Introduction

A few years ago, developing a prototype of a product was expensive and difficult to produce with plastic injection. Today, with the advancement of industrial 3D printing, you can produce any product, test it and spend very little money. All thanks to the manufacture of parts with industrial 3D printing.

3D printing has transformed the way we create and customize parts for electronic projects, enabling the manufacture of complex components with precision and agility.

In this article, we explore how 3D printing was instrumental in the development of a coin collector designed for vending machines. The housing of this system, which houses a coin acceptor, an LCD display, and a control board, was entirely designed and manufactured using 3D modeling and 3D printing.

This approach not only ensured a perfect fit for the electronic components, but also enabled a custom, functional design that met the specific needs of the project.

In the context of technological evolution and the need for customized solutions, industrial 3D printing stands out as a powerful tool for engineers and those interested in building electronic prototypes who want quality and manufacturing speed.

Thanks to JLC3DP, you can print your parts for as little as $0.3 and obtain them with a quality and finish similar to parts manufactured in thermoplastic injection molds.

It was created with the support of JLC3DP. JLC3DP is the largest company in China in electronic board prototyping, machining and 3D printing. You can print industrial quality parts from $0.3. The price is very cheap and you will get parts with instructional quality that look like injection molded parts.

Now... Let get started!

3D Modeling and 3D Printing


The first step in product development or prototype is divided into two parts: designing the project in the 3D modeling tool and adapting the project to be manufactured using 3D printing based on fabrication rules of 3D printing processes.

3D Modeling Process

3D modeling is a very important step in the production process of any product. It is during the creation process that we carry out structural planning, select the appropriate material and perform all simulation tests to ensure that the parts are subsequently manufactured safely and with quality.

Below, we have the device presented with 3D modeling device.

The structure of the device consists of 4 general purpose buttons, an LCD display to present the information and the coin acceptor. On the back we have a power connector and an access drawer to collect the collected coins.

As mentioned earlier, 3D modeling for 3D printing of anything requires planning. One of the major planning points in this project was the organization of the user interface with the 20x4 LCD display, the buttons and the coin acceptor.

Planning the user interface is a very important step during the design phase. Observe the internal structure and see that each component is organized and easy to access so that it can be manipulated and facilitate connections between them. Below is the internal structure.

The panel housing structure is constructed to be separate from the main body. This facilitates assembly and connection between the various parts of the device. Below you can see the 3D structure in exploded view of the project.

This assembly analysis step is of fundamental importance during the 3D modeling process. It ensures that we can evaluate the assembly process and minimize the risk of possible errors during the 3D printing process.

This facilitates the part manufacturing process, reduces 3D modeling time for error correction and minimizes manufacturing costs due to 3D modeling errors. Carrying out these steps carefully allowed us to manufacture the structure without any errors, thanks to the testing and analysis tools of the structure in 3D modeling. Next, we will present the 3D printed structure.

3D Printing Device

From the 3D modeling we 3D print each part of the project. Below we present the result...

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