upahill

Looks like a great site, and not too far from us - is the google maps picture accurate still as to which pitches are hard-standing? Do they all have EHU?

That screenshot is the first real look at openscad I have had - and will be steering well clear. Life is complex enough for me without that ?
I've been coding since about 12/13 but I genuinely feel somethings are best interpreted with a nice GUI.

Kudos to anyone who can get their head round it though! It must get very complex very quickly for intricate parts.

2 hours ago, Dr_Ju_ju said:

Then you need a slicer (converts designed objects into 3d print commands). There are free and paid for software versions: Slic3r (free) \ Simplify3D (paid), but personally, my favourite is the Prusa edition of Slic3r, which even though is targeted at the Prusa printers, is easily adjustable to other models....

and most of all HAVE FUN !!

 

Worth mentioning that the bizer used to use the x3g format for sliced files - so most slicers couldn't handle it, or the gcode would need to be converted first. If thats the case you will find it easier to use the recommended slicer (I think it was the one from Makerbot when I had it) - The bizer is a mechanical clone of the Makerbot Replicator 2, but uses a different controller.

There are some other options for handling that but to get used to it stick to whatever will output in the necessary format.

Of course, im hoping they have changed it and switched to a standard marlin/ramps setup, in which case ignore everything I just said ?

2 hours ago, JamesF said:

How does one go about "remixing" designs on thingiverse where only the STL files are provided?  Is that even possible?

I have a nice set of stacking cases for three RPis now and I'd quite like to add one for my original models, but they need a different arrangement of holes for the sockets and SD card.

James

Some packages will let you import an STL and then work from that body (solidworks does for example) but its usually dreadful and you end up doing stuff like filling in holes and then remaking them because you cant modify the original. For fairly simple stuff I prefer to just redesign it and its usually quicker.

Redesigning it also has the added benefit of giving you a file you can further tweak down the road.

5 minutes ago, Shelster1973 said:

Well

I have now gone and joined the 3D printing world.

I did contemplate getting a resin printer as do like the look of the prints that come from them, but weighing it up in my head the one I was after cost twice as mush as the one I stumped for and that was before I factored in getting the IPA and UV curing station too.

Have plumped for a CTC 2018 FDM dual extruder Bizer printer from eBay.  Is due to be delivered tomorrow.  Description states that it comes with a spool of filament (either ABS or PLA) and have also ordered a 1KG spool of PETG+ from Amazon which should be here today too.

As this is my 1st 3D printer is all new to me an d was wondering what software people recommend for creating the models in?  Also, how difficult is it to actually create these models?

Am not sure what I will be creating with it yet, but am sure there will be a million and one things that I can imagineer up for Astro use.

Cut my teeth on the Bizer, its a great little machine and there has been a whole host of mods and improvements designed for it as it has quite a large following - search for bizer on thingiverse and you will see what I mean. Best mod I ever did was the Y rod bearing mounts but this has probably been resolved in the newer versions anyway.

When it arrives I recommend going over it briefly and tightening any loose bolts on the frame, and double check terminals are nice and tight.

I cant help much with the software side of things, I use Solidworks as I happen to have a license but its overkill for what I do. Have heard good things about Fusion 360 though.

Thingiverse will get you started with stuff to print though while you get your head around creating your own custom stuff.

Have fun!

3 minutes ago, fozzybear said:

some 3d printing on wheeler dealers this evening for a couple of backets for a sun roof for an old capri  cost a fortune they 3d scanned the old brackets (broken) cost I think 190 dollars ouch..... mike brewer thought it was ok as no longer manufactured....

Getting that sort of stuff done commercially is always going to be expensive. A maker could probably have just modeled the old brackets and printed them for pence.

3D scanning seems excessive for the job

1 hour ago, RolandKol said:

This is why I still afraid to leave my 3D printer alone to print  

I just had the connector melt / almost catch fire on the headbed for my Tevo Black Widow - even factory connectors shouldn't be trusted as being up for the job. Thing is I knew this was going to happen - its a known fault - but still annoying - pretty sure its taken the board out too when it fried.

