What 3D printer...

[Hood]

.....
CNC is so last year...

Then why are you using one

 

[Screwdriver]

YKWIM.

 

[brewdexta]

The eldest (13) beat me to designing and printing. I pointed her at tinkercad and half an hour later she had knocked up a label with her name and form number for her school bag, exported it as an STL, sliced and printed it. She's working on mkII now

The youngest has just got her new school login as she is in year 7 next year, high school to people like me where you had infants, juniors then high school. She has one subject where she will use Creo Parametric 3, a 3D CAD package I had never heard of before I searched, but seems to be used in aerospace a lot. First project is a passive phone speaker made from recycled materials.

I'll have to get into CAD, I have a few things I want to knock up for the workshop. Fusion360 here I come....

 

[daedalusminos]

This should keep me busy for a while...

 

[Screwdriver]

This should keep me busy for a while...

View attachment 247959

Nice. I am already lusting after that precise model.

This diy plastic printing facility is a bottomless pit of opportunity (mixed metaphor intended).

Been knocking up some inserts for plastic storage boxes.

Spiral print (vase mode) takes no time at all (hardly) and with 0.8mm side walls in PETG, these boxes are tough! I have dozens of those Allit boxes and these inserts make them dead handy. They are available of course but in set sizes and £4 each! I can make these 4 square (although two square inserts is enough to give 4 compartments). I can make a double length oblong and next batch will be half height for double depth etc...

Plus, no need to ad the picture but I have just printed out a replacement battery cover for one of my digital calipers (12 minutes).

Overnight I'll be printing out a replacement bottom cover for my MacMini which needs a deeper base for a fan conversion.

 

[Bladevane]

@daedalusminos I will be extremely interested in how you get on with the Prusa. Very impressed with their QA/QC systems.

 

[Screwdriver]

@daedalusminos I will be extremely interested in how you get on with the Prusa. Very impressed with their QA/QC systems.

Me too and after watching their video posted above, I'm going to try their filament too.

Just spent a sleepless night worrying about the reel jamming up as it comes off the spool. Happens fairly often with the black PETG which iirc was the very cheapest possible "no name" product. A false economy when you consider a fair proportion of the "cost" is the printing time itself.

Even if there is the briefest pause in filament feed, the entire print can fail, sometimes quite spectacularly.

 

[Bladevane]

Is that a spooling issue because it’s cheap PETG or a feed issue with the Bowden tube?

 

[Screwdriver]

Is that a spooling issue because it’s cheap PETG or a feed issue with the Bowden tube?

The filament is somehow jammed on the reel. It has done that since day 1 and it seems there's nothing I can do. I keep an eye on it, make sure the path is clear, I fitted an outrigger support guide which helps the filament path tremendously but once in a while, the filament coming off the roll gets stuck under another filament still wound on it.

There is probably a "solution" and it probably involves rewinding the reel (!) but the most cost effective option is to buy one that has been carefully wound to start off with. Hence my admiration for the PRUSA method which looks perfect. My reel already looks like a birds nest...

Though now I think about it, the only topological solution is that somehow the reel started off with the loose end underneath a coil and its always been like that. I might change reels (bored with black) and see if I can find an overlap.

 

[daedalusminos]

@daedalusminos I will be extremely interested in how you get on with the Prusa. Very impressed with their QA/QC systems.

I started building last night very impressed with quality and presentation of the parts. The documentation is excellent - full colour printed assembly book which is also available online with other customers comments/problems. All parts individually bagged/boxed and well identified and assembly is a joy (except for one hiccup which cost me an hour).

I'll post some pics but won't complete build until the weekend.

 

[DAPPH]

When I built mine a couple of years ago I missed the step of putting the two small conical shrouds that help prevent bit of dross clogging the bearings up on the lifting ( Z ?) vertical stepper motors
I played with it for many hours till one day I decided I'd like to put the defectors in the right place rather than lose or bin them , to unbolt a few bits and slipped them over the worm drive screws ........one at a time , think it took me 3/4 hr all told . But by now I had a 10 piece set of quality handled precision nut spinners & a "T" key set of ball ended Allan keys rather than using the Allan keys provided plus a blob of Blut-Tack to help hold nuts in the spinners & on the ball ended Allan keys .

Then one day I had a problem in that the optical sensor looking after the filament feed started playing SB's nothing I did including using compressed dry air being blown in the offending device to clean the optics helped. . I'd ignored one Prusa offer of a cheap update for several months as it hadn't been a problem but the day I changed over to a silvery PLA filament and not having any different colours it played up . So I purchased the updated housing and new mechanical /magnetic sensor , spent a couple of hours taking the head apart & rebuilding it with the new parts following the online Prusa help video on how to do it ..... I've not had a problem since.

You guys who are buying the latest version ready made or self build won't have the feed problem , You'll also have the best print build plate available .

Good luck with the original Joe Prusa it's a sound bit of kit with a full technical & spares back up .

One thing that might help you guys is to assemble each nut & bolt before attempting to put them on th build .. I discovered two instances of difficult nuts & screw combinations where miniscule differences made the join act like a stripped nut & bolt thread .
But as there are loads of useful extras it wasn't a problem .
When I did the updated sensor work I pre tried all the paired nuts & bolts first before taking them apart & putting them in the new head .

 

[DAPPH]

The filament is somehow jammed on the reel. It has done that since day 1 and it seems there's nothing I can do. I keep an eye on it, make sure the path is clear, I fitted an outrigger support guide which helps the filament path tremendously but once in a while, the filament coming off the roll gets stuck under another filament still wound on it.

