The first six #RedHat cookie cutters are printed. Many more to come :) Now to get some ingredients and food Color to actually make and bake the cookies :)
My primary #3Dprinter died in the middle of a big multi-print session. Had it all apart yesterday to see the remedial work I did on the hot end last year isn't cutting it anymore.
Part I need is a new PTFE heatsink throat liner, but it's an OD of about 3.5 - 3.8mm (depending on which calipers I believe) which doesn't seem to be sold anywhere. 3mm is prob too small and 4mm (of which I have plenty) is too big.
Ordered some 3mm overnight anyway. Will try it today.
When I bought my SK-Tank #3DPrinter a couple years ago, I hadn't learned how to use shape binders in #FreeCAD to design parts around a collection of other parts in particular positions. I didn't like the hotend mount SecKit provided, so I designed my own, but it was hard to make changes to my models.
Of that set, the nozzles I printed in PETG are starting to melt, and before the last time I touched them up had actually caught blobs and caused layer shifting. Didn't happen much, so it took me a while to figure out what was happening.
Today I took my old models, started over from scratch on each body, but used shape binders to the STEP files for the hardware, and between the parts, to design similar but more stable parts, taking advantage of what I've learned in the meantime, like moving the part cooling fan slightly for better airflow, a larger nozzle aperture, . That was substantially faster, and was easier to tweak the models in the middle as I worked through the design.
I left the volcano block in the model even though I changed to a CHC heater block; it is strictly smaller and so will fit, but this leaves my options open if I hate the CHC heater block.
I didn't bother creating an assembly and adding hardware to my design; it's just a bunch of M3 screws and inserts.
I'm now printing the set in ABS on my Qidi X-Max 3 at least to test clearances, and when my glass-filled fiberglass arrives, I might re-print it for additional stiffness after I'm confident in the quality of the design on cheaper normal ABS.
Almost every screw will be fixed with heat-set inserts, which means that I also need to make the pinecil-heatset driver adapter I keep forgetting to get around to making, now that my lathe is back in operational status.☺
Now that the Qidi X-Max 3 is down to $949 (plus an optional $40 webcam) shipped, it's better competition for the $899 Creality K1 Max, I think. The K1 Max build volume is 300x300x300mm; the X-Max 3 build volume is 330x330x315mm. I'd think an extra $50-90 is worth it for that extra volume, even if you don't care about open source licenses. (Have Creality yet honored their open source license obligations for that printer? Last I heard, Creality were suggesting that they might do that at some indefinite point in the future, as if those license obligations were optional.)
I've definitely used the full X and Y extent of the build plate so far, and also (though not with the same print) used nearly all of the build height. Overall, my X-Max 3 has been pretty busy for the past month, including printing upgrade parts for my other (even larger) printer. ☺
Using #FreeCAD and my #3DPrinter to make an extremely specific clamp for a laporoscopic repair on a broken plywood #mandolin. This one will go through the f-hole to clamp a loose brace to the top. The holes accommodate an M6 bolt and cross dowel.
I hope this works, otherwise I'll have to take the back off, which is way more hassle!
Over the past week, I've been writing somewhat voluminously about my experience #3DPrinting with my new Qidi X-Max 3. #notsponsored
TL;DR: I'm very satisfied. I'm getting high quality prints. If you have never used a #3DPrinter you might have a lot of questions. On the other hand, I started my 3D printing journey with a far far worse printer and here I am enjoying the hobby! I have gotten timely responses from support in response to quite a few questions.
Now they have released a Linux build of their QIDISlicer fork of PrusaSlicer. Previously I had to ask support who gave me a build of their previous version.
Anyway, if you'd like to buy a fast, accurate printer from a vendor who actually appears to be complying with Open Source license obligations, you could do worse. At their current $999 price, if I had the purchase decision to make again, I'd make the same decision to buy it. Best value printer I've bought yet.
Can any of my #Maker / #3DPrinter friends help my sister create a medical item that would otherwise be expensive to replace?
Her life-limited foster child needs this plastic mouthpiece from a medical device but it's no longer available and alternatives are expensive.
