Gina

Yes, delivery is free.

£15 per Kg is not very cost effective for cheap filament. I paid around £30 for 2.2Kg of PLA from colorFabb which is less than £15/Kg and this is top quality filament. I have tried cheap filament from both Amazon and ebay in the past and found the quality very variable and wasteful - not good VFM!!

The lights dim when I run the mains heater on my Giant printer 🤣 Well, not quite but it is 1.2KW which is more than a bar of an electric fire. Having tried PEI sheet on my Concorde printer with unsatisfactory results, I'm now not sure about using it on the bed of my Giant printer. I didn't do very well with plain aluminium for print adhesion though and unless I can adjust print settings to make plain aluminium work I shall definitely try the PEI.

I use the same! Great filament - I have Chris to thank for putting me onto this supplier. I even have an 8Kg reel of white PLA to use with my Giant printer. Takes some lifting, I tell you!! 🤣 Also, every so often colorFabb have sales with 20-25% off - time to stock up. I seem to get through quite a lot of filament as I prototype and make astro stuff etc. and getting close to finishing a 4.5Kg reel of white PLA in my Concorde printer.

You don't need much strength for hinges for a Stevenson screen so any plain filament will do. White is best for outdoor use.

I have printed hinges successfully. Simple ones though. I made a Stevenson screen from wood many years ago well before 3D printing came along. A new weather station is on my list of projects.

Lovely! I agree about the bag though. Get a proper dust extractor, they don't cost that much.

No doubt I've said it before but you can't have one telescope for everything!

That's amazing and very unusual - mixture of dome and ROR it seems.

Odd! I never had that when I was playing with debayering DSLRs. I used DCRAW too. I gave up when I was spending more on semi-duff DSLRs than a proper astro camera cost. It was fun though.

Oh dear! Get well soon Steve.

Very nice indeed.

Haven't really thought. Maybe something I can print on my Giant 3D printer when I've got that working again. Even that is sometime in the future after I finish my ASC, ROR automation and a couple of other things.

Something I might be interested in though. I might consider making a smaller version than Chris but I have many projects on the books before I could get to that.

I gather papier-mâché can be as strong as wood.

Gremlins live at the bottom of the garden??? I'm sure mine live in the house and a few in my observatory. I was attacked in my observatory a couple of weeks ago and still bear the wounds!!

My NEQ6 mount needed more than 12v to operate reliably.

I'm getting a feeling of déjà vu here - I think I have already said that I've found PLA eminently suitable for a number of applications. I've used it plenty in astro projects, for instance.

If you're an electrical engineer there's one advantage of building your own printer - you can select reliable components and build in failsafe protection. My first printer was a pretty pricey kit. As an experienced engineer I found many things wrong with it. Some I was able to fix but in the end decided to build my own. I have never looked back.

In the past many things were made out of papier-mâché - wet paper and flour paste, and were very strong. So I can see a similar composition being strong and light for telescope tubes.

WOW!! YOU sure go in for BIG projects Chris!

I have several opened reels of filament of various types but the only filament I keep in a polythene bag with silica gel is Nylon. The house isn't damp and I've had no problem. OTOH there's no harm in making sure your filament is dry.

Luvvit! 🤣

My car is always dirty - there is so much mud and bovine excrement on the country lanes round here. You can't see the road for mud ATM with all the rain we've had lately!!

Mine doesn't take anything like that long. Prints usually come off when the bed temperature comes down to about 40-50°C.