Connector Designs for 3D-Printed Glasses Experiment: Part 1/2
I am working on a project creating 3D printed glasses for a 3D printing workshop I am running this summer for Olimpico Learning. Olimpico Learning is a great non-profit providing innovative Summer STEAM camps for low-income learners in Silicon Valley. You can check them out here:
For this workshop, I am creating a variety of 3D printed objects and activities for students to work with. In addition, I am designing glasses frames for each student to decorate and take home with them as a memento of the program -which amounts to 250 pairs of glasses that need to be printed by June.
The main issue cropping up in the glasses design is how to connect the temple pieces to the glasses face. Trying to create a hinge mechanism like regular glasses have is not feasible in this case. For such a large production volume, and seeing as these glasses are functioning as a take-home memento, the frame quality will not be top-grade. As such, I have developed 3 simple designs I am going to test and eventually use as a prototype for the model.
Each design is a temple piece, and a connection mechanism that will eventually be part of the glasses face. Since cost is an issue during printing, I am trying to keep the connecting parts for testing small, until I am ready to develop the full prototype. Here are the options I am sending to print. The next post in this series will have the printed results.
- Notch and slot -Face to Temple: The face of the glasses will have a notch on the back end that will embed into a hole in the temple piece.
2. Hook Together: This piece was accomplished by using the Boolean Difference command to take a chunk out of the face and temple pieces, so each slot will hook onto each other.
3. Notch and Slot -Temple to Face: The temple of the glasses will have a notch built up, that will slot into a hole in the face piece.
Now it’s time to get these prototypes printed, and experiment to see which option works the best, and is the most stable as a connector.
