire. Overall, the business card dispenser works as intended and easily allows people to take a business card because the main functional component of the build are the standoffs and springs. The dispenser is easily customizable, depending on the hardware, a number of business cards you have on hand by using shorter or longer standoffs and springs and by fine-tuning the standoff height with additional washers. Additionally, all features on the dispenser are sized to work with metric hardware as well. If you’re interested in building this project yourself. A link to the STL files and the Bill of Materials can be found in the video description below If you’ll be attending the Cleveland Mini Maker Faire. Be sure to stop by and say hi, and to grab a card for yourself. I definitely look forward to meeting some of you in person, But in the meantime, thanks for watching. See you soon and go super make something. Thanks for watching. If you enjoyed this video, please be sure to hit the like button and share with your friends. Your support helps me make more episodes. Links to all project files can be found in the video description below. Click the subscribe button on the left to keep up with my latest projects. Click the cards on the right to check out more episodes and connect with me on social media. Thanks again for watching now. It goes super, make something.