Category: 3D Printing

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A 3DPrinter Only as Good as Its Parts

Good Morning from my Robotics Lab! This is Shadow_8472 with a side project for the week. Let’s get started!

I’ve had a hit/miss relationship with my 3D printer. Some of the time, it works great, but when it’s not, I’m having to scavenge a solution to whatever is ailing it.

Fan


One fateful project, I chipped a couple fan blades off in my attempt to service it while in operation; it seemed like a good idea at the time. Don’t repeat this mistake at home. In the case you do, there exist sets of replacement blades. I was able to print one up on my damaged printer, and were it not for clipping right through one of the posts holding the motor in place, it would have worked beautifully. Instead, it would grind loudly whenever I started the printer up. I would always have to tap it a few times until it managed to find its balance.

The only real fix for this problem was a replacement fan. We had to be careful when ordering one when considering its size, voltage, and pin count. We ended up with a close enough match I was able to install it with few questions – there are tear-down tutorials for in-depth instructions. The cord was way longer than it needed to be, so for my installation, wrapped it around the box behind the printhead a couple times before plugging it in.

Bed

And then there is the printer bed. Metal warps with heat cycles – especially when it’s made on the cheap. Aluminum print beds are no exception. Mine has reached the point of unusability having formed itself into somewhat of a slight bowl or saddle. Note that this is after giving it a gnarly scratch right in the middle.

This too took a replacement part. We ordered one for my specific model of printer (Maker Select Plus) and it arrived at the same time as the fan. Judging by follow-up research, borosilicate glass is preferred as a print surface, though cheaper, more thermally sensitive glass like you’d find in windows can also work as long as the operator is careful. My glass plate is affixed with four small binder clips, which I will need to mind as my favorite test print for leveling the bed sends the extruder right through them.

Takeaway

One key element I was not prepared for before printing a Benchy this week was hair spray. Makers love their Aqua Net hair spray. Another common-sense recommendation was not to use the metal spatula that came with the printer as it could damage the new bed.

Final Question

Have you ever 3D printed on glass? I look forward to hearing about your experience in the comments below or on my Socials.

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My 3D Printer Needed Maintenance!

Good Morning from my Robotics Lab! This is Shadow_8472 with a side project for the week. Let’s get started!

I wanted an easy post this week, as the past two weeks have been downer endings, and 3D printing has been on by background list for a while. For reference, I have a Monoprice Maker Select Plus I got for Christmas several years ago. Since then, I’ve learned that 3D printing is almost more about maintaining your machine than it is about actually printing things.

I wanted to print up a part I need for a planned project, but no matter what I did, the bed wouldn’t level out for me. The back, right corner kept turning up as too close to the extruder, even when at the end of its adjustment screw.

I reached out to relevant help channels, and someone from the Sweetie Bot Project’s Discord server informed me of new ways my model of printer was a low-end tool/high-end toy. My print bed is warping over time, though I cannot test it with a ruler or triangle because of a bad spot in the middle.

My solution was to find an Allen wrench and raise the Z-stop switch a notch. I leveled the bed again, and I was just barely comfortable enough with a flat test print to try a Benchy. I came back to a failed print. When I got around to servicing it properly, the filament was snapped off – my filament is wet from improper storage over a period of humidity.

I don’t have time to fix it and try again before posting, so this short post again turns into a downer ending. At least I learned a thing or two.

Final Question

If you have a 3D printer, how do you manage how it absorbs humidity?

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I Printed A Filament Duster

Good Morning from my Robotics Lab! This is Shadow_8472 with a side project of the week. Let’s get started!

My 3D printer has been stubborn at finishing prints since I was finishing up a Chess set for a kid spending his summer in the hospital. Just as it finishes up, it stops extruding material. Since then, I have tried a few times to print a combined filament guide and duster from Thingiverse [1]. It’s time to take another crack at it.

When last I lost patience with my printer, I left its corner adjustments fully tightened down. Needless to say, filament doesn’t stick the best when this happens. I also had a .gcode file loaded with a few changes: the part was in another spot in the bed because of visible wear on the bed, a little cap was omitted as I already have a couple good ones, there is a rectangular structure inspired by a purge block used by multi-filament printers because maybe it’s getting lazy toward the end of the job or something (good luck if nothing else). And as if that weren’t enough, I installed one of my defective filament guides and tied a microfiber to the filament using strings of filament from previous bed level tests.

One more thing –and this is probably the one that actually did it– the print head apart and gave the e-step motor as good of a cleaning as I could get with another microfiber cloth, the long end of an Allen wrench, and a bit of creativity. Once I was convinced I was well past the point of diminishing returns, I put the printer back together and it came out first try.

