Week 3 – Materializing Designs

This week, I worked on CADding the prototype. This will be a shorter update just detailing my CAD model. This is what I came up with:

As you can see, this design differs from last week’s. Below is an image of last week’s for reference:

What I figured out from last update to this one is that while I’d previously expected my design to account for waterproofing the push-pull solenoid by simply encasing it in a layer of filament. Realistically, though, water is bound to enter the enclosure sooner or later if I were to expose it directly under the faucet. That’s why, instead, I set up the following design, where the push-pull solenoid sits outside the device, and there’s a lower risk of water coming into contact with the solenoid. The gold object is what the plug would look like and where it would sit in the prototype. The solenoid would sit on the outside in its own enclosure, pushing and pulling the plug into place.

I’m currently working on 3D-printing this at a MakerSpace near me and then manually test the prototype to ensure that it can actually stop water flow.