This has been an exercise in demonstrating to myself why premature optimization is the root of all evil. I was procrastinating on printing because I hadn’t worked out the exact target geometry of the design for it to be even keeled at nominal. Finally said fuckit just print.
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Good thing because this draft assembly is going to so wildly off in so many ways, I’m going to have to do a significant redesign anyway. But this will be good enough to test a bunch of things
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6 parts printed, 2 more printing now, 4 left. Already aware of a dozen design errors (all fixable in post with a hacksaw and sandpaper so not showstoppers for the prototype). But damn mech design is harder than they let on in school. Dunno how my professors let me pass courses
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The basic mechanical frame for NIM has 26 3d printed parts, 8 bits of aluminum tubing 4 off-the-shelf complex fasteners (ball joints and turnbuckles) and probably a couple dozen ordinary fasteners. It’s about 10x more complex than anything I designed or built in mechE school
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This is going to be a bitch to put together. But milestone coming up… metal-work. Need to cut that aluminum tubing into pieces with either a hacksaw or a dremel.
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Soft test assembly of the draft build. With construction paper tubes where the aluminum will go. Don’t want to cut metal and then discover a major error. This looks ok I think.
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First metal… cut 100mm strut.is there any use for aluminum filings? Saving it anyway. 9 more to go. Aluminum is much softer than mild steel, but hacksawing it is still a bit of a workout. Needs some filing
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Gonna try the dremel for the rest. There is a cutting disc that can supposedly handle aluminum.
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Ok that was really quick. 5 minutes for 3 cuts. Takes some control though. The cutting disc wanders easily. And aluminum stock does get hot.
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Extra stiffness, testing the metal-plastic integration, future replacement with longer struts to make it bigger

