Frank
Thank you for joining us.
This is episode 22 of Amateur 3D Podcast, a podcast by amateur printers and for amateur printers, where we share our thoughts and experience.
Our panelists this week are me, Franklin Christensen and my friends, Andy Cottom, Kevin Buckner and Chris Weber.
And this is take two! How are you guys doing today?
Kevin
Doing pretty good. How are you?
Andy
My audacity seems to be functioning properly, or my discord seemed to be function property.
Chris
Yep.
Frank
Yeah.
Chris
Fully functioning.
Frank
At least until one of us decides to update or upgrade or whatever, that was kind of bizarre.
Kevin
Yeah.
Chris
At least it’s not like Windows where it just shuts everything down in the middle of what you’re doing to restart.
Frank
You mean it is just like Windows? That’s what happened.
It was right in the middle of an episode, at least for me.
So Chris, since we’re starting over, you want to retell the story of what you’ve been working on this week?
Chris
Yeah. Okay. So I have a Bluetooth speaker in my kitchen.
I like to listen to while I do dishes or while I’m cooking or whatever. And I figured it’s a normal thing. Most people do that. They got one in their bathroom too.
Yeah. So, well, the nice thing about my bathroom is I have these nice shelves to put that Bluetooth speaker on. It’s out of the way.
No issue.
But the Bluetooth speaker I have in my kitchen, I’ve got it sitting just behind my corner sink. And I’ve noticed that it’s getting wet occasionally. So I want to resolve that issue.
I can just print me a corner shelf, right? Bluetooth speakers aren’t that big. Well, this one’s one of the longer ones. And so I did a quick measurement of the speaker and then I measured my print bed.
And I will have exactly enough room on this shelf if I print it the full size of my print bed. So I found this nice corner shelf on Thingiverse. And I sized it up to my bed, hit print, you know, did the normal thing, went to bed.
Well, I think the night I did this, it was like 14… We had a low of like 14 degrees. So…
Fahrenheit. For those of our listeners who are not from the U. S.
Chris
Which I think is like…
Frank
Two school buses.
Chris
Yes.
Andy
Roughly two school buses.
Chris
Two… Yeah. That’s what you get if you took two school buses to Alaska.
Yep.
So, Anyway… My office is the coldest room in my house also because there’s no vent to it. There’s no vent from a heater to it. It’s in the corner in the basement. And it’s completely closed off.
I keep the door closed, you know, keep the… Mostly to keep the pets and my daughter out of there when I’m not there. So it’s a cold room. I found that that’s affecting the corners of my print bed.
So when I came back in the morning to look at my print, the corners had curled up on the edges of my print bed. And it had caught or something as they had curled up halfway through the print. So it shifted like, I’d say about maybe half a centimeter or so on the Y-axis.
So I guess it had caught and then caught on the plate, yeah, got the indexed. So needless to say, now I’ve got to either finish an enclosure or find another way to make sure that the corners of my print bed get hot enough for the duration of the print.
Oh, this is also where I discovered this calculator. I posted it in our channel.
You guys can see it. There’s this calculator.
I did for determining the max speed of your bed based on your print settings.
Andy
Oh, I remember you posting that, but it’s not something I looked into.
Did you do it on yours?
Chris
Yes.
And actually, this is the print I used it for, because I was like, the original print was going to be like, it said it was going to be like 19 hours that I’m going, what, for a shelf like this, that’s not right.
I even opened up the size, the layer quality to 2.0 instead of the 1.6 I normally run at.
So anyway, so it’s a, you go to dyzedesign.com and they’ve got a 3D printing speed calculator right there.
Andy
Okay.
That’s kind of cool.
Chris
Yeah. So I still went at 75% of max speed, but it cut my, you know, incredibly long print down to, I think it was like eight and some odd hours as opposed to nearly 20. And the quality itself of the print was just as good aside from my bed temperature issue.
So because I used those same settings again to print a event cover, bust the following day and it printed beautifully.
I didn’t get pictures of that for you guys, but I will.
So anyway, but I also made a mistake with this because it’s a vent cover, which means it has a hole all the way through the dragon’s mouth.
Andy
Yeah.
Chris
Yeah. And I was trying to use it to cover up a hole.
So that was my own fault.
I saw, ooh, that is a pretty dragon bust. I’m just going to print it to put there. And I did not look at the description, did not look at the description all that much. And then I printed and there was a hole there and I’m like, what?
Yeah. It was a vent cover. So anyway, I did find another one I’m going to print in its place.
But yeah. So that’s what I did this week.
Yeah.
Kevin
And just real quick for anyone who is wondering 14 Fahrenheit is negative 10 Celsius.
Andy
Thanks. That was bugging me this whole time.
Chris
Well, I knew it was less than zero because 32 is zero.
So yeah.
Kevin
Right.
Andy
So it’s zero Fahrenheit plus zero Fahrenheit, 64 degrees Celsius.
Chris
What?
kevin
Sure. Well, 32 Fahrenheit is zero Celsius.
Chris
Yes.
Andy
So it’d have to be zero Celsius backwards.
Kevin
Yeah.
Andy
Oh, my mistake.
Kevin
Anyway.
Frank
You know, I told, I told a joke last week that fell flat. Andy is allowed to have his joke that falls flat too.
Kevin
Sure.
Frank
Except for, I don’t think it was as much confusion on everyone’s part as really Andy.
Chris
No, that one actually went right over my head at the moment.
Frank
You’re not supposed to acknowledge that to our listeners, Chris.
Okay. So, so at least me and Kevin were going, “No.”
Kevin
Yes
Chris
I at least had to acknowledge that for Andy’s sake.
Andy
Oh, thank you.
Kevin
I thought your reflexes were too fast Chris.
Frank
“Nothing is too fast,” “nothing goes over my head, my reflexes are too fast, I would catch it, and Kill it.
Kevin
Exactly.
So, what have you been at working on there, Andy?
Andy
Me, I didn’t do a whole lot this week, I did sit down and try to rebuild a full size impeller for my fish tank that I’ve been talking about these past couple of podcasts. And I did and had great success with free CAD actually.
I, I’m just kind of discovering you just got to keep it simple, like really stupid simple kind of stuff with free CAD and it works just fine. So you know, I’ve got, I’m used to like making one drawing and then doing like three or four different extrusions from just one drawing and that’s just not the way free CAD’s design.
It likes to be very simple and likes to have everything fully constrained them.
I challenged you last time, Frank on you saying that everything needed to be fully constrained on free CAD and I was like, no, I leave stuff unconstrained all the time and that was probably leading to some of the problems I was having.
So I’ll eat my hat on this one and say, yes, definitely better to fully constrained everything and to not use any line that you’re not planning on using as like a guide.
So I’m learning my lessons, but you know, it worked out really good for the most part. And I made some mistakes and just going to have to redesign the whole thing because I tried to make an impeller designed off the way the original impeller was and it’s just not really the good way to go.
So I’m going to redesign it again, probably this week, but other than that, I haven’t really done a whole lot with my printer.
Chris
So this week might be the time you want to get in and try out Fusion 360 just to see if it works any better for complicated things for you.
Andy
Yeah, and it very well might. The only problem with Fusion 360 is using a web-based application like that. I really don’t want to do.
Chris
It’s not saying it’s web-based.
Frank
You keep saying it’s web-based, but it’s got an application on your computer that you can use. Whether you’re connected or not.
Andy
Yeah, but you can’t save files locally and things.
Frank
Well, not the Fusion 360 files, but all you need is the STL anyway, right?
So. you can export the STL…
Chris
And keep those locally.
Andy
And I would say that I don’t want that because then I can’t have the files forever or something were to happen. But then here I’m sitting where I have lost every single thing I’ve ever designed with SolidWorks.
So, I’m kindof in the same boat.
Chris
That’s why I was saying you’re not too deep into this. You can try it again.
