[ Music ] >> Hi. My name is Vishal Sachdev. I am a faculty at the college of business here and also director of the Illinois MakerLab. So today we're going to talk about the process for going from a download on Thingiverse to a print on a printer. In some of the other videos you have probably already seen Dr. Aric Rindfleisch explaining to you, you know, the activity that you're doing on Thingiverse. But right now we're going to actually demonstrate the process from a download to a print and actually also show you how the print builds up. And we're going to use the same Rhino model that you've been used to in the videos that you've seen already. You will see more of me in some of the other modules as well. And I will also be with you for the capstone course, as I'm leading that. So I look forward to working with all of you over this specialization. So first of all we have starting out with pulling up the Rhino 3D Scan on Thingiverse and you already, you know, seen that. But if you haven't just do a search for the Rhino and you'll see a screenshot as well showing you how the process is actually working as I'm doing it on my computer. So on Thingiverse once you locate the file we're just doing a download off the SDL file, which is the format that allows any 3D model to be prepared for printing on most 3D printers. So the dot SDL file format is what you're looking for when you're preparing files for pretty much, you know, many of the printers will accept that format. So once you download that into-- onto your computer and, of course, at the MakerLab we are working with the MakerBot replicator two printers so we are using the software that MakerBot provides that's called MakerBot Desktop. And I have that open on the screen right now. So once you open that, you know, that software up all you're doing is pulling the download into the-- into the software and sometimes the scale is a bit of an issue so there are easy to use menu options in the software itself where you can set your scale to, you know, whatever size you need so it maintains the ratio. You don't have a problem in worrying about is it going to get stretched or distorted as long as it maintains the ratio? Your model will be fine. You can, you know, twist and turn the model to make sure it's, you know, it's aligned properly. You can lay it flat on the base that it's going to build on. And also you can adjust. And of course if you want to have a better look at the model you can look around and make sure that it's, sort of, flat on the platform. Now when you have a model like the rhino that we're using, which has a little bit of an overhang, you have to make sure that when the printer prints it it's printing some supports with it. So before you start printing it one of the things that you adjust on the software is under the print setting menu and there is something called the draft, which as you see when the print actually starts it builds a layer below the object that you're printing. And supports are useful when you have some model which has overhang so if it's at an angle that cannot build up on it builds some supports. And you're not really doing that you're just saying hey software build me some supports and the software takes care of that. We are going to stick with the standard resolution. We don't need to worry about a very fine print on this. If you do a finer, higher resolution the print takes longer and, you know, sometimes that will add to the cost as well depending on where you're printing it. The other settings at the bottom in the what's called the MakerBot Slicer. Infill is essentially how much material you're filling in. So if you're saying a 10% infill 90% of the space inside that model is just empty space and it builds a honeycomb structure. Again you'll see that when the model prints. The number of shells tells you how many, sort of, layers in the outer wall that the printer is going to make. So default is two shells. And again the layer height is when the printer is moving up and printing the model, what is the minimum thickness for each layer. So here it is point two mm or a fifth of a millimeter and that's the standard resolution that we print at. It can go up to an accuracy of 1/10 of a millimeter but we recommend staying with point two. We've done our settings. We've used the raft and the supports in our model and now what we're doing is sending that file into a format that the printer can print. So it's called Slicing, which effectively is, you know, converting that 3D model into a set of x, y and z coordinates that the printer will, sort of, follow as a path and keep making layer by layer. Once you're doing that it also gives you an estimate of the amount of material and the amount of time it'll take, you know. So this is based on the kind of printer you're using. So for example for this print it's saying it's about 51 minutes, 11.85 grams and the other settings that we have set. Rafts are on. Supports are on and we're using a resolution of point two mm. So when I say export now it's asked me to save it somewhere. So you can, you know-- I don't have the computer connected to the printer or you can put it on a, you know, on a SD card or you know some printers take USB drives. Different printers allow different options. But for these printers we are using SD cards so I'm just going to save that file on the SD card and then we can move over to the printer and see how the printer, you know, starts the process and the build actually happens. It takes about, depending on the model itself, it takes about a minute or two to process the file. If it's a complex model it'll take more time. So it's, sort of, creating the, you know, the file. It's verifying it to make sure that, you know, it's removing any errors that are occurring and finally it saves it in a format called the dot x 3G format, which is what the printer understands when it needs to, you know, move its extruder on the x, y and z axis. Okay so we have the file now ready on the SD card and I'm going to move that out of my computer and then we are now going to reset up on the printer and see how the print actually happens. [ Music ]
