iPhone 5/5s Honeycomb case

My first attempt (after my offbeat cases with handles at a 'proper' iPhone case. It's simple case which is half bumper half case. The honeycomb pattern is super grippy where it needs to be. The red one was a full mm shorter than the blue over the longest dimension making it extremely tight fitting - hopefully a one off from the SW printers :/ But the red does look great!

Steven

May I ask, did you create the cases entirely from scratch, scan an iphone and base it off that, or download a template from somewhere?

Your honeycomb case was featured in our 3D Printed Gadget accessories blog.

https://www.shapeways.com/blog/archives/2397-3D-Printed-Gadg et-Accessories.html

Bobbiethejean,

Thanks for your interest.

Yes, all the cases available to buy are built from scratch, modelled in Sketchup. I had started by downloading the model file kindly provided by Shapeways, here, and adapted that for my first test print. But the hassle working with that mesh in Sketchup required me to build a 'clean' model to use as a template for future cases. I use the dimensions from Apples' own guidelines, here, but borrowed the corner radius from the Shapeways model (although it could probably be 'guesstimated' from retail cases/the iPhone itself with a fair degree of accuracy).

So far I've had my own cases printed in two separate orders, the first was ever so slightly loose ~0.3mm on the long axis for the two I ordered, the second order was the blue and red honeycomb cases as well as a black secureGrip - the blue and black are *perfect*, the red not so much being a full 1mm short on the long axis. This is probably down to print orientation or where it was in the tray during fabrication.

Overall I'm extremely happy with the way they turned out - I was using the black secureGrip on my own phone the other day while enduring the throng of bargain hunters over at the mall. It felt really good in the hand.


Steven

Eric,

Thanks!



Steven

Which brings up the problem of consistency again... Had you made this available to customers you would now have an upset person blaming you for making a poor design that doesn't fit. And Shapeways would have taken it off from sale and come to you telling you to re-design it....

I was reading another post here where someone printed an object that failed three or four attempts before the final one went through; that's absolutely great that Shapeways went to that effort to get it to work and please the maker but what happens when a customer orders it and now it fails again? Good chance it will be rejected as unprintable.

Inconsistency is something that really needs to be addressed by Shapeways.

@lensman: I have a question about your "printed four times before success" inquiry here, but since it's off-topic, moved that discussion here:
https://www.shapeways.com/forum/index.php?t=msg&goto=822 57#msg_82257

@mygadgetlife: the stated accuracy of the "Strong Flexible" material is ± 0.15% of longest axis, so if your case is 124mm long, you should be looking at 0.2mm variance. I would suggest that if you find more variance than that, you should contact Customer Service (service@shapeways.com) with the information. It's rather crucial that they know that something was off.

Others (Stony too?) read it as "±0.15mm or ±0.15% of longest axis, whichever is greater", probably because that is a typical way (size dependant but with a minimum limit) and SW docs tend to be fuzzy or self contradictory so other sources are used as reference ("guess what the original maker said"). "then" is not the clearest way to put it ("then" sounds like a "minimum" was cut off the phrase), "plus" or "+" would be if that was what it really means, just like Ceramic page has it.

A bit of both.. I ignored the initial 0.15mm, (probably should not have) and then I rounded up to only 10ths of a millimeter.

The point that I was trying to convey was that 0.2mm (or the more accurate 0.336mm) is still quite a bit smaller than the observed 1mm variance, especially considering that two prints were correct. If it causes an item to not fit properly, then we should alert the production team (via customer service) to the issue.

I took some photos to illustrate the issue:







The first two show the discrepancies between the red case and the others; the last shows the wires that make up the honeycomb structure are markedly thinner on the red case (as is, for that matter, the rim of the case).

Personally, I'm not too fussed by the red case - it just about fits the iPhone, albeit very tightly and if a customer were to receive a tight fitting case like this it would still be usable. The not-entirely-satisfatory element of the order should be of concern to Shapeways however - it looks like the printer was out of calibration or the case spent too much time in polishing.

Steven

Yeah, that is odd... It's almost as if a newer model of printer was being used, one with a nozzle that allowed for finer detail. Sort of like the difference between drawing with a well worn pencil lead and a newly sharpened one...

Is it only the longest dimension that is wrong?

Hi Piers,

Taking the smallest dimension (i.e. the case thickness) as the Z axis, only the X and Y axes are affected. By my entirely non-scientific means - taking a ruler to it - the red case is 1mm shorter along the length and ~.8mm shorter across. I'm lucky in that the case design hits the 'sweet spot' where minor variances in size in accordance with the tolerances stated for WSF will work. The red case still works despite the relatively large variance in size - if it didn't fit *at all* I'd be straight on to CS.


Steven

Hey Steven
There is a good chance its a scaling issue. Every part made in WSF (SLS) will be scaled up a certain percentage to account for shrinkage when cooling. If the part wasn't scaled then you would see issues like this.

The reason you dont see any issue in the 'Z' height is because its based on a %, the smaller the original dimension the smaller the part is out of tolerance.

Of course it could be something entirely different

BTW nice case

Piers