Frank
Thank you for joining us.
This is episode 26 of Amateur 3D Podcast, a podcast by amateur printers, 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 Webber.
How’s it going, guys?
Kevin
Pretty good, eh?
Frank
Did we lose Kevin to the Canadians, then?
Kevin
Yeah, maybe a little bit.
Frank
Or is it just Wisconsin?
I mean…
Kevin
Don’t you know?
Frank
I guess it would depend on more or less French influence as well.
Andy
Yeah.
Chris
There’s that F word again.
Frank
Ah, jeez, I’m sorry.
It just keeps dropping in.
Kevin
You know, that reminds me of something that I heard on my mission.
It was a web missionary talking to the mission president’s wife, and they lived in the French side of Brussels.
And he said, because my mission had Dutch side and French side, you know.
And he said to her, “you know what the most important phrase you can learn in French is?”
And she said, “no, tell me.”
And he said, “Ik spreek je vieze taal niet.”
And I busted a gut as soon as he said that.
And she said, “what did you just say?”
And he said, what I just said was Dutch for, “I don’t speak your filthy language.”
Chris
Hmm.
Andy
Oh, that’s awful.
Frank
I mean, one could argue the same about English, and yet the language is everywhere.
Kevin
That’s true.
Andy
I think it just followed our money, really.
Chris
Colonization of the British Empire.
Frank
At least partly.
Chris
That’s a half of it.
Frank
If it wasn’t mostly English-speaking settlers in America, we could be speaking Spanish right now. Actual Spanish, not South American Spanish.
Chris
Or French.
Frank
Or French.
Kevin
Right.
Frank
But the British Isles exported a ton of people compared to the rest of Europe early on.
So yeah, Kevin, you work on anything this week?
Kevin
Not with my printer.
Still knitting for St. Jude.
Frank
Cool.
How much longer have you got that going?
Kevin
Through the whole month.
Frank
So it’s all over this march?
Kevin
Yes. All of March.
Sorry. What Andy?
Andy
I see some of the stuff you posted.
It looks really nice.
Kevin
Thank you.
Frank
Especially if you’re a Firefly flan… fan.
Andy
Definitely a skill I don’t have.
I’m envious of it.
Frank
I can’t knock anything out nearly as quick as Kevin does by far.
I mean, I’ve been working on a crochet scarf from my mom for three years, and I’ve got eight inches.
Andy
Okay.
Frank
So, Andy, have you worked on anything this week?
Andy
no.
not necessarily.
Kind of.
Kind of not.
Yeah.
After we spoke on our last podcast here, I sat down and tried to clean up my printer trying to figure out what’s going on with the poor print quality.
My bed, when you move it back and forth, you can feel like that there might be stuff on the track that those, I was looking for a word last podcast that was Delrin, the Delrin rollers.
Frank
Okay.
Yeah.
Andy
It feels like the rollers are rolling over garbage on the track, and it’s actually very noticeable when you’re moving it back and forth.
But I don’t see that in the print.
You’d expect, on one particular area along the Y-axis, you would get a bump or something.
Frank
Kind of hesitation, yeah.
Andy
Yeah.
And there’s not any of that.
The garbage is just kind of all over, but I went ahead and cleaned it up anyway.
I mean, I water-cooled my printer, and I’ve had plenty of leaks underneath it.
It sits on top of my washer and dryer.
And so the underside of the washer and dryer has gotten really kind of messy with those leaks and just kind of looks really bad with all the little plastic strings and stuff that come off during printing, and I use hairspray, and so that gives a place for everything to stick to.
And it was just kind of really gross.
So I completely took all of the tracks of my printer apart, replaced all the Delrin rollers on the bed.
The carriage, both the Z and the Y-axis, felt really good after I cleaned up the tracks themselves with just a damp rag, and they were moving nice and smooth again.
When I cleaned up the bed tracks, it didn’t change anything, and so I went and looking at the Delrin rollers.
It’s got six on mine for the bed, and two of them had chunks missing from the Delrin itself where it made contact with the track, and that’s what was causing the problem.
So I went ahead and replaced all six of those rollers.
I didn’t have enough rollers on hand to do the whole printer, otherwise I might have.
I went ahead and ordered some, so I will next time, but the Z and the X carriage feel pretty good right now.
I’m going to go ahead and go with that, but another thing I encountered when I was cleaning it up was my X carriage.
When you would physically move the carriage back and forth, you can see the belt where it’s rolling over the pulley on the stepper motor, you could see it jump teeth, and that’s another thing that I’ve never really seen.
I mean, that’s a deindex hazard all by itself for just that one tooth.
If it ever jumped, it would be very noticeable.
That’s like two or three millimeters of a jump, maybe even a little bit more.
You would notice that, and I’ve never had that happen either, and I don’t have any belts.
I went ahead and ordered some more belts, so I would have some on hand, but I took the belt off and I scrubbed it with a dry brush through the teeth of the belt.
I kind of cleaned it up that way, and I put it back on and it was still doing it.
Now, when I run it with the motor, it doesn’t seem to do it, but if I push it back and forth by hand, it does seem to jump, but it doesn’t seem to be clean with the motor either.
It’s like it’s hesitating, but not quite enough to make it jump, and so I’m wondering if I actually may have stretched the belt a little bit over time.
I mean, it’s almost a four-year-old belt that’s been running this whole time, and I don’t know what I’m doing it.
I’m sure I’ve had times where I’ve over tightened it or something.
I could have stretched it.
I don’t know if that could even happen.
Chris, you do a lot with CNC machines.
Have you heard about belts getting stretched?
Chris
The CNC machines I’ve used don’t use belts.
Kevin
I would be really surprised if the belts don’t stretch over time.
Chris
I know that with cars, you can expect a belt to last about five years.
Frank
And usually it’s the rubber that gives out at that point, right?
It’s not that the…
Well, and then you got the automatic tensioner, so you wouldn’t necessarily know if it expanded over that time, whatever little amount that it would, because they’re also…
Chris
When you’re putting a new belt on a car, if when you take the old one off and you compare it to the new one, almost always the old one is bigger than the new one.
It’s always been that way, and that’s just because, yeah, over time it’ll stretch, but on cars, you have the tensioner putting constant pressure on it, so it’s constantly being stretched on purpose, as opposed to on printers.
It’s probably just stretching from pressure between the motor and the carriage.
It’s just going to be the stress there that’s stretching it.
Frank
Maybe you’re just too strong, Andy.
Like the stepper motor…
Andy
I’m sure I’ve over tightened it.
I don’t know what I was doing half the time when using this stuff, so I’m sure there were times I didn’t do it right, so…
Frank
Well, and I wouldn’t expect the stepper motor to have to put a bunch of torque on the belt.
So when you’re manually moving it, you would probably…
Well, I know that even when I turn my stepper off, I have to overcome the little bit of resistance from the motor to move the carriage, and if you just get in the habit of it and say, forget to turn off the stepper or something like that, you have more to overcome before it starts to turn.