We have no idea whether this is possible with medically safe material and, if so, how to go about it. #3DPrint#Help
A killer feature of #fluidd is showing the current duty cycle for #3DPrinter heaters. If the duty cycle is still changing, then even if temperature at the sensor is not changing, the temperature of the part overall hasn't reached equilibrium. That means that with the temperature of the heated bed still changing, I'm tempting adhesion failures if I print.
This means that when I'm pre-heating the bed, I can know when the top surface of the bed is at a stable temperature, even though the temperature sensor is on the bottom.
("Hot" in the images here is the chamber heater, which is controlled bang-bang style and is either fully on or fully off. I didn't name these things! 😀)
I wish there were a gcode for "Wait until the duty cycle for this heater is below x% for n seconds" — I could use that to just kick off prints without worrying about watching the pre-heat.
As I'm putting my lathe's quick change gearbox back together to start getting the #electronicLeadScrew going, I realized that I don't have a proper bent funnel to get the oil in. The fill port is on the side (the top isn't accessible). But I have a #3DPrinter#FreeCAD and #PrusaSlicer handy.
The angled top is intended to let me print it upside down without supports. The angled bottom faces help the oil go where it is supposed to.
We'll see how that goes.
Hopefully in a bit, some lovely fresh ISO68 oil will fill the sump in the gearbox and I'll be back in business. 🤞
Over the past couple days, I designed and made a replacement carbon + HEPA filter for my Qidi X-Max 3. I generally like the X-Max 3, but removing the small carbon granule bag they ship is difficult, and there's no UFP filtration at all. I've completely removed the original filter, and replaced it with a unit that sits outside the printer, holds several times as much carbon for better VOC adsorbtion, and has HEPA filtration for UFP.
It's cheap, quick, and easy to upgrade. Four hours of printing, and a few minutes of assembly.
While this design is nothing like the Nevermore Micro, the HEPA filters are the same used in the Nevermore Micro v6 XL, and I heartily recommend the Nevermore, which I use in my other printer, where there is room to add it. I acknowledge my debt to that project; if it didn't exist I probably wouldn't have actually made this. ❤️
I'm upgrading my SK-Tank #3DPrinter to a 115W CHC Volcano-length heater core with a 0.6mm "three eyes" CHT-style Volcano-length nozzle.
Using the quick and dirty method for max volumetric flow rate, at 225°C, this set with an Orbiter 1.5 extruder can extrude shore 95A TPU at 27.5mm/sec, which works out to 66 mm³/sec. I had complete extrusion at G1 E100 F1650!
Now I'm torn between seeing how fast I can actually print in TPU and characterizing some more filament extrusion rates. 🤔
I've had so many issues with my Anycubic resin 3d printer, and for this and other reasons, have been considering an FDM/filament printer.
Is it fair to say that most printers in the $150-300 range are crap? I just saw on one of her LED necklace tutorials that @geekmomprojects uses the Prusa MINI+, and it seems like a good number of makers speak highly of that brand, so maybe that's where I'll look. But any tips on where else to look/stay away from are appreciated! #3dprinting#3dprinter#FDM
I was going to get the SV-06 because of its linear rails, but Sovol neglected to include a <$10 filament runout sensor on that machine. SERIOUSLY SOVOL?!?
Also, the SV-07 is much faster. I could've gotten the SV-06 Plus, which is bigger and comes with a filament runout sensor, but it's a lot more expensive.
My #Ender3 is still sitting on the garage floor. #cursed
The first step in backing any #STL#Kickstarter should be working out what's going wrong with your #3dPrinter and why you didn't finish the last collection ...
My Brain: Hey, you know what you don't know anything about? #Warhammer. You should start playing that, I wonder if the Warp exists in our reality, hey go get a #cheese stick, we should get a #3DPrinter to make miniatures you don't have enough hobbies, maybe the cat can go get our cheese stick, aw fuck I have to up in less than 6 hours for #church, oh fuck I said #fuck in the same sentence as church, let's go internet now.
is there someone you truly hate? do they have small children?
if you answered ‘yes’ to both of those questions, use your 3d printer to create several recorder flutes and give them to their children as gifts! the kids will love you and your message will be received