So you see, it’s like putting your foot in the water to see, do I want to get in the pool or do I want to go back to the hot tub? Or I know it’s nice.
Frank
And the answer is your foot is not a good test of the temperature of the pool because it may seem like it’s OK. But when you jump in, you realize how cold it really is until your body acclimates.
Andy
No, you’re absolutely right. I felt the same way about FreeCAD. I thought, “Ah, this is going to be a pretty seamless transition.”
You know, when I first started with it and then I suddenly started when I, it was my only go to, I started running into, ah, this thing feels like it’s got all these bugs and it’s, it’s so touchy and things and, and, you know, I think a lot of us just learning how to work around it and stuff, but I might have to give Fusion 360 a shot.
I know it’s got some options in there for more organic, um, to be able to deform things more organically and things. If I remember right.
Frank
The organic feature is actually a subscription feature. So you would have to subscribe to get the stuff for that.
And if I remember our conversation correctly, Fusion 360 is actually more expensive for the, uh, sub than, um, yours was.
Andy
Oh, really?
Frank
So.
Andy
Oh yeah! Uh, the solid works online version is something completely different than the software package. And I didn’t realize that I thought it was just a version of the software package and that’s really not the case.
It is something different. They just calling it solid works and it’s, it’s not the same at all.
I think if I remember right it’s even made by like a separate company and they’re just licensing it or something.
Uh, don’t hold my feet to the fire on that one, but yeah, there was, there was a lot more to it than I decided, oh, that’s not worth it.
Frank
I will definitely hold your feet to the fire, but it’s because you don’t recognize when you’re freezing.
Andy
I like that. I like that.
That is true.
You’re good at keeping me in line.
Frank
Uh, as far as your impeller is concerned, um, I don’t know about you guys, but ever since we talked about it and published, I think that there are some bots that are paying attention to the episode because I started getting bombarded by videos about different kinds of impellers, which is interesting because if anybody should have, it should have been you, right?
Andy
Yeah.
Frank
But anyway, um, there’s this fascinating impeller that people have been putting on fans that is more of a loop impeller instead of the fins, and, um, I was wondering how well it would work with your application to do something with the loops instead of the, uh, turbine type fins.
Chris
Yeah. It’s called a toroidal loop.
Andy
Yeah, but it’s not supposed to have any wing tips so you don’t get the, the, uh, the…
Frank
So you don’t get cavitation from it.
Andy
Yeah. Um, so that is. So the, the impellers that I’m using are like the blower style ones. So they’re the centrifugal force ones that throw the water to the outside, not through the actual fan.
Frank
Okay. Yeah.
Andy
So I don’t think that particular kind would work in that situation.
Frank
So it’s a 90 degree turn for the water.
Andy
Exactly.
Chris
Yeah.
Frank
Okay.
Andy
Yes. Imagine a blower fan, just a water version of that, so it comes in through the center and then it gets expelled along the outside.
Frank
Okay. Yeah.
So, well, with that different understanding of your, uh, configuration, have you ever heard of the Tesla turbine?
Andy
Uh, that I have, and that is something that could work in that situation.
I think the Tesla turbine is pretty good with static pressures too, isn’t it?
Frank
I believe so, um, but from everything I’ve seen, it is really good at the 90 degree turn for a pump.
Andy
Yeah. I know it’s really good for dirty, uh, waters and things like that as well, because it’s just using the, the surface tension of the water against the blades themselves. But, um, so yeah, that, that actually could be, but I’ve got a feeling that the way these ones are designed here, um, the listeners can’t see this, but I’m gonna show you guys on the camera. You can see that the blades on this are just straight out, you know, and, and here’s the one that I’m printing, and you can kind of see how much larger the one that I’m printing is compared to the one that I’m holding.
This one, the smaller version is the original one, and this bigger version will easily still fit inside of the cavity, the smaller ones designed for and still give plenty of room around the outside of the impeller for that water to be expelled into the channel that, that then, you know, goes into the output pipe but that was a huge difference between those.
If you look at it, it’s more than like three times the size.
Frank
Yeah. I was going to say at least double, but three times I can see two.
Andy
Yeah.
So just having such a tiny little impeller and such a huge cavity for it just seemed so wrong that, you know, that you were losing out on a bunch.
So I’m experimenting when I made an attachment that would hook on to this smaller impeller, it did increase the overall output, but the attachment was bulky the way it connected into the impeller so it’d be drug along with it and things, and it was just kind of a proof of concept.
See if it’d be worth going, you know, further into it but reprinting the entire impeller, I think is going to give me the best output possible.
Then I can try playing with shrinking it down just a little bit, making it bigger just a little bit and see which one, you know, has the more output for it. So I got a lot of play with on this one here.
Frank
A dimension of thought for you to consider with it is the wood flexing the fins have any major effect so that they’re a little curved instead of straight out like they are on there.
Andy
Yeah, that would be worth playing with.
So I know a lot of air blowers have designs like that where they will flex into the stream or away from the stream or flat like this and when it comes to pneumatic applications, I do remember, don’t hold my feet to the fire on this one either, but the straight versions tend to give you the highest static pressure, but they’re very noisy.
I don’t remember which curved direction it is, but it has a reduced static pressure, but a huge reduction in noise and I don’t remember what the benefit was to the when they’re reversed the other way, but I’ve seen all three versions used in pneumatic applications.
So I wouldn’t be surprised if hydraulic ones like this one here would probably act the same way. and on this particular system, I’m going for a high static pressure.
So I’m sticking with the absolute straight fins.
Frank
Being concerned with the sound, that makes sense.
Chris
Water is just stiffer air when you’re talking about that.
Frank
Well, it’s all hydrodynamics, right?
Andy
Yeah.
Frank
Or liquid dynamics, not hydrodynamics.
Chris
Fluid dynamics.
Andy
Fluid dynamics.
So I don’t know which one will work better, but it’s been fun to experiment and you can see that this impeller is actually kind of a complicated part that was completely designed in FreeCAD without any problems.
I think I went back and had to readjust something two or three times during this construction of this piece, and FreeCAD never lost things.
Actually that’s a little bit of a lie.
I did have the um… I’ve got part of this beveled pretty harshly at the very tip and at one point I did change something, which put the plane that that drawing was attached to onto a different surface.
And so it was cutting out, it was pocketing an entirely different section than it was supposed to be but so I did have to go in and change that, but I knew how to do it. I knew exactly what the problem was when it happened, so it was less of an issue and it didn’t feel like a bug like it was before.
You know, I’d go in and make one change, and then all of a sudden there’s a huge hole or a different blob on the side of the part that wasn’t there before because, you know, a sketch should change the plane it was connected to.
Frank
So an interesting point for me is I got used to, like, I basically relearned CAD on FreeCAD.
And when I did move to Fusion 360, I actually still continue some of the habits I learned with FreeCAD, like fully parameterizing everything and doing individual sketches for each step.
Um, Things like that, and I almost feel like procedurally that’s probably a better approach anyway.
Andy
I think the only thing I missed behind it is making adjustments on things. It was nice and solid works to go to one that was like more of a master sketch. You know, any sketch that I had on a plane would only have one sketch for that entire plane.
And it encompassed all the things that were attached to it to extrude or to cut or whatever it may be. So it’s nice to go in and edit them that way.
Frank
I feel like I use the word parameter in a different context, but there is a way to parameterize your dimensions.
Andy
I know exactly what you’re talking about, like using variables for certain things, correct?
Frank
And then when you make a change, you can make a change in the parameters and it’ll change everything that references that point.
Andy
Yeah. I played around with that a little bit in solid works, but didn’t really get dig into it too bad and I think that’s one of the things I’m going to wait until I’m a little bit more fluent with FreeCAD before moving into that kind of system, but I bet it would make things quite a bit easier.
And it’s like things that you wouldn’t necessarily think you’d want to change are the things that you’d wind up going back to change.
Frank
So now I’m just thinking of the way that FreeCAD does it.
