3D printing

[MartyS (Gromit)]

I've been curious about PETG so went to Microcenter over the weekend and picked up some.  It is a bit more tricky to print with than PLA, but it's got properties more like ABS but without the smell and it sticks to the print bed better.  Nice thing is it sands way easier than PLA, so it will be much better for model parts.

Redid some of the wiring on my big printer, and added a strip of LEDs at the top to light it up.  Also found a workbench at Home Depot that fits the space where I had my 3D printing stuff in the basement, so it's off the floor.


Looks like Prusa is falling behind again, note on their shipping page says they got hit bad by the flu so a lot of their workers have been out sick, and they are switching to a new shipping system, so orders are still delayed over a month.

[k1]

Finally got around to ordering my Prusa and my bank automatically declined the transaction since it was out of the country. *sigh*

Have to wait til Tuesday and call their fraud department to verify that it was a legit transaction and try again. Then wait until they finally ship out my kit...

[Variety of Cells]

Finally got around to ordering my Prusa and my bank automatically declined the transaction since it was out of the country. *sigh*

Have to wait til Tuesday and call their fraud department to verify that it was a legit transaction and try again. Then wait until they finally ship out my kit...

Always annoying when that happens. But it's always less annoying than not having fraud protection.

[k1]

Finally got around to ordering my Prusa and my bank automatically declined the transaction since it was out of the country. *sigh*

Have to wait til Tuesday and call their fraud department to verify that it was a legit transaction and try again. Then wait until they finally ship out my kit...

Always annoying when that happens. But it's always less annoying than not having fraud protection.

True!

Although the bank called this morning to make sure everything was legit. I confirmed that yes I was trying to order something.  They said ok and I should be good to go.

Waited a few hours and ordered again...

INSTA-DECLINE. *facepalm*

[MartyS (Gromit)]

Did you ever get it ordered?  I see they are back up to a month lead time on the kits, even though they claim to be shipping 800 a day.

[MartyS (Gromit)]

I've been playing Subnautica so much I had to print this when I saw it on Thingiverse, it's a little small, probably needs to be printed at 125% to 150% size.

Subnautica Survival Knife:

[k1]

Did you ever get it ordered?  I see they are back up to a month lead time on the kits, even though they claim to be shipping 800 a day.

I did! And it took about 4 weeks to arrive (plus an extra few days because DHL transferred it to another carrier).

DHL called me to confirm that someone would be home all day to sign for the package.  Then the day it was supposed to be delivered they passed it off to the USPS... where it was mailed from Boston to Rhode Island to be sorted and then sent to the post office in my town, and then delivered the next day.  So I burned a vacation day waiting for a package that never arrived.    And they didn't provide tracking info from USPS so I had no clue where the thing was until I called to yell at DHL.  They let me know that there was tracking (and gave it to me) and that it was still signature required.  Naturally it was dropped off by the mailbox on the side of the road and nobody had to sign for it.

But other than that nonsense, so far the build is going well.  It's about half way finished at this point I think.  I'll hopefully have video of it being built.  I'm doing a time lapse of it because it's a LOOOOOOONG process.

[MartyS (Gromit)]

Did you ever get it ordered?  I see they are back up to a month lead time on the kits, even though they claim to be shipping 800 a day.

I did! And it took about 4 weeks to arrive (plus an extra few days because DHL transferred it to another carrier).

DHL called me to confirm that someone would be home all day to sign for the package.  Then the day it was supposed to be delivered they passed it off to the USPS... where it was mailed from Boston to Rhode Island to be sorted and then sent to the post office in my town, and then delivered the next day.  So I burned a vacation day waiting for a package that never arrived.    And they didn't provide tracking info from USPS so I had no clue where the thing was until I called to yell at DHL.  They let me know that there was tracking (and gave it to me) and that it was still signature required.  Naturally it was dropped off by the mailbox on the side of the road and nobody had to sign for it.

But other than that nonsense, so far the build is going well.  It's about half way finished at this point I think.  I'll hopefully have video of it being built.  I'm doing a time lapse of it because it's a LOOOOOOONG process.

Stuff getting transferred to USPS always seems to mess things up royally, oddly stuff shipped by USPS priority from the start always seems to go well...

There are a ton of parts to the thing, and they all need to be aligned very well, so yeah the build process is long if you take your time and do it well.

[MartyS (Gromit)]

I tried printing that Subnautica survival knife larger but it failed, I think there are issues with the 3D model that are not a problem at default size but show up when printing it larger, like a gap around the central ring that shouldn't be there.

[MartyS (Gromit)]

Printrbot, the company that made that first kit I bought when I started this thread has filed for bankruptcy.

Can't say I'm surprised, for the last few years when I went to their website I was baffled by what they were selling.  They stopped making affordable stuff and were only selling more expensive stuff.  They were still high quality and cheaper than companies like makerbot but when you are known for one thing and stop doing that thing it's a hard thing for a company to survive.  And they moved into a price area where there was tons of competition. 

[MartyS (Gromit)]

Got a new microphone and stand, but it was picking up way too much of every tap on my computer table, so whipped up this thing in FreeCAD and printed it out, works pretty well.  I need to find some longer rubber bands, these are stretched a little too tight and some vibrations are still making it to the mic.

[MartyS (Gromit)]

Tried out the time lapse feature in the video camera I got, works well but I zoomed in to much so the fast motion of the printing gets hard to watch in spots.  Probably should have gone with less time compression to smooth things out more and add a couple of minutes, the setting I used compressed 1 hour into about 3 minutes.

[MartyS (Gromit)]

In my project to replace the plastic horizontal blinds in my bedroom with cellular shades I used 2 different brands, one came with a handle and one didn't, so I took some measurements and fired up FreeCAD, took about 40 minutes each to print and now I've got 2 handles that work just like the ones on the other 2 windows.

Luckily I was watching the beginning of the first print, noticed the bits that slide into the grooves were way too big, it was the thing that gets me every time with taking measurements of round things, measure the diameter and use that measurement in CAD, except in CAD it's always a radius so you have to divide your measurements by 2.

[MartyS (Gromit)]

Got the idea to try and design and print a reproducer for my Victrola, it plays records pretty good:

Close up picture:

[MartyS (Gromit)]

All the money you pay for an otterbox case for your phone and the belt clips never last more than 3 years.

3D printer to the rescue (for the second time, belt clip broke after 3 years with my last phone as well):