If someone had said 20 years ago that I would be printing my own creations from the comfort of my home, I’d have laughed them out of the room. The reality is that 3D printing is incredibly affordable these days and for around £250 you can have an entry level printer that will convey your idea very nicely. If you choose to pay more, then you can do so for an extortionate amount, but for the purposes of demonstrating an idea I didn’t think it was necessary at this stage. Besides, if I wanted something of higher quality then I could always look at the numerous fabrication and rapid prototyping services that exist in this country.

One of my main reasons for not using an external service is that I wanted the ability to constantly refine my idea without telling anyone else about it too early on. These fabrication companies are in a far better position to take an idea, develop it further, and then exploit it.
I’m not saying that is what would happen, but as I simply do not have any experience or contact with them, then I didn’t feel this was a risk I wanted to take. Again, guarding the idea was top of the agenda.

After a little research, the XYZ DaVinci Junior 1.0 seemed the best option for my needs. The quality was good enough, self-calibrating, simple to use, was in its own enclosure, and required no assembly. There are some drawbacks in that it doesn’t have a heated bed, you can only use propriety filament from XYZ, and that filament is a tad more pricey and limited to only PLA instead of ABS. Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene (ABS) is significantly stronger, but I’m not looking to produce the actual items with this printer, so having PolyLactic Acid filament (PLA) is absolutely fine. It is made from renewable sources and is biodegradable. The energy used in producing these models probably isn’t very efficient, but as I am going to printing these regardless, then this a small but important consideration when compared to using ABS plastic which is much harder to break down and will only contribute to the plastic waste issues we have in the world.
Environmental factors are a consideration for this project. I will be looking at the final materials and the methods used in the manufacturing process, giving greener methods priority wherever possible.

Having a 3D printer at my disposal has been quite useful. I’ve printed a number of little items that include new feet for keyboards, cable clips and mounting plates for use inside a PC. Getting my ideas created in SketchUp has been quite easy thus far, they’re nothing too major as I’m not creating buildings… yet.
Since having the printer, I think I have worked through five major revisions to my idea with a spin off idea that could become another option in the future. There’s just something very satisfying about being able to have an idea and then output it as a physical object. I’ve tweaked the way in which things attach themselves, sizing, shapes, made allowances for my idea to incorporate other materials, and have specifically reduced the volume of material used to keep it light-weight and more cost effective for the future.

There have been many micro revisions, but these have tended to be done on screen. Doing things digitally has allowed me finer control over the design process, refining and making small adaptations prior to going to print. Sometimes it is obvious where something will fail when you just look at it on screen, but the reason there are five ‘major’ revisions is because the physical item didn’t meet my expectations. You simply cannot replace testing in the real world.
Once I was happy with the general output of the idea I printed a handful off for some basic testing. At this stage, with the materials I’m using, I’m wasn’t expecting much in the way of strength, just proof that it works. Turns out it was exceedingly strong, so I can only imagine how it will perform using a material such as aluminium or a composite/alloy of some sort later.

As minor as the testing was, the boost it gave me was immense. More so than the original prototype.
I effectively had a fully working version of my idea that if handed to someone would convey precisely what I wanted. Which is great, until you consider that by handing this to someone else you are also ‘giving away’ your idea. If you want to bite your finger nails, this is the point to do so.
You cannot simply throw your idea around openly and pray that someone will help launch it. Even with the best will in the world, you need to exercise caution and realise that there are people and companies out there with vastly superior budgets and access to facilities that allow them to snatch your idea and put it into production before you can even blink. That’s the world we live in, unfortunately.

Next up I’ll be talking about patents and design protection.