Weary of a lame sendoff to a project I’ve had multiple weeks ending in failure, I did a bit more background research on 3D printing:

Additive manufacturing caught popular attention in the early 2010’s. Advice shared among 3D printing hobbyists from this period should be followed with caution as widely spread advice, like oiling your filament for lubrication, may have come out as a bad idea in more recent years (for example: oil burning in extruder, making bed adhesion more difficult, and soaking into/destroying filaments). It is for this reason that I am using a dry sponge to dust my filament.

Takeaway

This part took way too long to fabricate. It is my hope that it will silently do its work in preventing so many jams in the long run. I may never know if it is actually of any use. I’d need to alternate between using two identical machines in the same room. That’s not likely to happen unless the one I have is already constantly busy, which would give less time for dust to settle on open spools of filament to begin with. I’m just glad the device is finally in place.

Final Question

What projects have you completed where you may never know how beneficial or useless they are in the end?

I look forward hearing your answers on in the comments below or on my Discord server.

Work Cited

For my initial post, I was been unable to locate a link to the part I used.

[1] Sleven67, “Dust filter plus filament guide monoprice maker select plus,” Thingiverse.com, Oct. 23, 2020. [Online]. Available: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4632282. [Accessed Aug. 11, 2022].

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I Broke My 3D Printer Making a Gift

Good morning from my Robotics Lab! This is Shadow_8472 with a side project of the week. Let’s get started!

The Game Quilt

My mother is made a quilt for a kid who will be spending his summer in the hospital this year recovering from a painful procedure. An accompanying game board has Chess/Checkers quilted onto one side and Tic-Tac-Toe on the other. The idea of paper Chess pieces glued inside some bottle caps grossed me out. I demanded to make something a bit nicer. I browsed the available Chess sets on Thingiverse and settled on a short “travel” set [1].

The Black Army

My printer started the week loaded with black filament, so I printed the black army first. I scaled the pieces up to 150% to match the board and made the bases solid to lower pieces’ center of mass. I tested these changes with a queen and the result needed a larger crown topper that wasn’t so sharp and fragile-looking.

With those changes in place, I started printing, but pieces kept peeling/detatching, resulting in some… spectacular failures that often involved massive misalignments. I made it through four usable batches of two pawns each, but a couple were damaged during removal (my sister and I had similar ideas involving channel locks on batches 3 and 4, respectively).

I printed a bishop, knight, rook triplet and the 10% infill I had been using did not support their flat tops. The bishop was usable, but a little warped on the base. Nevertheless, all three had performed decently, so I bumped it up to 15% infill and tried printing the back row pieces minus knights. Print failure after print failure. Small brims curled on the first layer, even with a high temperature first layer trick I tried.

Finally, I programmed some brims so big they would touch, I also tried wiping the bed with some acetone. Another print failure, but this time only because it stopped extruding after a beautiful, no-curl first layer. I took the printhead out and cleared out a clog, only for it to clog at least one more time. Eventually, I traced the source of the crud not from my spool of filament, but to the e-step motor assembly and even fashioned some tools out of my failed prints to navigate the tight quarters in the mechanism to clean it out. The next print came out nicely.

I knew from the beginning I wouldn’t be happy playing with K’s for knights. Where most of the pieces were just the heads of a more traditional set those knights – YUCK! I appreciate the need for a simpler geometry for small prints, but K is for king in Chess notation where N is for knight. I found my way around Thingiverse to a decent knight designed to be printed without supports [2]. It was a slight adventure putting its head onto a base like the other pieces, but a doable challenge nonetheless. I printed two up to complete the army.

Filament Change and the White Army

I stayed up late to get the knights off as soon as possible and get the white army printing so they would be done before my writeup (an estimated 14 hour printjob). I should have slept on it. Mistake 1: using the firmware’s unload feature; the plastic overheated and stretched off inside the printhead, denying the cleaning filament admittance. Mistake 2: disassembling the printhead while it was on, in a shadow – I snapped two fan blades in successive attempts to engage with a bolt. Within ten minutes, I had found a replacement set of fan blades [3] and quadruple checked the counter clockwise variation was the file I needed. I printed it, enduring the much louder fan as it choked out one last print.

In the morning, my father advised we pass on gluing the original blades back on in the hopes of printing a better set of replacement blades. I clipped the remaining blades and used the fan itself to sand the nubs smooth. My father glued the blades on and we had to squish the fan’s housing to correct for Mistake 3: clipping one of the fan’s three spokes. I printed a Benchy tugboat to satisfactory results.

After all that drama, the white army came out usable with one knight warping a little and one pawn nicked during removal. I plan on adding a couple extra queens in each color because I know from experience that they make for more exciting endgames.

Takeaway

Don’t work on machines while tired, or in the dark. The fix I found is only a patch job until I can buy an upgraded replacement. It’s not as balanced as one made to factory standards, but it is good enough for decent prints on a temporary basis.

