Frank

Thank you for joining us.
This is Episode 37 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 Cotton, Kevin Buckner, and Chris decided to take a personal day today.
We also decided without him, I guess, that we’re going to change things up a little bit and let everybody know what we’re not going to talk about.
First thing, instead of at the end of the podcast.
So our topic this week is printed tools… again.

Andy

Yeah, how that came back up on the list, but a lot of things to talk about there, so that works.

Frank

Yeah, and maybe it just keeps coming up because we come up with more stuff to pry printing on the 3D printer.

Andy

Yeah…

Kevin

Maybe.
I mean, I like last time I’m not really going to have anything to say about printed tools because I don’t do that.

Frank

Fair.
That said, maybe we should start with you, Kev, just so that, you know, if you feel like you’re wasting your time, you can leave.
And me and Andy can ruminate on all of this stuff that we could or should or would not print on our printers for the rest of the day.

Kevin

Okay.
So what I’ve been doing, I haven’t really done much this week because I’m in a community choir and we had our performance this week.
But what I did do is I printed up the a couple of what I’m planning on using as the black bishops for my nightmare chess set.
And they’re kind of horrific looking, kind of hard to describe.
They’ve got lots of arms and just like gaunt and sometimes skeletal features, but they’ve got kind of a tall, funny hat.
So I figured they look, they would make nice bishops.
So that’s what I’m using for that.
And that’s all they’ve done this week.

Frank

I guess that works.
That’s cool.
You’re going to have to share pictures when you get them done or, you know, images for your slicers so that we have an idea.

Kevin

You wouldn’t want to see the images for my slice or though because that would that would just like they’re just cross sections.

Frank

Well, you know, before you slice it, sure, because yeah…

Kevin

I’ll post photographs.
I still need a post photos of the king that I’m using.

Frank

True.

Andy

Yeah.
I haven’t seen any pictures of that yet.
I know the queen one you shared turned out looking really neat.

Frank

Yeah.

Andy

That’s going to be a read chess set.

Frank

Um, that does bring up one question.
Are you going to use different characters for black and white?

Kevin

Yes.

Frank

Okay.

Andy

Oh, wow.
Okay.

Frank

So it’s a double set instead of just different color prints.

Kevin

Right.

Frank

That is going to be cool.

Andy

That will. Well, very interested in that.
And all dark themed twos right up your alley there.

Kevin

Yeah.

Andy

Vampire, bat kind of monster feel.
That’s cool.

Frank

So, uh, you work on anything this week Andy?

Andy

Yeah.
I did a couple of things.
So my, since my last podcast here, my dryer broke and that left me with, uh, again, not very good access.
Well, that was with the flat tire.
But, um, you know, when I got it all put back together, it fired up and it was working really well.
Um, I put a load in the washing machine and, and pushed that through, made it to the dryer, started doing laundry.
And before I got two, I got two loads in through the washing machine before my washing machine then broke, wouldn’t drain water.
And, uh, so it was kind of, uh, kind of a crappy situation to have, you know, the dryer break and then suddenly the washing machine having problems as well within, you know, loads of laundry.
But, um, they’re not, they’re not brand new either, but they’re not old.
I think I’ve got maybe five years on them and already starting to have problems.
However…

Frank

I see how it is.
I move out and you replace all the stuff.

Andy

Well, yeah, I didn’t have to worry about you screwing stuff up anymore.
It’s great.

Frank

Fair.

Andy

Uh, just kidding.
Um, but, uh, but, you know, one thing that’s really neat is getting into appliances like that to repair them.
They’re, they really feel like they’re designed to be repaired.
Well, their design is got that in mind.
And it’s, it’s wonderful taking it apart to get into them to do a project because they’re time consuming.
There’s a lot you got to take apart.
And there’s just so much you stumble across in the design of the unit that was, is there for you to take it apart?
I mean, I love little things like finding stickers on the inside of the wiring diagrams or, or things like, you know, when I go to lift this face into place, it’s actually got a hook to hold the face into place while you get the screws in it.
You know, little just things like that that are just wonderful.
There’s a hole through the face.
You could fit a screwdriver through to unscrew something on the other side, you know, just little, little things like that.
For someone who really likes to design stuff, seeing, you know, something well thought out like that.
And, and it, it’s making it a pleasure to get into it.
And all it, what really the problem was was just the water pump, the impeller had broken loose from the water pump.
And when I was digging into it, I thought this might actually be something I could 3D print my way out of if the impeller just broke.
I could might be, you know, maybe re, re print a new impeller for the motor because the motor was still running.
It just, you know, it, when the motor kicks on, when the pump kicks on, it just sounds like a motor running without a load.
And so that’s, that’s all I had.
And there was no draining involved.
So I figured that…

