At long last I found a moment to start playing with my Makerbot Replicator. As a first project I decided I wanted to do something relatively straight forward around the house.
We bought a 30 liter BiOrb fish tank by reef one about a month ago, to function as a winter home for the little fish (Danios) from our pond. Sadly… some brownish algae are becoming quite a nuisance. Usually that means there’s too much light… so for a few days I just left the light off…. Then it occurred to me, I can create a mask that removes some of the excess light! I could do it with a sticker, but… more fun to try it with my brand new Replicator!
If you want to download the files to print your own you can do so here: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:30428
Step one… design
To make sure I got the shape of the design just right I made a rubbing of the logo on top of the tank, which happened to be the exact same shape as the light underneath. I then scanned this into the computer. At this point I didn’t care about the DPI or anything. I measured the light so I knew the relative scale.
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Blender 3D
Even though the design is mostly 2 dimensional I used Blender to create it… I went through quite a few iterations before I was happy with the result. Blender’s bezier curves are really quite powerful once you get to know them.
Once finished I exported to stl and opened the file in the Replicator G software. BTW… it really helps if you have a neat mesh apparently! Creating the code for the printer is then much much faster.
The print!
Sadly some parts of my original design were too thin for the printer. So after half an hour of printing I had to cancel the process and redo my design. This ended up being a good thing because after checking the mask I made in front of the actual light I realised I could make it with much less space for the light to shine through.
Cleanup
I had to remove the base, and some loose strands of plastic before moving to the aquarium, but that was a small job.
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Coolness!
I have to say… I love the look of the design just this way… too bad I’m not going to be seeing it much.
Fitting the mask
I used two medium sized tie-wraps to fasten the mask to the light in the BiOrb. It was already pretty tight, but I like to make sure.
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Satisfying results
The result isn’t clear to the camera when seeing the entire aquarium, but I have to say… the light is much less bright inside the tank now! I could improve on the design even more, but for now I think I will give it a go the way it is…
If you want to download the files to print your own you can do so here: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:30428
I’m quite happy with the final result! On to the next project!