Eventually you’re jumping teeth when you move your belt by hand.
Andy
Yeah, that’s true, but…
Chris
I generally avoid trying to move my carriage manually though.
Frank
Yeah, me too.
Chris
You know…
Andy
I’m always grabbing that sucker and jerking it back and forth.
Frank
Yeah, and sometimes I need to get it out of my way for something, but it’s weird.
With the belts, I don’t think I’ve made a big deal out of it, but with the screws, I’ve always been super careful with the Z-axis, and it’s because I’ve got two of them.
If one of them gets the index, then the whole thing’s going to be tilted from then on, and I want to avoid that.
Chris
So with Cura Monitor Mode, you can just use the soft keys on the screen to move your printer any which way you need to, and then my touchscreen also has the same options, so I almost never need to manually move it.
I did one time when my print failed and almost crashed, but…
Andy
I think I’m always moving mine.
Even before I get ready to home, before I engage the home, I’ll usually just push everything so it’s close to the home position anyway, so I don’t have to wait on it, except for the Z-axis.
I’m with Frank.
Excuse me, that’s one I usually won’t mess with.
But yeah, so I think I got a stretched belt.
I don’t think that’s causing my problems though, and to compensate until I bought a couple meters of belt material, so I will swap out both my Y and X belts.
The Y belt for the bed seems to be fine.
I don’t know if I’ll change it just because I’m not having any problems with it, but the X, I think there’s some stretching going on, and that is the one I’ve messed with the most.
I’ve had a couple different kinds of carriages, and I’ve taken it off and manipulated my carriages, put them back on.
I’ve done a lot with it as far as removing it and putting it back on.
Chris
I wonder if you can do a quick fix just the way mine is set up.
Mine is actually not a continuous belt, but it’s cut, and then the two ends are just pulled kind of taut and zip tied together, and that’s how mine came from the factory.
Andy
So mine’s not, I don’t think you could buy that kind of belt as a continuous belt.
I know most of them are reattached together.
I know on mine, I’ve got two tabs that stick out of my carriage on each side of the carriage, and the belt on one side and on the other side connect to that, those tabs.
So the actual carriage is part of that belt structure as it goes back and forth.
And again, same thing with mine.
I think that’s a standard to just zip the belt over on itself and then zip tie it together.
I’ve got a project coming up that I’ll share later that I’m using that same kind of idea to join a belt together because it’s effective.
It’s not a nice way to do it, but yeah, mine does the same thing.
I usually don’t mess with the tensioner too much because you can just pull it off of the tab and then it’s disconnected and then grab it, pull it a little bit, you know, to get it back on the tab, but it’s usually not too big of an issue.
For now, I over tensioned it a little bit so that it wouldn’t be skipping, but that’s not a, you know, it’s harder on the stepper motor to drive it that way.
And as soon as I get my order with some new belt, I’ll go ahead and swap that out.
But with all of that that I’ve done, I am still having poor print quality.
I printed one test in which I got up to an 80 degree overhang, but as soon as it got to the 85 degree overhang, I was starting to have problems.
So it’s even affecting me there.
And so there’s a, I’m not entirely certain what I’m, you know, where I’m going to go next with this, but I think, I think I might try switching out my Cura profiles and moving into a default profile and then try to go from there and see if that might correct some of my problems.
I’m hoping I just changed the setting somewhere by accident and it just kind of, I don’t know which one changed and so it’s kind of a mess…
Frank
or a collection of all of them.
Andy
Yeah.
Yeah. I’ve changed so much about my printer and then never changed the profile.
Like this is the same, for the most part, the same profile from when I got the machine.
And I’m running a direct drive extruder now with a different size stepper motor and it’s water cooled and all these different things related to it.
It’s completely different from the original Tevo, you know, the 110 volt bed now for heating it up and cooling it down and stuff.
That’s all, you know, different from the original.
Frank
So maybe…
Chris
Andy’s got the printer of Theseus.
Yes.
Frank
Is it still the same printer as it was when you got it?
No, no, it’s not.
Andy
Yeah.
I wouldn’t call it a Tevo anymore.
I have changed too much out of it.
It’s built mostly from a Tevo tornado and but it’s not a Tevo anymore.
It’s a custom thing.
Chris
It’s the.
Frank
It’s the “Andy” variant of the Tevo.
Chris
Andy-stein monster.
Andy
The deal, that kind of goes into it too because I’m not a professional and I’m one of those guys that thinks they can improve something and tries to but in the end might be actually doing more damage than any good.
And I’m worried that I might have brought my printer to a point where it’s not a good printer anymore, you know.
Chris
Like blowing up the intake by adding compressed air.
Andy
Yeah, it worked for a little while.
It was pretty good.
I lost crank shafts over that issue.
I split crank shafts on that sucker.
I think I deserve a little bit of credit for it working well.
Chris
Yeah, it works too well, but that’s why it was so cool.
Frank
But I don’t remember this vehicle personally.
Chris
Oh, my little Hyundai Excel that, yeah, it’s not one of a garbage car, but it was definitely a toy.
Chris
Instead of a turbo, yeah, he added a way to throw compressed air directly into the intake.
Andy
Yeah, we just did compressed air with it instead and had an electric compressor.
It was it was a terrible way to go.
So anyway, back to the printer part, the poor printing did happen all of a sudden.
So and not while I had changed something that I was aware of.
So hopefully this will be a fixable thing because right now, I mean, I can print mechanical parts, but if you just imagine everything you do and wavering about every print line wavering about half a millimeter, that’s kind of what I’m getting.
Frank
It starts to add up.
Andy
Yeah.
So I could do quality prints.
They just just kind of look terrible.
Chris
I know if you think it’s the if you think it’s the rollers, you can always I can always just print you some intermediaries to test this.
Andy
Oh, I’ve got tons of Delrin rollers.
I’ve replaced all the ones on my bed and I’ve only got to see I got three on both sides of my Z that raised the gantt on the gantry.
I got three on both sides of those and the carriage has three, but I only have three left in my bag of extra rollers.
So I could only do like the carriage, but the carriage rollers I have recently done when I switched over with to my latest extruder.
So those shouldn’t need replacing and I don’t think they do.
They feel fine.
And the Z access the whole gantry feels like it goes up and down without any problems either.
So I don’t think that’s the problem and I might not even address those.
But the beds rollers, I mean, I showed you guys printers of how worn out those poor Delrin rollers were.
They were pretty messy looking.
Chris
So yeah, that picture was pretty rough.
Andy
Had chunks missing out of the rollers.
It was it was pretty awful and sadly it didn’t fix the problem.
othing seemed to change, which I’m both impressed that that didn’t seem to affect my print and disappointed that fixing it didn’t seem to affect the print.
Frank
Is there an alignment process for those wheels, Andy?
Like or is it easy or is it difficult?
Like you have to add a washer here and hope that..