Final Question

What self-inflicted accidental damage have you caused by a series of dumb mistakes?

I look forward hearing your answers on in the comments below or on my Discord server, where I sometimes share exclusive nuggets that didn’t fit into the main post.

Works Cited

[1] Raukk, “Travel #chess,” thingiverse.com, March 22, 2012. [Online]. Available: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:19754/comments. [Accessed June 13, 2022].

[2] Zarlor, “OpenSCAD Chess Simple Printing,” thingiverse.com, Jan. 26, 2019. [Online]. Available: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3381939/files. [Accessed June 13, 2022].

[3] CreativeTools, “Cooling fan replacement blades,”thingiverse.com, Nov. 19, 2013. [Online]. Available:https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:186979. [Accessed June 13, 2022].

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I Built a Model Telegraph

Good Morning from my Robotics Lab! This is Shadow_8472, and today I am building a model telegraph. Let’s get started!

The First Telecommunications

The electric telegraph was invented not long after the discovery that electricity and magnetism were two faces of the same fundamental force of nature. While the image of someone tapping out a message in Morse Code may involve the more iconic piece of hardware –the key– the real heart of the technology is located in the sounder: an electromagnet controlled from miles away. This was what powered the first ever near-instantaneous telecommunications networks crossing America and later the world.

Only limited by the speed of an operator and final delivery, a message from the front lines of the American Civil War could reach Abraham Lincoln in hours or minutes instead of potentially days. It put the Pony Express out of business almost before it got started. It remained unchallenged until Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone by sending enough information over the wire to reconstruct a human voice – and in fact, smartphones and other personal computing devices still contain the humble electromagnet to deliver convert electrically encoded messages into sounds we can understand.

3D Printed Telegraph Key and Sounder

This project was sparked a post by Mattosx on instructables.com[1]. I’ve already spoken about the issues I had printing this project. Between all the totally failed prints, a case of broken filament, and the slightly peeled pieces, I am lucky to have two sets of parts, though some may need reprinting.

Researching a Group

I have always been at least passively curious about learning Morse. I started seriously looking into it this month. Who all still uses dots and dashes to communicate? Ham radio operators, mostly. I neither have the equipment nor the desire to get the license I would need before participating in clubs using Morse over CW (communications waves).

While musing that I might connect my telegraph over the Internet, I came across Morse KOB on GitHub, apparently the only software tool out there for such a purpose. I reached out to Ed Silky, the only developer I could find contact information for. I figured I might as well so I eventually have a point of contact by the time I finish the Instructable. He responded by the next morning.

Ed shared a wealth of information I had only started piecing together. He called my attention to a critique in the Instructable’s comments, that the sounder doesn’t signal the end of a dot/dash clearly as or distinctly from the beginning of one. Ed warned, “Also, be aware of the differences in the alphabet between American (Landline/sounder) and International (Shortwave/tone / Light) code:” and listed eleven characters and all ten digits with their differing encodings; the earlier American Morse features such things as intra-character spaces and extended dashes – making a properly functioning sounder crucial to understanding American Morse in particular [2].

Assembling the Key and Sounder

Mattosx’s Instructable looks great… until you’re actually part way into assembling the thing. The first red flag is a privated video titled “3D Printed Telegraph Sounder Video” with no written instructions outside the parts list.

The Instructable I’m following is crippled, but I’m limping through it. The 3D modeling isn’t the cleanest on a couple parts – and in fact is missing a piece on closer inspection. I had to creatively chop the parts apart in Slic3r to get them to fit on my damaged bed. Without that video on the sounder assembly, we had to guess at the size of magnet wire, what direction the disks were pointing (in or out), even what order to assemble the different parts in. It’s an interesting idea to make the sounder handle its own electromagnet, but that optional part is unapproachable without any experience working with circuits.

My father and I wound the electromagnet over several sessions, with the internals getting progressively less tidy as mistakes compounded upon each other. By the end, I was just trying to fill in low spots. We hooked it up to two D cell batteries by hand and nothing. We tried a multimeter, but that turned up busted, so I’m left with a project to continue some time in the future.

Takeaway

Based on my incomplete attempt to build this thing, here are my recommended modifications (note that I have not actually tried these yet):

  1. Install magnets, using sandpaper to make the holes a little bigger if need be.
  2. Screw in and wire up the key base before installing the key.
  3. For the sounder electromagnet, search out some sort of spool winding tool to print.
  4. Start with the nubs facing outward instead of inward.
  5. Dry fit the spool so the upper plate lines up with the tops of the base’s posts.
  6. Use a power screwdriver to grab the screw right where the upper plate would otherwise land.
  7. Once you have the electromagnet wound, assemble the top of the sounder.
  8. If all the screws are so loose they fall out, use a snip or few of magnet wire to crowd the screw hole (untested, but this might be a good use for any lines of filament extruded as part of bed leveling prints).

