Community is where you make it
The wonderful people at the Hillsboro Public Library’s 3D Print Lab printed my revised concave footstop design this week.
Jamison now has one more footstop to test. Maybe I need to get a top-mount downhill longboard so I can do the testing myself. ;-)
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I got an email just after noon today from the Hillsboro Public Library:
Your print job is finished and is waiting for you under your name at the checkout counter. Please let me know if you have any questions. Thanks!
Within an hour, I was holding my first 3D printed object. It’s very light and rigid. And of course, pretty!
I held the footstop up to Jamison’s downhill board to check fit. The slot spacing looks perfect. Jamison’s board has significant concave so I might want to put some flexible material between the board and the middle of the footstop. And the color is a nice match to Jamison’s new Orangatang Kegels. Nice!
I’m amazed at how well this turned out. Now to get some longer truck mounting hardware so Jamison can install it and tell me how it works.
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Here’s another revision of convex longboard footstop, this one with two attachment tabs.
It’s probably time to quit designing footstops, at least until I have a chance to print one and have Jamison try it. I’m going to start with this one.
It’s fun rendering these in polished stainless steel. I wonder whether there is a market for premium longboard footstops, though. Like a Budnitz Bicycles of longboarding? Hmm… ;-)
Update. I’m at the 3D Printing Labs at the Hillsboro Public library. They’re going to be able to print my design, as is. Because it will likely take a couple of hours to print, they will print it later this week. I’m jazzed!
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Some people like a convex footstop on their downhill longboard. Here’s my first attempt to make one using OpenSCAD. It’s a fairly simple modification of my concave footstop.
Maybe next I should make a wider convex longboard footstop with two tabs, like PSD’s.
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A little more work on my longboard footstop design has resulted in this. Probably no difference in functionality, but it’s prettier. :-)
I’m looking forward to getting one of these printed, though I think it will wait a week.
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My local library, the Hillsboro public library, has 3D printing open labs — every Monday evening for a couple of hours, the library accepts .stl files on thumb drives and prints them for free over the next week. This is such a cool resource, it seems irresponsible not to take advantage of it.
For my first project, I decided to design a longboard footstop.1If imitation is indeed flattery, RipTide and PSD Designs should feel complimented. ;-) Earlier this week, I started researching 3D CAD software and settled on OpenSCAD.2Pronounced open ess cad. OpenSCAD is different from most 3D CAD software in that you program a part instead of manipulating objects on a screen. For example, this is how I defined the tab of the footstop:
union() {
tab_s = tab_length - tab_width/2;
tab_r = tab_width/2 - stop_chamfer;
tab_h = 2*(tab_height - stop_chamfer);
translate([-tab_s/2, 0, 0]) cube([tab_s, 2*tab_r, tab_h], center=true);
translate([-tab_s, 0, 0]) cylinder(r=tab_r, h=tab_h, center=true);
};
Designing the footstop, some of OpenSCAD’s other limitations became obvious: fillets and chamfers are not easily defined, especially along curved intersections of primitives.3I’m gathering resources that address this issue.
This is my third iteration of the footstop and I think it’s good enough to print next week so Jamison can try it out. I suspect I still have a lot to learn when it comes to getting a design ready to print. For example, how important is it that this footstop be hollow? If it needs to be hollow, what’s a reasonable wall thickness? I experimented with MeshMixer a bit, but expect I’ll need to wait until Monday.
I wonder what I should design next. I think I’d like to try some sort of GoPro mount.
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