Andy
no, no, it’s actually really, really nice.
Most of the time on your wheels, you’ll have two different kinds of rollers.
One is static where it’s just like a normal roller bolted through a hole.
The other one is not static, it’ll have a special offset washer or not washer standoff.
Chris
It’ll have a lobed center, right?
Andy
It’ll have a what?
Chris
It’ll it has a lobed center so that when you rotate it, it…
Andy
yeah, so you can rotate the whole thing and it will change the position of the center of the Delrin roller.
And so you can.
So you’ll have two wrenches on it, one to adjust that standoff.
And that’s what pulls the roller back and forth.
And then the other one to tighten it up and then get your third hand out to hold the nut.
Frank
So gotcha.
Andy
But uh, I had to kind of play with them.
I got two right off the bat, but the third one, trying to adjust it was a pain in the butt.
So you get it just right and then tighten it down…
Chris
and you’ve over tightened it.
Andy
Yeah.
Yeah, it pulls it further the other direction.
So you have to like make it so loose so that when you tighten it up, it’ll be right.
It’s just kind of a little messy, but I did get it in the end.
Chris
I deal with that every time I end up.
I have to do a timing belt.
You got to get it just right so that when you put the right amount of torque on it, it shifts to the right position.
Andy
Yeah.
Yeah.
Exactly.
Chris
Yup.
Andy
If you ever have to take yours off, it’s just as long as you know how to adjust them, it’s really not hard.
And it makes a lot more sense because then you realize, oh, you can get these lined up pretty nice on the track.
And when they’re, when you have them lined up well, it should take some, if you’re holding the carriage stiff and you try to turn the wheel against the track, you should be able to overcome the friction, but there should be friction on the track that you have to overcome, but it shouldn’t be hard to turn it.
Frank
Okay.
Andy
And that’s kind of how you gauge how hard it needs to be clamped down to the track.
Because if you over clamp it, then the delrin will just wear down to meet it.
And it’s a better idea to have it slightly over tightened than under tightened because then delrin will wear into the correct tightening.
Frank
I think it’s interesting how much related to these machines is operated by feel.
Andy
No kidding, right?
Hah!
Insert your paper here, right?
Frank
Yeah.
Until you feel just the right amount of friction.
They can’t describe what just the right amount of friction is.
Chris
You’ve got to figure that out for yourself.
Frank
You’re going to get a feel for where the balance is with the paper or where the tightness is for this bolt.
And it’s like, for such a precision machine, that’s a weird amount of feel that is involved with maintaining it.
Chris
Well, the amount of feel is what makes that machine personal to you.
Frank
True.
Well, and it goes back to understanding the personality of your machine too, right?
Andy
Yeah.
Frank
You’ll learn from each other.
Chris
“It’s just a machine.
They don’t think or feel.”
Yeah, but they sure have a personality.
Andy
They have their likes and dislikes.
Frank
Every machinist ever in the world is going, uh-huh, yep.
I think that’s all I’ve really worked on.
Andy
I’ve got a nice, clean top of my washing machine now.
That bed feels good to pull in and out.
It feels nice and smooth and everything’s operating good, but I still can’t get the overhangs that I used to get.
I used to be able to do the whole 85 without any problems.
And now it starts to fall apart at 85 degrees, but it’s still printing the 80, okay.
So there’s something else going on.
I don’t know how far I actually could have gone.
I mean, I know you can’t do 90, but the scale only went up to 85 or as I was talking between five and 10 degrees, but it’s because I was doing it backwards.
Frank
Yeah.
Well, you do a lot of things backwards there, Andy.
I won’t hold it against you anymore than just to comment on it.
Chris
Actually, I want him to keep doing it because it’s just so dang funny.
Andy
Well, thanks.
I’m glad you could be entertained with my struggles.
Frank
Andy, I want you to continue doing it because it works for you.
Andy
Oh, thank you.
Frank
Is that fair?
Andy
Yeah.
Frank
You don’t need to confirm to my, uh, what I feel is the better process just because I feel like…
Andy
No, but, I’m also the same kind of person that will struggle doing something for years and then somebody just says, uh, why don’t you just do it this way?
And then it’s just like, click.
Well, because I didn’t think of doing it that way.
Okay.
Yes. Of course it’s easier.
I just haven’t done it that way for years.
Frank
I was back in Utah…
Chris
I’m going to keep doing it this way because, gosh, I’m bound to get it right eventually.
Frank
I was back in Utah for a week watching you solder the meter into the, the bedroom.
I was like, you’ve got the leads, just put it on the ground, then you don’t have to hold the thing up.
And you looked at me and I quote, you said, I’ve done this eight times.
You’re the first person to suggest that.
Andy
Yeah.
Yeah.
Because you find one way to do it and it works and you think, okay, this is the way that I’m going to do it from here on out because it works instead of looking into it any further than that to come up with a better way to do it to figure out, you know, that’s just my character.
Chris
There’s usually an easier way if you, if you look for it, but if you don’t look for it, how do you know?
Frank
Well, and once you figure it out, you can outsource that process to the subconscious and focus on more important things.
Makes sense to me.
Kevin
And a lot of the time you get the attitude of, hey, if it ain’t broke, why fix it?
Andy
That’s, yeah, that’s another thing.
I am so willing to sit and, and program a, spend hours coding something that will save me 10 minutes, you know, so I got to be careful of that too.
So it’s like a fine line to walk.
Do I want to overthink this to get it as easy as possible?
Or is it just easy to do it the hard way a couple of times because you’re only going to be there for that long, and then sometimes when I go that route, because overall, I believe it will save more time than finding the easier way.
It turns out that will the easier way is like a lot bigger of a time saver or whatnot, you know, like solder and those wires and the difficulty there.
And other times it’s the only other way around.
So it’s so I’m bad at deciding that kind of stuff.
Frank
If you go back to the earliest known human tool or one of them, the spear, right?
I imagine the person who came up with the spear doesn’t even have to have the spearhead, just the spear, right?
She brings it into the tribe and he says, “Hey, I’ve got this tool, it’ll make hunting easier.”
And somebody, I guarantee, looked at him and said, “if we start using this spear, we’re going to get fat” because until that point, we were endurance hunters, right?
Andy
Yeah.
So there were people that embraced the technology and people that were deniers at the technology 200,000.
Chris
Kids nowadays and their spears, right?
Andy
So you’re not wrong.
That’s for sure.
Frank
The only difference now is broadcast around the world whenever something like that happens instead of kept within the tribe.
Chris
So, well, you’re going to take an issue with this a little bit, Frank.
I decided that I ought to add hairspray to my box of tools.
Frank
I’m going to go back to if it works for you.
Do it.
Chris
Okay.
So let me explain.
This week I’ve been printing the Pokemon, Pokeball, they’re Pokeballs, but they’re egg shaped, right?
Frank
Okay.
So not a ball anymore.
Pokey egg.
