Lock Blocks

[peteski]

Okay, I hollowed out the Lock-Blocks. 0.31mm walls. And a 2.0mm hole in the bottom. The volume went from .013 c.i. down to .004 c.i. So that's almost 70% less material. Significant, for sure.


Now, does anybody know what the max build size is at Shapeways? I can get 50 of them (5 rows of 10) in about 2-1/2 x 3-1/2".

That is quite a bit of savings on material.  The way I envisioned this was to leave the entire bottom open except for the corners (which would be left protruding enough to interlock with the bottom block.  Then add a cross brace in the middle to prevent bowing of the sides. I'm also not sure if going with 0.31mm wall thickness is actually going a bit too far (making these blocks too delicate and possibly prone to warping or bowing,.  Maybe the walls should be a bit thicker? Like 0.5mm?  That should still save on the material cost but make the blocks sturdier.

[Scottl]

Or... you could buy an existing commercial product, or.... you could easily make them out of strip styrene... 

[peteski]

Or... you could buy an existing commercial product, or.... you could easily make them out of strip styrene... 

Yeah, but that's no fun. It's much more fun to discuss new ways to make this item until we pretty much exhausted all the possibilities. 

[Scottl]

Believe me, I am all for inventing ways to make a solution more complicated than necessary 

[Lemosteam]

@peteski My generator walls are 0.31 thick and show no signs of delicacy or warpage.

@GimpLizard. I was going to add earlier that you may want to consider making the bottom pockets a little larger than the top locators so that there will never be a gap between the blocks wnen stacked.

Load the model to shapeways and use the 3d tools to look at the design rules for each material.  I find this very helpful.

@wcfn100 I have found that multi models count for min size.

[wcfn100]

@wcfn100 I have found that multi models count for min size.

Maybe it's just FXD but I've had files fail the minimum bounding box even though there were multiple parts which together were more than enough.  I've also had files I've previously printed fine now fail because one of the parts fails the minimum.

Jason

[peteski]

@peteski My generator walls are 0.31 thick and show no signs of delicacy or warpage.

Good to know - you know more about this than  :)I do.

[GimpLizard]

@GimpLizard. I was going to add earlier that you may want to consider making the bottom pockets a little larger than the top locators so that there will never be a gap between the blocks wnen stacked.

I thought of that. And did make the bottom pockets slightly (5%) bigger. But the more I think about it, might not need pockets at all. Maybe just cross shaped holes. do you know if Shapeways requires the hole on the bottom to be round? Or just anything that will allow the uncured resin to escape?

Oh, by the way... Scott? Don't be a kill joy. We're men. We don't do nothing the easy way. 

[Lemosteam]

Nope, I think that is nothing but a min opening for fluid to escape.  Opening the bottom crosses makes sense and will save some material.

[GimpLizard]

Nope, I think that is nothing but a min opening for fluid to escape.  Opening the bottom crosses makes sense and will save some material.

Thanks. Back to the drawing board, then.

[GimpLizard]

Follow up news on the lock-block.

I did some web searching and managed to find a couple of makers of these block. That, in and of itself, is not so interesting. What IS interesting is that one of them, elite Precast in the U.K., (http://www.eliteprecast.co.uk/technical-drawings/) has dimensioned drawings for their blocks. And they have a number of different styles & sizes. So, I'm in the process of modeling a few of them. I'm starting with the "Legato" series, as they seem to be the most popular. And I'm going to do a couple different sizes. I'll keep you all posted.

[GimpLizard]

Okay, here's the latest models.

[ Guests cannot view attachments ] [ Guests cannot view attachments ] [ Guests cannot view attachments ] [ Guests cannot view attachments ]

The dimensions of the full size blocks are (small) 400mm x 800mm x 800mm; (medium) 800 x 800 x800; and (large) 1200 x 800 x 800. The actual sizes are: small = .098 x .197 x .197; med = .197 x .197 x .197; lrg = .297 x .197 x .197. The wall thickness of these models is .31mm. The volumes are: small = .0016in^3; med = .0024in^3; lrg = .0033in^3. As the bottom view of the small block shows, there are square holes in the same location as the square "cones" (can you have square cones?) on the top.

Now to see if I can figure my way around Shapeways.

[nkalanaga]

Well, I guess they could be described as square cones, although I don't remember ever seeing the term.  It's easier to say than "truncated pyramids"...

[BCR751]

Well, none of those look like these.  These are the ones that are the most popular, around here at least, and the ones I would like to have.  GimpLizard, you were working on these at the beginning.  Are you still planning to do them with Shapeways?

[Ed Kapuscinski]

So when did these things start getting popular? Were they around in the 80s?