Printing process¶
First attempt¶
Base¶
For the first print of the remote I used the Ender 3 PRO with the lowest quality and 10% infill. The purpose of the print was to get an idea of how the case would look and try to mount it on a cane.
Using a simple 3D remote print I will try to test the mechanism and see of the mounting system works correctly. Also I want to check if the remote fits correctly in the channel. The gap within the channel is exactly as wide as the remote so it might be difficult to fit depending on how the print goes.
Sliced object in cura:
The base was printed with a rotation of 90 degress to minimize the number of support required.
This is the printed base for the cane:
After removing the supports, the holes for the velcro straps are present as designed.
I also printed a placeholder for the remote which is used to test if the mounting is working correctly. The printed remote doesn’t have holes for the buttons but was made to fit within the channel.
Second attempt¶
Fixes from previous version¶
The size of the remote needed to be increased in order to fit the pcb. The reason why the previous model didn’t allow the pcb to fit, is because the space left inside was the same as the size of the pcb and there was no extra space left.
The base channel is now 1mm larger than the remote on each side. This is because in the previous print, the measurements were so close that it needed force to fit and almost broke when being pulled out.
Since with this print, my main purpose is to test the remote’s slide mechanism and the fitting of the pcb in the remote. I have removed the cane mounting part and simplified the model by removing a part of the back to make the print faster.
The following image is the slicing of the new model in cura.
Third attempt¶
Changes from the previous version¶
The entire design has been recreated with the following characteristics:
- The remote can now fit the power bank at the back. As a result, the remote is much bigger and heavier.
- The base is adjusted to fit a cane with a diameter of 13mm.
- There are holes in the buttons
- Curved corners and more user-friendly design.
- The new design is modular, split into multiple parts so that we don’t have to reprint everything when a minor change needs to be made. Also, this allows us to speed up the printing process by using more printers at the same time.
Thanks to the modular design we used multiple printers to create the design at a quarter of the time. The parts are:
- Base front
- Base back
- Remote shell
- Remote top cover
- Remote bottom cover
Top cover
Base front
Remote shell
After printing the top cover the remote there were the following issues:
- The button holes are 2mm to the back and the buttons don’t fit very well.
- The top cover needs to be a little bigger.
- When we removed the supports in the button holes, the separating plastics between the buttons was also removed.
We tried printing the top part of the remote again but this time the printer malfunctioned and the print was very fragile.
The two parts of the base model were printed which were stuck together using hotglue. This time we made sure that the fitting had been adjusted for the cane that we received from stephear and after some testing we found that the sizing fits perfectly.
In the following image, the remote control is mounted on the base. This matches how we designed the system, where the user can remove the remote from the base for charging or to use a cable and hang it on their neck.
Changes for the presentation¶
Unfortunately, after assembling the design we found that there was not enough space to create the connection between powerbank and the remote. Also we still hadn’t fully implementing a backplate that is screwed in so even if we managed to fit a connection we would have to glue everything together and not be able to charge the powerbank again.
Without a proper way to connect a powerbank internally on the printed remote design, a modified version should be printed that has a hole for the usb cable that will power the device.
Due to the limited time that we had until the presentation and delivery of the product, we aimed to ensure that all the work we have done can be showcased even if all the parts don’t fully fit with each other.
Our goal was to present our work in two parts:
- The functionality of the remote control which includes how the buttons, pcb, bluetooth connection and app work.
- The mounting mechanism that would allow the battery powered remote to be held on the cane.
The functioning remote will have to be powered by an external usb cable and a modified version will be created and printed.
The following design is the modified remote that fits the PCB and has a hole for the cable. This will be used to showcase the functioning controller and connection with the phone.
The mounting that we worked will be also showcase but with the 3D printed remote being empty.