3D Printing: Reality Over Virtual

I’m pondering a “new project”. I have many irons in the fire, but an Adaptive Curmudgeon never stops considering new things. I’m reluctant to give too many details because I might drop the project in mid-tinker.

However the project goes (or doesn’t), I’ve already done some neat nerd stuff:

Step 1. Paper:

I began by acquiring the blueprint to an object. I’ll explain later, or maybe not. I haven’t decided yet.

I got the prints from a museum. It’s an object from 1939 and made by the Government. I think the plans are “public domain”. I found various digital images floating around the internet too. I tossed a few bucks at a museum because it’s a good cause and because I was looking for authenticity.

So now I’ve got the dimensions of a thing. In Fusion 360 modeling that would be called a “part”. Except the plans include multiple things meshed together. Fusion 360 calls that an “assembly”. I’m still a n00b so drafting “parts” into an “assembly” is hard for me. But hey… ya’ gotta’ learn somehow right?

Step 2. Virtual:

Vastly oversimplifying, you just draw shit in Fusion 360. You can also specify whatever dimension you need.

I could do this with the “parts” of my “assembly”. However, it’s easy to spend a lot of time specifying everything and then want to go back and re-scale a piece… which cascades through the system. Sometimes this is fine, sometimes it’s a mess.

Step 3. Parameterize:

In Fusion 360 you can specify “parameters”. Those are variables that represent a dimension. I can specify Fred = 5mm and Barney = 10mm. If I draw a Fred x Barney rectangle it’ll be 5 x 10.

If I later change Fred to 6 mm the rectangle will adjust to 6 x 10.

Step 4. Generalize(?):

I’m not sure the precise word for this step of my own thinking/processes but “parameters” can be “expressions”. I can set Wilma = 5mm. Then I can set Fred = Wilma and Barney = 2 * Wilma.

Then a Fred x Barney rectangle will still be 5 x 10. But I can change Wilma to 6mm and it’ll instantly be 6 x 12.

Remember all that high school math you thought you’d never use? This is it.

Step 5. Whip out the spreadsheet.

The plan is in units of feet & inches. I want it modeled to scale in mm. That’s not so hard with parameters and expressions but it’s a bunch of parts.

So I decided to dump all this “computation” into a speadsheet. I’m using LibreOffice Calc. It’s free. There are roughly a zillion free spreadsheets and virtually all of them are fine.

Only a bureaucracy run by clueless obsolete dipshits would pay fees for anything as crude as a spreadsheet. This applies to all Microsoft Office products. I’m looking at you NASA.

Step 6. Dump the spreadsheet into Fusion 360.

It’s pretty easy to export part of any spreadsheet into comma delimited file. It didn’t take long to figure out how to import it into Fusion 360.

If you think *.csv files are obsolete:

you, are, wrong
True, True, True

also

name, expression, value
Wilma, , 6
Fred, Wilma, 6
Barney, Wilma * 2, 12

Step 7. From virtual to real.

Imaginary is not real. Our society is almost completely driven mad by the confusion between virtual and real. Never forget what is just a construct! Ignore weirdos debating “politics” on X, teenyboppers mincing about on TikTok, AI slop everywhere, mentally ill freaks falling in love with LLMs, whores on Onlyfans, grandmas emoting on Facebook about shit they couldn’t find on a map, Trump blovating on Truth Social, the dwindling true believer woke masses on Bluesky, the redpilled on Gab, the talking heads propagandizing in the “media”, and the YouTuber’s desperately seeking your “like”.

If it ain’t real… it’s not real.

I apply that to myself. As a bearded recluse who writes blogs, I check once in a while to make sure I’ve stacked real firewood for the real winter. Sometimes I fall on the ice while hauling it.

I want a real thing. Lucky for me, I own a space age robot machine that makes 3d models into real objects.

I dumped a test object from Fusion 360 to Bambu Studio, tweaked a few settings in the slicer, and sent it to my Bambulab A1 3d printer.

It worked!

Preliminary Results: Looks good!

It’s just “proof of concept. But every step did indeed happen. I made it all the way from a museum acquired blueprint to a perfectly scaled object on my desk. Wow!

I’ve got a long way to go, but I’m pleased with how far I’ve gotten.

Remember, unless you can touch it with your hands, it’s just a mental construct.