Chriske

I use S3D and it is the best imo. Just behind it is Slic3r, but the Prusa version.

Oh no, these thrust chambers/nozzle extension are not good at all(for me that is). These first parts were just a tests and were printed way to fast. (I was eager to see how they'd look like..) And what's more a few of them(2 on the left) were done with a 0.7nozzle and also printed to fast. I will lower speed now and start printing that thing.

Busy building it Gina... But most parts are rather small. A 300x300 bed printing 500mm high will suffice...

The plan is to have this rocket ready to be the eye-catcher during our open door Sept next year. I'll start with a 'shell', see how far I get. Meaning there is a complete rocket, only it will be completely empty. And now the ambitious part : If there is enough time left I'll do a second one, but part of the shell, half maybe three quarters. That cutaway rocket will have all internal objects on board, so the visitors can see what's inside. If I can find enough candidates to help with their own printer I'll ask them to print the gantry. An impressive part that would take most of the printingtime.

Ok I'll reveal the 'secret'. This is the beginning of a new project. I'm busy printing a 1:60 scale model of (indeed) a Saturn V rocket. Height of that system : 2.4 meter - 8' , that is if I also print the gantry. Rocket alone ; 1.95meter - 6.9'

That is for you all to guess...

Y-carriage was already printed, but I decided to add a compartment to hide all the electronics : 1- Switch 2- LM2596 'DC-DC stepdown' for the green laser. 3-Potentiometer for the LED. sometimes I need to check a coated mirror, so I need to dim the LED a fair amount. 4-Space for a small jack to connect to the power unit. Left the old one, right the new one All wiring will be hidden inside the unit. I made a few canals to lead the wires from the front to the back of the Y-carriage.

When busy polishing you know the ROC of that mirror, so you first place the tester at the correct distance from the mirror indeed(does not have to be 100% perfect, but as accurate as you possibly can. I always use a tape measure) minor corrections are done afterwards. Then you point the laserbeam to the very centre of the mirror. Pointing that beam toward the mirror's centre is done by pushing and rotating the tester manually(there are also 3 set-screws at the bottom of the tester. These are for kinda 'levelling' the tester. When that is done, the only thing left to do is 'levelling' and rotating the mirror on it's stand until the laserbeam hits a small plane(I explain about that later. Needles to say this can only been done after that initial set-up I described higher up here is performed. Yes, camera, knife and LED all move together on the Y-bed There are a few holes in the camera'disk'. These holes you need to stick a pin in to fix that disk/camera in a certain position. Here too you need to set-up/adjust the camera only once. When that is done you need to remember what hole to put that pin in. When busy visual work, rotate away the camera. When taking a picture rotate the camera near the knife, put the pin in the correct hole and you're ready to make that next focogram. The reason for these many holes is to be able to use any camera at all. it all takes far less time to do all this then me typing this 'how to'. ..!!!

Steve, All my designing is done in Autodesk Inventor. It is very powerful 3D-software. AI is not free, it is actually rather expensive. But I do have a license from my work in the past. It's already an old version but I can do everything I want to and more. It is in fact so powerful that I only use about (and I'm guessing here) 10% of it's features. But as I said before here on the forum. When you have a son/daughter still in school, you can download a student version for free. Maybe you're a student yourself...? If you download/install you need to give a name of a school. All my printing is done with a printer I designed myself. UltiPrinter I call them. This very moment a few friends and myself are building five V3 of this printer.

Y-platform and X-platform-bearings already installed. Printed with .7 nozzle

New laser-holder printed with .4 mm nozzle

These parts from V1 will be reused

If someone wants to copy this Foucault-tester I'll post the STL files here on the forum. I could also post the source files. So if someone wants to make some changes feel free to do so.

It is adjustable in height, it needs to be. This tester is also equipped with a green laser. Purpose of that laser is to adjust the tester in a matter of seconds. The very first time the tester is adjusted toward a mirror the old fashion way. It always takes some time for that to do so. Especially for novice ATM it is very difficult to adjust the white lightsource and reflect it onto the knife. Once the mirror and tester's white light are 'in line', the (adjustable)laser is lit and pointed toward the exact centre of the mirror. The reflection of the laser-beam is visible on a very small screen very near that white light-source. Now, the next time you need to adjust the Foucault-tester toward a mirror you only need to lit the laser, point that laser beam toward the very centre of your mirror and then adjust the mirror stand so the reflection point to that little screen located at you're tester and you're done. When the initial setup is performed correct, the reflection of the white light falls exactly on the knife, every time again. there's only one 'but', I'll explain some more when the new tester is assembled. Because it's a printed version it is very light, so I added a 2kg steel weight at the bottom of the tester. Needles to say, when someone do setup a Foucault tester toward his mirror only once, there's no need to use that laser at all. It's only when the tester needs to be removed from that location and setup again the following day or so, then the laser comes in very handy. Also in my case when different mirrors needs to be tested (during course) that laser is also a very handy tool. It saves me LOTS of time.