This was my first larger monthly project. It didn’t meet my personal deadline of having a working model to post today because I failed to plan. I only had magnets in hand with a week to go, and I didn’t leave myself any time to diagnose problems as they came up. I now have another project to cycle through as time allows.

Final Question

Have you ever made an electromagnet by hand before? I look forward to hearing your answer in either the comments below or on my Discord server.

Works Cited

[1] Mattosx, “3D Printed Telegraph Key & Sounder,” instructables.com, (no later than March 12, 2019 [3]). [Online]. Available: https://www.instructables.com/3D-Printed-Telegraph-Key-Sounder/ [Accessed April 25, 2022].

[2] E. Silky. “Re: MorseKOB,” “Re: Telegraph Build,” Personal emails (April 7, 2022 to April 22, 2022).

[3] T. Nardi, “Old Meets New In 3D Printed Telegraph,” hackaday.com, March 12, 2022. [Online]. Avalable: https://ieee-dataport.org/sites/default/files/analysis/27/IEEE%20Citation%20Guidelines.pdf [Accessed April 25, 2022].

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3D Printing: Trial of Errors

Good Morning from my Robotics Lab! This is Shadow_8472 with a side project of the week. Let’s get started!

I have been 3D printing parts for this month’s large project, but things haven’t been easy.

Keeping my print bed level is probably chief among my challenges. I keep having adhesion issues from the bed being too low and squishing issues where there’s no room between the print head and the bed to lay down plastic – sometimes on the same piece. I’ve been using a pattern that prints concentric squares a test, but sometimes I follow up a successful test with a production print that only leaves a little residue so thin it doesn’t scrape up properly.

Even when the first layer sticks, prints can still peel part way through the print. One piece came out mostly fine except for one malformed corner that may be fine. I’m re-printing because I’m after a second set anyway.

The most exciting failure was when I had three black pieces successfully on their way, and I noticed when there was already a sizable gap between parts and print head. I aborted the print. The filament was stuck; it wouldn’t go in or come out, even at temperature.

I took the print head apart, I found the chewed up filament almost broken off. It refused to come out, even when I yanked on it with the pliers. I wound up trimming what I could get at and ramming the rest through with with an Allen wrench. I never got a positive identification on the clog, but as the plug gave way all at once, I remembered a fuzzle I spotted riding on the filament, and I thought nothing of at the time. I followed it up with a little cleaning filament for good measure.

I took the opportunity of the disassembled print head to at least check my flow rate. The machine wanted the extruder to be at least 160 degrees C. I advanced my e-steps ten times and got a 100 mm segment, give or take a millimeter. Assuming it was trying to advance a centimeter at a time, my printer is healthy in that regard without me having to do anything.

Final Question

What is your most entertaining manufacturing mishap?

I look forward hear your answers on in the comments below or on my Discord server.

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Alternative 3D Slicing Arrangements

Good Morning from my Robotics Lab! This is Shadow_8472, and today, it’s been a busy week. Derpy needed work, but I still wanted to 3D print. Let’s get started!

New Computer Screen

A couple weeks ago, Derpy’s monitor failed. I pulled the graphics card and brought in a cathode-ray tube based monitor from the garage. Integrated graphics aren’t good enough for slicing 3D prints though.

Between bugging out from construction noise next door this week and taking evenings off to recover, a good chunk into the week passed before I made a move to switch back. My father and I took the opportunity for a deep dusting. With the graphics card physically removed, it wasn’t much more hassle to remove the outer cover… The radiator decoupled from the GPU chip in the heart of the graphics card, and we had couldn’t find any thermal paste to put it back together properly.

With some electrically non-conductive paste on order, I felt my desk was overdue for a cleaning, Special thanks to my whole family for helping out in some capacity or another. I sorted the stuff into Keep, Trash, and ??????!. Keep stayed with the desk, Trash got sorted for disposal, and the rest tagged for dispersal according to where it belonged. My father and I further took the opportunity to remove my monitor shelf, dust the desktop thoroughly, and polish it.

I also addressed the cable management situation. With no electronics at Derpy’s workstation, I was free to swap out the power strip for something with a bit longer of a cord (I swiped it from the 3D printer, which had plenty of cord). As I re-assembled my desk, I was sure to tuck my cables at least somewhat out of sight.

A Light Mode Program on a Dark Mode Theme

This section on down to the side project started off as the combined 3D printing corner/side project sections before it grew to half the post at one point.

With Derpy down for service this week, I couldn’t 3D print. Instead, I explored the option of using PrusaSlic3r on my Manjaro workstation.

