PeterW

Putting a clip with some tissue on is useful to wipe crud off the filament prior to it getting fed in... reckon some random layer fails may have occurred before I did this peter

Heads up Prusa just announced a Mini version that’s simple to put together, but smaller build bed, 380 (ish currency units.... have to see what £). Available in a month or so... very interesting as that have a very strong reputation. PEter PS watched a colleague end a job today with millimetres of filament hanging out the extruder when it finished.... lucky?!

Steel or harder nozzles with the carbon fibre stuff, printed a block once and the whole end of my brass nozzle “vanished”... like ended up 3mm in diameter rather than 0.4mm. i never use rafts as they either don’t stick or stick far too well. I print onto the bed and use a brim that I can trim off. That way rectangular plates don’t peel off. I adhere with glue, though buildtak, hairspray etc are also good. For higher temp materials I like Dimafix... smells amazing too. With a 100C bed I can print ABS/PC/PVDF with no issues. Protopasta steel fill makes good weights too. Wood fill is only for those with infinite patience who have too many spare nozzles and like a challenge. peter

XTC 3D is like a gloss paint coat. Not checked how it improves strength, but PLA (as long as it’s not too thin) should be fine. For strength I use 6+ walls/ceiling/floor and then up the infill. If you can ant to tap threads then the extra wall thickness is needed. I have a colleague trying to “flame polish” PLA ti achivw the same result as acetone vapour smoothing does with ABS. He reports improved impact resistance (fewer rough bits to initiate cracks, but he’s seen some warping and bubbling...) PEter

Zoom sounds not so good. None of the major binocular companies make zoom binoculars (though they do make zoom eyepieces for spotting scopes). You’re likely to have quite a narrow field of view. Holding them steady could be hard at the higher powers. I am guessing they’ll have quite a narrow field of view. As with any optics, if you enjoy the views then keep them. PEter

Dry heat is best to get the moisture out. I used to recondition desiccant in an oven at 120C. PEter

I always over engineer things... maybe as I don’t have such delicate CAD skills as colleagues. If the part did start to degrade (not come across it myself) you could always run off another one. PEter

Colleague just got one and it seems to do the job well. Peter

Good in the daytime too. The more you can stabilise them the better. http://binocularsky.com/binoc_mount.php has some cheap and effective ideas. Also lying on the ground works well, especially for looking straight up where the skies are darkest. Most plants are visible, so willl plenty of star clusters and a good number of nebulae/galaxies (depends on your light pollution and object finding skills). God luck PEter

Now Jedi I am. goodbye glare. Peter

You’re the one who got it... @Stu pointed it out, went real fast! Peter

See what bit of extra magnification does on the old APM 70mm bins. Need to test on the moon and stars, should be good for the odd time I feel I need more POWER. PEter

Thanks for clarifying. The option of prime focus or afocal is good, the latter seems most popular due to the ease of achieving focal reduction. Peter

I use CURA for everything, more tweaker setting being added almost daily. Prusa slicer is built off Slic3r. I played with simplify3D but haven’t used it much, might be to do with the printer I use it with is a Royal pain to setup and get the best levelled. PEter

Mainly people using video or more recently stacking short exposure to build up decent enough images... not the hours of exposures that the imagers take and them spend more hours in photoshop tweaking it further.