But, this is why i NEVER leave the printers alone - ever. And why I have fire extinguishers next to them.

......

So what are everyones recommendations for cheap printer controllers? - I cant stretch to a duet, so thinking of a MKS sbase, or a ledgre (but that is closed source/not marlin)

I would like 32bit though.

20 hours ago, tonyowens_uk said:

Amazing work! I'm guessing the projector is projecting some sort of grid for the cameras to pick up? Im a little bit naive with 3D scanners but have looked into some photogrammetry stuff and done some full body scanning with an xbox kinect to print replicas of myself (albeit smaller).

The problem I'm having right now is designing stuff for printing that are so over complicated its unreal. Where usually a piece of steel bar would do the trick. My latest over-designing project is to hold the motor to my focuser. Its good practice with solidworks at least.

7 minutes ago, Chriske said:

Got a picture to verify this...?

Some things can't be unseen. I'm now going to be blaming UV for my hairline biodegrading as well as a myriad of other things.

2 minutes ago, Chriske said:

UV surely will degrade almost everything in sunlight..!

I think you are right - everything is going degrade over time - my issue is that a lot of people would tell you that PLA is useless for outdoor use - and as yours, mine, and others experiments have proven that's just not the case (within reason, and providing your use case isn't extreme or unreasonable)

I used to be a healthy, fit, athletic teenager - you only need to look at what UV exposure did to me to see the risks ?

3 minutes ago, JamesF said:

This is quite reassuring from my point of view.  I want to print replacement parts for much of my weather station (wind direction vane, anemometer cups, perhaps even the main housing) and wasn't sure that PLA would really be up to the job (though I've already experimented with printing the cups in PLA just to see how they'd come out), but I think it's definitely worth going for now.

James

I think if we had really high temps here it could be an issue, but im talking months of 35+ temps which isn't going to happen.

The three concerns seem to be:
Softening due to temperature
Degrading due to UV exposure
Strength

Chriske's experiment seems to allay the concerns with all three, and the second could be further protected against with a coat of something like perhaps. Im seeing mostly anecdotal evidence that suggests PLA is fine for outdoor use, and I think the UV instability is more a reference to the colour pigment of the filament than it actually biodegrading. If layer adhesion is good then I can't see it delaminating either so really think the concerns with PLA outdoors are a little unfounded and probably just assumed because its 'biodegradable'
 

1 hour ago, Gasman said:

Noticed on the news today that a father of a child who had lost an arm had made 9 different artificial limbs for his son with his 3d printer, how cool is that !!.

Can there be a more useful 3d project ?.

Steve 

Combined with some of the neural mapping techniques for controlling there are some very cool projects out there.
If you have a printer and want to give a hand (to use their own pun) check out e-nable - http://enablingthefuture.org/

2 hours ago, Chriske said:

The absolute winner was PLA that had nearly no deformation after months in full sun.

This is really interesting. When I printed my pier adapter in PLA, with 70% infill, 1.2mm walls I was basically called a nutter by some. The general consensus being that within a few days of sunlight PLA would warp and my mount would come tumblin' down. In my defense it was supposed to be to make a mold for a cast or acrylic part but its been so good I haven't bothered.

Im now probably 6 months in, through a moderately warm summer with zero noticeable deformation or reduction in stability. All bolts are still tight, no UV degradation, no cracks and still maintaining very good polar alignment and guiding results. It has had the mount on for weeks at a time and whilst the mount was covered the adapter was exposed.

4 minutes ago, Alien 13 said:

I have been thinking about 3D printer costs and was wondering what part takes up most of the cost?, after all a modern scanner copier is more complex with more moving parts but are very cheap.

