Laser Cutting Electronic MDF Support Pieces

 

This project was requested for a electronics project that required targeted MDF to fit into existing electronic equipment.   The laser cutter was used to cut the MDF into three distinct sizes - two of which were then identified by the labelling of the wood.

In each case the three sizes were specific to the electronic projects that needed to be cut with precision.

The Y8 student was able to create the sizing of the MDF within twenty minutes and then the cutting of the MDF took a further ten minutes - so the entire process and creation process took half an hour.   You can view in the link here previous work using the 3D Printer for a school project relating to the Sound Lure Predators from 2020-2023 by clicking on the link here.

3D Printed Component Piece for Sound Lure Project

Left: A small motor has been designed as part of the sound lure project.   This motor runs in conjunction with a sound/noise with an electrical circuit to attract pest animals to a trap situation.   Given the nature of the electronics and the motor that was present casing was needed to be created to protect the motor.

In testing that has occurred thread etc was attatched to the motors and then fouled the gear.   In the second instance animals, in this case the Australian Brush Tailed Possum, which is a massive invasive pest in New Zealand, has shown interest in the sound lures and has damaged the electronics that have been created or part of the students project.

The 3D Printer is ideal in this case to produce protection that can be custom made for the project.   A student created a quick shape that was able to be easily tested for size and then slotted over the motor and the key elements of the unit.

The print took a short timeframe of forty five minutes to produce a box - this initial box had a twenty percent infill (the students will experiment with increasing this for additional protection)

Design was extremely straightforward from one of the basic shapes from the main Tinkercad interface.  A four to five minute technology design job.

3D Printing Component Parts for Electronic Project

The major project for our classroom students that has run for the past year and this coming year is a scientific project involving using sound lures to assist with pest trapping in New Zealand.   You can view details of the project on this blog here.

Part of the project involves the students producing electronic circuits.   The circuits (shown left) have been produced by students and adults and houses in IP rated boxes to protect them from the elements.  As can be seen from the photograph there is a need to develop additional inserts to be placed inside the boxes to minimise any movement that occurs when the units are transported or moved.   The 3D Printer has proven ideal to do this and also it has proved an excellent introduction to the students who are part of the classroom in 2021 and are 3D Printing for the first time.

Challenge: To produce customised pieces to protect or hold an electronic project in place to minimise movement.

Design Difficulty: Low - these pieces are inserted into exisiting electroincs project and into exisitng boxing as a consequence the design needs to suit purpose, as such these prints are not limited by how they look instead dictated by functionality.  In the example shown on the left the battery for the project can be seen in its 3D Printed design case.   This is able to be super-glued onto the base of the box, which then is able to anchor the bread board and hold the battery in place.  In the unlkely event of any moisture entering the box the battery and the breadboard are now raised off the bottom of the box to add a further element of protection.  Moving forward we may look at using a laser cutter to produce a MDF/Wood variation which would allow the possibility of adding a further level of moisture protection to the unit, which is being deployed in Winter in New Zealand.

As shown left with the battery holder element of the 3D Printing inserted.  As a result the breadboard is now raised from its initial position and held in position by the battery box.   As we are working on individualised units and refining and developing them constantly the felxibility of using a 3D Printer at this point makes it ideal to produce unique pieces to suit the unit.

Size: The battery lipo battery dictated the size of the battery holder.  The unit measured 60mm by 40mm and was 20mm high.   The pins and wires that can be seen in the photograph are reflective of the units being individually created so we would look at bringing the length of the wires into the design to consider the box.

We have various battery sizes that we have been using in the project and again the flexibility of the 3D Printer in this case allows us to modify those depending on the size that we want to trial and use.

Timeframe: One hour for the battery holder.

What we would do differently: We need a second unit to be printed to house the breadboard.  The student have been trying to identify the best fit for the unit to allow the breadboard to be housed, to be securely based around the component pieces and also removed as required if additional changes to the unit need to be made.   None of these prints shown left would be considered major designs all have been about an hour in print length and are roughly the same dimensions to fit into the box 60mm by 80mm.    This project will continue and we will also use the 3D Prints to develop a prototype for a potential laser cut out of MDF wood to help the project with the absorbing of moisture that could enter the unit.   We will continue to update this on our page.

Custom Making 3D Printed Solar Panel Stands

Challenge: To produce a custom made design to hold a solar panel (that is tilted to increase exposure to sunlight) that is flexible and adaptable to meet the needs for an electronics project with specific dimensions.
Background:   Over the course of lockdown there have been few posts on this blog.   A lot of time and energy has gone into the COVID19 lockdown situation and also working on the Sound Lure Project that was started in 2019.   3D Printing has a special role to play in this project as the students and the classroom are focussing on a major local and regional project (including partnership funding and details) with a number of external groups.   Full details of this project can be located at the specifc project blog: SoundLuresNZ.blogspot.com.    Essentially the component parts for this project are being created specific to the pieces used (for instance the speakers for the various sound lures are all different sizes so creating a new box for each different speaker has been a matter of creating a master and then changing dimensions to meet the size of the speaker.   For the

solar panel a simialr requirement was needed to be met.

