Happy #MotivationMonday GrabCAD Community! Today, I’m excited to announce that we’re having an internal GrabCAD contest.
A few weeks ago, we had a photo shoot at the Boston office where GrabCAD employees brought in their favorite 3D printed projects. And my oh my, did these prints blow us away. And because we like to have fun (and are super competitive) we thought it would be cool to turn the photo shoot into a competition.
That’s where we need your help!
Over the next few weeks, we’ll be publishing photos of our 3D prints on our Instagram channel, @GrabCADCommunity and we need YOU to be the judge and like and comment on your favorites images.
The GrabCAD employee who’s 3D print gets the most likes on Instagram, gets a prize from the Marketing team -- not to mention major bragging rights around the office.
So be sure to follow us on Instagram so you can help judge!
Entry #1
https://www.instagram.com/p/B2ReGMfHv2j/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link
This guitar was printed years ago but is still in mint condition. It's printed via the MakerBot Z18. Previous attempts had been made to print the body on MakerBot Replicators in puzzle pieces, but when the Z18 arrived, they wanted to print it as a single piece. In addition, as the engineers were prepping the job, they found that they couldn’t print it totally upright (it was about a half inch too tall).
The solution? They had to slant it both sideways and back a little. It took about 4-5 hours to slice, and what was estimated to be a 205 hour job (8.5 days). It ended up closer to 10 days in the end!
You can check out the CAD Model* here: '62 Fender Stratocaster
*Tips on the CAD model
While putting the finishing touches on the guitar print (using an Amazon guitar kit) the engineer noticed that the strings were way too high off the neck. This was because the CAD model of the guitar used an actual Fender neck.
The solution? They printed a small wedge to put in between the neck and the body to get the neck to the right height. Also, the string tension was bending the body pretty significantly, since the infill was so sparse and there wasn't any reinforcements in the inside; so the wedge has a bit of an angle to compensate for that.
Entry #2
This map was created using Photoshop and on the engineer's FIRST TRY! It was done as a part of a tutorial on 3D printing full-color, fully-textured displacement mapped parts in Photoshop.
To learn more on how it was created:
- How to 3D Print Displacement Mapped Parts Using Photoshop
- Things You Didn't Know Your Stratasys J750 3D Printer Could Do
Entry #3
"The hardest thing to do in 3D printing is controlling transparency," -- Shuvom Ghose. Shuvom discussed this in detail at the GrabCAD Boston Meetup this month, but if you missed it, catch his tutorial on How to 3D Print Textured Objects Inside Clear Plastic Blocks.
Fun fact: the "Radar sub assembly" in the front of the rocket is actually just a soccer ball Shuvom downloaded from the GrabCAD Library!
Entry #4
Entry #5
https://www.instagram.com/p/B2wU-hTn9An/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link
Entry #6
Yea, this one is pretty awesome. Want to learn how to do it? Check out this GrabCAD Tutorial: How to 3D Print More Realistic Consumer Product Prototypes
Entry #7
https://www.instagram.com/p/B3KH-fWgXcg/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link
Entry #8
https://www.instagram.com/p/B34U0GnnCFr/?utm_source=ig_web_button_share_sheet
Also, are you sharing your 3D printed projects and @Stratasys creations on Instagram? Be sure to tag us or use the hashtag #GrabCAD so we can check out what you’re working on!