My graphical package manager presented me with three versions: an out of date version lacking features I’m after from official repositories, an AUR (Arch User Repository) beta version from git, and one AUR entry with a good version number but included GTK-2 in the name. I chose the GTK-2 one, and it appeared to work perfectly, save for that it defaulting to light mode.

There was no dark mode override in the options. The documentation said Linux versions of Slic3r hook into the global theme, which I most definitely have set to dark. No matter how much I played KDE’s themes in System Settings, Slic3r refused to play nicely. I tried switching to the AUR version labeled git, but it didn’t even compile (two attempts).

Assistance With Diagnostics

During research, I came across some discouraging bits about themes not always working on bleeding edge systems. I was about to give up when I brought this matter up on Engineer Man’s Discord server.

Server regular localhost took notice and suggested I install lxappearance, a theme manager designed with the LXDE desktop environment in mind. It too popped up running light mode, but was exposing its own theme selector on the Widget tab. Hitting Apply didn’t have any apparent system-wide effects until I restarted the graphical package manager into my chosen dark theme.

I rebuilt the GTK-2 version of Slic3r, and it greeted me with dark mode. During the 70 minute wait though, I researched the why of the situation. I pinned the culprit to GTK. Aside from its association with GNOME, I had the hardest time piecing together its purpose with certainty. I figured it was some incompatibility with KDE, and I was half-right.

It Works, but Why?

Lxappearance was actually my biggest clue. With both it and KDE’s theme manager open side by side, I noticed a button under System Settings > Global Theme > Application Style called Configure GNOME/GTK Application Style. It led to an unassuming dropdown menu titled GTK theme with a nondescript preview button. The dropdown had the same list from lxappearance.

Researching GTK has no shortage of results, but what does GTK do? As far as I can tell, GTK stands for GNOME ToolKit. I know KDE doesn’t use GTK at its core, so I conducted my research looking for whatever counterpart I it did use: Qt.

I ran a combined search on GTK vs Qt and learned about their combined history. Qt is to KDE what GTK is to GNOME. Qt is older, but GTK was fully opened up first and became more widely adopted. GTK and Qt serve the purpose of drawing the parts of user interfaces you use, but don’t think about – from buttons to save windows. When developers use them, they provide a unified appearance an end-user can easily configure.

Side Project (Blog Site Building)

I’ve begun research into improving the presentation of this blog. It’s hard to know where to begin. I’m working on four and a half years on the job and I have still to formalize my niche. There are blogs out there for privacy. There are blogs out there for technology and Linux. There are fewer blogs out there for home robotics and AI. This blog is all of those, to an extent. That’s why I’m consolidating my niche to Home Computing for the Privacy-Minded Roboticist. I don’t expect things to change all of a sudden, because I’m still technically covering the supporting technologies: namely Linux. But I want to aim to be doing more with actual robotics from here on.

Over the next several weeks, I intend to make small changes to the site, starting with the “About the Author” page. I’m also working on a community Discord server so we can finally get the conversation going in a place where I don’t need the patience to get WordPress forums going at this present time.

Takeaway

Even though I was out and about, I still managed to find stuff to write about. That said, modular systems can be a bit of both a blessing and a curse at times. Feature A may be implemented any number of times – each can work equally well and provide redundancy in case one project goes unmaintained/unforked, but clashing systems can lead to confusion when an end-user finds himself diagnosing the wrong backbone without realizing there are multiple in the first place.

Final Question

What do you think of my stated niche: Home Computing for the Privacy-Minded Roboticist?

Work Cited

[1] B. King, “What’s the Difference Between GTK+ and Qt?,” makeuseof.com, Feb 20, 2019. [Online]. Available: https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/difference-gtk-qt/. [Accessed Febrewary 21, 2022].

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3D Printer Modding

Good Morning from my Robotics Lab! This is Shadow_8472 and today I am upgrading my 3D printer. Let’s get started!

In Pursuit of a Perfect Print

I really upped my 3D printing quality last week, but I still have a ways to go for so-called perfect prints. The Maker Select Plus was a good choice for its day for learning the basics of printing, but official maintenance options are lacking outside the design’s communist country of origin.

But who says my 3D printer has to remain 100% stock? It’s a time-honored tradition to use what tools you have to improve upon said tool set, and with 3D printing technology, precision parts are easier than ever to manufacture. I don’t need some company to sell me an upgrade I can make myself.

Ringing

I was advised last week that I have a ringing problem with my prints. The head and build plate on my printer each have mass. As these masses whiz around each other with high accelerations, they shift the steel frame ever so slightly in the opposite direction per Newton’s Third Law. This sends waves of energy back and forth through the whole unit and right back into the print area. Unless the slicer has some way of anticipating these waves (good luck), they’ll manifest in the print as filament is laid as ripples.

