DIY 3D-printed wall mounts - part 3

It is finally here! A screen recording of me trying out Onshape for 3D CAD modelling of the wall mounts I am going to print. As you will see in the clip, I am not used to working in Onshape, I am basically learning as we go along. Had I done this in Inventor (which I have extensive experience with), I would probably have done the recording, then edit out mistakes and put audio on lastly. Since this was a learning experience for me I chose to record both screen and audio at once, so enjoy:

As you can see I did not finish the part. I figured that almost 30 minutes was more than enough in one go (actually I was amazed that I had been recording for that long, because it only felt like it was half that). This of course means that we will have to another session, and I am really looking forward to it.

In part four we will finish off the basic design by doing the cover for the screw head also, and we will refine the end design by rounding edges and making it look more "professional". Also we will have to do something creative with regards to locking the cover for the screw head in place, or else it will just slide right off the bottom wall mount once they are up on the wall.

As you saw in the clip I made the Onshape project public, so you can find it through searching for "Wall mount" in the public projects in Onshape. I have also moved the Swift Calcs calculation into the Onshape project, since that is possible now with the Swift Calcs app in Onshape.

I have also found this Onshape blog post about successful 3D-printing of larger parts (larger than the printer can print in one go) which might come in handy in the future.

I spent (or actually wasted) quite a bit of time in trying to get hold of a good screen recording software that was also cheap (read: free). After trying several open source programs and also a few free trials, I finally stumbled onto the fact that you can actually get such software as Chrome extensions! So I ended up with this one, which seems to do exactly what I need.

DIY 3D-printed wall mounts - Part 2

I had hoped that part 2 of this project would be the screen-recording of me designing the wall mounts in Onshape. However this has been a hectic week, so regrettably I have not gotten that far yet. So instead I have done more thorough preparations than originally planned. A quick, hand-drawn sketch gives you an idea of what I intend to do in Onshape:

The three views to the top and left are the wall mount itself, the two views that are sectioned off are of a lid to hide the head of the screw.

The sketch is unrefined, edges will have to be rounded and so forth. Also of note is the amount and placement of the "teeth" which I have not decided on yet. And the lid for hiding the screw heads will need some form of resistance, keeping it from sliding directly off the lower wall mount, maybe in the form of an indentation on the wall mount itself that will push on the lid and cause enough friction for it to stay in place (should the design fail in this respect, it will be quickly solved with a little dab of glue...)

I have also selected the screws for the mounts, so I know have the diameter of the hole going through the wall mount, which needs to be 4 mm. The top of the conical part has to have a diameter of at least 7 mm.

As for the other dimension, such as the thickness of 3 mm of the protruding part of the wall mount, is guess work for now, but let us have a look at some quick calculations to check if it should be enough. For this we will use Swift Calcs, the link will take you directly to the worksheet that I have shared there.

Swift Calcs is a new calculation tool, and, like Onshape, it is cloud based, meaning you can do everything from your browser (although at the moment, until the next update of the Chrome browser, it has a reduced calculation speed in that particular browser. This will apparently be corrected in the next Chrome update, due to arrive later this month). Swift Calcs is currently in the beta phase and free to use. I do not know if they have some kind of business plan for when it is ready for proper release, we will just have to see. For now, I think it is an awesome free tool, giving you great flexibility so long as you have an internet connection.

Since they are still deep in the developing stage, I have also suggested adding a "lecture mode", a sort of stripped down, minimalist version of a powerpoint presentation, no fancy animations and stuff, just the worksheet divided into segments, where a certain action (i.e. a mouse-click) will make the next segment visible, while still being able to scroll freely through the segments that have already been made visible. I think this can be a powerful tool, freeing up the person doing the lecture to actually face the students (instead of the whiteboard), gaining eye-contact and more interaction. If they decide to implement something like that I will jump at the chance of using, that is for sure.

That was all for this week, hopefully I will have gotten time to do the screen-recording by next weekend.

DIY 3D-printed wall mounts - Part 1

(Norsk)
My first post with a self-made video introduction, sorry about the low sound, I will have to speak up for my next one.

As I mentioned in the video, I will be putting up the dimension I have measured here:

The red measure gives the height from the table top, or the wall once it is finished, and is: 27 mm.

The blue gives the distance from the edge and in to the hole, and is: 6 mm.

The red measure gives the width of the hole, and is: 5 mm at the widest, a bit more than 4 mm at the narrowest.
The blue measure gives the length of the hole, and is 2 mm.
The distance between each hole is about 3.3 mm, and the depth of the teeth on the original tabletop stand is about 1.6 mm.

As I mentioned I intend to do the 3D-modelling in Onshape, which seems to be a good, free tool, at least from the limited experience I have with it up until now. Now I have to find a good screen-capture tool in order to make the video of the CAD process for the next part. If you have a suggestion for me, feel free to comment it, or pm me in any of the social medias you can find me in.

Public appearance

I had the honor of opening an event yesterday. The event was aimed at engineers, technologist and technician that are seeking new work mostly due to the recession in the Norwegian oil business. My slightly more than ten minute talk was about the different phases we go through as we go from being a valued employee with a safe job and are suddenly forced into a leave of absence due to lack of work or are the victims of downsizing. A fairly bleak subject, but as you can see below, OMG Kitty helped me get smiles on most of the faces present.

Moglegheitsarena er i gang på Stord Hotell. Arbeidssøkar og tidlegare tillitsvald i NITO, Kjell Eivind Helgesen, opnar konferansen.
Posted by NITO Nord-Rogaland og Sunnhordland on 23. februar 2016

It says that I am both looking for work (which I am) and that I am a former union representative for NITO (I am technically still a union representative, but since I am on a forced leave of absence from Imenco at the moment, I cannot really contribute with much anyway).

All in all I believe the event was a success, many investments are being made in different fields than Oil & Gas, so there will definitely be a need for us geeks in the future too.

Mars Rover Curiosity: An Inside Account from Curiosity's Chief Engineer

(Norsk)
Right! The last space-related post, at least for a while, is about the book Mars Rover Curiosity: An Inside Account from Curiosity's Chief Engineer, written by Rob Manning and William L. Simon, where Rob Manning is the Chief Engineer from the book title.

Picture borrowed from Amazon.com

This book gives the reader fascinating insights into what is, in essence, amazing engineering. The fact that they have created a remotely controlled vehicle, launched it into space, landed it on another planet and now have it roaming around doing science is incredible. Kudos to all the people that have worked on Curiosity and those that still work on it.

Manning gives us an in-depth tour through the project, From the beginning until the present (or at least the present when the book was written). He highlights many of the problems they struggled with, and recounts how they overcame them, everything from developing a brand new landing system, scratch that, not just a new landing system but a whole new landing concept, to the difficulties in getting the rock sampling system right. The latter involved both the drilling system as well as the sample delivery system, where the sample is brought from the drill and into the rover's sample processing gear (another engineering marvel). As a matter of fact, Destin of Smarter Every Day even did an episode about the Curiosity drill:

If you like technical stuff, like me, this book is absolutely brilliant! If you are more interested in management stuff, the book also covers some of that, so it is still good. Grab it from you local library if that is your wont, or from places like Amazon / Audible if that is more to your fancy, and have an interesting read, I sure did!

As mentioned, this is the last space-related post in a while, my next project will involve me filming a few snippets, both with a camera and screen-capture, as I plan and design a part that a buddy of mine is going to 3D-print for me and that I am going to put to practical use in my home afterwards. Stay tuned!