Alan

If you were self building the largest chunk of cost would probably be the mechanical parts - aluminium frames and connectors etc.
Followed by the electronics
Then the motors

But it depends on quality of each part - for example you could buy a £100 hot end or a £9 china clone, a £20 ramps board or a £200 duetwifi controller.

Edit: I think personally that machines like the Enders in their sub £200 price bracket are going to be the cheapest commercial units available that are actually half-decent. I doubt we will see good quality sub £100 for a few years yet.

22 hours ago, Alien 13 said:

I dont think anything bigger than an 80 mm bed size would fit on my coffee table and I cant imagine that I would want to print anything larger than about 40 mm anyway.

Alan

Take a look at the Ender 2, I have the Ender 3 and find it to be quite compact, but still not coffee table size really.
The model before it is a bit smaller though.

4 minutes ago, RolandKol said:

P.S. I still have not managed to choose the software for design... TinkerCAD webapp looks very basic... AutoCad - too expensive, however, I do have it in the office, just in case.... a bit lost in this area.

any new starter advises are very very welcome!

 

Fusion 360 seems to be the popular choice - https://www.autodesk.com/campaigns/fusion-360-for-hobbyists

I don't have any experience of it though, there are some open source alternatives too but ill let someone more knowledgeable on those chime in.

3 minutes ago, Gina said:

Well, I tried Bowden feed a while back and gave up on it.  OK I know many manage to use it successfully but unless you want a double extruder I thing direct feed is better.  Using the E3D Titan extruder with lighter weight stepper motor and geared feed the extrusion is excellent and the weight is minimal.  I print at up to 120mm/s.

The Titan may be a good alternative, im using the original extruder/motor on the Tevo Black Widow with a genuine E3D hotend, which according to specs the motor alone adds around 600g to the gantry. My ender3 uses bowden and it works a dream though so torn both ways.

Maybe I should have bought a titan and reused this motor for my focuser project instead of purchasing a new PG27 motor for it yesterday. Doh! ?

3 minutes ago, JamesF said:

Looks like we're good again.  Replaced the nozzle, reset the bed height (don't have automatic adjustment on mine) and set a print off.  Wasn't happy with the adhesion again, so lifted the bed a teeny bit more and it all looks good, though the trial print I'm doing isn't as big as the one that was failing earlier today.  It's a test piece to check sizing for a new holder for all the hex bits I have for my cordless drill/driver.  The current case is falling apart, which I'm inclined to forgive after getting on for fifteen years, so I'm going to make a new one.

James

Great news, manual bed leveling is an art isn't it! I have found a set of feeler gauges removes some of the guesswork and lets me set it to 0.10 accurately enough every time most of the time.

4 minutes ago, Gina said:

Hmm...  I don't like Teflon (PTFE) in hotends and much prefer an all metal version.  In fact I only use all metal hotends nowadays.

It was a weekly occurrence for me, but I spent ages believing that all-metal / e3d hot ends were just overpriced and couldn't really be that much better.

Then I bit the bullet and got the E3D 1.75 kit - the difference is night and day and would never go back to teflon inserts now. Next job is to switch from the direct drive to bowden and remove the excess weight of a PG27 nema on the gantry.

17 minutes ago, JamesF said:

Well, I printed something out last night and it went fine, but this morning when I tried it again the print was all over the place -- really poor adhesion over the first few layers and looking as though there wasn't enough material being deposited.  Having spent the day on and off trying to find out what the problem was I think I'm coming to the conclusion that there's a partial blockage somewhere.  I've just removed the PLA from the extruder and it looks very chewed up, as if the extruder gear has scraped along it whilst trying to push it through into the hot end.

Once it has cooled down I'll take the nozzle off and check the extruder behaves properly without a nozzle, then perhaps replace the nozzle.

*sigh* All this worked fine until the thermistor packed in

James

What type of printer/ hot end do you have? If its a MK8/9 there is a usually a piece of teflon tube inside that I found blocks up very easily and is really a consumable. PITA to replace it but usually got great prints everytime I did. The teflon gets soft if your temps go too high (like during a thermistor failure) and can get damaged.