I can’t remember if, or not FreeCAD, Fusion does it and I don’t remember if FreeCAD does it, but with Fusion, every time you use a solid parameter, like you set a line for exactly 60 millimeters or something like that, it gets logged in the parameters.
And if you want to reference that point later, you can give it a name and then reference it by later dimensions.
Andy
Oh, so possibly just getting in the habit of naming all your parameters might be quite useful, because that has been a little bit of a problem where you want to do two separate things to an item and so you do two separate sketches, one on top of the other, but referencing one to the other, you’ve got to do individually and I felt like, wow, if I want to change the size of this hole, I’m not going to like three different sketches and change it in three different places in order to do that.
I know I could set up a variable for it, but it would be kind of neat if I could just do that with almost every single dimension you create. I’ve got to look at that.
Frank
And that is one of the values of parameterization right there, one of the big ones. Also because I’m upselling Fusion 360, apparently.
Andy
I need to get in and pay you for this.
Frank
In Fusion, you can actually reference other dimensions from the sketch that you’re in.
You have to tell it, I want to reference this dimension here, so you press the tool and then you click on the reference and it gets projected onto the surface that you’re working on from the perspective of your axis.
Andy
Now is this only things that are attached to the plane that you’re working on or can you do it stuff outside the plane that you’re working on?
Frank
You can do any of the bodies or any of the other sketches and it’ll project onto the sketch that you’re working on.
And I feel like there was a way to do that in FreeCAD, I just can’t remember what it is at this point.
So you’ve got two options that you should be able to research and figure it out.
Chris
Keep clicking buttons, you’ll find it.
Andy
Every time I dig in there to make something, I get a little bit more easy to use it.
And with SOLIDWORKS, I felt like I could just take what’s in my head and put it on the computer without any issues, but now that I’ve moved away from that, I feel like, oh, I’ve lost that option.
Now it’s really hard to come up with the things that I want to make. I think about some of the things I’ve made in the past, like my thermostat housing and stuff like that, thinking how would I even, I would be taking hours to sit and figure that out.
That would be a nightmare to do but every time I go in and do make something, I feel a little bit better and a little bit more capable of it.
Frank
And that’s really just, that’s what experience is, right?
Andy
Yeah.
Frank
You do reps and you play with it and figure it out, and the more experience you get, the easier it is to do gradually more complex things.
Andy
Yeah. Well, thanks for letting me get off on that tangent about that.
Frank
No, not a problem at all.
Kevin
You’re welcome.
Frank
Kevin, have you worked on anything this week?
Kevin
Just printing miniatures for tabletop gaming.
Chris
Which is like the coolest thing ever.
Frank
Yeah.
Andy
No kidding.
Frank
“I’m going to downplay this as much as I can. I’ve only been printing miniatures all week.”
Kevin
Well, I mean, that’s the reason I got this printer is so that I could do stuff like that. So, you know.
Chris
What? using it for what you intended?
Kevin
Yeah.
Frank
Wait! Back up!
Chris
We’re going to go back to the toilet paper story.
Frank
Or we can just reference it. I can’t remember what episode it was, though.
Chris
It was last episode.
Frank
Oh, was it?
Chris
Yeah.
Frank
Ok, so that’s episode 21 sometime in the first hour.
Kevin
No, it was episode 20.
Chris
Yeah.
Frank
Okay.
Chris
Anyway.
Kevin
Yeah.
Frank
Episode 20 sometime in the first hour of the episode.
Chris
Yep.
Kevin
Yeah. Now, the lame thing about that story, though, was that we were on our way to go do the toilet papering, and some guy who claiming to be a cop called us out on it and he was like, “Answer my questions,” and he confiscated our toilet paper.
Chris
Yeah. He was just getting free. He was just getting free stock. It is home.
Kevin
Yeah. I would believe something like that happening in 2020. I’m surprised it happened when you guys were so young.
Kevin
Yeah. You’re good. “You’re out past curfew. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.”
Frank
You’re not wearing your mask correctly. I’m going to take your toilet paper.
Andy
Definitely good representation of our past three years here.
Kevin
Right?
Chris
Well, that’s the thing though is like when we were kids, you know, if somebody really ticked you off, yeah, you used eggs and toilet paper, right?
Frank
And now we think that these are resources that we can’t.
Chris
Incredibly valuable commodities.
Frank
What’s less valuable now? What would you do to deface temporarily you know, we don’t want to actually like be destructive about it with like spray paint or something that that would be excessive.
Chris
No.
Andy
What would we get someone wet with a super soaker be looked on down, down on with the way our water situation is.
Frank
Right, especially…
Chris
You could use… you could use milk in a super soaker because it’s still… for a carton of eggs, you can buy two gallons of milk.
Andy
Yeah.
Frank
It doesn’t make the milk… That suggests that milk prices have gone up too, which they have, but it’s still not…
Kevin
That would be stinky.
Frank
It’s still not the kind of resource that we have enough of to throw away.
Andy
Could get those disc shooters and shoot people with pennies.
Chris
Yeah.
Frank
Because except for they’re more valuable than the copper they were cast out of or not cast but pressed with, so pennies sort of are maybe not the best.
Chris
They’re still they still cost more to produce than they’re worth.
Frank
Drywall mud.
Andy
Drywall mud. We could crush up all of our scrap prints and leave them in their yard.
Frank
I bet you can still get a five gallon bucket if you don’t want to mix it yourself. You could get a five gallon bucket of mud for just a handful of bucks.
Andy
Yeah.
Frank
You could have some good fun and go put it all over somebody’s windows and house and all that. They’ll be irritated, but if they spray it enough, it’ll come off.
Andy
Yeah.
Chris
We’re horrible people.
Frank
Maybe you’re a horrible person, but I just thought of a new outlet for all the youngsters in our neighborhood. So I’m the I’m the good person here.
Chris
Sure.
Andy
What about you, Frank? You do anything fun?
Frank
Well, I’ve been designing a case for my calipers. I bought a third set of calibers. These are veneer calipers with the laser at or metal, veneer calipers with the laser etched increments, and they’re accurate to 0.025 millimeters, and my dad is a machinist, always had the dial so he could be accurate to three 10 thousandths of an inch and that sort of thing. I don’t know how that would translate to millimeters, but these are really nice calipers and the other two sets that I’ve got, I decided needed to have a nice case like the new ones I got. So I’ve been designing one of those, I think that a PLA hinge, a living hinge should be just fine as long as I don’t, you know, leave them out in the cold or something like that. I did print off a small lathe chuck just to play with, you know, makes for a good little DIYer category of a fidget spinner.
Andy
Yeah.
Chris
Well, you know, I said you should have printed it in orange or orangeish yellow so you could call it Chuck E. Cheese.
Frank
I guess I could have should have would have. If I had it orange and and talk to you about it before I did so.
Andy
Yes, you now need approval before ever using your printer. Make sure that we can’t adjust the color youre printing.
Frank
Because getting approval for my wife before I do something is asking too much as it is anyway, why not also have me consult with my friends about it before I decide about the print.
Chris
You can still paint it. Anyway.
Frank
I can at that.
Chris
I just like using colors and this was a great opportunity to throw a color in for a joke.
Frank
Gotcha. Well, all your jokes tend to be off color anyway, so
Chris
Hey, egg shell is still white.
Chris
Hey, you know what, I couldn’t help it. That pitch was so slow, I couldn’t help but swing. The last thing I did a little bit of research on and have kind of contemplated my own design for is what’s called a longworth chuck and it’s a chuck that is actually designed for bowl makers on the lathe where when they turn it around to clean up the bottom, their chuck is usually not the right size and potentially too strong and would damage the lip of the bowl or the edge of the bowl. So this longworth chuck was designed with, you know, six or more points of contact that tighten and center the bowl so that you can clean up the base real easy and I’m thinking about designing one of those and putting it on a turntable that a friend is going to put together for me so that I can use it to stabilize things that I’m staining or painting in my workshop. So, but that’s everything I’ve worked on this week.
