Monitor Makeover: Using Generative Design

Hello everyone, my name is Aitrieus Wright and I'm a rising third-year Mechanical Engineering student at San Jose State University. As an engineering student, and someone who enjoys playing video games on the side, using a desktop PC has become very essential in my day-to-day life. One recurring issue I always find myself having though is a lack of desk space due to an oddly sized and shaped monitor stand. For example, I was never able to lay out multiple books, tools, or utensils along with my keyboard and mouse for work because of this.

As a result, I was always questioning the design of my monitor. Does it need to be that wide? Why does it protrude backwards so much? Does it have to extend that far beyond the screen? The biggest question was of course, "How can I fix it?" Thus, I turned to 3D-printing to create a solution that would be cheaper than the alternative of just buying a new monitor. My ultimate goal was to a create a monitor stand that was simpler than my current one by reducing the size of it, while still maintaining its level of support.

• 3D Printer (Ender-3 by Creality)
• Filament
• Measuring tools: calipers, ruler
• Drawing tools: paper, pencil, combination square
• Tools remove 3D-printed supports: scissors, long nose pliers

To begin I first made a sketch of the bottom plane of my monitor, in order to capture its shape on a medium that could be dimensioned easily. To make the sketch I first positioned a piece of paper underneath the monitor and approximately centered it horizontally. Once the paper was in place I traced the outline of the monitor, being careful not to move the paper as I traced.

After capturing the sketch of my monitor, I began to mark out its dimensions using a ruler and calipers. The first necessary dimension was the center line of the sketch, and I marked this as the center of the paper itself since the sketch was made to be symmetrical. The following dimension points were chosen arbitrarily, and based on what I thought was necessary to recreate the curvature of the monitor using Fusion360's sketch tools. I used my calipers to take the measurements, the ruler to create straight construction or dimension lines, and the combination square to help make any perpendicular marks. I also made sure to verify my sketch's dimensions by also measuring the corresponding points on the physical monitor.

Once I decided enough dimensions were taken, I moved onto Fusion360 to create a 3D reference model of this portion of the monitor.

The dimensions drawn on the paper earlier were used to help recreate the sketch via Fusion360. I began the CAD sketch by recreating any construction lines. Next, I also added the dimension lines from the paper as construction lines in the new sketch. Once all the construction lines were added, solid lines were made to recreate the sketch at the center and the end of the paper. Finally, the curves were made using the spline tool and the ends of the construction lines as anchor points. No changes were made to the original curve of the splines after connecting it along the anchor points, and only half of the sketch was recreated due to symmetry.

After finishing the sketch, it was extruded by an arbitrarily chosen amount of 10mm in order to create a solid body. This new body was then mirrored, with the mirror plane being chosen as the face of the middle section of the monitor (blue face in photo). The newer, bigger solid body created would now serve as a reference model in which the monitor stand would be modeled around.

A lot of freedom was possible when creating the model of the mount, but I knew it needed to follow some necessary constraints. The mount needed to have a face big enough to hold the monitor in a stable manner, but not so big that the final stand would be heftier than the original. I knew that my monitor rarely ever shook, so threads for screws wouldn't be necessary to mount the monitor. It simply needed to sit on something in a snug, fit fashion. Thus, I decided that adding some guards for support was necessary to keep the monitor from falling forwards or backwards.

After taking all these constraints into consideration, I ultimately settled on the design shown above. The actual modeling was mostly done by creating sketches from the faces of the monitor and then extruding them. The extrude feature was also used to create the guards, as well as make cuts onto them to accustom the curvature of the back of the monitor.

With an overall design for the mount finished, it was now time to test its fit against the monitor. The fitting test was necessary to prevent a waste of materials in the case that the final print did not hold the monitor correctly. To model the fitting print I made a copy of the finalized design and then simplified it. Only a frame of the mount was necessary to test whether or not the fit was correct. Additionally, the fitting print was allowed to be thinner to allow for a faster print, less material waste, and more efficient fit testing. Once the right fit was found, I adjusted the original model to match the size and the angle of the guards to that of the new fit. Now, it was time to move onto modeling the base of the stand.

Similar to the mount, many liberties could be taken when designing the base. Additionally, the base did not involve any fittings so even more flexibility was allowed. The only constraint was that the base had to extend past the thickest part of the monitor, to ensure that it wouldn't fall over or be unbalanced. Thus, I measured the portion of free space on my desk, compared it to the thickness of my monitor and settled on an area of about 1000mm^2. I ultimately opted for a very simple design resembling a ring. The ring was made by creating two circles and extruding the section created by the two outer radii, and then a slight chamfer was added for on top for aesthetics. With the base and mount finished, it was now time to start the generative design portion.