1 hour ago, JamesF said:

Perhaps I really shouldn't need a clip there, but if I take it off there's a gap of 2mm to 3mm between the glass and the heatbed PCB.  Makes me wonder if the heatbed isn't very flat itself, or if I have it slightly twisted, though if I have once held fully in place the glass appears to be pretty close to level compared with the positioning of the hot end.

Most beds have some warp in them, hence the glass. I found a nice alternative to the bulldog clips in my local stationers, they are some sort of paper clip/staple thing. Low profile and I use them on the left and right of the bed. They are quite strong steel too so really hold it together well.

https://www.viking-direct.co.uk/en/p/ND180794

Another one I have used in the past is a small version of the thing people use to hold a table cloth onto a table outdoors but I cant for the life of me remember where I got them. Those are even lower profile so rarely had problems with the nozzle hitting them. Not as strong though.

Other than that, you can always alter your routines to miss the clips
 

23 hours ago, JamesF said:

I've finally got at the thermistor.  Turned out to be a little more tricky than anticipated.    I have discovered that I now need some tape that works at high temperatures and probably some new insulation material for the heater block too, so I might be out of action until after Christmas unless I can find something suitable for a temporary workaround in the workshop.

The tube between the heater block and extruder was a pig to get out of the heater block, but it had to come out so I could remove the insulation in (mostly) one piece to get at the grub screw holding the thermistor in place.  The threads are quite gunged up (with PLA I assume).

Anyhow, now I just need to take some of the cable ties and spiral wrap off, remove the old thermistor and replace it with the new one and rebuild everything.  Perhaps whilst I'm at it I should add in an additional pair for the new fan.  It would save taking all the cabling apart again.

Or maybe I should just accept that since I have a fair bit of it in pieces already I might as well just go the whole hog and replace the controller board at the same time.

James

Sounds like you have the MK8/9/10 hot end - you can buy the silicone socks for those like the e3d have if you don't fancy re-insulating it and using kapton tape.

Is it the bead type thermistor? I found them to be extremely fragile. Loving the cartridge style now.

9 minutes ago, Alien 13 said:

Might be a daft question but are there any good tiny precision printers around, ideally I would want an absolute max print size of 80 mm cubed?

Alan

SLA printers are pretty good for precision stuff, I have an old Formlabs 1+ and the quality is amazing in comparison to the melted plastic type of printer. Comes with a large cost and fuss overhead though so unless critical it rarely gets used. How much precision do you need?

I think an FDM printer would struggle with fine threads like that. You would need the smallest nozzle you could get and that brings a host of new difficulties.
I did look at M48 die cutters out of curiosity but at £200+ that's madness too!

I have had some success in softening printed parts and then impressing threads into them - and using existing threads to cut threads into PLA which could be a viable approach depending on the application.

Just caught up on your progress and its looking fantastic. Congrats on first light!

30 minutes ago, Dave_D said:

yeah. i've got it running with octoprint at the moment but i'm seriously considering replacing the existing mobo with my duetwifi. i've cultivated a bit of a dislike for 8 bit controllers now i've been corrupted with 32bit printer boards and esp32 microcontrollers

Good move, octoprint makes life so much easier than faffing about with the cards - Duet is on my 'maybe one day' list but that day keeps getting further and further away ?

This was one of my fav printers, just a little suggestion though - if they haven't improved the design there is a cut out on one of the metal bars which is underneath - cables get fed through the gap. The one I had was very sharp on the edges and would eventually wear through the plastic on the cabling which could be dangerous. I used a block of foam zip-tied to the cables to protect it all.

The reliability and repeatability I got out of the Ender 3 was amazing though. Seriously considering getting another.

Another handy suggestion would be one of these, if you use the micro-sd card. Saves the hassle of unscrewing the control box when you post the micro-sd in under the PCB instead of into the slot.