SolidWorks Key Chain Design Project

The idea behind this project was to introduce us to solidworks and 3D printing by designing a key chain.  For this Chevy Key Chain, I worked on my own to create a key chain I would want to use.  By doing this it made my job and the learning of solid works a lot more enjoyable.

Now I will talk a little about my Key Chain:

1. To begin with we designed the product in Solid Works:

I started with this picture and based my solid works drawing off of it:

To get to the final product of this: This picture is my Final rendered solid works drawing of my key chain before printing. This is where I added material properties, what I would be making it out of and also the color sequence.  As you can tell the object will be polished aluminum with a painted yellow / gold finish on the emblem to help it stand out.

I am very happy with how it turned out during the rendering process.

The final overall measurements for this key chain are as follows:
Chevy Emblem:
Length: 2.500"
Width: 0.800"
Thickness: 0.500"

To take into account the portion where the key rings hook on, the total width becomes roughly 1.00"

Now I will show pictures of my key chain in solid works with some information as to what I was doing.

To begin with here are a few views of the solid works window with my project:

 

 

 

 

 

Here are some of my Dimensions as seen in solid works when I go to edit the drawing:

 

For this one, when I get more time I will be cleaning up my measurements so it is not so confusing or messy.

Lastly here is the product after I added material properties and color:

And one more Final rendered picture of my product.

2. Second we Printed our key chain using a 3D Printer so we could produce a Rapid Prototype.
The Printer I used is the one that the University of Idaho has which is a Dimension bst 1200 a rougly $30,000 machine that is quite amazing.  More information on it can be found here: http://www.dimensionprinting.com/3d-printers/3d-printing-bst.aspx

Here are a few pictures of the actual machine I used that the Mechanical Engineering Department and the University of Idaho has.

Here are a few views while the machine was printing mine as well as a couple other students key chain projects.  You can see my Chevy one, its the second one back on the left side.

Here you can see the finished key chains stuck to the tray after removal, as well as a few views of mine.

Lastly for the plastic model portion of my project, here are a few pictures after I got the structure material off and was left with my own product.

Thank You for your Time.


(more information will be added as my progress on this project evolves.  My future hopes are to make an aluminum model of this using a CNC Mill.  Thank you for your patience.)