In essence, obstacle geometry is needed to assist the generative design solver in producing a final product that is to your liking. In my case I was trying to reduce the size of my original monitor stand, while also keeping material cost or total mass to a minimum. Thus, without the obstacle geometry the solver could have created designs that would be more costly, physically heftier, and less practical than I would like. Explaining my geometry further, and with the bodies numbered accordingly:

1. A large cup-like body to encase the top portion of the model and ensure that the solver doesn't create any bodies that may impact that surface, and hence the ability of the monitor to sit properly on the mount
2. Three smaller bodies to ensure that the small gaps I created in the mount stay open to reduce material cost, and for aesthetic purposes
3. A cone-like body to ensure that the mid-section remains for relatively open to reduce material cost, for practical purposes (allow cables to pass through), and for aesthetic purposes
4. Another large cup-like body to encase the bottom portion of the model and ensure that no bodies that could affect the base's ability to sit flat on my desk are generated

1. Setting preserve/obstacle geometry: having already colored my bodies in the design phase, all I had to do now was classify the bodies accordingly with the preserved geometry being green and the obstacle geometry being red
2. Design Conditions (Structural Constraints/Loads): the only design constraint I deemed necessary was classifying the base as a fixed body since it was the piece that made contact with the desk; the load was placed along the face of the mount that made contact with the monitor and was set to tolerate the approximate weight of it (15 lbs.)
3. Design Criteria: my objective was to reduce material cost, hence I selected "minimize mass," while still retaining a safety factor of 2; for manufacturing I was of course only needed to plan for 3D printing, hence only "additive" is selected and the others, deselected; also, an overhang angle of 45 degrees and a minimum thickness of 2mm is selected according to my typical 3D-print settings
4. Study Materials: since I was planning on manufacturing this project by means of 3D printing only, only plastics were chosen from the "Additive" option
5. Generate: the precheck was used to ensure that there were no errors in the study, and then finally the "Generate" function was used to create the various designs from which one would be selected from the "Explore" tab to print

Following the generation of various designs, I chose the one I personally liked the most, created a design from it, exported it as an STL file, and then imported it into a separate slicer software (Ultimaker Cura) to prepare the print operation. Ultimately, I chose to make the print with a 20% infill to minimize material cost and print time, and a support overhang angle of 45 degrees to match the option set in Fusion360. With all the options set, I exported the G-code file onto my SD-card, slotted the card into my printer, and then ran the print and waited.

Once the print finish all that was left to do was remove the supports and then finally implement the print as my new monitor stand. To remove the supports I used a mix of scissors, long nose pliers, and my hands to both break and remove the supports. Then once the supports were removed, I was finally able to use the print as my new monitor stand and successfully create more space on my desk. With the new space my desk feels more refined, and I feel more comfortable working.

I did some other practical testing and found that the stand also succeeds in keeping the monitor from tipping off of it when responding to small shakes from movements or adjustments. If, however, I was to shake my desk with some considerable force the monitor does topple over. This force would be about the equivalent of me suddenly bumping into my desk with all my weight when walking around my room for example, and this is not very likely to happen. Thus, I would say that overall, this project succeeded in accomplishing the main goals or expectations that I had set for it. I managed to design a new stand that was smaller and still able to support my monitor without failure.

When the idea for this project first came to mind, I had initially thought about designing a very rough and rigid stand to solve my issue. As I gave it more thought though, I found myself having more questions. I questioned whether the structures I was designing would be able to actually hold the weight, or if my designs could actually be simplified to reduce costs. All these questions were resolved after learning about Fusion360's generative design. The process of using it was very convenient and satisfying in a way, seeing as it does some CAD for you. After completing this project, I now think about how my issue applies to larger support-type structures, and how this tool could be applied to save a more significant amount of resources in the real world. I also think about the current manufacturing methods that are out there, and how they could be improved to accustom generative design on larger scales.

I hope this Instructable was able to teach any of you who were new to the concept of generative design, what it's all about. I also hope that my problem to solution thought process was able to help someone solve their own problems in a unique, engineering fashion. Lastly, I also hope that this project makes you think about the all potential creations that could be made with the help of this tool.