Alien 13

I feel inadequate as I use Tinkercad but it does all I need and is super fast.. Idea to stl file in less than 10 mins most of the time.

Alan

I cant see the Webb surviving more that a year perhaps two at most before its destroyed by impacts.

Alan

7 hours ago, ONIKKINEN said:

3D print the lathe? 🤣

Not such a daft idea as you may think..

Lots of examples out there..

Alan

A star tracker (tiny one for my phone camera) is on my to-do list when I have finished all the "fun" projects I have on the go, as to bearings I use lots of those "skateboard" ones for anything that has to move and they are reasonably cheap too.

Alan

14 hours ago, billhinge said:

Thanks both, so the choice is  a seam or zits?  😂 I'm happy with how it turned out but I may try printing again in carbon fibre PLA as I want to teak a couple of tweaks to strengthen the OTA join - only held by 3 small bolts! Cheaper than paying £200+ for a custom metal jobbie

I had planned to sand and paint anyway but I was just curious (I'm using Qidiprint which is a Cura clone, its updated fairly regularly and usually does a good job so haven't bothered copying all the settings across to Cura)   

I may use the remains of this roll of PLA on v2 of my cycloid gearbox, measurements weren't quite right last time, couldn't get internal wheel to fit properly with the dowels

I used this blueprint https://www.ewhiteowls.com/2022/02/the-ultimate-guide-to-design-cycloidal-drives-the-beating-heart-of-robotic-arms/ for the cycloid

 

 

Cura is now at V5 and significantly better than previous versions, worth a go.

As for thee seam I personally would rather have the line and remove with a wooden "nail file".

Alan

25 minutes ago, adyj1 said:

It was a game-changer for me, but each to his own 😉 

One thing I found with pritt stick on a glass bed (I've tried em all 😁) was that if I left a large print to cool it would sometimes be very difficult to remove the print - to the point that I worried about the glass... 

My Son has a glass bed on his printer and often has to stick the plate in the freezer to free up the print without having to resort to excess force, better than not enough adhesion though. I do like my flexible bed everything sticks well and just peels off although it does limit the printer to PLA only.

Alan

23 minutes ago, saac said:

Mine is an Ender 5 Alan; I've been impressed with the build quality from the get go with it.  The bed springs do look stiff enough and they rarely need much adjustment. I use a feeler gauge to check level and generally on a pre warmed bed if I remember.  The ender 5 has an auto level built in but I think I have only ever used it once. My printer sits in the garage and doesn't get moved so that certainly helps, and I then not to move the bed by hand either.  The only mod I'm considering is to build an enclosure around it.  

Jim 

No idea what you would call mine now, started life as an ender 3 pro but have done quite a few upgrades like 4.2.7 motherboard running Jyers UI firmware/dual z axis motors/all metal extruder/ CR touch/ Capricorn bowden tubing/colour screen/ xy adjusters/led lighting/adjustable height dampening feet plus lots of other DIY bits and it prints reliably.

Alan

9 minutes ago, saac said:

I've only ever levelled the bed manually, usually check it after 3 or 4 prints. No issues so far, I must be lucky and have a relatively flat bed.  

Jim 

Manual bed leveling can last for ages more so if the springs are upgraded, before I opted for a CR touch auto leveling I rarely had to adjust mine and now never but I spent a lot of time to get it perfect before the swap.

Alan 

34 minutes ago, Stuart1971 said:

Why tweak the Z offset, just re level the bed and leave the offset well alone, I really don’t understand why anyone needs to adjust the  Z offset…..it’s a pointless setting if all else is set properly….🤔🤔

Simple answer is because it can be done on the fly while its printing if you notice that the first layer looks not quite correct, usually catch this while the cura profile is printing its first line and boundary box, manually adjusting the bed itself would have no effect on this as the auto bed leveling routine would just compensate for the changes and still leave the z offset incorrect. With me having a magnetic flexible bed that is lifted to peel off parts also means that the z offset can change slightly.

Alan

4 minutes ago, vlaiv said:

I've found auto bed leveling to be very very very useful feature (I'd call it essential upgrade).

It helped me diagnose issues with z-axis. If you can have repeatable measurements and somewhat warped bed - then you can create mesh and see what is down to tilt (x axis gantry tilting due to z-axis issues) and what is down to warping of the bed.

It also helps a lot with z-offset and getting that first layer just right.

I still do manual bed tramming - and it helps with that as well - it checks all corners and reports measured heights / offsets - adjusting wheels after that is really easy - you get visual feedback on how much each needs to be adjusted.

I would agree with this, have been printing for months now without any adjustments to the bed apart from some minor tweaking to the Z offset with some  filament types which can be done as it prints.