Chris
Pokey egg.
Mm-hmm.
And so the bottom is white, right?
They’re red, black and white.
Well, I’m printing some of them in different colors, you know, so one of them was like purple and shiny titanium and glow in the dark.
So all my regular colors print just fine, but I went to print the glow in the dark stuff and it wouldn’t stick to my bed the same way that all of the others had printed and just fine.
And that’s the thing though, is it’s supposed to be at the same temperature, same settings and needless to say, a quick spray of hairspray probably would have just solved that issue because I still need to print the stuff at the same temperature with the same settings.
So quick thing of hairspray for this specific job when it didn’t stick the first time would have fixed that.
I ended up messing it up twice before I got it to stick the third time.
Kevin
So did you use hairspray the third time or did it just stick?
Chris
No, I increased the brim and then the initial layer temperature.
Frank
Okay.
Kevin
Okay.
Andy
You’ll have to play with the hairspray thing.
I bet if it’s anything close to what I experienced, you should be able to print with even no brim with it at all.
Chris
Yeah.
I would have stole some from the wife or the kid, but they keep their hair kind of short, so hairspray is not a thing in my house.
Frank
And that would require reading, Chris, to make sure that there’s nylon in it?
Chris
Yeah.
Andy
Well, hopefully it will.
If you give it, I mean, it’ll be one nice tool to have if you run into a problem where you just can’t get something to stick.
I definitely think that doing kind of what you’re thinking might be a better route than what I’m doing.
Kind of.
I use hairspray with every print just so I don’t have problems.
But like you guys, I might not, for like a lot of the flat bottom things I print, probably don’t need anything like that, you know, they’re probably going to stick just fine right on the glass.
Chris
Well, that’s the thing is I was printing with white plastic and it, it stuck just fine.
Andy
Yeah.
Chris
So this glow in the dark plastic was the same brand, same type of PLA, supposed, it’s supposed to follow the same settings to get, to get the same print, right?
And it didn’t.
Kevin
Sounds like somebody’s got a case of the “S’posed tos.”
Frank
That’s as bad as “should.”
Kevin
Right?
Frank
Dropping the S-bomb again.
It’s a variant supposed to, should.
Chris
Anyway, so my solution is to add the H-word.
Andy
Okay.
So.
Well, hopefully it’ll work out for you, but.
Chris
Yep.
So.
Andy
That’s awesome.
Chris
I’m going to, I’m going to try it out next time I’m doing the glow in the dark stuff.
Andy
If you do wind up having to buy some, go with either Aquanet or Walmart’s Rave 4.
Those ones I know for sure work, but I’m sure there are others out there that got the nylon in them.
Chris
It’s just going to be whatever’s, whatever’s cheap while I’m at the store, but has the nylon in it.
So.
Andy
Sounds good.
Frank
Yeah.
Chris
Hey, Frank, what you’ve been doing this week?
Frank
I did finish my calipers case, or at least I thought I had.
I learned in the last week that there’s only one L in calipers and there’s two on my case.
Andy
Oh no.
Chris
I wasn’t, yeah, I wasn’t going to tell you.
Andy
I didn’t even know that all that sucks.
Frank
Because I spell good.
Chris
So now you call a pers.
Kevin
I saw that and I was like, I could have swore there was only one L, but…
Frank
I’ve been spelling it with two L’s for like years.
I don’t know why my brain decided that it needed two L’s, but…
Andy
I do things like that too.
Kevin
It’s because English has inconsistent rules.
Frank
That’s true.
I accept that.
I don’t like it as an excuse though.
So Chris, I shared the STL for these and so I will, well, earlier this week, so I will run off a new STL that doesn’t have any words on it so that you were not bound by the same mistake that I made.
Chris
Okay.
Thanks.
Frank
And I’m just going to live with it because I don’t want to put more TPU into another lid.
Chris
I don’t know, it’s nice to have a lesson reminder right there in your toolbox.
Frank
Yeah, I don’t need that kind of reminder in my life.
I’ve got enough of those floating around in my head.
Chris
Type it into Word or Google or whatever, and it’ll automatically spell check it before you stick it into the program.
Andy
Well, I’m sure if he questioned it all, he would have double checked it.
It’s just one of those words that he thought he was spelling right without problems this whole time.
I’ve got dozens of those.
Frank
If I’m going to start doing that, I might as well just do it with every word and have a dictionary in the middle between the keyboard and whatever document my typing is going into.
Andy
I used to run a nice spell checker like that that would follow the cursor and just work off key presses to figure out if you’re spelling stuff right.
It was kind of nice back in the day.
It actually really corrected my spelling a lot of the time because there was a setting in there to not pop up suggestions and I found out that like that was the best way of the word.
Having to go look up how it was spelled afterward, come back and fix the word was perfect.
Just having it beep on me when the word was wrong was like a big game changer for my spelling issues.
I still spell like crap, but at least it’s like twice as good as it used to be.
Frank
I’ve thought of a few things that… programs that I thought might be fun to do like designing a program that will rearrange your keyboard so that it’s more efficient for you and do it based off of averages.
Letters that you use more often but are slower to hit, move them closer to the home row, and it would be completely organic, but I started to do that, started to work on it, and every time I ran it, my computer cried about key loggers and it’s like, this is going to be a problem because if I’m going to do this, I’m going to want to do it for my work computer and my personal computer and all this other stuff, and my work computer would not want me to have a key logger.
Andy
Just a thought on that, on a lot of my software, I want to be able to read the keyboard without having focus, so access the user 32 and ask if a key is pressed or not, or ask to return the state of a key, and I’ll do that through the entire keyboard 10 times a second or something like that when I’m trying to intercept that.
I’ve never had any of my software flagged by at least Windows Defender, I don’t know about other virus checkers, but Windows Defender’s never flagged me for that, but that’s just within the user 32 doing that, having access to that.
I think it was get Ascii state was the function inside of system user 32 that you just ping the Ascii character, and it will return a true or a false on whether or not that key is currently down.
Chris
I don’t see an Ascii, I see a control key, I see an alt key.
Andy
You’re fired.
Chris
Oh, fun, fun, fun, curious, yeah, sorry, you can put that out.
Andy
You’re not fired because I just realized you were saying Ascii, even though I was still reading it as Ascii in my head, so I’ll just keep my mouth shut, I guess.
Frank
If you’re going to hit the Ascii key, there has to be a Tele key too.
Andy
Oh dear, I’m looking up a module, one of the modules that I wrote myself, this was back when I was in high school, I wrote this module that I still use it to today, I love that.
So, I’ll come back with it.
Frank
Yeah, share it in the Discord.
So anyway, I finished the calipers case, and I’m reading my notes.
Oh, just in the last, I don’t know, year, there’s been a lot of talk about using, I call them three, two, one blocks, I guess most people call them one, two, three blocks.
Chris
Then you have two, four, six blocks.
