Gina

Nice boxes but we want to see what's in them! ?

I use ebay for small quantities too.

I used the same arrangement with my cladding - no exposed end grain.

4 wheels should be fine and avoids the problem of getting 3 wheels in perfect alignment. I think my roof weighs something like 200Kg - it's a very solid wooden construction with a 4x2 framework and some 6x2 uprights. It has 4 wheels of 120mm diameter.

That's not too bad.

I think the Morse test was abandoned some time ago but the real radio amateurs will know.

Ah yes, I remember now that you're making a much bigger scope room than most. Mine is 2.4m square with one wall around 300mm and the other something like 600-700mm.

I just wonder James, why you are using welded steel rather than timber like most of the rest of us seem to do?

HF comms was part of my job at one time and I've always been interested in amateur radio but couldn't be bothered to do all the tests for a transmitting license. I new a bit of Morse code but not the speed needed for the test and I was more interested in voice. I used to listen in the past. I have built short range voice transmitters with power low enough not to need a license. Also short range data comms on around 400MHz. Nowadays I just use WiFi! And I can talk to people all round the would on the internet - and I do.

Great thing to try. I too will be interested in how you do. Good luck. ?

I made my roof in-situ too but mine is all timber.

I even printed a replacement toilet roll holder for the bathroom when the previous wooden one broke.

You'll be able to print extensions for the legs to make it a bit higher on your 3D printer. You'll find all sorts of uses for 3D printed parts.

I think the tools I've bought from Lidl have be German made or at least most of them.

I've bough quite a lot of tools in Lidl - good quality too

Well, air cooling turned out to be inadequate when using a high bed temperature and warm chamber - cooling with warm air is not efficient. Consequently I have returned to water cooling but with a simpler and lighter waterblock. I've used the standard E3D V6 heatsink and printed a water jacket to go round it, directing water flow across and between the fins. The V6 heatsink is sealed to the ABS printed jacket with O rings. This has proved totally leakproof once I had applied acetone smoothing to the surfaces in contact with the O rings.

This printer has now been in use for some time and is working well. There are a few more things I want to do to it though. Make an enclosure so that the fumes from ABS can be contained and vented to outdoors. Change the bed heater pad to mains voltage (more power so faster heating up) - that will save having a 30A 12v supply, the ATX PSU being replaced with a standard 12v 10A PSU. Add parts cooling so that I can print PLA (and without producing whiskers on PETG).

Very true!!

There are 12v versions of the 28BYJ-48 though not a ubiquitous as the 5v version.

Now that is what I call SOLID!!

I know - I know - with knobs on!!!

F.H. Brundle for wheels and rails. I used 120mm wheels and matching rail. Semi-circular section - though others seem to prefer V section.

No problem at all. Cladding is as good as new - after 7 years.

Checked my stock of pellets and I have 4 x 300g bottles of natural PLA pellets from ColorFabb plus a little pot (100g I guess) of black. I may put some thought into making an extruder to take these pellets.

Googled "3D printer using pellets" and came up with THIS. Refers to a video by Richard Thorne ("RichRap") whose ideas I've used before (fishing line braided cord instead of timing belts). He has an Open Source design for an extruder using ColorFabb pellets.