Designing an enclosure for my microsocope switcher

00:00:00 Stream Starts
Hello everyone, happy Wednesday!
It’s been a few days since Scotty last streamed, he’s been busy.
He had his 2nd Vaccine shot yesterday!
Scotty has 4 or 5 different projects in the works but it’s taking a while and taking getting used to, not being in Shenzhen, not being able to meet with people because of covid, adjusting to parallel work.
With the help of @patrickod (Thank you!) a server has been spun up and some kinks have been worked out in the extension in Scotty’s local environment so he’d like to sort a lot of it out in this stream.

00:07:30 Robot Recap
Scotty recaps the status of the robot for chat;
He’s built the robot up using way too large mecanum wheels that were sent to Scotty by Esden
It has a camera and a speaker so chat can see and use TTS to speak with the robot.
It’s using Remo.tv currently for control but the idea is to give the robot it’s own Twitch channel.
Scotty apologies for being late to the schedule, he’s getting used to starting the stream and stuff that’s involved with that.
He gets the robot up and running in his local environment first.
Scotty explains Twitch use a process to vet and approve new extensions.
He’s currently in local test Scotty wants to get the extension in the Hosted Test status with a whitelist of usernames.
After this he can get it reviewed and hopefully approved by Twitch.

00:16:25 Working on Marionette
Scotty wants to start by getting his dev instance working against the cloud server.
The codebase, now named “Marionette”, is ready on Scotty’s cloud server, he needs to setup the local side to connect to the server.
He changes the frontend to point to the cloud and the robot to connect there too.
Robot keeps looping “Robot Online” – Scotty checks the log and believes @patrickod fixing HTTPS broke the previous code that negated HTTPS.
Scotty sees a lot of workers on the server side where he believes there should only be one.
This means the server is running old code and Scotty figures out NGINX is running app.py instead of quartapp.py
No twitch code for today!

00:26:00 What to do next?
With twitch code out the window for today, we need to rethink the stream topic!
What do folks want to do instead?
Scotty opens Airtable, a tool he uses to track lots of stuff to figure out ideas for this stream.
He can print a robot manipulator arm designed by @Ja_ames, or complete a dog treat dispenser sourced by @ferferite and already printed but it needs some attention.
Scotty has some iPhone parts and is briefly tempted to continue working on some USB-C stuff but shoots it down as he’d like to specifically prep for it.
oh_bother raids with a party of 99 so Scotty quickly recaps for the raiders.
Scotty eventually settles on designing a case for his Microscope Switcher.
Scotty recaps the story behind the microscope switcher and shows the stripboard that’s stuck down on top of the microscope.

00:39:40 Preparing to design
He needs to design a box with a lid and holes for a switch, potentiometer and an LED.
The camera switcher actually currently doesn’t have a switch yet so Scotty starts by looking through his switch stock.
BEcause of the height of the ESP and associated headers, there’s not much choice of switches that have the height necessary and the mount type that will work. Scotty finds a switch that will do.

00:51:02 3D Design in Fusion360
Scotty reminds Ambrose he can’t eat electronics while getting his calipers out to measure basic dimensions of the board.
Ambrose gets a little rowdy and derails Scotty’s plans a bit by demanding attention.
He checks the stripboard mounting holes so he can get holes drawn in fusion.
Using the basic dimensions and 2 holes in the fusion drawing and the constraints toolset, Scotty gets the basic premise for the board figured out.
Scotty then extrudes his sketch to make it a 3d base, from there he extrudes a rectangle within the plate to use as a facsimile for the ESP32.
Moving back to the sketch, Scotty then figures out where the LED and potentiometer are, draws them in Fusion360 as a sketch and extrudes them out as “posts”.
“It may not look like much” but what Scotty now has is a fairly accurate stand in or dummy 3d version of the camera switcher that he can use to design a box around.
Time to make a box!
Scotty creates an offset plane underneath the switcher stand-in, accounting for the height of the standoffs he intends to use.
This offset plane will function as the internal base for the box/case/enclosure.
He projects the outer lines of the switcher stand-in down onto the offset plane.
using the projection, Scotty gets walls estimated, gives the box a 4mm base and extrudes the walls out so they only barely let the LED stick out.
Scotty starts to organize the design a little by creating components with various parts. A process he says he should have started sooner but manages to complete without too much hassle anyway.
This does mean he has to redo some older work but as he’s figured it out previously, those steps are easily re-created into their own new component.
Scotty makes one of the standoffs so he has a good idea of where the board will sit in the case after which he extrudes the case walls again.
The next step is creating a sketch of the projection of the outer walls and extruding that up to cap off the box.

01:40:15 Break & Fetch
Ambrose and Scotty both need a break, this later turns into fetch.