Frank
So I decided that they would be interesting to add to my arsenal in my wood shop, and because it’s mostly hand tools that would be affected by anything, I can print them out of PLA, and you know, it’s durable enough for 99% of what I want to do out there.
And so, a simple three, two, one block.
Andy
Oh, that’s cool
Chris
That’s awesome!
Frank
The first runoff, the holes are a little close to the edges, and I ended up with a few places where it didn’t print properly.
So I’m going to move those away from the edges, just a little bit and run it again, but yeah, I think that they’ll be great when I’m using my planer and that sort of thing, just clamp it down and give the piece I’m working on something to push up against.
Chris
Okay.
Oh, yeah.
Those look great for a wood shop, but I wouldn’t, you wouldn’t want to use those in a machine shop.
Frank
No, no, no, they’re not accurate
Chris
First off, they’re not accurate.
Second is that the second they get any coolant on them, the plastic’s going to suck up the coolant and they’ll expand.
Frank
That and because they are not as durable, you ding them off and break them.
And then the precision goes way out, but yeah, oh, as a block on my sled for my table saw to mark the dead stop there, I’ve been using a custom made thing that I just clamp onto the sled.
And it’s like, you know, I could use one of these, just put it on there, clamp it on, and it would do the same thing, and this is more square than the thing that I put together.
Chris
“Let me clamp him boss.”
Frank
So yeah, when that gets done, that’ll be nice to have those too.
Andy
Nice.
Frank
And that’s everything that I did this week.
It felt like more when I was doing it.
Chris
Eh, when it takes a lot of time, it always feels like more.
Frank
Yeah.
I’ll look back. For sure.
There was a curiosity that I ran into as a little transition before we get to our topic.
While I was syncing up the transcript with last episode, Chris, you came up with a mashup word of practical and irony, and you pronunciated it
Kevin
Pronounced.
Frank
pronounced, um, practicione and whisper found the word practicione, which was fascinating.
And that’s also a big part of why I go through and manually make sure that the transcript is the same as the episode because it does great.
It gets 99% of the words right, if not more.
It’s just, uh, occasionally it’ll misspell Cura or practicione because it’s not a real word.
Chris
Well, it is now.
I’m going to go to wiki and add it.
Frank
Yeah, eh, might as well.
Andy
Come far from YouTube translations being made fun of for their subtitles and things.
Frank
Or Google, because Google has always been kind of awkward.
Andy
That’s kind of neat the way Google translation seems to work nowadays.
Like you can, you can translate into an unknown language and then retranslate back and get like almost the exact same thing or something very similar with the same condensation, not just the messages there.
It’s like also the way it, you know, you meant it to feel too.
Frank
So like, uh, uh, syntax translates as well as the words because I know one of the biggest issues with any kind of translation, like with humans translating other languages, when you translate to a language that has, uses a different syntax, you rearrange it.
And if you don’t remember, or if you don’t have the context for what you’re saying, when you translate it backwards, it’ll be in weird places and that sort of thing.
Chris
Yeah.
It’s never going to work with idioms.
Frank
Well, and when you’re automating the process, it’s hard to teach a system, all of the minutiae when humans really don’t understand all the minutiae necessarily.
So…
Chris
right?
Kevin
And when humans continually..
Chris
make new ones?
Kevin
make new ones, and change ones that already exist.
Frank
intentionally abuse a system.
Kevin
Yeah.
Chris
Yeah.
Like, uh, feeding a dead horse.
Frank
Yes. Feeding a dead horse.
Andy
I kind of like that one better than beating a dead horse or making it a little less violent.
I like that.
Well, and, and leading a dead horse to water.
Kevin
You broke Frank.
Frank
You really did break me this time.
My brain doesn’t want a thing right now sounds like a perfect time to transition into our topic.
Chris
Oh, this is the garbage topic.
Frank
Yes.
Andy
Absolute garbage.
Frank
Uh, filament to be specific or resin.
Chris
Yep.
Frank
Um, I think it came to mind because my dad gave me some resin or, uh, yeah, my dad gave me some resin.
My dad gave me some filament a little while ago and I found uses for it.
I just wasn’t happy with it.
So I, I, what I do with my garbage filament is I use it on like structural stuff.
That’s what I ended up printing, um, my stand for, or my spool and my, uh, center things for my, uh, filament to, to make the diameter, the inside hole smaller.
So there’s not so much play there.
Um, I printed all of that stuff out of the garbage filament because I didn’t want to put it into like a statue or something like that.
Chris
And by garbage, you’re talking about the stuff, the, the little bit at the end of a roll, right?
Frank
No, I’m talking about stuff that has been exposed before I got a dehydrator has been exposed to the elements for an extended period of time.
And you look at it sideways and it breaks.
Andy
There’s also like, they didn’t formulate it very well.
And so it doesn’t, some of it, even brand new it doesn’t necessarily print as well as it should.
Frank
Um, I, I’m sure that that gets associated with cheap filament, but, um, I imagine there’s even some expensive filaments that would do that too.
So it’s not necessarily a cost.
Well, that’s a cost of value thing, but, um…
Andy
I know it is less an issue though.
Frank
not necessarily predictable.
Um, that’s why we’re not..
Chris
We’re not talking about recycled filament.
We’re talking about stuff that’s already on a roll.
Frank
Yes.
Uh, in my mind, I guess recycled filament would fall into that category though, because you, but you know, walking into it, that it is a, uh, lower quality filament.
So you’re not really expecting so much from it.
Frank
It’s less than ideal.
Yeah.
Frank
Yeah.
Um, but things like, uh, what was it?
Um, my brain left me.
Chris
Yeah.
My brain’s in the burrito shop.
Give me a minute.
Andy
Yeah.
Like filament, I see what Frank’s getting at just the, there’s a lot of different things that causes filament to become garbage filament either.
You buy it right off the bat and it’s just kind of poorly mixed or poorly blended together or something.
There’s a lot of filaments there.
The diameter of the filament wasn’t kept in check.
So it kind of affects your extrusion rate.
You know, there’s leaving it out too long, even good filament and have it absorb a little bit of water or, you know, become very fragile, especially PLA, you know, it starts to break really easily.
Yeah.
Chris
Let’s say you left, you got some PLA and you left it in your car or something.
Yeah.
Frank
I’ve actually found the train caught the train again.
Um, I found a brand that I like.
And so when I’m looking for a specific color or even, uh, uh, like I’m looking for a different material, like that’s where I got my PETG.
That’s where I got my new, uh, TPU after I finished the spool you gave me, not because the spool you gave me was bad, but because everything I use is through this, uh, producer.
Andy
That’s a better way to keep it, especially the spool I gave you was cheaper stuff too.
So, but the whole formulation thing and consistency is starting to be less of a problem even with cheaper filament.
They’re kind of being a little bit more of a standard for, you know, the filament that we get than what used to be out there in the older days.
Frank
Well, and even a year ago, the, the demand for tighter, um, parameters wasn’t necessarily there across the board.
