Posted on April 3, 2010 - by dirtymitten
Little box design
Here’s the little box design I was talking about. Not here, but to you, in person.
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April 5, 2010
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You didn’t tell me anything about it. Dad did, though — something about you’re learning a 3D modeling language? Did you hack together a 3D printer too? WHAT IS HAPPENING?!
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April 5, 2010
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Yeah, very bad documentation, I realize.
Well, about a week and a half ago, I decided I wanted to see how fast I could produce a prototype product, and use materials I had readily available and fairly cheap – you know – reasonable. A new shop opened up a few months ago up on Broadway, Metrix Create:Space, which is a little maker hovel across the street from Joe Bar. I took a visit, and yeah, they have a decent-sized laser cutter, a couple 3D printers (that print out a heated plastic thread, like tough hot-glue) and a couple other cool, small-scale fabricators.
I mocked up the boxes in SketchUp, found an SVG exporter plug-in for it (yeah, the free one), exported the two unique shapes, knowing that I’d be using 1/4″ (6mm) high-quality art ply. Quadrupled the main design in InkScape from SVG, added the “number-sign” piece, the base that helps hold everything in place, and fit two of those designs (the 4x + 1) on the maximum 11″x17″ art ply.
On Friday I took my files and my buddy Joe in there, and watched the guy laser-cut the ply. It didn’t work out quite right, the file was funky and the board wasn’t cut all the way through in places, so I got a bit of a discount from Matt, the owner of Metrix, who made sure I was happy with at lease one full version of the box.
It’s a fun project, and it gave me valuable insight to the production and production costs and time (laser cutting should have taken 15 minutes, but instead it took an hour), plus any finishing touches.
I’m thinking Etsy and art vending machines, plus maybe a booth at the Sunday market down the street from my place once a month.
Dunno, jus’ playin’.