Building Princials
When designing your builds, there are many things you will have to consider, but the most important ones are:
- Eliminate complexity at almost all costs
- Reliability is more important than efficiency
- Use the right tools for the job
- Design and build it in a way that is replicable
- Understand the constraints of your materials
- Ease of manufacturing, build, and installation
Materials​
| Material | Description | Uses | Manufacturing Methods | Supplier |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| PLA | Either a plastic sheet or fillament for extrusion. PLA is malleable and has very good tensile strength and impact resistance | Great general-use material. It is not the best for parts that need to be extremely hard, but is great for parts that need to be able to take some abuse. PLA is a good choice for most parts. We only use PLA for 3d printing and it is a great (and inexpensive) material to daily-drive in 3d printers | 3d printing. Can also be laser cut but PLA sheets are more expensive than acrylic | Makerbot (for Method), Microcenter for other printers. Makerbot first-party is high quality, but disproportionately expensive. |
| Nylon-Carbon Fiber | A fillament that we can manufacture with our Makerbot Method. Carbon Fiber is extremely expensive. | An extremely strong material used to make extremely hard parts. Carbon Fiber is extremely expensive and brittle, so should be used for things that mut be very hard and durable, but will not be experiencing impacts. Carbon Fiber is great at withstanding twisting forces. | 3d printing | Makerbot |
| Wood | Sheets. I hope you know what wood is | Wood is a great solution for rapid prototyping and electrical isolation. Using the laser cutter we can quickly make large and robust parts. Wood is not the strongest material but is very good at withstanding opposing forces and shear forces. Wood will not deform or stretch like PLA or metals | Laser cutting, hand & power tools | Hardware stores. Take care to find wood that conforms to the 0.187 inch thick standard (just a good trade between strength and size) as well as a very flat piece |
| 5202 Aluminum | A sturdy but cheap and light material that is great at withstanding shear forces but will stretch and deform if pinpoint pressure is applied | Aluminum is a good drop-in replacement for many 2d parts for things like drivetrains and important panels that will take lots of forces. | Laser cutting via sendcutsend. We cannot process aluminum in-house | sendcutsend |
| Acrylic | Sheets of a brittle material that is great for making parts that will not see the kind of force that would justify metal manufacturing, but will be used in production. | Acrylic can be flexed to meet contours with heat guns, giving it agility for many different uses. It is extremely brittle and will fail suddenly and completely | Laser cutting, hand & power tools | Glowforge Proofgrade or Pitsco. Pitsco's plastic is much more difficult for the Glowforge to cut but is better almost half as expensive |