In this case it was a single sized solar panel, needing to be raised up to decrease the ability for water to pool on the panel (to protect the connection points on the back of the device) that would be stable.    This is the first design in this process with a student who is producing independently for the first time.    A effort to minimise the amount of rafting or PLA that needs to be removed as supports is intended, so this is very much the first prototype of a series until the criteria can be met.

This print took eleven hours, by reducing the amount of PLA, by flipping the design and removing the need for supports that serve no purpose this should be halved at the least.   The student designed wanted to build supports but the base as it is is able to remain upright.

In conversations about the purpose and the aim of the print the student has made some significant adjustments and the next version is about to be designed.  We have highlighted the improvements in the process to show the adaptability of the printer in this case.
Degree of Difficulty: Medium - the adaptability is key otherwise the design itself needs to be able to applied to a basic task - which is simply holding the solar panel in an upright position to maximise sunlight to ensure that the unit is attatched to the sound lure, to ensure that the unit can charge as much as possible.
Timeframe: Eleven Hours - this needs to be reduced considerably, as there is excessive PLA as a result of the unit requiring rafting to be supported.   We are experimenting with flipping the stand so that we print it on its side, which should mean there is minimum rafting required for the print. 
What we would do differently/next steps for the students: This project and this 3D Printing example are designed to get the students thinking, get the students motivated and working again on a significant project which the 3D Printing is ideally suited for.

3D Printed: Stoat Sound Lure Prototype V1.0

Above: The three component set up.

Challenge: For students to work on producing an electronic sound lure that could be used in conjunction with traditional trap.

Background: This has been a major project for our students during the course of the last ten weeks of school.   The students have been entering a regional/national competition that is based around innovation and creativity.  The competition was for Y5-8 students and our students were able to enter the Wanganui/Taranaki finals as a starting point with the opportunity to make the national finals.   The entry of the students in this competition came as a result of work of our students over a significant project in the last year.  The challenge for the students was how we could use technology to assist the removal of pests in New Zealand. 

Above: The base set up.

Stoats, Weasels and Ferrets were introduced into New Zealand in the 1800s to assist in the control of rabbits.    These animals instead switched on to preying on native New Zealand birds, who have no defence against these animals. 

Traditionally they have been trapped by using traditional manual traps. 

The challenge for our students was to use technology to assist in the trapping of these animals.    Our students spent considerable time completing background research and looking into the process.   There are currently no available versions of this kind of lure, although they are currently in development.  We spent considerable time looking at opportunities to develop the technology associated with this process (further considerable detailed information on this process is available on request contact the teacher concerned here at this blog if you wish).

There are three separate 3D Printed parts of the set up for this project.   The first is the base, as is shown by the purple print.   This is a set up involving a breadboard, which features an MP3 player and a picaxe to control it, including in the circuit a light sensor and jumper leads to power the set up.   
This part of the unit has been featured on this blog in previous posts and can be located here.   The idea is the 3D Printer can custom make the sound lure and the base design can be altered as appropriate.   The chip can play sounds which are stored on a micro-SD card (up to ten thousand sounds of varying length).  The light sensor is able to be coded to allow the speaker to operate at pre-determined time, as a value can be entered to measure the level of light and then switch on as appropriate.   There is an opportunity to target specific times when there is more lightly to be pest activity, have specific lure sounds (for instance there is evidence to strongly suggest that stoats are more likely to target chicks instead of ears as they hear better than they smell).

Above: Speaker variation with removable lid.

The second component of the set up is the speaker box.   This is designed to house a speaker that will produce the sound for the project.   The design is reflect the need for water proofing and also to allow a sound to be emitted.   This speaker design has gone through significant development as the students experiment with sound variations and quality of sounds.   The initial designs for the customized speaker box was featured on the blog here.   The students have been looking for the balance between the box and the ability to protect the electronic parts (as the speaker and the set up is being deployed into a outdoor bush setting).   The lid that was featured with this design had an insert which allowed the speaker to sit in the box.  The height of the box was designed to allow the sound to be omitted.    Evidence suggests that while a traditional meat baited trap has an effective range of five metres it would appear that the sound lure variation is effective for up to a hundred metres.   

The final component piece of the set up was the power unit for the device.  A prototype that was supplied to our students was a battery powered noise created set up.   One of the variation that the students were looking at was to provide a solar powered option to run the set up.   The students after considerable investigation opted for a solar panel combined with a lipo battery.   The size of the featured solar panel was 70mm by 110mm.  It had a height of 10mm.  This allowed it to be water proofed.    There are variations of the solar panel in sizes, so the 3D Printer is ideal to adapt to the different sizes as the unit is produced.      There is not expected to be the same level of variation with the micro-chip box, although as we are experimenting with different sized speakers so again the flexibility of the 3D Printer is ideal to create the opportunity to customize.

Next steps for the students: The students won the regional competition and have qualified for the National New Zealand finals in December.   The students need to produce a number of the units and test them in the field to prove thier work.   Every indication is that the set up will have an impact on the ability of the traditonal traps to attract additional animals to the conventional trap.   The challenge is on the students to prove this and to modify the sound lures to adapt to slightly different component pieces (such as a different sized solar panels).