Week 5

Design

Once I had a good grasp of the 3D printing process, moved on to creating my own design to print. As I am a classical pianist, I was interested in creating a mini piano keyboard. I chose to model the keys from C to E to keep the design simple, and this involved designing each individual key (Figure 1) as well as a grid that holds the keys (Figure 2). To make the keyboard functional, I decided to incoporate buttons into the grid, so I created sockets that matched the size of the buttons as well as holes for the button prongs. I also included 0.8 mm indents in the bottom of the keys to minimize the bulging from the buttons without obstructing the pressing mechanism. You can interact with the full Fusion 360 model in Figure 3.

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Printing

The keys in the first printed iteration of the mini keyboard fit too snugly in the grid, which hindered the pressing action. This is because the keys were the exact size as their slots in the grid in my inital design. To give them a bit of wiggle room, I shaved off 0.1 mm from the perimeter of the keys. The final printed parts are shown below, with the white keys printed with white PLA and the black keys printed with black PLA to emulate an actual piano. I also inserted the buttons into their sockets in the grid as shown in the image.
Although printing all the pieces took up to 4 hours, 3D printing this mini keyboard allowed me to fully realize 3D Model from Fusion 360 with precise parameters. There are also more color options when using 3D printing as opposed to subtractive methods, which was important in creating a distinction between the white and black keys.