And so as companies are growing up in the industry, they’re realizing, Oh yeah, we can do this higher quality for less expensive to us.
So we can still increase our profits and put out a really good product.
Andy
Yeah.
Yeah.
Frank
And so the, the companies that were ahead of the curve, always putting out a really good product need to adjust their approach if they’re going to stay competitive.
Andy
And I think too, the 3d printing community is kind of a tight knit community.
And when someone starts to complain about poor filament, it really affects their bottom line.
So having good quality filament, even cheaper is, is you don’t want to be on even podcasts or YouTube videos or anything like that, having anybody say anything bad about your filament.
Chris
Yep.
There’s 3d forums all over, you know, three… cults 3d, Reddit, um, thingyverse.
So if you hear bad things about filament, you know, it gets heard loud and clear.
Andy
There’s a lot of people that likes to test brands of filament too and make the videos and stuff out of you, which is the best brand and things like that.
So if people who make filament, they’re definitely being highly reviewed all the time.
Frank
And they’re probably even small companies have probably specifically got a social media person that trolls all of that stuff professionally to say, “this is what they’re saying.”
“This is why they’re saying it, we need to either fix this or fix them.”
Chris
I wonder if there’s a YouTube, I wonder if there’s a YouTube channel we can, we can possibly make to, um, say, okay, so I left this spool of PLA and water for a week.
I’m going to see how, which, which brand prints best after this, you know, I do feel like there’s at least one or two videos where somebody’s already done that.
Andy
Yeah.
There’s, there’s a lot of stuff out there like that.
I don’t think you’re going to come up with a whole lot new when it comes to comparing filaments on, on at least on YouTube, there’s a lot out there.
Frank
Um, that said, I am not opposed as we grow and as we, you know, decide if we decide to go with a Patreon in a year or whatever, right, we would want to have extra content for our Patreons and doing a private YouTube channel might be a valuable thing to look at.
But yeah, right now we’ve got 19 subscribers and we just got our 16th regular listener.
So I’m really not so concerned about it.
Chris.
Chris
Yeah.
Really though, I don’t think I could actually do that because I was against my grain to buy something purposely to destroy it.
Frank
Yeah.
I mean, I do that with half of the stuff that I want to get use out of in the first place.
I don’t need to consciously do it.
Chris
Yeah.
Kevin
Well, I’m all for, I’m all for experimentation.
And so, and that’s why I’ve done that a couple of times with like playing with glitter to see what happens if I do that.
But then I know that, you know, it’s, it’s resin if, and I’ve got filters and stuff.
So if I, if I ruined a print, I ruined a print, but then I can clean it up really well and get the glitter out in theory, in theory, I still had some glitter showing up in some, some of my prints for a few prints after I tried to get all the glitter out.
Chris
You don’t, yeah, you don’t, you don’t have a little girl.
So you don’t understand the nightmare that becomes glitter once it’s opened.
Kevin
Oh, I understand.
Frank
You don’t, you don’t have to have a little girl to understand the problems with craft herpes.
Andy
Good way to describe it.
Kevin
So I always call that scrapbook herpes, but craft herpes works also.
Chris
So what kind of stuff causes resin to go bad, Kev?
Kevin
Age’ll do it, not storing it, like just letting it sit out for too long.
not sealing the cap proper.
Frank
Is it an oxidization thing or is it extended exposure to UV?
Kevin
It’s more extended exposure to UV.
But also things will settle out… because it’s, it’s an emulsion, which is a suspension of particles in a liquid matrix.
So things will settle out, which is why it’s important to shake it up every time.
But if you let it sit on your FEP for way too long after you are finished with a print and don’t clean it up, you’ll, you’ll get a lot of that settling and it won’t be, you won’t be able to really sufficiently resuspend everything.
So you’re, you’ll increase the rate at which your resin goes useless anyway.
now there are, there are the, the professionals who will tell you that you should never reuse resin anyway.
And then there are some who say it’s okay to reuse it once, but for what I’m doing and for my budget, I will use it until the print starts failing or until it’s way discolored.
Um, like I’ve had some that sat in my beakers too long because I was lazy about cleaning the beakers.
And it went from a light gray to a dark translucent gray.
And I was like, yeah, I’m not even going to try to print with that anymore.
Cause I don’t trust that it will do anything that I want it to.
Chris
So you can’t just stick it in the blender and then try it again.
Kevin
Not at that point.
Chris
Okay.
Don’t put resin in your blender, folks.
Frank
No.
Well, not in the blender that you’ve put food in anyway, if you’re going to have a blender, keep it in your office and use it only for the, uh, the resin that you’re trying to revive.
Chris
Yeah.
Actually, if you’re going to have a little, uh, blender for your resin, they, they, um, they make these handheld stick blenders where it’s just got the blender blade at the end of a stick.
Andy
I’ve seen those, yeah, the bottom’s got like a spring around it kind of thing, like a circular wire with the spring on it.
Frank
Yeah.
My wife has got one of those to mix her coffee.
Kevin
Yeah. I’ve got one of those.
Andy
Like, for coffee or something…
Yeah.
Chris
Uh, no, this is an actual blender blender with short blades.
Andy
Oh, yeah.
Kevin
I’ve got, I’ve got one of those.
I use it for making soup.
Andy
I think my primary blender in the kitchen is those, those stick blenders.
I got nice KitchenAid one.
I love that sucker.
Chris
Yeah, get yourself a little motorized thing if you’re going to stir up your resins.
Andy
Yeah.
Yeah.
Frank
Or, you know, just be smart about it and don’t risk merging separated resin with good resin and don’t leave it out.
Chris
What?
You care about it in the first place?
Yeah.
Frank
I mean, it’s more cost efficient that way, right?
Chris
Definitely.
Frank
As long as you’re going to reuse it.
Andy
I did learn one thing that was kind of neat when it comes to reconditioning filament with heat.
I went to go and use some old PLA that I had gotten too little of to be left on a spool.
So I usually pull it off the spool and just set it in front.
And then if I have anything, that way it could weigh it really easily.
So I know if I’m printing something small, I would have enough there.
And I had a small stick of it.
It was only just a couple of grams that I went to go and use.
In fact, this was for that overhang test print that I did this last week.
And I went and grabbed it and went to go feed it in.
And I usually tweak the very end of it at an angle, kind of bend it out so it’s more straight so I could put it in.
And when I did that, it just broke.
Okay.
Super fragile.
It is probably like six months old.
It’s just been sitting out in the open air because I don’t… all the rest of my filament I keep in plastic bags, except PLA.
PLA I just let out in the open air.
Frank
And it’s pretty durable.
I do that too.
Andy
Yeah.
Every once in a while I need to recondition it, but those are the ones that you need to sit like six months out in the open and before you have to really do it.
Frank
And once again, also for our listeners, we live in the high desert.
So we’re pretty arid anyway.