Andy
Well, that’ll be a neat project.
Frank
Yeah. Our topic this week is things you should never use a 3D printer for.
Andy
I think we should let Chris go through his topics first. He’s got some very, very good and important, very serious topics to address here.
Kevin
True.
Chris
Well, I was inspired because I remembered when Andy was using his printer as a fish tank parts dryer.
Andy
A regolith dryer.
Frank
To warm up his fish tank and dry it out, right?
Andy
Hey, just so the users know, I mean, it made sense. I had a bag full of dirt I needed to dry out. So I put it on top of the bag, I opened the bag up, I turned the bed heater on and then I positioned the print head right over the opening of the bag and then I cranked up the parts cooler fan on that and so it would blow into the bag and you know what, after sitting there for a day or two, it was completely dry, it worked out really good.
Frank
I mean, at some point, I guess you could rig up a different kind of air ventilation situation that sucks the heat off of your hot end even and blows it straight down into the bag and just make use of all of the hot parts.
Andy
Yeah, no kidding, but definitely not the intended purpose of the machine but and it’s not something I have to do a lot of, no point in building something to do that particular task, but you know, it was good use of the printer.
Frank
Slow down, we have to do things with a purpose on these things.
Chris
I thought that’s what I got the thing for.
Frank
I’ve been using it wrong.
Chris
I don’t know, it’s kind of like using, it’s kind of like using your dishwasher to clean your baseball hats or to dry your baseball hats, you know, in my mind, yes, it’s an acceptable, it can be used that way, but it’s kind of counterintuitive, I guess, I don’t know.
Frank
Yeah.
Andy
When you find extra uses like that, like the dishwasher is a great example of being able to clean stuff. I remember 3D printing a special nozzle for my dishwasher that I could take the upper cage out of the dishwasher and then 3D printed nozzle would fit right over the the output for that.
Chris
For the upper rack. Yeah.
Andy
Yeah, for the upper rack and that way it would still have the back pressure and work properly so that I could put way oversized things into the dishwasher and that worked out really well and was completely against what it was designed for.
Chris
Well, you’re still putting dishes in the dishwasher at that point, even though I mean my workaround for this issue was I just got the longer, less deep sinks. So I’m still washing those by hand as opposed to you, you just change out a plug and there you go, you can wash the big stuff in your dishwasher.
Andy
Yeah, yeah, that’s true. And that’s what I did. I got, I like to keep my pots and pans out in the open, it’s kind of hard to describe, instead of putting everything inside of a cabinet. I’ve got two very large chains that come from the ceiling and form like a parabolic curve and I’ve got a bunch of hooks on those chains that way you can you can hook the pans up and you could hold a lot of pans in that area works really well but dust is a problem. So every, I don’t know, every three or four months the pans and pots that you don’t use a whole lot will start getting dust on them, and it’s really nice just to take that upper carriage out of the dishwasher, put my little spray plug in there that I 3D printed and they just dump all the pans in there and just let them go through a wash cycle with just some hot water to get rid of all the dust, pretty useful.
Chris
Well, to be honest, it’s a great use of space too, you know, I ended up spending just thousands of dollars and getting a extra big cabinet for all of the all of the pots and pans in my kitchen.
andy
That works too.
chris
I mean, so yeah, it’s using space but you know yours is I think is a better use of space in that regard and you didn’t have to spend thousands of dollars for extra cabinets.
Andy
Thanks. Yeah, and it’s right over the the peninsula in the kitchen too and I got some overhead can lights right there so if I was to put counter cabinets up in that space I would lose those can lights but I can have those chains right there and the can lights are still in place and they just kind of shine through the dishes and all works out really well.
Chris
Yeah, actually, no, I’ve been in your kitchen and I, I love the way you’ve got the lighting. It works great. It works great!
Frank
And my wife and I have been trying to figure out how to use the back corner of our pot space, you know how the cabinets are put in, you know, when they’re installed to support the counter, they’ll use a cabinet to put in the back, but it’s really hard to utilize that space.
Andy
Yeah, I know exactly what your talking about.
Frank
Because it’s all kind of out of reach and kind of lately I saw somebody’s solution where the it’s kind of almost like a lazy Susan where you turn it to get to the stuff that’s in the back, but it’s also on arms. So when it’s in, it looks like a regular shelf, but when you pull it out, it does this kind of zigzag extension thing and pulls out of that back corner and presents it so that you can put stuff on it.
Chris
Yeah, it’s kind of like a double J shape, right? Yeah.
Frank
Yeah, and it’s like, that is something I’m going to have to work on and come up with my own solution. It’s a good thing I have a 3D printer, and utilize it for the shelf and rather than spending retail prices to buy all the hardware.
Chris
Yeah, because it’d be at least a grand to do all that.
Frank
And I’m a cheap bastard.
Chris
Yep, we all are.
Andy
That’d be a neat project to do too. It’d be a fun one to sit down and try to build.
Chris
Anyway, yeah, so we were basically saying that, you know, even though Andy’s modified his dishwasher, he still uses his dishwasher for just dishes. So we bought 3D printers and we should really use them for printing things.
Andy
I’m trying to think up some reason to use the dishwasher without using it on dishes, but I just didn’t come up with anything.
Frank
So we say that and all I can think is, but it uses CAD software or not CAD, but it uses like a table mill software that has been modified and applied to a 3D printer. So it’s not really an abuse of the framework or the soft, you know, the Merlin controller or anything like that.
Chris
To convert it into a CNC?
Frank
Yeah, why not? Or any other like I’ve seen people use it to do sketches like they’ll draw it and then just give, you know, convert it to G code and have their printer draw it with a pencil or a pen
Chris
or turn it into a turn it into a Cricut.
Frank
Yeah. And it’s not an abuse of anything that it wasn’t designed to do before it got applied to 3D printing.
Andy
Yeah. Oh, you got a good point. There’s a lot of neat little tools to do like laser etching and things like that. You can utilize your printer for.
Frank
Just to narrow our expectations of what you shouldn’t use a 3D printer for.
Chris
Yeah. So I did see a guy.
Kevin
For example. Oh, sorry.
Chris
Go ahead, Kev.
Kevin
I was going to say, for example, we learned that you shouldn’t use a 3D printer to try to record a theme song for a podcast about 3D printing.
Andy
Yeah. Using a 3D printer as a musical instrument had a couple extra steps to it. It just didn’t work out as good as that is hoping.
Frank
It doesn’t mean we can’t still, it just means that it’s more complex than we expected.
Andy
You guys heard it play our theme song. It did work. It did sing for us. It just was very difficult to record.
Frank
Yeah.
Chris
You know what, Andy? I’ve got a suction cup mic in my box of miscellaneous things. Let me get that and you can stick it on your build plate. Try it again.
Andy
Well, the only thing is is the motor, the actual stepper motor is the only thing that’s really making the sound, you know, the noise. So you’d have to have to clip it right up to the motor itself. When you guys were listening to what I was doing, I had the mic physically touching the motor so it would be loud enough because it was so quiet. But you know, out of everything that we tried with Kevin’s intro music, I think just playing it like we have been sounds the best.
It would have been neat to have it played with the printer, but you know.
Frank
And we’ve still got plans that I assume warmer weather is going to make it easier to do where we’ve talked about playing it on other instruments. So…
Chris
Yeah
Frank
we’ll see where that goes or even just, you know, reformatting it with different instruments in the electronic software that was played in in the first place.
Andy
Yeah, we could play with it from here and there would be nice for occasionally play it on as the intro and exit different ways that we’ve come up with just to kind of, you know, break it up and be a little bit different with our intro music once in a while.
Frank
Maybe when we cross that one year mark, we’ll have something to put up.
Andy
Hey, there you go.
Frank
We’re half way there. So it’s not as improbable as it was six months ago.
Andy
Yeah, but definitely, I feel like we’ve been doing this for six months.
