Stub Mandrel

Unboxing... * I should be grateful; I urgently needed a 10A fuse so ordering yesterday afternoon and getting delivery before 8:00am is impressive. All for £1.62. But perhaps this would have been better sent in a small padded envelope? (Still not as impressive as Farnell, they once sent me a single microchip, about 15mm square, in pair of plastic waffles about 30x20cm, inside bubble wrap, inside a box, inside more wrap, inside an outer box about 60cm square - but I suspect this was someone in despatch who was a bit bored!)

I received a large small pile of electronics components - resistors and voltage pump IC.

I did wonder whether it would be cheaper to use strimmer filament in a 3D printer or vice versa! 🙂

Very nice - great dynamic range in the first image, great detail in the second and lovely to see a great drawing as well!

While white may reflect some UV, black pigment is more likely to stop it penetrating, limiting the depth to which the plastic can be degraded. https://www.directplastics.co.uk/about_plastics/post/how-uv-affects-engineering-plastics

A new tent! I don't suppose the clear sky is going to last for two week 😞

Even if it gets warm, it's only going to deform if you exceed its elastic limit.

In teh central Atlantic there's an island 27 square miles in area, composed entirely of old telephone handsets and magnifying glass handles.

My meteor detecting yagi is held together with black PLA parts, hard to imagine anything more exposed to sun light and weather in this area. Previous weather station parts up on top of the same aluminium pole gradually degaraded so i'm not expecting it to last forever, but after 12 months out I inspected it and couldnt see any signs of degradation, it's been up longer than that now.

? I have PLA parts doing their jobs in the real world. I even found one part that was more reliable printed in PLA than PETG because of the requirements on it and the difficulty of printing consistently in PETG. And yes, I have done experiments such as pull-out tests for things like metric fixings into PLA prints and comparing the strengths of test pieces printed with different orientations. All materials have their limitations, understand these, choose an appropriate material and design well and your parts will cope with the real world.

Hmm. Double ended 1/4 whitworth camera adaptor Set of four 50mm castors, two locking. 16A hookup connector. 🙂

That's interesting. I have one of these, it's... passable but more like 0.8X than the advertised 0.4X

In which case you deserve extra congratulations! Keep your unprocessed data as with time and new skills you will want to go back to it.

It's nice detail, but it looks like you may have clipped the highlights so the stars look a bit 'flat'. Have you tried making a separate 'star' layer and then mixing it back in?

Those power connectors are so badly designed, music effects pedals use them, I have a 'daisy chain' lead with multiple conectors, some are unused, which I have wrapped in insulation tape to prevent them shorting by accident.

Those are little airy discs. Focus is not good...

Oh well. Add Crater Vikram to the maps... 😞

3DP is becoming mainstream. To be honest, it's frustrating waiting for the day when I can pick up a kilo or two of PLA at the supermarket.

They would need one of these if they did! I can't see Ed cracking and fractionating oil then polymerising it on site. Plastic feedstock comes from people like BASF and DOW, usually as granules or pellets for further processing:

They must get the basic plastic pellets & dies from the same sources as everyone else though?

I've always been bit sceptical to be honest. None of the filament brands 'make' their own feedstock, even if they extrude their own filament (which I doubt) .

Did you get the email today from Rigid Ink saying they are no longer going to sell filament?

Great! If you're in southern Derbyshire, you could come along to one of our RAG meetings - lots of friendly help and advice (and fig rolls). http://www.roslistonastronomy.org.uk/

I don't know to be honest. I got both the 130P-DS and 150PL to image on the EQ3, with basic guiding the 150 should be OK, I think the main advantage/difference with the DS models is the focuser.