My first 3D printed Foucault tester did work very well. Only thing was that all axis were running in PLA'bearings'. It's motion was rather 'heavy'. For measuring a parabola you need a very smooth motion. So busy designing V2. This time I will use linear bearings to support all these axis. The tester in the picture is V1 Busy printing V2 now. I'll post some more pictures later on.

At second 55 the man in the movies says : there's nothing stopping you and I from updating Chinese printers..... That's were I stopped viewing any further. Maybe quitting was not a good Idea, I know but... The original question in this tread was : Just casually wondering what 3D printers anyone has / would recommend... She's not asking how to perform modifs on printers. That is the last thing novice users want to hear about...

No worries Pete... In the past we made(copied) about 25+ different printers. In the end my pal Marc ended up copying Prusa's because at the time it was the best you could buy or build (I designed my own) I do visit a large forum, all(and only)about 3D printing. Not all, but most of them, buying cheap rubbish will eventually end up repairing/modifying their printers. Lots of these cheap printers are not capable of producing perfect perimeters at all. And If I may say so that is the most important item on my wishlist... good/perfect perimeters.

My advice : do not by a cheap printer..! I myself have 3 printers of own design producing perfect perimeters. My friend has copied a few Prusa i3 Mk3. Well these Prusa's almost do copy my perimeter quality. I'm not saying Prusa is the only good printer, not at all, but it is a very reliable printer.

If you still go to school(and of course you do...) you can download a Autodesk Inventor version for free. You have to give a name of a school and your done. Best 3D design software ever(together with SolidWorks).

Software : Autodesk Inventor (I do have a license from my last employer)..Lucky me...! Printer is of own design. Together with a few friends we've built about 20+ different models over he last 5 years. All these models/drawings were downloaded from the internet. Non of them were 100% to our satisfactory. So in the end I decided to build my own printer. I call it Ulti-Printer. Busy building a few(5) Ulti-Printers-Mark3 300x300x500 this very moment. A few friends copied it and are very pleased with it. Mark 2 was provided with fast interchangeable hotends. Mark 3 I added interchangeable filament, meaning I can easily switch between 1.75mm and 2.85mm filament in a matter of seconds.

Hi, During open door at our local observatory last weekend there was much interest in my set of focusers. Because of its focusing-smoothness my Helical focusers with ball bearings(far left) got lots of attention. The only drawback is that this focuser requires a aluminium eyepiece-barrel. Not to many people have aluminium tube that size in their workshop, let alone a lathe to handle that size of tubes. To solve that problem I redesigned this focuser and replaced that alu-barrel and a printed barrel will be used now. The perimeter of a printed cylinder does not allow very smooth focusing. As a matter if fact it actually does, but not to my standards. Making a focuser it should have a very smooth action just the same as any expensive commercial focuser. To deal with these tiny irregularities from the barrel's outer perimeter I need to remove a very small fraction of that perimeter. It's only 'cleaning up' that has to be done, so just a fraction of a millimetre will be removed. Only drawback is : there's still a lathe involved, there's no way around that. Second : to prevent deforming of that barrel(in time) I drew the barrel's wall rather thick. 5mm will do the job nicely. And I also changed the angle of the ball bearings inside the focuser, V1 has a 6° angle. In this new design, V3 I changed to 4°.

I need to find me a supplier who can sell me 2.85+mm filament, so I can go beyond 2.5mm nozzles Gina...

This scope is printed a few years ago. All is done on a Prusa i2 - 200x200mm bed. So all parts fit on that bed and all these parts were bolted together. Meanwhile these printers are cannibalized to make me better and larger printers. The printers I use today are of own design, I call them Ulti-printer. This very moment, together with a few friends and pupils, we're building 5 of these Ulti-printers V3. (Build surface 300x300mm).