Frank
We’re getting there.
Chris
Wow.
Kevin
Yeah.
Chris
Yeah. I saw a post about a guy that is using, he’d converted his 3D printer to a sprayer like to wash things and then turn around and he’d paint with it and I still doesn’t make sense to me.
Kevin
Yeah.
Andy
Seems like a lot of extra work, right?
Kevin
And expense like they already make air compressors and and spray nozzles and air brushes.
Chris
Yeah.
Frank
And half the value of using an airbrush is the artist that is operating the thing anyway. Maybe if you were doing a two-dimensional and you wanted to reuse a design over and over, there would be value in that.
Kevin
Yeah.
Chris
Like program at once and then print the same miniature or whatever you’ve got on your bed plate, you know, print the exact same thing several times in a row.
Frank
Except for I wouldn’t expect it to be a 3D situation where it would be valuable. I mean, I guess technically you could use the same process on like a 12-axis robotic arm to do a 3D part and have the same print done or the same paint job done on each part.
Chris
That seems particularly…
Frank
complex and expensive? I agree.
Andy
Well, a lot of those arms can also record motion too. So if you set it up to be able to do the actual printing, you might be able to have a person come in and holding the arm itself do the painting and then have it record those motions and be able to replay them as needed too. So it’d be fun to have one of those.
Frank
If you were having it, say, loose enough that a person can grab a handle at the end and control where it was painting, it would be able to repeat what the person did, but it wouldn’t be able to make decisions in the same way. They could have done a turn or a motion specifically because they saw a place that wasn’t painted that well. And it doesn’t mean that that spot would be painted in that same quality every time. And so over time, it would have extra paint in this one spot.
Chris
You know, it’s like sharing a JPEG across the internet. You know, eventually it comes back and you’ll see it and it’s lost a lot of its quality.
Frank
That’s because it’s a copy of a copy of a copy.
Chris
You know, something similar situation, I think, yeah.
Andy
Which normally the digital world, that wouldn’t be a problem, but I think a lot of that comes from people grabbing a dang thumbnail and sharing it as the full size image. It’s the real problem.
I’m going to grab the thumbnail and then blow it up because I don’t want to pay whatever this person put as the gate to get in like a newspaper or whatever.”
Andy
Yeah.
Frank
“So I’m just going to take the thumbnail and reuse that.” Yeah.
Andy
Very true.
Frank
Because the thumbnail has been reduced in quality just because of the size it needs to be. There’s no sense in having a full size image worth of quality in that thumbnail.
Andy
Yeah.
Frank
It is what it is, man.
Andy
So true.
Chris
So we’re going back to things not to use your printer for. I said toast. Don’t make toast with your printer. Realistically though, the reason I’m going with that is because you can use it in a 3D motion to make, you know, turn the hot end on, burn your toast so that you get Jesus toast every time.
Andy
That’s actually not a bad idea.
Frank
The first time you say toaster, I think of the bed plate. But yeah, if you’re using the hot end to toast your bread?
Andy
Just drag the tip through the bread, letting it coast.
Frank
Now. The surface area, that would be, that would be kind of problematic.
Andy
Okay. I’ve got to Google Search this. Somebody is bound to have done that.
Frank
If not, Google will find it for me later. The algorithm will find it for us later, and I’ll share it for you if you can find it.
Andy
Oh, dear. That is funny.
Chris
So yeah.
Chris
Okay. So there was that on my list. And then, you know.
Andy
Okay. So I got to share this because I just, I had to Google this and what I’m finding is someone has taken a, you know, the hot work tool for soldering, that’s the, you know, the solders with air. There’s a name for it, I don’t know what it is.
Chris
Oh, yeah.
Andy
It’s for, yeah, it’s like a heat gun, but it’s usually on a two, it’s usually a really small, very precise kind of heat gun where you got a very small nozzle, and somebody has strapped one of those to their printer and printed toast. You’re going to love this right here. I got a copy.
Chris
Yeah. Post the link.
Andy
Yeah.
Frank
Printed toast. As in they put dough in one side and it prints toast out the other? It’s, sorry, I didn’t mean to derail you. That was just.
Andy
No, you’re fine. I’m just, I’m absolutely loving this here and I really want to share it, but you know how fast things move when you’re trying to do something quickly and talk at the same time and it’s just turning into a mess?
Frank
Multitasking is a fallacy that doesn’t actually exist. I mean, sure, there’s maybe like 4% of the population that can actually genuinely multitask.
Andy
Yeah.
Frank
But for the typical person, it’s really task switching and that usually takes about 20 minutes to properly switch tasks from one thing to another. So…
Andy
Yeah. Yeah. Well anyway, what makes it even best is the first thing they printed in their bed was Hello World and I can’t think of a better thing to be able to do.
Frank
And as programmers, that’s the favorite thing that all programmers like to do.
Chris
And there it is.
Frank
Yeah.
Chris
Wow.
Andy
It’s beautiful.
Frank
Okay. So if we were to take this idea and expand on it, you get the right kind of laser, you don’t need the heat gun. It’s just overheating that little bit of bread without contacting with any kind of heat.
Chris
Okay. So actually, this is a useful context. You’ve got a wood burning.
Frank
Yeah. Okay.
Kevin
Yeah.
Chris
Okay.
Frank
Except for when you’re doing the wood burning, you have to have some way to hold the, well, I guess you could just hold it on the handle that the person is supposed to be able to touch anyway. But the length of the wood burner, well, I always thought it was a soldering iron until I saw that you could only find it as a wood burner, because my dad, anyway. So there’s the handle part. I guess you could mount on your printer and set to zero just as easily as anything else. And then you could use it as a wood burner in a two-dimensional aspect.
Chris
Yeah.
Andy
Put a syringe extruder on it, heat the bed up really hot, you can make pancakes.
Frank
There you go.
Chris
Yes.
Frank
Or you take your bed and remove all of the unnecessary parts and put an electronic hot plate on it.
Andy
Yeah.
Frank
And then, you know, a flat skillet on top of that and, you know, arrange everything so that the zero is easy to find that way and there you go. You don’t have to use the low temperature heat bed to do it.
Andy
Well, how hot does the bed, I don’t even know how hot my bed can get. I wonder if that would be usable, usable. Cause I mean, the glass it’s made out of is the same thing that, you know, stove’s tops are made out of. It’s the same thing.
Chris
Yeah.
Frank
I just know that for sure, I hesitate. I feel like my, my printer struggles to get higher than 60 degrees Celsius.
Andy
So does it really?
Frank
Yeah.
Chris
I think mine has an availability up to 90.
Andy
Is your, is your bed 24 volts or 110?
Frank
Um, I don’t know.
Andy
No biggie. Okay. So my bed on my Tivo can get up to 260 degrees C.
Frank
Really?
Chris
He can boil water.
Andy
Oh, that’s a lie. 110. I was reading that. That was the extruder temperature. Okay. 110 degrees C.
Frank
It’s still hot enough to boil water.
Andy
Yeah.
Chris
Holy moly. You could actually use yours as a pancake…
Frank
On the subject of using it for things that you’re not supposed to. If you got hungry while you were downstairs and didn’t want to use the stove, you could make a pot of ramen noodles off of your printer without changing anything.
Chris
Just need a coffee pot. Yeah. Holy moly. Okay. So.
Frank
Brew coffee on it.
Andy
Okay. So just as a thought here, Marlin will let me bring the bed up to 140 degrees. And I, I think the hottest I ever really set it for is only been about 80 degrees. So I haven’t seen this, if it’ll actually get that hot. I mean, it’ll heat up to 80 degrees pretty quickly. So I don’t think it would be a problem getting up to temperature, but I just never tried. Yeah. 140 degrees C. That’s pretty hot for a bed.
Frank
Yeah.
Andy
I don’t see a need for that.
Frank
Unless you’re making ramen noodles or coffee.