Alan

2 hours ago, StuartJPP said:

If you watch any video on YouTube you will see how much they go on about storage of PLA in dehumidifier tubs etc. Seems a complete waste to me, maybe they should just buy some decent filament instead (my filament of choice is just a fairly basic one from Amazon).

I use a lot of the Amazon basics brand PLA, running some of their black PLA plus right now, my other favorite is JAYO for exotic stuff like wood filled PLA and Carbon fibre etc.

Alan

Never had a problem with leaving PLA lying around either in fact quite the opposite, some fresh out the bag stuff (especially wood, carbon) just wont print very well at all and is prone to breaking on the reel so I leave them open at least a week now.

Alan

12 hours ago, Macavity said:

Fascinating stuff re. "youngest" Galaxies (after the Big Bang!?!). 😎
Notably galaxies seem quite SMALL (compared to ours!)
Consist of "First Generation" (Hydrogen only) stars?
I forget... don't know... All GOOD STUFF! 🥳

Business Insider? Teasing/Musing! 😅

Have read that the first galaxies were only a few hundred million years or less after the big bang which  begs the question of which came first, stars or galaxies.

Alan

7 hours ago, Synchronicity said:

I bought a Creality CR10 pro just before the Covid hit.  I got involved with a national volunteer group printing headbands for face visors, contributing 350 before the project ended.  The group fund-raised and replaced the filament we used which was a big help.
They got hundreds of 700g boxes of UP PLA which prints great but is brittle and tends to break on the roll.  I have about a dozen boxes of this which would be ideal for people using a 3d Pen (https://www.3dsourced.com/rankings/best-cheap-3d-pen/ ).  It might also be ok for someone printing small parts who can babysit their printer constantly!
What I have is still vacuum sealed in the box - if anyone can use this or knows of someone I'd be delighted to pass it on for the cost of postage.
I don't really want it going to someone who's going to hope it doesn't break then bin it all when it does - I could have done that!

All the best

Michael

Have had a few specialist filaments like "wood" PLA that are very brittle and would break on the roll very easily but found if I left it unopened for a week so it could absorb some moisture it was fine...

Alan

Buy your girlfriend a 60D and mod the 600D 😀 

Alan

I use a dual pano ball head on its side as mentioned by Happy-kat and its very smooth, the addition of a long mounting plate means that you can get good balance too. It does move the CofG away from the center of the tripod and you do need a center column to avoid the scope hitting the legs but is OK for small scopes.

Alan 

Only minor niggles for me like the cut/copy and paste keeping the file forever and the biggie with its handling or not handling ICC calibration files..

Alan

I prefer Horizon as it is now and like the music..

Alan

Very enjoyable watch..

Alan

16 minutes ago, badhex said:

As other have mentioned, I haven't followed every single post so maybe this has been discussed, but I have a question:

So, in a conventional telescope we can correct for many aberrations created by the optical elements, e.g. CA by using multiple objective elements or Coma with a Paracorr etc. If, like the JWST we are using a large gravitational body such as a galaxy cluster as one of the optical elements in our train, clearly we cannot create a physical corrector as this would need to be different for each different gravitational body we use.

That said, if we know the data representing the physical properties of the gravitational bodies we are using as an optical element, then surely a model can built using that data to then transform the images digitally, after the fact, and restore some of the shapes and positions of the smeared galaxies we see in the JWST images? Like a sort of digital Paracorr or field flattener, let's say? 

Obviously, such a transformation could not restore data that was not captured, much like there are limits to taking a small low res image and trying to make it larger - the information simply was not recorded in the original image, but perhaps we could grt some of the way there? 

Maybe this is nonsense, but would love to hear from people with a better understanding of the physics than I. 

I am sure this would be possible the same way a DSLR can have "lens data" to correct any pin cushioning etc or even to de-fish a fisheye lens.

Alan

50 minutes ago, Chriske said:

Made a quick drawing showing 4 different ways to work with nuts and bolts in printed parts.
The one on the right is a hole big enough to add a insert Alan showed higher up.There are some special insert for printed parts. But they're not as good imo.

The "wood" type inserts are  far superior in my view provided you get the hole dimensions correct (easily done with a test print), another useful re-purposed item are the extruder gears that can be push fit/glued into the plastic and make excellent rod couplings for knobs or other parts..i.e. these.

Alan

31 minutes ago, DaveS said:

More in depth on Thursday 

 

Nothing like a slice of Dr Becky to start the day, thanks.

Alan

As above, determining the focal length of a SCT/Mak type scope is far more difficult as you have two optical surfaces, one fixed the other movable..

Alan

If your sensor is more sensitive to heat it might be worth while moving the battery from inside the camera to a battery grip too..

Alan

7 minutes ago, Ouroboros said:

Sorry if this has already been covered here but is there an explanation somewhere of what the different colours represent in the JSWT colour pallete/s? 

It was discussed in the presentation but I don't have a direct link and cant remember the details..

Alan