I’ve found three ways to reduce this effect: print slower, reinforce connections, and tune belts. Slowing the printer as it prints perimeters is a simple setting in PrusaSlic3r. Belts are a bit harder to access, so I won’t be covering those this week.

I located a whole series of Z-braces on Thingiverse[1]. I picked one remixed specifically for my printer (and its many, many clones) after hours of research. In addition to holding the vertical truss in place, the brackets are designed with adjustable feet so I can remove the paper soup I have been shimming my printer level with, allowing the bad vibrations to more efficiently dissipate into the table.

Printing and Error

By some amount of pure, dumb luck, I managed to print around half the pieces by volume in one go overnight: a bracket for each of the two back corners and four nut covers for up top. I’m at a loss for words for how I felt when I first handled the brackets and the flat parts came out smooth. Closer looks over the following days turned up additional flaws.

The other four pieces weren’t nearly so cooperative. The upper brackets have four holes through the first layer. Between them and the outer perimeter, each loop contributed what felt like a 50% chance of failure. I finally got a successful first layer after what felt like forever and the printer messed up one of the bits for the second bracket and I got myself a wafer to photograph. It was recommended I calibrate my flow rate – a worthy project for another time. I’d just as soon keep the quality consistent within a project. Each remaining bracket was printed individually.

The project calls for metal rods, nuts and feet, but since Monoprice shortened the screws to just barely be long enough for the stock printer, those too must be replaced. My father stopped by the hardware store to pick those up. The trip must have gone well, because they carried everything described on Thingiverse down to the exact package in some cases, such as the feet.

Installation

Read your instructions, if you’re following along. I found that each generation added a little something to the files, but cut material from the directions. I got a little mixed up.

We started by installing the feet. The instructions suggested using a press to shove them into their brackets, but my father cut them to size so they fit hand-snug. The brackets fit nicely on their respective corners, and the back ones even had a notch cut out to accommodate stuff sticking out around the power interface. The other side is mirrored.

We tried a number of things with getting the rods situated, but what I found worked best was a pattern of bottom-top-middle. Apply the first Nylok nut to the bottom of the rod and adjust it so the rod is just barely still within the bottom bracket when the nut is as deep as it can go. Add the middle nut, another Nylok, adjust it below its final position, and add a cap. Slip the rod through the upper bracket – be sure to have another cap and then a regular nut. The caps should be pointing into the upper bracket. Tighten the upper capped nut into its final position, then carefully adjust the middle nut into place. To spare your hands and the parts, you may want to grip the rod with pliers through a paper towel while twisting with another tool.

Side Project

I installed the ProjectKorra plugin for Minecraft 1.18, as it was something I’ve done before and every other project I looked into kept looking more involved than I had time for. I needed FTP access to upload it, and Filezilla was already on my laptop when I thought I’d need to either install it special or move to another workstation with it. I did, however, use Derpy to download to cold storage so I wouldn’t be streaming over the Wi-Fi and back.

Takeaway

I printed a white Benchy with an existing .stl file keyed to the other filament spool’s temperature. I had to adjust it mid-print. As for surface quality, maybe there’s a little less ringing, maybe it’s just noise. I will want to tune my printer farther in the future.

Final Question

I’m getting bored of Benchy. What are some other tests I can try?

Work Cited

[1] morjagel, “Z-Brace for Monoprice Maker Select Plus,” Thingverse.com, April 27, 2017. [Online]. https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2349318. [Accessed Jan. 31, 2022].

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Filament Switch: Hard Mode

Good Morning from my Robotics Lab! This is Shadow_8472 and today I am learning a lot about the medium-grain details of printer calibration. Let’s get started!

Low Filament

My red filament is almost gone. I was considering using the rest on printer calibration tests, but when I found it broken, I went ahead and readied my white filament – the spool I have historically had a harder time with. I used my loop of cleaning filament to reach into the print head and push/pull out most of the remaining bits of red gunked up in there. I found a little red afterword, but there was surprisingly little leftover overall.

My printer’s print head works by grabbing the filament directly above the hot end, and there’s just enough room for filament to get lost during loading. I didn’t think much of it when a section of filament broke off in there. I made note, then set the printer up for several hours of operation. As of drafting this paragraph, it hasn’t caused any problems, but I’ve already researched the solution.

Temperature Tower and Mini Test

The first thing I printed was the temperature tower using the same .gcode I downloaded in a previous post. I should have the skills to slice up one for myself now thanks to playing around with the PrusaSlic3r interface, but I’ve used it before and it didn’t destroy my printer. I was expecting this filament to want it a bit warmer than 185 degrees C, but I was surprised when the only slightly warmer floor for 190 turned out the best.

