Baby gate stopper

[Tinyhead]

This was my first "real life" practical use for the printer. On my staircase, I have hardwood rails and didn't want to put screws in the wood, so I wanted to put them in the drywall. The drywall follows the staircase at a ~45 degree angle up and the holders that come with the baby gate are meant for a 90 degree installation. Now that I have a 3D printer, I figured I'd make up my own! It had since been sitting on 2 flat pieces of plastic and the rubber end on the baby gate would just slip right on by if there was any pressure on it. And this gate seems to be the one our kid loves to hang off the most and has taken a couple little spills because of the gate shifting.

I used Sketchup as I don't have a clue how to use the CAD programs. Even something this simple was a bit challenging for me, but I learned a ton just from going from prototype to final print.

My 'prototype' to make sure my measurements weren't out. Lucky for me, everything was spot on.

Final version fresh on the bed.

Counter-sunk holes and everything. Super fancy.

Throw in some baby gate action and...

BAM! Solid baby gate that doesn't swing around at the bottom.

Something simple, but it made my day.

[Eaglezsoar]

Very good conception and implementation especially since this is your first idea to final product.
Good Job!

[McSlappy]

Awesome

[neurascenic]

Very nice! I think you have the right idea! CAD + printer = power! Learn the CAD, you will love it (even after beating your head against the wall a few times)

[JohnStack]

Congrats!!!

[Tinyhead]

Very nice! I think you have the right idea! CAD + printer = power! Learn the CAD, you will love it (even after beating your head against the wall a few times)

Have any suggestions on how to learn to use the CAD programs? Any good books? Or just time, patience and beating of the head?

[Eaglezsoar]

Very nice! I think you have the right idea! CAD + printer = power! Learn the CAD, you will love it (even after beating your head against the wall a few times)

Have any suggestions on how to learn to use the CAD programs? Any good books? Or just time, patience and beating of the head?

A lot of people use the sketchup that you used to create your part. There are a lot of books on Amazon on how to use sketchup and how to create 3D parts.
The key to learning cad is to choose one that you would like to use and commit yourself to learning it. I am sometimes amazed at the parts that have been
created with sketchup.

[timothysvec]

I just watch vid's on YouTube and post on cnc zone. Cudda county is a good place to go as well. The have som really nice vid's and pdf's.

[neurascenic]

My experience was time, patience and a hurting head. Of course, I have been at it for 18 years now, tools are a lot easier now... then again, there are a lot more of them to have to deal with.

best practice, IMHO, is to actually minimize the use of tutorials. Dependance on them, gets people to learn recipes and not learn how to cook. Goof around with the basic tools, learn their functions/attributes and parameters well; then branch off to more sophisticated tools.

Learn the ingredients then how they blend for best flavor. Enough with the analogies.

I know the start of this is going to sound dumb... but this is the best rout.
1: Stupid Basic Geometry tools and Navigation tools (moving around freely is key)
Rectangle, Circle, Triangle, n-gons etc..

2: translation tools
Move, rotate, Mirror etc...

3: Stupid Basic Modifiers/Derivative tools (some of these are included into parameters of the "Stupid Basic Geometry tools"
Extrude, Revolve/Lathe, Sweep (extrude along a path or multiple paths) etc...

4: slightly more advanced Modifiers/Derivative
Boolean, rounding/Chamfering/Filleting etc...

5: More advanced Geometry tools if your software supports.
Nurbs, T-Spliines, SDS and more.

Soon, you too will be able to draw a straight line (Little Jab to Eaglezsoar )

Of course, your software will have a lot of other tools, that are going to be more specific... just learn those as you need.
Some of those might be Gears, Manifold, I actually use Architectual software so mine includes roofs of multiple flavors, stairs of multiple flavors.... Blah blah blah.


Probably the hardest thing about CAD, is having the motivation to learn it. With a 3D Printer... I think you got that licked!

Best learning!

¢hris £und

[geneb]

Most importantly, use a tool appropriate to the task. Sketch up is nice, but it's a difficult CAD tool. I'd recommend that you use DraftSight for 2D CAD (it's a free AutoCAD clone) and try DesignSpark Mechanical for 3D CAD work. It's also free.

g.

[Eaglezsoar]

My experience was time, patience and a hurting head. Of course, I have been at it for 18 years now, tools are a lot easier now... then again, there are a lot more of them to have to deal with.

best practice, IMHO, is to actually minimize the use of tutorials. Dependance on them, gets people to learn recipes and not learn how to cook. Goof around with the basic tools, learn their functions/attributes and parameters well; then branch off to more sophisticated tools.

Learn the ingredients then how they blend for best flavor. Enough with the analogies.

I know the start of this is going to sound dumb... but this is the best rout.
1: Stupid Basic Geometry tools and Navigation tools (moving around freely is key)
Rectangle, Circle, Triangle, n-gons etc..

2: translation tools
Move, rotate, Mirror etc...

3: Stupid Basic Modifiers/Derivative tools (some of these are included into parameters of the "Stupid Basic Geometry tools"
Extrude, Revolve/Lathe, Sweep (extrude along a path or multiple paths) etc...

4: slightly more advanced Modifiers/Derivative
Boolean, rounding/Chamfering/Filleting etc...

5: More advanced Geometry tools if your software supports.
Nurbs, T-Spliines, SDS and more.

Soon, you too will be able to draw a straight line (Little Jab to Eaglezsoar )

Of course, your software will have a lot of other tools, that are going to be more specific... just learn those as you need.
Some of those might be Gears, Manifold, I actually use Architectual software so mine includes roofs of multiple flavors, stairs of multiple flavors.... Blah blah blah.