Andy
Yeah. That’s true. But gosh, anything over 100 would be fine. You could actually close to 100. Well, yeah. Well, there’s the next thing on my list.
Frank
Actually it does need to be a little bit past 100 because it’ll, it won’t necessarily boil the tap water, especially because he’s got a little bit past to have the extra energy to put into it.
Chris
You got a little bit lost.
Andy
That is true to boil, but I think he could still make a ramen with under boiling, you know, water.
Frank
Fair. It doesn’t actually need to be boiling to throw the noodles in anyway.
Chris
It just needs to be close.
Kevin
Well, in our elevation, 100 degrees C would probably actually boil the tap water, even with the boiling point elevation that goes on because we’re so high. I mean, it’s 100 degrees C at sea level for pure water.
Frank
Yeah.
Kevin
The boiling point decreases the higher in elevation you go.
Frank
Yeah. Absolutely.
Chris
Good point.
Frank
That actually reminds me.
Chris
Uh-oh.
Andy
I wonder, this is kind of a tangent, but just what you’re talking about made me think of it. I wonder if you can draw a filament.
Frank
A tangent from Andy? Say it ain’t so!
Kevin
I was going to say a tangent in the podcast, but anyway.
Chris
Tangerine? We’re on Tangerines let’s go.
Andy
I wonder if you could dry filament, I wonder if you could dry filament in a vacuum chamber if you would.
Frank
I would expect so.
Andy
You would cause the water to boil off.
Kevin
Yeah. Probably, I’d expect there’d probably be some expansion.
Frank
Except for the vacuum chamber would be a closed, it would be a closed environment. So the water would boil and potentially overheat the plastic in my mind.
Andy
Well, it doesn’t. When you boil in a vacuum, you don’t get a temperature out of it. You don’t get heat out of it when you boil in a vacuum.
Kevin
Right.
Chris
Yeah.
Frank
Well, except for the same thing that makes the water boil would, I would expect experimentation is what’s required here. Let’s be honest. Okay. So this is strictly hypothesis without any context.
Andy
Yeah.
Frank
But the initial, my initial hypothesis would be that the same thing that makes the water boil in a vacuum would also weaken the plastic. If not.
Chris
Yeah.
Frank
Boil it as well.
Chris
Yeah. It would probably leave pits.
Frank
Or at the very least, the expansion of the water that results in the boiling would damage the plastic.
Chris
Yeah. D-deformer.
Frank
Yeah, because it would have been absorbed by the plastic.
Andy
Next time I got some plastic that’s printing like crap because it’s got too much water in it, I’m going to cut some off and put it in the vacuum chamber for a few minutes and see if it prints any better just to be curious.
Frank
Yeah. That, well, okay. So if it works with that little pace, we need to do some more experimentation. I feel like that would be a faster, better way if it works.
Andy
Yeah.
Frank
It would be a faster, better way to dehydrate your filament than putting it in the freaking food dehydrator.
Andy
Yeah. Exactly. It would take far less time. However.
Frank
And all you would need is a shop vac and some fittings.
Andy
No. Well, you’d have to get, like, it’d have to be an actual vacuum chamber.
Frank
Oh.
Andy
To get water to boil. A shop vac won’t get close.
Chris
Yeah, but you need to keep it sealed. But that’s the thing though, is like vacuum chambers are not particularly expensive.
Andy
Yeah. I bought mine for like $150.
Chris
Yeah.
Frank
And you could make it for relatively inexpensive. I said vacuum and it’s like a shop vac does have more vac or generate more vacuum than a regular say carpet vacuum. But it really doesn’t take a whole lot to create enough vacuum to boil the water. And if we were to get like an air pump that was designed to create a vacuum, I’m sure you can get one off of Amazon for not too expensive. And just the proper hoses and fixtures and you can make your own small vacuum chamber.
Chris
I think the most important thing about that is the one way valve that maintains the vacuum. The maintains the vacuum.
Frank
And smooths out the pump because it’ll fluctuate.
Amdu
But the vacuum pump themselves will take care of all that if you buy an actual single stage, even a single stage vacuum pump will be ready for all that. You just got to have the chamber to hook it up to. But doing a little bit of quick research here, I’m seeing a lot of things that saying, yeah, it does work for filament, but not as good as he and on top of it to if you’ve got filament that’s also getting a little bit on the brittle side like PLA can do and it’s been left out for a while. The heat will really recondition the plastic to and make it soft and again and be beneficial that way. So I think I’m definitely sticking to heat, but the hydrating and the vacuum sounded kind of like a fun little thing.
Frank
Yeah, definitely have to try it out.
Chris
Kevin’s got internet issues, so he may join us possibly…
Frank
rejoin and then show up and not say anything for a little while. We love Kevin. We do. We just talk about stuff that he’s not as as deeply interested in as we are.
Andy
Yeah, well, he lives in a little bit of a different world with his style of printer too.
Kevin
I’m back.
Frank
Yeah. Saw that.
Andy
That’s fine. That’s totally fine. It’s nice to have his perspective with the BSLA.
Chris
That’s the thing, though, is he has a completely different printer than ours, which makes his input all the more important for having a rounded podcast.
Frank
When he deems to grace us with his perspective.
Andy
Yeah. But every time he does, there’s really important information he’s got from his perspective.
Frank
True. Maybe that’s the lesson we should take from this, Chris. The less you talk, the more important it seems like what you’re saying is.
Andy
Is that why nobody listens to me?
Chris
No, that’s why I’ve got solutions for, I’ve got smart solutions for all your problems when they…
Frank
Because it’s one of the few things that you actually…
Chris
yup we can hear you Kev.
Kevin
Okay.
Andy
So I’ve got a bone to pick with Chris using his printer as a burrito warmer. I think it would be work fine for a burrito warmer.
Chris
Yeah, but then you have to, it’s cleaning it off to get a good print after that. It gets kind of greasy.
Frank
Yeah.
Kevin
Well, it’s better than making nachos.
Chris
Good point. Good point. I mean, nothing a little glass cleaner won’t take care of, but you know, then you got that plastic-y taste on your mouth.
Frank
I use the water we dish soap on my printer surface anyway. And the reason I do the dish soap is because it breaks down any of the oils from my hands that end up on the print bed. So.
Chris
That’s why I use glass cleaner.
Frank
Grease from the burrito wouldn’t be a whole lot different.
Chris
Yeah. That’s a good point.
Frank
I mean, that dish soap works on everything from engine grease to pork fat. So…
Chris
Go ahead.
Frank
Yes. Continue.
Andy
One of the things I noticed people using their 3D printer to print, to make a point that really sticks in my head is I’ve seen somebody 3D print a ball hitch adapter for the actual ball itself on your hitch.
Chris
No No. Don’t.
Andy
The whole point was to show that it could do it and do it well and would be pretty strong. And I, you know, the video that I seen showed them pull around their boat with it with the big ball bolted into the plastic arm that was inside of their hitch adapter on their truck. And, you know, they were just pointing out that, yeah, PLA can be strong. And I saw that and, you know, they did all the, all the precautions of, oh, this is definitely not something you should be using your 3D printer for. We just wanted to show you how strong it can be. And that’s always stuck in my mind that, yeah, someone used it to 3D print a…
Chris
Okay. That guy needs to take his 3D printer and attach it to his boat as a boat anchor. He should not be using his 3D printer.
Frank
Chris, it, it’s not a Mac.
Andy
Oh, dear.
Chris
But seriously though, I’ve got that on my list. Don’t use it as a boat anchor, but I think I was just shown wrong.
Frank
I mean, the printer, I guess, technically would work as a boat anchor.
Chris
For smaller ones, these things actually, these things actually aren’t that heavy.
Frank
One thing that a lot of people don’t seem to realize though is boat anchors are not what holds the boat. It’s the chain or the rope. So the anchor just keeps the end from moving around, but the, the rope or the chain is, it’s the weight of the rope or the chain that keeps it from drifting.