I sliced up a 190 degree version of the mini all-in-one printer test. When I printed it over the central bed’s scratch, I saw a black spot in its middle of the first layer. As the build plate deformed, that must have been where the material went. Other results appeared to be on par with when I successfully printed one in red: I could read more of the test labels, but it felt brittle. The stringing test actually broke in an accident in the completed photo booth.

Benchy, the Benchmark Tugboat

I took part in a 3D maker tradition and printed Benchy, a tugboat designed with a number of challenging geometries. I’d say it came out pretty well – hardly perfect, but my untrained eye only noticed a couple major issues I took to the photo booth about. I found that I could actually use my begging-brother-special camera by letting it do whatever it wanted with auto-focus, then correcting it with a handheld magnifying glass.

I was able to post a series of pictures of Benchy in a few places on Discord and ask for help. Through feedback, I learned my most interesting issue is probably ringing. Ringing (as in like a bell) is when sudden movements cause vibrations the stupid 3D printing machine doesn’t account for. I need to print more slowly and work on a way to level my printer frame without resorting to paper soup like I am now.

My second Benchy went better overall. Per other advice, I used thinner layers and left my case open. I tried slowing the print job, but with Slic3r’s many settings and a delay in communication, I wrongly guessed that limiting long-distance speed would improve quality the most when I should have gone after perimeters instead.

The print itself has more, smaller flaws than my first. For starters, the lettering on the bottom totally failed. I got these odd bubbles over the ship deck and cabin roof. Other than that, the layers were all a whole lot smoother, there was no stringing, and a plaque on the back was clearly something –it wasn’t legible– but it didn’t look like a random mess. I also had some bubbling along the tops of the deck and the cab roof: probably steam from hydrated filament.

With my white filament sent off to the dehydrator, I printed a couple more Benchys in red. They both turned out about the same. The one where I added the front panel back in fixed one of two of the water lines, but seemingly made the other one worse.

Over on the dehydrator, my old, white filament is in for the thermal stress gauntlet. I ran it closer to the glass transition temperature than before to the point where a loop of filament sticking up collapsed under its own weight. Weighing it before and after showed no change in weight. It at least looks like I didn’t accidentally melt the whole spool. If I did, it’s tricky filament anyway. It still feels brittle, but I’ll try using it with a few larger prints as-is and see how they turn out.

Side Project

As soon as the calibration part was off the printbed, I started on a gift for my sister, Taz. She showed interest in helping with cleaning Twilight, so I made her a figure of Tails, Sonic’s two-tailed sidekick/best friend. I found an offering on Thingiverse with Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles. I didn’t like Knuckles’ pose, and I personally prefer Tails anyway. Later, I thought of about eight good reasons pointing out the back of Sonic’s head as to why he might be the more challenging cleanup (his quills).

I wanted Tails to have an inch of height for every foot the character is tall. Tails’ base plate was about 1/8 the height of his figure overall. I grabbed his height from the Sonic Wiki and scaled accordingly. There was no way I would be getting away without at least partially printing on the scratch, so I just left it centered.

While trying to remove unnecessary supports, it became apparent that these models can’t have been intended for anything but resin printing. Internal voids kept begging Slic3r for support material. I removed them in Blender so I could use my favorite infill setting (15% 3D honeycomb). I found another cavity for his mouth and tongue, but I felt lazy and fed him an appropriately squashed and rotated solid “sphere” object to fill his mouth instead. Thinking of infill, I knew the bottom of the baseplate would be due for some sort of modification, so I just printed it solid.

The figure came out… well, let’s just say it was a learning experience for both of us. I may have rushed the slicing a little to keep the secret. The supports were a mess. The print was plagued by this ringing phenomenon I had yet to learn about, and his arms, legs, bangs, and face/chest fluff were tiny – as well worded by Taz when she said something about literally knocking his socks off. He came out recognizable, but a larger follow up attempt is in order after I finish mastering the not-quite basics presented above. For what it’s worth, the base does have some decent heft to it.

Takeaway

I’ve already said this, but there is a lot more to 3D printing than sending it a file and hitting go. Then again, where was consumer 2D computer printing when the technology was ten years old? There’s a story in my family about someone rewriting a pen plotter driver to cross hatch using long lines instead of filling each x individually. Likewise, people are still innovating like crazy before the technology is locked down to the point where it’s baby-proofed so much a first grader can work it without prior 1st hand experience, supervision, or even so much as an explanation.

There is fun to be had while it lasts, but there is a learning curve to climb beforehand. Proper diagnostics are key, otherwise I’m blaming everything on old filament.

Final Question

What is the most challenging tool you ever taught yourself to calibrate?

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3D Printing: Incremental Improvement

Good Morning from my Robotics Lab! This is Shadow_8472 and today, I am on my 3D printer again for round 2 of printing a model of Twilight Sparkle. Let’s get started!