Frank

it’s not like it takes a lot of volume to move either.

Andy

Yeah.
Yeah.

Frank

I mean, it usually just pushes through that one inch hose to get out, right?

Andy

Yep.
That’s true.
Yeah.
So it doesn’t need a whole lot.
And the impeller is really simple.
It’s far simpler than the ones I was showing you guys for the fish tank impellers I was doing here.
But I took it apart and it’s a little bit, well, it’s a little bit of a different design.
And on top of it, parts were cheap, a whole brand new pump for that thing was $23.
So I went ahead and just, yeah, I went ahead and just bought a new pump for it.
So I can not have it affect my laundry cycle and I can just go in and replace it.
But I’ve got the old pump that I want to completely remove the impeller and see why it’s disconnected on the inside and see if I can’t repair it.
So I’ve got a spare because there’s nothing wrong with the motor itself.
But that might, that might be a 3D printing project down the road there or something that just involves a little bit of glue or something.
So it might not be 3D printing related.
But we’ll see when I go to dig into it.

Frank

And you’ve got the super neat plastic glue if you want to use that to fix it.

Andy

Well, the, the glue that I use for the plastics is, um, it’s a cement.
It’s acrylic cement.
And it’s, I, I absolutely love it.
It is a little, like, it’s like 80 to 90% as strong as AC glue or PC glue, a super glue, right?
I think it’s.

Frank

Okay, Yeah.

Andy

So it’s not quite as strong, but it seems to work on almost anything.
You know, sometimes you go to super glue something that just doesn’t stick, you know, so it pops right off.
And it’s an instant failure.
It doesn’t need to suffer from any of those problems.

Frank

Super glue to be effective needs to have almost nothing between the two parts.

Andy

Yeah.

Frank

And if there’s like extra glue and it’s filling a gap or something, it’s just never going to dry.

Andy

Yeah.
Yeah.

Frank

That’s what I hate about it.

Andy

Yeah.
So this stuff does that.
It’s a little bit more viscous, which I like.
So you can put it in it stays where you put it.
Um, it’s, it’s, it’s cheaper.
You could buy it in bigger bulk than you can AC glue.
And it, the stuff doesn’t seem to dry out on its own.
And one thing I love about it is, it, it, as soon as you squeeze it out of the tube.
It’s tacky in about 30 seconds.
Oh, yeah.
And about two minutes or so, it is quite stiff, but you could still move it and make adjustments if you need.
But after about five minutes, it’s set for the most part and cures in 24 hours.
So it’s been a great glue to use.
I love it.
In fact, the, the, the piece that I made, um, this last week, I, I designed it last week.
It’s a, um, my fish tank’s been getting too warm since it’s been summertime.
And taking the lid off lets it cool down enough.
But having the lid off the fish tank, I don’t like the feeling of that.
So I decided to put a just a small PC fan into the lid.
And I’ve got these big openings in my lid for where the old filters used to go that I don’t use.
So I thought I would build a, a fan housing that would clamp onto the side of the tank that would fit into that hole perfectly.
And so I, I did that, made it out of two pieces so that I can print without supports and made it, so it clamps on to the tank itself.
So I can still remove the lid without, you know, having anything attached.
And, uh, now all I got to do is wire the thing up and, uh, then I’ll be done.
I don’t know if I’m going to use a five volt like USB charger or a 12 volt power supply.
I’m using a 12 volt PC fan to do it a little 80 millimeter that I’ve got.
And I’m actually doing it for both my tanks.
Even though my other tank doesn’t suffer from the heating problem, it may later on.
So I figured just go ahead and make it for both.
But, uh, you know, a lot of those 12 volt fans works beautifully off a lower voltage.
And it’s not like I’m trying to blow air into the tank.
I’m just trying to move the air off of the surface and running it at a lower RPMs and things might work fine.
But these are the same fans I use on my printer, uh, my printer’s cooling system for the Peltier cooling system.
And the same fans there.
And running off of 12 volts or, in those cases, it’s split 24 because it’s two 12 volt fans series together and runs off the 24 supply from the printer.
So I’ll have to put these on 12 volts and see if they’re the same which they should be.
And if that’s the case, that’s more air movement than I need.
So this whole system I might wind up making just USB and just running it off of a five volt USB charger.
So that’ll work.
But the prints came out really good.