Andy
Okay.
Frank
And the anchor just makes for a central point around which the boat will drift.
Andy
Oh, okay. That makes sense. I see some videos the other day of how new anchors, the more flat looking ones, how they tend to work in the sand at the bottom and things like that to aid to it.
Frank
Cause they scoop it up.
Andy
Yeah. Yeah. But, but yeah, thinking even back on those videos, most of the line was still lying on the ground. I guess it gives it that friction.
Frank
Well, and especially when you talk big, like a carrier or in my experience, you know, the big Navy ships.
Frank
Yeah. They’re anchors on the big Navy ships are 20 feet across. I think.
Andy
Oh, wow.
Frank
Yeah. They are massive and they’re solid steel or a cast iron even. Yeah. So, you know, there’s several tons and it doesn’t matter if you’re talking metric or imperial at that point, tons of steel. And the chain links, though, are comparatively as big like, I’d say,
Chris
volumetrically bigger than a…
Frank
four-feet or five feet for each link. And you run out several hundred feet of that chain, a thousand feet of that chain. That’s enough weight to keep your aircraft carrier from drifting too far.
Andy
Makes sense.
Frank
And, you know, as much weight as the anchor has, it would never hold an aircraft carrier in place.
Andy
Yeah. Got a good point. Just that friction along the bottom, I guess.
Frank
Mm-hmm.
Andy
Interesting. One of the things that I added to this list, when I was originally thinking about things you shouldn’t use the printer for, I was thinking about things you shouldn’t try to be 3D printing and using, kind of like my ball hitch example, not actually using the printer itself for, but that turned into a much more exciting topic than the one I was thinking about. But to point out, one of the things that I was thinking about is, you know, it’s coming up with a lot of things that you shouldn’t be using it for this, but then why not? You know, like one of the things that I made back in the day for my little brother wanted a specific size of weight for his weight set that just, they just didn’t make. He just wanted one that was just a little bit heavier. And so we sat down and we 3D printed a weight that filled with sand to come up with the weight. So even coming up, you know, using the plastic as a form for heavy things was still quite effective, you know, quite effective. You could make that boat anchor and 3D print a boat anchor, as long as you don’t fill it with enough heavy material or whatnot.
Chris
That’s true. That’s kind of like me putting the countersinks in my lures that I printed.
Andy
Yeah, yeah.
Chyris
Same concept. Yep.
Andy
We’ve made model rockets that worked really well.
Frank
I know they made out of cardboard.
Andy
Yeah, but we use Etsy engines to power them. And whenever we’ve made our own engines, like sugar rocket engines, we’ve used old Etsy engine cartridges for the engine itself. So, you know, even though it was in a 3D rocket, it still was, you know, not using, you weren’t using the plastic to contain the, you know, the,
Frank
you say Etsy and that doesn’t feel right. Is it Estes?
Andy
Yes. Yes. Okay.
Frank
Um, but yeah, and if I remember right, those little rockets are still cardboard housings for the engine.
Andy
Yep, they’re, yep they are.
Frank
But they’re also designed to catch, it’s okay if they catch fire at the end of their life cycle because, you know, everything’s going to blow up at that point in any way.
Andy
Yeah. And they don’t, like I’m pretty certain it’s flame retarded too that they hate it out of because they don’t ever seem to stay aflame when they do.
Frank
At that point, it’s just like a firework though, right? So yeah, it’s designed to be as flame retardant as it needs to be, to be used, but not necessarily not enough to be reused.
Chris
But cheap enough and easy enough to produce
Frank
So plastic I expect would burn slower than cardboard and you can even treat it so that it was a little more flame retardant, at least on the surface.
Andy
When I started making those sugar rocket engines, we started out with PVC plastic to make them out of and that does work and it works out pretty good, but you really only get one fire out of each engine because you do melt down the plastic, so.
Chris
So yes, so as we’ve discussed all of these different things, but we want to make sure that all of our listeners know we do not do this personally and we do not endorse using them in these ways, yeah, there’s no specific instructions, but we say don’t do it.
Frank
We are not liable for the decisions you make all on your own.
Andy
Thank you.
Frank
Well, if somebody tries, you know, we’ll just have to kill the podcast and live in poverty for the rest of our lives. So.
Kevin
Oh yeah, because we’re making so much money off of this podcast.
Chris
You guys are getting paid?
Kevin
No.
Frank
Chris, I guess I should be more mad at Kevin, Kevin, how could you let that out Out of the bag? No, we don’t ask for money and I joke and maybe one day we will have sponsors, but no. We do this at our own expense.
Andy
Yeah.
Chris
Moving on to SLA printers, yeah, you don’t want to use it as a solvent container or paint containers at all.
Kevin
No, you would not.
Andy
Is there any way you could really use an SLA printer the way we’re abusing our printers?
Kevin
No, it doesn’t heat up so you can’t do anything like that. But I would say if you’re using an SLA printer, don’t print anything that you ever plan on having come in contact with food just to be on the same side.
Frank
Yeah, that’s, well, if not the plastic itself, the solvent that you use on it or the extra curing process, I’m sure put stuff on the surface that you don’t necessarily want to accidentally consume.
Kevin
Well, the curing process is just blasting it with UV light, but yeah, you’re washing it off with alcohol and it’s just, it might not be too hazardous because you can safely…
Frank
Wood grain alcohol?
Kevin
You can safely handle the models after you’ve printed them, it’s just kind of being extra cautious not to try to put anything that’s edible in them if you plan on eating it just to be on the safe side because of potential off-gassing or the micro particles that could still be on there. I mean, you can wash your hands and should be before you eat anyway and…
Frank
I mean, okay, slow down. You used a derby word there.
Andy
Wash?
Frank
Should.
Kevin
Wash should be the opposite of dirty?
Frank
The word “should” is a dirty word.
Chris
Because you can’t have plausible deniability when you talk about things, right?
Frank
No, especially not in tech or science in general. Well, it shouldn’t do that while it did, guess what?
Kevin
There’s a difference between that “should” and the “should” that I just used as in making a suggestion.
Frank
Well, no, no, no, you said people should wash their hands.
Kevin
I said you should be washing your hands.
Frank
If there’s anything we’ve learned in the last three years is that there’s a non-zero percent of the population who has a problem with that.
Kevin
Oh, I fully recognize that, but they still should be washing their hands. It’s not saying that they are.
Andy
Yeah.
Chris
Ew. Just ew. I’m sorry.
Andy
Yeah.
Frank
And that’s about as close as we try to get to politics anyway, so continue.
Andy
Yeah, uncured resin can be quite dangerous to ingest, so I kind of agree with Kevin.
Kevin
Uncured resin is terrible.
Andy
And it’s so easy to get little pockets and things like that inside the prints that could lead to being uncured.
Kevin
And I think that right there is the biggest reason you shouldn’t use SLA-printed models for food containers or anything like that is because you never know if there is still a pocket of uncured resin in there that could leak out.
Andy
Yeah. And for FDM, our layer lines are always so thick. I mean, the plastics itself, sure, they can off-gas a little bit. They’re probably not in much more of a risk than you would be drinking out of a PET water bottle and stuff like that, but what we’ve got to remember is those layer lines are just a breeding ground for bacteria and food particles to get stuck in and stuff like that. And that’s the more main concern I think that the FDM, using it as food is, if you’re going to make like a cookie cutter or something like that, it’s more of a one-time use thing and then should be thrown away once it’s been in contact with food. You don’t want to hold on to something like that because it’s just going to be a breeding ground for stuff.
Chris
Well, and see, I’ve printed cookie cutters, but for decoration, you know, they’re not actually, well, no, that’s not entirely true. I printed the biscuit, the fish biscuit thing. We did actually use that.
Frank
And there is.
Chris
But I threw it away because I put it in the dishwasher and the dishwasher warped it.
Frank
The thermoplastic didn’t hold its shape anymore.
