My wife and I inherited 2 massage/tilt beds. We put them together to make a king size. The 1 fault was that the controllers were flimsy. Basically, the plastic was too thin. It led to some of the controls punching through the plastic. The other major flaw is that the cable retainers (you know, those black plastic clamp things that go around the cable and then get squeezed into a hole in a housing) were both gone, leaving the cables hanging loosely through the hole in the housing. Considering the beds run on 120V AC power, I call this unsafe.
Here’s the original controller cover:
[ATTACH=JSON]{“data-align”:“none”,“data-size”:“medium”,“data-tempid”:“temp_2008_1645757870855_963”}[/ATTACH][IMG2=JSON]{“data-align”:“none”,“data-size”:“full”,“src”:“https://forum.makewithtech.com/core/image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAPABAP///wAAACH5BAEKAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAICRAEAOw==”}[/IMG2][IMG2=JSON]{“data-align”:“none”,“data-size”:“full”,“src”:“https://forum.makewithtech.com/core/image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAPABAP///wAAACH5BAEKAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAICRAEAOw==”}[/IMG2][IMG2=JSON]{“data-align”:“none”,“data-size”:“full”,“src”:“https://forum.makewithtech.com/core/image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAPABAP///wAAACH5BAEKAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAICRAEAOw==”}[/IMG2][IMG2=JSON]{“data-align”:“none”,“data-size”:“full”,“src”:“https://forum.makewithtech.com/core/image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAPABAP///wAAACH5BAEKAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAICRAEAOw==”}[/IMG2][IMG2=JSON]{“data-align”:“none”,“data-size”:“full”,“src”:“https://forum.makewithtech.com/core/image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAPABAP///wAAACH5BAEKAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAICRAEAOw==”}[/IMG2][IMG2=JSON]{“data-align”:“none”,“data-size”:“full”,“src”:“https://forum.makewithtech.com/core/image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAPABAP///wAAACH5BAEKAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAICRAEAOw==”}[/IMG2][IMG2=JSON]{“data-align”:“none”,“data-size”:“full”,“src”:“https://forum.makewithtech.com/core/image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAPABAP///wAAACH5BAEKAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAICRAEAOw==”}[/IMG2]Note how the bolt hole at the bottom is completely punched through. This is where the head and foot tilt buttons mounted. They were basically unusable. Some of the lettering has worn thin too.
It was time to replace the controller boxes. I 1st tried making 1 the same as the original, but it was too long to fit on my printer’s bed, so I had to rethink it. To make it short enough, I decided to design the box so the head and foot massage controls are side by side instead of above each other.
The biggest innovation, at least for me, was deciding to do the lettering as inlay. What I mean is, I wanted the lettering to be done with white PETG filament inlayed into a black PETG faceplate. That way, the lettering would never wear off.
I did a test:
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OK, it’s not perfect, but I deemed it good enough for my purposes. I figured I would use somewhat larger lettering anyway, so it should be even clearer. The letters are 0.3mm deep. I looked up inlay on youtube and found a video from CHEP where he used Z Hopping. Basically, the idea is to print the model as 2 print jobs, 1 for the lettering, and 1 for the back. The trick is how to prevent the 2nd print job (the back) from damaging the 1st print job (lettering). CHEP did it by having the nozzle hop over the lettering by using Cura’s Z Hop feature. For lettering 0.3mm deep, he would use a Z Hop of 0.4mm or 0.5mm.
In order to make this all work, the lettering and backing have to be in perfect alignment. I created the basic box in Fusion 360, then added the lettering to the top surface. I extruded the lettering down into the box. This cut the letters into the box. Then, I extruded the lettering down again as a new body. This created the recesses and lettering as a perfect fit. Then I saved the box and lettering as separate STLs.
I loaded the 2 STLs into Cura. I disabled Cura’s Drop To Build Plate option, then selected both STLs and used Cura’s Merge Models feature. This registered the 2 models together as they were in Fusion 360. Then I rotated the merged models 180 degrees, so the lettering would be against the build plate. I re-enabled Drop To Build Plate, moved the merged models above the build plate and let them drop back down. Next, I un-merged the models and saved it all as a project. I deleted the box, saved the lettering as a separate project, then sliced the lettering and saved as a gcode file. I loaded some white filament, connected to Klipper, loaded the lettering gcode file, and started it printing.
While the lettering was printing I re-loaded the project that contained both models, deleted the letting STL, saved the box as a separate project, sliced it, and saved it as a gcode file.
When the lettering finished printing, I changed to black filament, loaded the box gcode file and started it printing.
Obviously, the lettering can’t be too tall or the nozzle would hit the lettering anyway.
to be continued…
