Doctor Who: Time Agent's Vortex Manipulator *SPOILER*

[zenix]

can't be 2mm... those two tall skinny ovals in the lower right, to the right of the LED circle, are .88 mm wide. the whole part is 37mm tall by x 71mm wide. in my model, I measure about .22mm space between the edge of the hole and the button. i'll make it smaller but people are going to have to keep testing the fit, and wait 2-3 weeks each time, and each order is $25 minimum... lemme know what you want me to do.

its also an option for people to combine the order and reship them out to each other to get around that $25 barrier... keep me posted. as of now, I've made no change

 

[WarMachine]

Wow, that looks seriously awesome. The buttons do look like they could be slightly bigger though, like you said.

I was just browsing Shapeways and noticed that they added Silver as a material. That's pretty rad.

 

[zenix]

yup. i can do real silver. its printed in wax and then melted out with investment casting and moltend silver is spun in

 

[Risu]

Yea, the silver looks cool.

I didn't know about the minimum order, that really sucks. If anybody wants to order a set of buttons in the larger size, please let me know, because I'll need to order more after the upsize.

Zenix: 1 mm will most likely do the trick then. If it's a little bit too large, it can be sanded to fit.

 

[zenix]

I am saying that 1.00mm seems way too large. the gap is designed to be 0.22mm on each side. 1.00mm would make it not fit at all

 

[Risu]

I'll measure it exactly with calipers when I get home tonight.

 

[zenix]

I just got a notification from shapeways that someone ordered the vortex button round in stainless steel, and it failed. i guess the part the way it is can't be built by itself in stainless. i'll either have to make it thicker, or just not offer it in stainless. the one where its preattached to the faceplate will print in stainless. whoever it was who ordered this, hit me up and we'll see what to do.

 

[Kris Lyssara]

That was me, and now I'm freaking out trying to figure out how to finish my Halloween costume.

Anyone know what the original round button is from?

Also, I'll let you know if the fit on the stainless oval buttons is any better, as that's what I ordered them in, and they should be getting here sometime next week.

 

[zenix]

sorry man! its from a cellphone... a samsun something. someone else here knows and its listed in the other thread. I have an extra plastic one... I can put it in the mail for you today if you get me your address in the next hour. spray it black or silver or something.

 

[WarMachine]

Samsung A300 center button.

My dad got one for me, back home

 

[Kris Lyssara]

Ah, many thanks, WarMachine!

I'll definitely have to pick one up eventually for my replica version (as opposed to my worn version, which will have more durable idealized parts)

 

[Bootlegger137]

Any update on the larger buttons? I was going to order the complete set, but will wait if some tweaking is still going on.

 

[zenix]

I'll measure it exactly with calipers when I get home tonight.

waitin on this...

 

[Risu]

Sorry, I'll go find the calipers and edit my post in a few minutes.

The holes are:

5.2 mm wide.
13.75 mm long.

The buttons are:

3.95 mm wide.
12.75 mm long.

 

[zenix]

Interesting. In the model,

The holes are:

5.008 mm wide. 3.7% increase
14.196 mm long. 3.24% shrinkage

The buttons are:

4.610 wide. 16.7% shrinkage actual gap 0.625 mm space per side
13.72 long. 7.6% shrinkage actual gap 0.5 mm space per side

designed gap is 0.22 mm space per side


So I guess we learned there is some shrinkage when printing in metal. I'm surprised by the 16% button width change. I'd like to get some more measurements to compare, when you get time. Risu, can you measure the overall size of the faceplate?

I can scale the buttons slightly larger, but looking at these numbers, we don't want to go too far. As I said earlier, I'll make the gap so its 1/2 the size it is now, since its designed to be .22 and it came out to be .5 and .6. I don't want you all in a situation where it doesn't fit...

I've redone the oval buttons at a designed gap on both sides of 0.09mm instead of the original 0.22mm gap. assuming the same style shrinking happens, that leaves us with an actual projected gap of 0.21mm and 0.25 mm for the width and length, respectively.

The increased size oval button has taken the place of the old on on shapeways.

 

[Risu]

Faceplate is 70.35 mm wide and 36.8 mm tall.

Is a gap on the sides necessary at all?The buttons aren't held in place in any way, so even the slightest gap will mean they'll drift around in the hole a bit. If you made them large enough to fit snugly we could just sand them down to our desired fit.

 

[zenix]

Every product is designed with clearance. it wont move, so the people who want to put electronics behind it, or anything will be stuck. with no gap you wont be able to put the button into the hole. I'd rather people not have to sand off the .2mm to get it to fit, and design that .2mm clearance into the part. we're talking about TINY measurements here. a hair is like .08mm thick

if you literally want no movement i can attach them to the faceplate and they wont move at all since it will be all one piece

 

[Risu]

I'd like to be able to depress the button, but I don't want it to have any lateral movement. The exact degree to which the prints change in size might not be the same each time, so there's no guarantee that some people won't have to sand some off anyways, but in this case I think bigger is better because you can always take away more material, but you can't add any without having to paint it.

As for not wanting people to have to do the extra work of sanding the buttons, if they ordered the plate in steel they have several hours of sanding ahead of them anyways, it takes a lot of effort to get the thing smooth. I still haven't finished the 120 grit stage on mine because I had too much else to take care of. Sanding the black plastic buttons smaller will be a walk in the park compared to that.

 

[zenix]

ok... i'll be able to keep changing them back and forth without a ton of effort, so if someone else wants a modified button design then i can change it back. just let me know before ordering and i'll modify it that day.

i'll redo the buttons again tomorrow and have them posted with 0.00 clearance.

 

[protokev DMD]

i forgot to post that on my manipulator i got in full stainless, the grooves on the circle are raised instead of grooves. Im thinking about just using the plastic one, considering the original looks to just be painted anyway