Preparation

I began with a fresh download into a clean project directory I designated. The “fixed” version from last time simply fused all the little details I wanted to delete/paint on later into one single model. I instead continued work with the unfixed version [1].

Like before, I used Blender to digitally clear out Twilight’s eyelashes and stitch her mouth shut. I really wanted to try printing her mane pieces separately so I could glue them on later, but I can’t Blender well enough to make that happen.

Over in Slic3r, I scaled the model up by half an inch from front to back. This made her feel a lot bigger, but not so big I was in too much danger of running out.

I played with paint on support blockers a bunch, but I found they weren’t as versatile as I would have liked. I found myself working more with the more geometrically themed blocks. Of note, I added one to the tight space between her mane and neck and a cylindrical one between her mane and forehead. As I finalized each block, I made sure to inspect the individual overhang layers to make sure they would bridge properly.

With the bigger model, I had to override the program into using solid infill for those fragile legs. The selection box was the same as the support blocker. I also told it to make Twilight’s unicorn horn solid at the base, even though it would have been fine with her mane intersecting it (another reason not to print head pieces separately).

As one final touch, I moved Twilight off to the side and removed her raft so the scratch in the build plate would only affect the support material.

Printing and Cleanup

Printing went smoothly. I checked in once an hour until she was done. The PVC pipe I’m using to extend the filament rack fell out again, but fortunately it didn’t cause any issues as I observed during a calibration print. This print used most of the rest of my spool of red PLA filament; it’s just starting on the second to last layer. I have a smaller print or two left, but that’s it.

Removal of the support material took about as long as last time – a full day plus a bit. This time, I tried to be more careful about her mane, and it paid off. Twilight did not suffer any ill effects for missing a few supports here and there. I even caught myself laying fingers on fragile bits while trying to get leverage on stuck bits elsewhere before I broke anything.

Despite the model being scaled up a little, cleanup wasn’t much easier overall. The cutters/needle nose pliers couldn’t reach as far between her legs, but I can get both those parts with sandpaper. The mane was as obtuse with me as before, but after a while, I managed to use a repurposed sewing needle and a bit of tie wire to leverage a corner to where I could get in there with the pliers. It felt so good getting that bit out, but I cracked the lock of her mane hanging off to the right. I want to print up some test pieces and practice repair techniques before continuing work on the real one.

Notes for Future Prints

If I make another attempt after this one, I may follow the fixed version’s cue and fuse all disjoint model pieces before exporting from Blender to Slic3r (over a .stl file). My hope is that Slic3r won’t get as confused with intersecting geometries as found in her mane.

In all reality, I should be thankful these prints are cleaning up as well as they are. The proper tool for the job is either a resin 3D printer –which can manage finer details– or an FDM (Fused Deposition Modeling) printer with an extra head dedicated to a dissolvable support material so I can be done with cleanup in minutes instead of hours. For now, the tool I have has a single printhead for a single filament, and that means tricky supports.

But tricky supports can stick. Both Twilight prints had issues with stuck bits under their manes, bellies, and to a lesser extent: their tails. The bottom layer of those respective regions appears to be peeling away with the interface material, so it takes a bit extra force – exactly the thing you don’t want around delicate parts like legs. While I was discussing this on the Sweetie Bot Project Discord server, user Equestria_dynamics suggested “increasing the contact layers between the print and the actual support material [2].”

Side Project

What fun is it to make all sorts of fun stuff if you can’t share it? You’d be surprised how hard that can be without access to a smartphone you’re willing to use (more on that in a future post when I install AOSP). Special thanks to my sister for loaning me her Nikon S3000 digital camera from around the time she got a smartphone. It’s mostly unused, but the charger was missing. I tracked one down and we ordered it up.

This camera is good for beginners and begging brothers. My impression is that it was aimed at people who understand the concept of point and shoot, but prioritize pictures fitting on a card over lossless compression methods. Read: I want .png and spent hours confirming it only does .jpg.

To get the best quality pictures I can of my prints, I’ve decided to get myself a photo booth. For an early prototype, my father laid some large sheets over his workbench and topped that with some parchment paper so the content on the other side wouldn’t show through. Presently, we’re making a second, more permanent version out of a cardboard box with some creative cutting.

Takeaway

As with any piece of software, Slic3r is taking time to learn. Having to learn a whole segment of the workflow all at once makes it take a bit longer, but I look forward to being able to show my stuff off in a more controlled manor than snapshots with random bits of house in the background.

Final Question

Have you ever glued delicate parts back together on a 3D print? What glue worked out for you?

Works Cited

[1] dragonator, “Mane 6 models MLP:FIM,” Thingverse.com, April 09, 2012. [Online]. https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:21076. [Accessed Jan. 17, 2022].

[2] E. dynamics, Sweetie Bot Project. [Discord] #3d-printing, (Jan. 14, 2022).

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