If we get higher than 20% humidity in the air, it’s super humid for most of the residents out here.
So.
Andy
Yeah.
Anyway.
Frank
Everybody in the Southern U.S. is going “20%? Holy crap! I would love 20%” anyway.
Andy
But so I went and threw it in the dehydrator and I think it’s set for 158 degrees is where I figured to set it at and I left it in there for like 20 minutes, pulled it back out and it was back to being nice and flexible again, even with 20 minutes under the heat, it reconditioned very quickly.
Frank
Nice.
I haven’t put my PLA in my dehydrator for less than four hours.
Andy
And usually I don’t either, but I was just trying to hurry up and print this one thing.
So I pulled it out just to see, hey, is this good enough?
I can print, you know, I’m not printing something important.
Frank
It’s not going to take forever to run off anyway.
Andy
Yeah, if it’s got a 50% success rate at this point, I’m okay with that because, you know, it’ll show me quite a bit in that 50% of which it would work.
So I just ran that and it worked just fine for the whole print.
But but yeah, just reconditioning filament with heat helps so much.
Chris
And you’re reducing waste.
Andy
Yes.
Frank
I did just have that one thought though that I have periodically where when you’re putting it in for longer, it’s also a larger volume.
So it needs to penetrate into the spool, whereas when it’s an empty coil, like what you’re talking about, it doesn’t have, it doesn’t need to have that time to do the thing.
Andy
So yeah, the coil itself was like two meters long too.
So it was a very small coil of plastic.
Chris
You’re also talking about surface area too, too their Frank, you know, more, you know, there’s more surface area exposed for a smaller amount of plastic versus, you know, a whole big roll.
Frank
Right.
Chris
Lots more surface area.
Andy
And I’m sure this is a lot different than, you know, having a water soaked filament to I wasn’t trying to get the water out of it.
As far as I knew at that moment, water wasn’t really a problem.
It was just the fragility of the PLA I was trying to overcome.
And that might be something that does recondition rather quickly compared to taking the water out.
I’m not going to stop dehydrating it for, you know, eight, 12 hours at a time to make sure the entire rolls good again.
But if I do have one of those little things, one of those little coils I want to throw in there that I know is probably brittle…
Frnak
and it breaks while you’re trying to get the get it fed.
Andy
Yeah.
I’m going to heat it up in the dehydrator for 20 minutes before then just to make sure that it works because
Chris
So, for those of us without a dedicated dehydrator, could I say just use my print bed?
Andy
You know what?
For a coil that small, you that might work.
Chris
Yeah.
Andy
That just might work.
Frank
So I did just have a thought for you there, Chris.
If you were to create like a cover, I’m sure you’ve seen the covers that go in the microwave for dishes that goes over the whole thing.
If you were to print off a cover, you could print it off of out of any material you want.
The more I think about it.
If you put a cover over it on the on the bed,
Andy
on the bed!
Frank
that would contain the heat inside and just print it so it can ventilate.
I have no reason in my mind that it wouldn’t work just as well as a dehydrator.
Andy
That is a beautiful idea.
I’ve never seen that, but that makes total, I mean, it’s no different than a dehydrator.
Chris
In this point, I would…
Frank
there’s no fans!
There would be no fans.
That would be the one thing.
So it wouldn’t necessarily dehydrate so well, at least not from air motion.
Yeah.
You know, it would be a purely heat dehydrator, but it would still work, I would think.
Chris
I think I would just use a glass dish.
Andy
Yeah.
I’m sure something like that.
If you’re just trying to recondition it with heat, a glass bowl, even though it’s not vented would probably work just fine.
Frank
You just need to find something big enough to fit over the spool and there’s plenty of things out there for that.
Chris
Yeah.
Because the printer bed is glass, if you use a glass bowl, it actually retains heat better.
Like I don’t know if you guys have ever heard, ever tried softening butter, but if you microwave a glass dish and just put it over top of the butter, it actually warms the butter evenly.
So I think the same concept would apply.
Frank
I have been softening butter the wrong way, the hard way, where at 12 seconds, it’s still hard as it was in the fridge and at 13 seconds is liquid.
So your solution there, Chris, is brilliant.
I love it.
Andy
I might have to try that.
That’s a great idea.
Chris
It’s an old baker’s trick, actually.
So…
Yes, I have bakers in the family.
Andy
I’m going to have to give that a shot next time.
Frank
Hmm. I assumed they were all Webers.
Andy
I throw it on like a plate with a glass bowl on top of it.
Chris
Yeah.
So you actually warm up the bowl in the microwave and then you put it on top of the butter.
Frank
Oh, I love it.
Chris won the suggestion lottery.
Andy
He’s good at this.
Frank
This week.
Chris
Sorry.
Frank
No.
Chris
I was surprised you guys didn’t know about this.
Frank
Lottery has a bad connotation in my mind, but that’s only because I’ve read Poe.
Kevin
Contest.
Frank
Bingo.
I like bingo.
The idea of bingo.
You got three in a row there, Chris.
One more plus the free space gives you a full bingo.
Yeah.
Andy
Good deal.
But yeah, that’s a great idea, putting a bowl or something over the filament on your bed and using that to condition it, re-condition the plastic.
Like I say, probably wouldn’t work too great for dehydrating the water out of it, but if you just got brittle plastic you want to bring back, that would probably work.
Just yeah.
Chris
I could probably just use my own my print bed as it is and you can get these bowls really cheap at any..
Frank
dollar store.
Chris
Yeah.
Just about any department store.
I know that I personally use like the anchor brand because they’re really easy to get your hands on.
Frank
Yeah.
Chris
Yeah.
Andy
And if anybody out there is thinking about needing a filament dehydrator or a filament dryer, just know buying a standard dehydrator works really well.
And then all you do is just take the trays of the dehydrator out, then you cut the grid of the tray out.
So you still got the form that makes up the tray, but the actual grid of the tray is gone and then you can just stick your rolls of filament right in there.
And most of those cheaper dehydrators work really well.
Like Frank said, it’s been my experience getting a dehydrator that does have a fan, works so much better than ones that don’t.
And I spent I think $50 on a dehydrator that was where you could digitally set the temperature.
And I really like that one for a filament dryer.
It’s worked out really, really well.
Frank
And mine’s just got the dial.
I don’t care about what temperature so much as that it’s running constantly for the time that a dehydrator is supposed to.
Andy
Yeah.
Frank
And I think that that’s probably going to be the biggest thing about between using your print bed for the heat source and using an actual dehydrator.
Because the dehydrator will get to, you know, your relatively low temperature and stay constant.
And I feel like the print bed would take a lot more electricity to maintain that same temperature for an extended period of time.
Chris
Well, yeah, it’s not an enclosed system, but possibly better.
Frank
If you’re doing the reconditioning, that’ll be great because you’re only going to be running it for like 15 minutes and let’s face it.
Most of your prints are going to run for hours on end anyway.