Probably the hardest thing about CAD, is having the motivation to learn it. With a 3D Printer... I think you got that licked!

Best learning!

¢hris £und

I guess I've been jabbed pretty good.
The DesignSpark Mechanical for 3D CAD work looks good and I have to start somewhere.

[Tinyhead]

Thanks guys! I'll take all that into consideration and slowly learn my way. Starting from scratch and not having many things to try and design on my own for projects is going to be... challenging.

[Eaglezsoar]

Thanks guys! I'll take all that into consideration and slowly learn my way. Starting from scratch and not having many things to try and design on my own for projects is going to be... challenging.

Take it from someone who does not know how to use Cad, find one that looks promising and commit yourself to learning it. The designspark looks good to me and I will
commit myself to learning it.

[Tinyhead]

Most importantly, use a tool appropriate to the task. Sketch up is nice, but it's a difficult CAD tool. I'd recommend that you use DraftSight for 2D CAD (it's a free AutoCAD clone) and try DesignSpark Mechanical for 3D CAD work. It's also free.

g.

Thanks gene. I just checked out the designspark mechanical website and was pretty much blown away. Definitely going to give it a try! Looks far more advanced that Sketchup at first glance.

[Eaglezsoar]

I have looked at virtually all of the free Cad packages and FreeCad and DesignSpark Mechanical seem to be the best and I have decided on the DesignSpark simply because it
appears to be more powerful.

[Tinyhead]

Using Designspark, I was able to recreate the 'baby gate stopper' in a few minutes and with a MUCH nicer finish as where sketchup took a significantly longer time and was much blockier. In sketchup sometimes the pieces I was using became one surface and push-pull no longer works until you redefine the part you're trying to use.... this didn't happen in Designspark. And smoothing edges is crazy easy in this software! I didn't have to do any 'follow me' to try and make a smoothed surface or anything... Blown away. Thanks geneb! I find this much more intuitive. The only thing that bugs me is the zoom in/out with the scroll wheel. Why? Why would they reverse that?!

[bubbasnow]

Using Designspark, I was able to recreate the 'baby gate stopper' in a few minutes and with a MUCH nicer finish as where sketchup took a significantly longer time and was much blockier. In sketchup sometimes the pieces I was using became one surface and push-pull no longer works until you redefine the part you're trying to use.... this didn't happen in Designspark. And smoothing edges is crazy easy in this software! I didn't have to do any 'follow me' to try and make a smoothed surface or anything... Blown away. Thanks geneb! I find this much more intuitive. The only thing that bugs me is the zoom in/out with the scroll wheel. Why? Why would they reverse that?!

go to file>options>navigation you should be able to switch that around

[geneb]

Glad it worked out!

If you think the scroll wheel is annoying, try middle-click panning in CorelDRAW sometime. Move the mouse left, image goes to the right, move the mouse up, image goes down. Drives me nuts. (which admittedly, is a pretty short trip...)

g.

[Tinyhead]

Well... here is another update to the baby gate situation.

We've put a gate at the top of our hardwood stairs. Our daughter, being a bit older, likes to help out by closing the gates. In typical 2.5yr old fashion, she slams these thing shut with all her might and pulls down the lever in an effort to 'help out'. This is the baby gate in question:

http://www.amazon.ca/The-First-Years-Ev ... B0000DBHHR" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

And here is the problem:

The gate locks fine.

But when opening the gate, pulling the handle up all the way causes this situation, which is questionable at best...

This is not what you want to see - a 2yr old that's pushing all her weight at a gate at the top of a set of hardwood stairs that may swing the wrong way. (I'm in no way trying to bash the product. We have these gates elsewhere in our house with no problems. The other locations might have a bit of 'give' to them in the frame allowing the gate to fit over a larger range (if that makes sense), however, in this location, it's quite rigid and it creates this scenario):

I went ahead and made my own gate holders... again. The one at the beginning of the thread was made a bit special as it was at an angle. I might also mention that I'm still fairly new to 3D printing. It was made in Sketchup and took me an embarrassing amount of time to make. This new one was made in Designspark and it worked out much better at a significantly less amount of time. I made a larger holding area at the back of the bracket:

It was printed with Sainsmart white PLA. 192C, 0.06 layer height, 80% infill. The brackets are very tough. I wouldn't put them in place if they felt flimsy, that's why I wouldn't use a lower infill. If my daughter pushed and broke the bracket that I designed and made, tumbling herself down the stairs... I would be devastated. I tried to break it with my bare hands and even whacked it with the handle of a screwdriver to make sure it would stand up to my girl hitting it hard and it stood up just fine. Even once the gate was in place, I slammed it shut a bunch of times to make sure. It's solid.

If anyone else just happens to use the same gate(s) and would like it, here is the .STL. Use at your own risk. I'm comfortable with it, but I've also tested my print in various ways and I've been satisfied with the integrity. Perform your own tests to be sure you'd use it for the safety of your child.

Tinyhead StyFst V2.1 Bracket.stl

(1.74 MiB) Downloaded 110 times

For some reason, I can't seem to get rid of this 'attachment' picture below...

[Eaglezsoar]

Hey, great job in making that new part in DesignSpark.
I love it when people create usable parts with a 3D printer instead of toys and such.
GREAT JOB!

[bvandiepenbos]

nice work. I love to see real useful parts made, instead of vases, owls, frogs and yoda heads.
(yes, I have printed more than my fair share of 'decorative' objects.)