Dishwasher
Magnets 🍽️🧼
are the dishes clean or dirty?
are the dishes clean or dirty?
At home, the dishwasher can either have dirty dishes, clean dishes, or currently running.
There have been countless times that one of us in the house put dirty dishes when the dishwasher had clean ones, or someone accidentally opened the dishwasher in the middle of its current cycle.
How can we tell whether or not the dishwasher was clean, dirty, or still running?
For the first few weeks since we realized this was a recurring problem, my mom placed a sticky note that says the dishes were clean.
This worked for a while, but it did not show if the dishwasher was currently running or not.
Additionally, the sticky note eventually lost its stick and we resorted to reinforcing it with tape in order to keep our sign up.
I liked the idea of having a sign for each status of the dishwasher.
Clean, Dirty, or Running.
I also liked how even when the dishwasher was opened or closed, you can still tell the status of the dishwasher since the sticky note was not attached to the door of the dishwasher.
After multiple design iterations on my notebook, I settled with a magnetic mount to attach to the countertop, and magnetic signs to attach to the mount.
The magnetic signs can be placed on the fridge when not in use.
I opted for embedded magnets inside of the print in order to conceal the magnets.
I took measurements of the countertop and the magnets that I have to design the mount.
I used SolidWorks to model each of the designs based on some vector art I can find online of the signs I wanted to create.
One problem is that the magnets need to be added during the printing process.
I used the Cura slicer pause print extension to pause the print at a certain layer.
To add the magnet during the printing process, I added a pause print line in the G-Code so I have time to embed the magnet in the sign.
Once the print is resumed, the next layer is above the magnet, so it covers it right up.
One problem I ran into is printing the mount so that the layer lines are perpendicular to the forces that the mount will experience.
I needed to embed the magnet flat into the mount, but also the mount needed to be printed sideways for the weak layer lines to be accounted for.
I printed the mount in two parts, the countertop mount and the magnet side.
I am really happy with the final product. My sister painted each of the signs with acrylic paint.
The colors really pop, and it's hard to miss the signs when you are about to open the dishwasher.
I can proudly say that I solved the problem.