01:50:06 Get back to drawing things
Luckily, Ambrose didn’t find any Forest Turkey.
Scotty projects a sketch of the potentiometer and LED circumferences onto the case lid and increases the diameter after which he punches holes through the lid.
Scotty now finds the potentiometer doesn’t stick out far enough so he decides to split the lid and drop part of the top down that doesn’t need to be so high.
He makes a step in the lid but loses the holes in the process and notices some other issues so hides some of the lid and board components for now and goes back to the board model to tweak some measurements.
He makes some minor adjustments to the “ESP32” in the 3d facsimile before unhiding the components and resuming work on the lid.
Scotty re-cuts the step down using a new sketch and then extrudes the lid back up and toward the potentiometer, intending to close the hole on the top and side of the step
Scotty again re-cuts the holes for the LED and potentiometer but is alerted by chat that he missed a small sliver of a hole on the side of the step. This is fixed.
A third hole is sketched and cut out so there is room for a switch.
After looking at some connectors Scotty has in stock, he decides to just punch a hole through the case to connect it to the photodiode.
Not pretty but it will work.
He sets to work making a rectangular hole in the top of the case above the ESP32.
With the lid and base modelled up, Scotty gets to work on the fixture method to fix the two parts together.
He quickly decides to use screw fixtures and proceeds to show chat some witchcraft.
Using the “Insert McMaster-Carr Component” tool in the insert menu, he finds the screw size he’d like and mocks it up in a corner of the case.
He mirrors the screw over to another corner of the case and then mirrors those 2 to the other side.
After using the Create Hole tool to make one hole for a screw, Scotty transitions to sketching them all out and creating the remaining 3 simultaneously with the same settings but this isn’t completely to his liking.
Scotty runs through the process again, finding a different sized screw that matches his wishes better and recreates the holes.
To finish the mountscrew prep, Scotty creates holes in the base of the lid that the screws will eventually cut threads in.
To top it off, Scotty punches holes in the base for the standoffs.
Now we have a box, it needs to look good so let’s put some fillets on things.
After fighting one misapplied fillet edge, it can finally be printed!

03:13:44 Let’s 3D print!
Scotty sends the parts one at a time to his slicer, Simplify3D, from Fusion360.
Scotty sets the print settings to a 40% fill with the lid upsidedown to minimize support. His slicer reports it’ll be a 6hr print.
Scotty shows chat OctoPrint showing how he can upload files from his PC.
He then decides he wants to switch filament and the stream breaks.

03:22:10 Changing filament
Scotty picks up a spool of PETG and figures out the material properties he needs to use in his Creality printer.
He switches to the now repositioned overhead cam to give chat a better view of the printer while talking about levelling and why he needs to do it a lot.
Finding the spool has instructions different from what he earlier found, Scotty creates a new PETG material in his slicer and sets it up, sending a print file to OctoPrint.
Scotty places the spool and loads the filament.

03:32:33 Let’s print a thing
The creality printer runs through a calibration process before printing.
Scotty gets pretty good prints with the creality so he doesn’t calibrate it all too often, only lately has he run into some bed adhesion issues so he is considering replacing the bed top layer.
Scotty monitors the first layer, he tries to change the layer height but because he used OctoPrint he can’t change it on the fly so eventually cancels the print and restarts it with slightly tuned settings from SDCard, making the first layer a touch lower/thinner.
Scotty gives Ambrose a treat and hydrates, interacting with chat.
Scotty monitors the printer’s first layer, tuning it as it goes. MEanwhile Ambrose is seeking lots of attention.

03:47:32 Winding down
Have a good night or day, thanks for tuning in everybody!
Scotty is going to try to hold himself to a schedule!
He ends the stream by raiding BaldEngineer

Designing an enclosure for my microsocope switcher

Man, this was just one of those days where stuff was just waiting to go wrong. Oh well. I couldn’t quite get Spare Parts going here but the microscope switcher does have an enclosure designed for it now. Follow my design process from concept to print!

This was streamed on Twitch on Jan 13, 2021.

Special thanks to @patrickod for helping with the Infrastructure behind Spare Parts!

00:00:00 Stream Starts
00:07:30 Robot Recap
00:16:25 Working on Marionette
00:26:00 What to do next?
00:39:40 Preparing to design
00:51:02 3D Design in Fusion360
01:40:15 Break & Fetch
01:50:06 Get back to drawing things
03:13:44 Let’s 3D print!
03:22:10 Changing filament
03:32:33 Let’s print a thing
03:47:32 Winding down

Follow Strange Parts on Twitch: http://twitch.tv/strangeparts

A list of all my various tools and supplies: https://kit.co/strangeparts

See behind the scenes at Strange Parts:
http://twitter.com/strangepartscom
http://discord.gg/strangeparts
http://instagram.com/strangeparts_com
http://facebook.com/strangepartscom
http://twitch.tv/strangeparts

Music licensed through Epidemic Sound (http://bit.ly/epidemic-sp​)

#StrangeParts​

Designing an enclosure for my microsocope switcher

Man, this was just one of those days where stuff was just waiting to go wrong. Oh well. I couldn’t quite get Spare Parts going here but the microscope switcher does have an enclosure designed for it now. Follow my design process from concept to print!

This was streamed on Twitch on Jan 13, 2021.

Special thanks to @patrickod for helping with the Infrastructure behind Spare Parts!

00:00:00 Stream Starts
00:07:30 Robot Recap
00:16:25 Working on Marionette
00:26:00 What to do next?
00:39:40 Preparing to design
00:51:02 3D Design in Fusion360
01:40:15 Break & Fetch
01:50:06 Get back to drawing things
03:13:44 Let’s 3D print!
03:22:10 Changing filament
03:32:33 Let’s print a thing
03:47:32 Winding down

Follow Strange Parts on Twitch: http://twitch.tv/strangeparts

A list of all my various tools and supplies: https://kit.co/strangeparts

See behind the scenes at Strange Parts:
http://twitter.com/strangepartscom
http://discord.gg/strangeparts
http://instagram.com/strangeparts_com
http://facebook.com/strangepartscom
http://twitch.tv/strangeparts

Music licensed through Epidemic Sound (http://bit.ly/epidemic-sp​)

#StrangeParts​

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>