Andy
Yeah.
Frank
But if you’re reconditioning, you want the lower temperature with the fan and all that to actually dehydrate and recondition.
Chris
Yep.
So another thing to throw on the do not use your printer for, don’t use your printer for a dehydrator.
I think it’s more things it wasn’t designed for than don’t use it for that because it can be used and it would probably be really effective, just not very efficient.
Chris
Exactly.
Andy
Yeah.
Frank
As opposed to Andy drying his socks, it’s not designed for anything along those lines.
Andy
I don’t dry my socks!
Frank
Okay.
Sorry.
Your wife’s socks.
So was there anything else anyone wanted to bring up before we close this out?
Andy
Drying filament in a vacuum does work, but it’s not very effective for reconditioning filament.
Frank
We did talk about that a couple of episodes too.
Andy
So if you happen to have a vacuum chamber and you need to print right away, but you got sparkling filament when you put it in, a boiling filament and everything else about it’s fine, you could probably throw it in the vacuum chamber for a couple of minutes and do quite a bit of water removal on it if you needed it done quickly, but it’s still not going to be as effective as a heat dehydrator.
Chris
We also mentioned storing filament with a vacuum sealer.
Frank
Yeah.
Like a food vacuum sealer.
Chris
Yeah.
Frank
Obviously, of course, you want to have a dedicated tool for that.
Chris
You can use that to avoid getting garbage filament in the first place.
Frank
Yeah.
Andy
That is true.
I think most of, if you’re getting into your filaments a lot and you want to store them, there’s a lot of boxes and things like that out there to help keep the air limited.
Frank
There’s actually a whole category of stuff that you can buy now.
Frank
The early Printers, they needed to make their own containment systems and all that.
ow it’s becoming a part of the industry where you can just buy this stuff now if you don’t want to get into it yourself.
Andy
Yeah.
Chris
Which I’m considering because the wife won’t let me anywhere near her food dehydrator with the intent of putting plastic in it.
Frank
Justifiable.
We went over that fairly recently as well.
Andy
I think just a Ziploc bag would work just fine because, I mean, if you take something out of the case you’re holding your filament in and put it back in, the air that’s inside that case, what liquid is in there is either going to go into what’s it called, the packages of…
Frank
Desiccant.
Andy
Desiccant.
Yeah, desiccant.
Or your filament.
It’s going to go into either one, but that’s just the air that’s inside there.
Something cheap like a Ziploc bag, putting your filament in there, you’re limiting it the exact same way with a couple of packages of that, and it’s really, really cheap.
Chris
Actually thinking about it, if you want to reuse a sealable, reusable bag, it may be worth investing in those ones that you have a little attachment for your shop vac or for your house vac.
Frank
Or your dehydrator that we were just talking about.
They have those too.
Chris
Yep.
Frank
If you want it to be reusable.
Andy
And desiccant can be recharged in the microwave as well.
So if you got a package of desiccant that’s not working very good, you can microwave it.
Frank
So I just created a little thing to take all the desiccant from the plastic I’m buying anyway, and I’ve got two of them full, and only one of them in use right now.
So if it stops working for some reason, I just dump it out and start filling it with the stuff that comes with the new spools.
But what I’m also doing is I’ve got a couple of one gallon buckets with the UV twist-off lids so that it’s got a good seal, and those will fit three one kilogram spools of plastic in them.
Chris
So if you’re looking for these, these are called gamma lids.
Frank
Yeah, that one.
I said UV, but you know what I meant.
Chris
They are UV-proof.
Frank
Yeah.
And they’re reasonably airtight too.
So I meant for storing food for long periods of time.
Chris
That would be a great place to put resin, not like dump it all into the bucket, but put your bottles of stuff in that bucket and being a UV-resistant bucket.
Frank
Now if you’re going to do that, you need to make sure that the bucket is UV-resistant as well, just because the lid is doesn’t mean that the bucket is.
Kevin
Well I mean resin also already comes in UV-proof brown bottles.
Frank
Brown… bottles… yeah.
So there’s that too.
So yeah, I need to cut you guys short because I got things to do.
Chris
Well you’re the tallest, so.
Kevin
Well so do we all.
I just needed to, if I may, just real quick take a couple minutes to talk about disposal because if we’re talking about garbage, we have to talk about getting rid of the stuff.
And with filament, I’m sure you guys just like either throw it in the recycle bin or garbage or whatever.
Chris
You can’t do that.
Frank
Let himm continue.
We can flesh that out.
Go ahead.
Kevin
You can’t do that with resin.
You can’t dump it down the drain.
It’s hazardous.
So what you have to do is, if it’s a little bit, you can dump it in your wash solution, which you should be once again, should be cleaning every few washes.
You just let it settle out and then transfer it to another container and wipe up all the sludge from there because the alcohol will completely denature the resin.
Or if you’ve got a larger quantity of it, you get a container that you don’t care about, like one of those lunch meat containers or a plastic bag and put it in there and then take it out in the sun and let it harden.
And then you can throw it away.
Chris
You know what would be really good for that is they make these clearish bottles.
So either old milk jugs or they make clearish bottles that you use for your car wash fluid.
Kevin
Yeah.
That’ll work.
Frank
So when it comes to disposal of filament, it was mentioned a couple of episodes for that too.
We cannot recycle any of our thermal plastics.
Kevin
That’s right!
I remember that now.
They do not go well unless your municipality can account for them, which most of them don’t.
It’s better to assume they don’t because especially with like PETG, the G is what makes it the low thermal plastic that we can print with.
And it is a contaminant for the regular PET that you consume stuff out of, like…
Andy
water bottles
Frank
Water bottles and that sort of thing.
And if just a little bit of that contaminant gets into a batch, the whole thing is trash.
And so it’s actually destructive to drop the PETG into your recycling bin.
Chris
And most municipalities don’t know how to sort it anyway because there is no number stamped on your garbage PETG.
Frank
So there’s that and like the PLAs and the TPUs and even the ABS, they’re variants that are contaminants to what can be recycled.
So it’s better just to cover all your bases and either find a way to reuse it yourself, which maybe we should talk about it even though we’re not really equipped any of us to reuse the filaments.
So it’s better overall for the environment and all that surprisingly to just throw it away or reuse it yourself, which obviously would be better, but you have to be equipped to reuse it.
Chris
It’s a project on my list.
Andy
Right, it would be a fun project to do, even if it’s not something you could actually like really benefit from, you know, it would be fun to still do it.
Chris
Yeah.
If I make any progress on it, maybe we should do an episode on recycling, but that’s not for today.
Andy
Right.
Kevin
For today, I think we need to close it.
People have time constraints.
Frank
Things to do.
All right.
Well, we’d like to thank everyone for listening to the very end.
Chris
Very, very end.
Frank
Yeah.
Here we are.
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Kevin
Keep your FEP tight.
Chris
Sign off are ya suckers.
Kevin
I really need to come up with something.