The LVL UP Maker Coin fiasco (turned out great) (part 3)

The thrilling conclusion. This is where I put this saga to rest. But first, let's put this whole thing into perspective.

That first coin, I conceived of and printed in early March of 2019. I was on paternity leave, but I found time for some light design work and some significant printing. The end of March was when the laser engraver showed up, and my leave ended shortly thereafter. The grand finale, which is coming up in this very post, is from last week, fully 3 months after I popped that first coin off the build plate.

What's the point of sharing that timeline? I spent most of March on this side project. I spent a good chunk of time thinking about it, trying to solve a problem, banging my head against the wall, and I didn't find a workable solution. Then, last week, I was bored.

In the last three months, I've been learning some new skills. In particular, I've been working in 123D Design. Autodesk discontinued this application along with the rest of their 123D lineup, so I'm not sure how I found the application, but it doesn't matter because it is superb.

Working in 123D Design allowed me to start working on interlocking parts and playing with designs that take into account the tolerances on my printers. I completed a few such little projects, and then, out of nowhere, the idea struck me.

Instead of printing the website on the coin, I could make a new part the coin pops into.

Insert coin. Collect praise.

Boom. Website and another LVL UP design element on there, and a coin fits in the middle. Print that puppy.

"Please... Kill me."

"My very existence is pain. I should not be."

Eew. Not a great finish on the lettering. Not a good finish on anything. I could chalk this up to to bad slicing and try again, but either way, I know I can go wider on this thing and make room for bigger text. Might as well just jump on that.

"I'm not wide, I'm thicc."

Same concept, just wider. And with a little finger hole to make it easier to pop that coin out. Most designs are better with a finger hole or two. I printed this one out before adding the finger hole, though.

But without the finger hole, what is the point? What's the point of anything? 

Better. I changed slicer applications, changed printers, and went with a color-change on this one. It's definitely better. The text is still a little sloppy, and there's the rather large problem of print time; this thing takes about 2-3 hours to print.

What a great time to talk about one of the great frustrations with 3D printing. 3D printing is great for making one thing. Little prototypes and one-offs are great. As soon as you want to get into mass production, though, you'll find that if it takes an hour to print one, it takes two hours to print two, four hours to print four, and so on. There's no time savings for printing more at a time. The only way to increase production is to have more printers running simultaneously. This is why when you see photos of Josef Prusa, he's usually in front of his printer farm, churning out parts for over 6,000 Prusa 3D printers shipped per month.

I just want one. Why can't I just have one? Or seven? I just want seven.

All of this is to say that 2-3 hours printing time on this coin holder is a problem. The maker coins print in about 35 minutes apiece. Ideally, I'd like to have one printer churning out coins while the other churns out these coin holders, but I'll very quickly fall behind on the coin holders. I need a redesign to cut down print time.

Real designs have curves.

That's the one. By cutting out the bottom of the coin hole, I shaved the most print time, since the first three layers are usually the slowest. I also shaved unnecessary material from the sides and bottom by cutting those curves. I also just think it looks better this way. Plus, a new font for the website that should be significantly cleaner and more legible when printed.

Like a glove.

And boom goes the dynamite. That website couldn't be more legible. Honestly, the only way this thing could be more effective is if it had tiny little hands that reached out and typed the website for you. With its creepy little arms.

So, this final design was intended to greatly reduce the print time. And the final result is... just under 1 hour. Could I get that down a little more? Maybe, but that's pretty darn good.

Let's go back and recap. I was procrastinating on a big project when I designed the maker coin. That little time-waster led me on a journey that resulted in at least 3 days' worth of printer time, about 30 hours of design work, and at least 30 hours of assembling, testing, and calibrating a brand new laser engraver (which, as far as this project is concerned, was irrelevant; don't worry, it'll pop up again later).

There's a moral to this story somewhere, I'm sure of it. Something about procrastination, discipline, something... But while I'm trying to think of what that is, I'm going to go make another gigantic mistake on something nobody asked me to make.