There is probably a "solution" and it probably involves rewinding the reel (!) but the most cost effective option is to buy one that has been carefully wound to start off with. Hence my admiration for the PRUSA method which looks perfect. My reel already looks like a birds nest...

Though now I think about it, the only topological solution is that somehow the reel started off with the loose end underneath a coil and its always been like that. I might change reels (bored with black) and see if I can find an overlap.

Occasionally that happened on electrical cables when they'd been rolled a tad to tight at one stage of the spooling up or had been stored in the cold then brought into a hot workshop .
Would making a Prusa type spool holder help , the reels still rotate freely but without any discernable loosening of the coils . You also need to be careful how you set up the new reels so there is no slack to run back into the coiled filament reel .

 

[DAPPH]

Nice. I am already lusting after that precise model.

This diy plastic printing facility is a bottomless pit of opportunity (mixed metaphor intended).

Been knocking up some inserts for plastic storage boxes.

Spiral print (vase mode) takes no time at all (hardly) and with 0.8mm side walls in PETG, these boxes are tough! I have dozens of those Allit boxes and these inserts make them dead handy. They are available of course but in set sizes and £4 each! I can make these 4 square (although two square inserts is enough to give 4 compartments). I can make a double length oblong and next batch will be half height for double depth etc...

Plus, no need to ad the picture but I have just printed out a replacement battery cover for one of my digital calipers (12 minutes).

Overnight I'll be printing out a replacement bottom cover for my MacMini which needs a deeper base for a fan conversion.

Have you thought of trying of making rows of hexagonal holes in a printed strip that's just tight enough to hold the hex bit securely . A strip is easier to hold and extract a bit than go fishing in a small box especially when your hands are cold or if you have bratwurst sized fingers. . Plus if you do them in strips of 5 or ten it a doddle to see how many you have and if you upset the box you don't have to spend ages picking up individual items , just easily seeable strips of them .
Similar to this strip

 

[PhillipM]

Me too and after watching their video posted above, I'm going to try their filament too.

Just spent a sleepless night worrying about the reel jamming up as it comes off the spool. Happens fairly often with the black PETG which iirc was the very cheapest possible "no name" product. A false economy when you consider a fair proportion of the "cost" is the printing time itself.

Even if there is the briefest pause in filament feed, the entire print can fail, sometimes quite spectacularly.

Yep, cheap filament is the most expensive mistake you can make when it comes to printing tbfh.

 

[Screwdriver]

Have you thought of trying of making rows of hexagonal holes in a printed strip that's just tight enough to hold the hex bit securely . A strip is easier to hold and extract a bit than go fishing in a small box especially when your hands are cold or if you have bratwurst sized fingers. . Plus if you do them in strips of 5 or ten it a doddle to see how many you have and if you upset the box you don't have to spend ages picking up individual items , just easily seeable strips of them .
Similar to this strip

Yes I hope to make up some dedicated tool storage bins which will fit inside the L-BOXX cases I use for portability and working storage. These little boxes are literally just so I can store excess stock (I rescued all those bits from a skip) and try to separate storage from tooling.

That is an indictment of my entire workshop area which doubles up as a store room and stock room, that simple fact is effectively stopping me from getting any actual work done! I am aiming for a modular system where any item can fit alongside or inside any other. Not obsessively but you know, sort of an ambition to keep everything compatible with shelving, racking, drawers and Bisley storage units etc.

With any luck I can mass produce items for "the last mile" that last snug fit, space conscious purpose built glovebox which I should be able to knock out with this amazing digital printer. I am still slightly shocked I didn't realise how damned useful these things really are.

 

[daedalusminos]

A few pics - current progress, main frame is 6mm, 4mm powder coated laser cut aluminium sheet with 30x30 extrusion. Heather support is 6mm laser cut powder coated aluminium...


Plastic parts are printed PETG (nice quality considering they probably print at speed) - note test report...


Bags clearly labelled and comprehensive assembly guide and book...


Excellent packaging...and Haribo!

 

[Screwdriver]

I am ever so slightly jealous...

 

[armalites]

@daedalusminos I have the same printer and it's excellent. Did you go for the powder coated sheet? I got both just in case. The flexible sheet is brilliant, no messing about scraping stuff, just flex the plate and it pops off.

There is a fair amount of work involved in building it as you've found but the instructions are excellent.

The only bit that I found wasn't well explained was the calibration, they may have changed the instructions now but when you get to that point when you need to adjust it until the filament won't rub off the plate with your finger but what wasn't clear was the fact you had to press enter before the process stopped to save it. If you don't enter the value before it completes nothing will change. I went through it many times.

I've only used Prusa filament in PLA and PETG because I read the quality is really good.

 

[armalites]

The eldest (13) beat me to designing and printing. I pointed her at tinkercad and half an hour later she had knocked up a label with her name and form number for her school bag, exported it as an STL, sliced and printed it. She's working on mkII now

The youngest has just got her new school login as she is in year 7 next year, high school to people like me where you had infants, juniors then high school. She has one subject where she will use Creo Parametric 3, a 3D CAD package I had never heard of before I searched, but seems to be used in aerospace a lot. First project is a passive phone speaker made from recycled materials.

I'll have to get into CAD, I have a few things I want to knock up for the workshop. Fusion360 here I come....

It's amazing how quick they pick things up if they have the enthusiasm, my youngest just downloaded some free program and was designing/printing stuff pretty quickly

 

[Screwdriver]

For the record: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3541498

Printed "standing up", no supports and a bit of tidying up but that battery cover is superb!

And yes, I suppose you could just buy one (£4) but it is sooo satisfying to just magic one out of thin air...