My sister-in-law discovered the structure of this protein during her research. I printed it out for her.
We were able to work together to follow this walk-through on converting the protein model into something I could print.
The protein is actually two halves that work together. I first printed a prototype of the whole thing in one piece:
Then I printed the two halves separately to see how well they fit together outside of a virtual model:
At that point, I knew they would fit together, and I knew roughly how big I needed to print them to get all the detail in with my printer's resolution.
However, I wanted to go fancy: I wanted the two pieces to magnetically snap together.
I modified the 3D file to have a gap for a magnet, then inserted the magnet at the last layer with the gap open, while the printer was still in operation:
The magnet was solidly in place in the final product. You can see another magnet hanging from the finished part here:
I then did the same procedure with the mating half:
Et Voila, they mated nicely!
But I wanted to go fancier still. I printed these in ABS so I could use Acetone Vapor Smoothing to really give these models a glossy sheen.
I bought an old slow cooker at my local Goodwill, and subjected both models to hot acetone vapor for about 10 minutes.
They came out looking pretty slick!
We were able to work together to follow this walk-through on converting the protein model into something I could print.
The protein is actually two halves that work together. I first printed a prototype of the whole thing in one piece:
Then I printed the two halves separately to see how well they fit together outside of a virtual model:
At that point, I knew they would fit together, and I knew roughly how big I needed to print them to get all the detail in with my printer's resolution.
However, I wanted to go fancy: I wanted the two pieces to magnetically snap together.
I modified the 3D file to have a gap for a magnet, then inserted the magnet at the last layer with the gap open, while the printer was still in operation:
The magnet was solidly in place in the final product. You can see another magnet hanging from the finished part here:
I then did the same procedure with the mating half:
Et Voila, they mated nicely!
But I wanted to go fancier still. I printed these in ABS so I could use Acetone Vapor Smoothing to really give these models a glossy sheen.
I bought an old slow cooker at my local Goodwill, and subjected both models to hot acetone vapor for about 10 minutes.
They came out looking pretty slick!