Andy
I’ve printed some cookie cutters and used them, but they were only for one-time use. You know, we didn’t want to go and put those in storage and let stuff breed in the layer line cracks and inside the model, you know, and things like that. So, so there might be something, but
Frank
There are a couple of interesting facets of that. Number one, there are people that print and reuse the cookie cutters and, you know, would probably swear by them just because they haven’t experienced the issue that you’re concerned about, which is a valid concern. Number two, there are companies that have decided that printing food is an interesting thing to do with their printer. Like there are chocolate companies who do 3D printed chocolates that they sell and…
Andy
Those tend to be one-time use, though.
Frank
True. I mean, you don’t want to reuse that print. That would be a problem. But it’s going to sit there for a while until it does get used. So you have the same problem as you do with the 3D printed cookie cutter.
Chris
Sort of. You don’t have the same problems with high sugar foods as you do other foods. Like dairy derivatives. So anything that has dairy in it will tend to get bacterial growth quite a bit easier than anything that is high in sugar content.
Andy
Yeah.
Chris
A good example is I do use my salt and pepper shakers that I printed, but that’s because nothing grows in salt or pepper in that particular…
Andy
Yeah, very good point. Some people are overly cautious about 3D printing stuff with food or at least FDM 3D prints with food.
Frank
And, you know, they’re reasonable concerns. You know, anyone who criticizes them for being so concerned needs to be looked at a little bit closer because they are valid concerns.
Chris
Agreed.
Frank
Um, I would say definitely hesitate before you use a chocolate filament in your normally printing plastic FDM printer.
Chris
So just so you guys know, officially PET and PETG are the only types of plastic that are qualified as food safe.
Andy
Yeah.
Chris
Um, PLA, especially really cheap PLA, apparently can be have up to unapproved levels of lead in it for consumption, but okay for handling.
Frank
So maybe not eat off of PLA then?
Chris
So yeah.
Andy
Don’t eat PLA. Got it.
Chris
So just be aware of that, that it can have higher than accepted lead content. It’s still, you know, nothing I would, I think you ought to be concerned about, but…
Frank
And don’t accidentally get the chocolate brown PLA because we don’t want you to confuse the chocolate PLA with the actual chocolate.
Chris
Hey man. I am going full out. I’m, I’m, I’m a print cream eggs this year. Um, no, not really.
Frank
I don’t think I’m ever going to look Easter eggs the same way ever again. Not that I’ve looked at them the same way since my anthropology teacher described them as fertility idols.
Andy
So oh dear.
Chris
Cool.
Frank
So when you think about it, they’re all, everything Easter is a spring fertility idol.
Andy
Yeah.
Chris
No, I’m imagining.
Frank
From the eggs to the rabbits to the…
Chris
I’m imagining Andy 3D printing with, with, with some brown plastic and then 3D printing with some actual chocolate and making his kid try to figure out if it’s chocolate or not.
Frank
Is it cake? Is it chocolate? That would, that would be a really crappy TV show because the judges would go, “I don’t know.” “Is it chocolate?” “No. It’s not chocolate.”
Chris
Okay. Let’s see. The Kevin didn’t have anything on his list besides, besides that. Yeah.
Frank
Did you have anything you wanted to bring up there, Kev?
Chris
I already brought up the things I wanted to bring up. Okay. Looks like the last thing is, uh, don’t put it in your doc, don’t put it in your doctor’s and or dentist’s office for the kids to play with.
Frank
The printer, no, that, that could be problematic…
Kevin
Especially if it’s an SLA printer.
Frank
That, that, I don’t like that thought, but that, that is definitely something you should never do with your printer.
Chris
So yes, never let your, your kids play with your, your printer until they’re old enough.
Frank
It’s ill advised because, you know, we’ve already heard Kevin talk about letting his child.
Chris
Well, you know, these kids are old enough that I, I think that, you know, they’re, they’re at some point where they should be, yeah, they should be able to figure, figure it out.
Kevin
I do feel like I need to clarify though. Um, I let my child, uh, position and, and slice the images and do all of that prep work. But then I’m the one who poured the resin into the resin vat and got it go. And then I let him push “print.” So I’m, I’m the only one who has handled any of the liquid resin.
Frank
Fair.
Andy
That’s good.
Chris
Nice.
Frank
So you took an active part in making sure that he understood. You don’t want him doing the dangerous stuff.
Kevin
Right.
Frank
Unlike some parents. “Oh, he’ll figure it out.”
Chris
But you know, figuring out how to use the slicing software and that is important learning lessons. You know, I, I think he is a “A” plus dad on, on that part.
Frank
Less problematic than letting them touch a hot burner for instance. So yeah, well, if you guys don’t have anything else, we might as well wrap this up.
Chgris
Sure.
Frank
And I feel like, um, no, I was misreading that how did this go for two hours?
Andy
Did you stop your recording for the first recording?
Frank
I did.
Kevin
I’m sitting at an hour and a half on my audacity.
Andy
Me too.
Chris
Ditto.
Frank
Ah, I’m going to have to get
Andy
1.2 speed.
Frank
I don’t know. It just says two hours on there.
Andy
We’re going to hear Frank talking like this.
Frank
Oh, I was watching a video on an audacity and the guy was talking about how to make your voice sound like a demon’s voice. And I thought it would be fun to play with.
Andy
There you go. Oh dear.
Frank
Anyway, uh, why don’t we wrap this up and I can go work on the projects that are on the honeydew list. Cause I’ve been feeling like doing that this week and so I gotta finish my taxes too.
Chris
I’m excited to start refelting my pool table. I’m, I’m almost cleaned up enough in the basement where I can turn my tool, my pool table apart and put the new felt I got for Christmas on it.
Frank
Nice!
Andy
That’ll be a fun project.
Chris
Yep. So the ball polisher right after that…
Andy has a potty mouth
um, yeah. Andy’s just getting censored.
Frank
This whole segment is getting pulled out anyway, so, uh, wow, may have to go at the end with Andy being censored because that was a good one. We’ll see, uh, no, you’re not, I don’t believe any of you are sorry when you say stuff like that.
Andy
I’m not sorry. I’m not sorry.
Frank
Uh, we’d like to thank everyone for listening to the very end. Um, if you like what you hear, please give us all the stars and subscribe. We are available through a wide variety of podcast vendors and so are easy to share. If you have feedback or if you have content requests, please let us know. You can find us in our Facebook group, amateur3dpod, or you can email us at panelists@amateur3dpod.com. If you must reach out to us individually, you can do that at Franklin, Kevin, Andy or Chris@amateur3dpod.com. The music in this episode was written by Kevin Buckner and we are now going to have transcripts in the episode linked in the description. Um, the heavy listing of which was done by Whisper AI, which is a part of Open AI’s toolset. Our panelists are me, Franklin Christensen, and my friends, Kevin Buckner, Chris Weber, and Andy Cotta. Until next time, we’re going offline.
Kevin
Keep your FEP tight.
Chris
Sign off all ya suckers.
Frank
And nothing from Andy. All right
Chris
we’ll go with this. Okay. So, uh, you don’t want to ever, ever use your 3d printer to make casings for explosives, uh, et cetera. This includes,
Frank
Why not?
Andy
I think I got some.
Chris
Uh, uh, uh, I’ll refer you guys back to the exploding bottle incident where I almost lost my leg when we were young and dumb.
Andy
Oh, yes.
Kevin
When 3d printers were first getting, um, mainstream, uh, the, the news media had their panic about, well, people are going to use this to 3d print guns.
Andyu
Yeah, really. Like that works well.
Chris
And it’s not that simple.
Frank
Yeah, no, um, you might as well just be hitting the back of the bullet with a hammer.
Chris
Yeah.
Frank
Or, you know, using a shotgun, because the shotgun would be more accurate.
Kevin
And hitting the bullet with the back of the hammer would probably be safer than trying to hold one of these 3d printed guns in your hand and firing it…