Frank

They look real smooth from here.
Like real shiny.

Andy

So, yeah, they turn out really nice.
Um, the, uh, one thing I did learn though is I have been preaching hairspray for the longest time.
And I use Wal-Mart rave 4 hairspray.
And because it’s got the nylon in it.
Now I got the whole idea to use to try hairspray from another podcast.
Um, I think it’s 3D printing today from back in the day.
Anyway, they were recommending, um, aqua aquanet for hairspray.
And when I went to go buy hairspray for the first time, I just used rave 4 for my hair.
So I just tried that and it worked well.
And so I always made the assumption that aquanet worked just as good as my rave 4 did.
And a while back, I had bought some and used it.
And, uh, I didn’t really like it too much.
It’s got more hydrocarbons.
I think the propellant is a hydrocarbon based propellant.
Because whenever I use it in my laundry room, my hydrocarbons alarm goes off because it’s a laundry room.
I got the furnace and stuff in there.
So I got a leak detector for that.
But it set it off, if I use it, if I, if I heat up the bed so it evaporates quickly, it’ll, it’ll set that off when my rave 4 never did.
Uh, and I thought that was the only problem.
I didn’t really like using it, but no big deal.
Um, before I printed this, I wound up cleaning my bed because like when I put the washing and dryer machine back, I cleaned everything up good and that meant cleaning up my printer too.
So I, I stripped the bed and I went to go re, uh, put hairspray on the bed for the next run.
And I figured I’ll use the rest of the Aquinette I’ve got.
And so I sprayed some on it and I might as well have not had anything on there at all.
In fact, it worked so terribly that I wound up cleaning the bed off again, uh, to get it all off and just using the rave 4, which it worked perfectly with the rave 4.
So, uh, I don’t know.
Aquinette apparently is not something I will be buying again because it…

Frank

Burn it to the ground.

Andy

Yeah, I threw away almost a full can of it because it’s just, it’s garbage to me.
I don’t know.
I don’t know what the difference is.
So if anybody actually took my advice when I was mentioning rave 4, I apologize for my assumption there.
I made an ass out of myself and no, rave 4 does at least in my experience does not work as good or Aquinette does not work as good as rave 4 at all.
But, uh, but no, these…

Frank

so any suggestion that you, because you said rave 4 as your suggestion, what you’re not suggestion, suggesting is the Aquinette.

Andy

Yes.

Frank

Okay.

Andy

It makes me feel good that you stumbled during the correction of my experience.

Frank

Because I know good words.
I promise.

Andy

But, uh, but yeah, yeah.
So, uh, yeah, if you try the Aquinette and we’re just, Andy doesn’t know what the heck he’s talking about, it’s because Andy didn’t know what the heck he was talking about.
Give the rave 4 shot.
I think you’ll be more impressed.

Frank

At some point, it feels like a cop out, but this is called amateur 3D podcast for a reason.

Andy

Yeah.
Yeah.
But I shouldn’t have been preaching something I didn’t have firsthand experience on.
So, lesson learned for me.
And I think an apology is, is owed for that.

Frank

You should feel bad.
No.

Andy

But I gotta get this thing wired up.
And I hopefully will do that today.
And, um, have it working for these guys so that I can put their lid back on their tank.
Because they hate the lid being off, because they associate that with me digging in there to clean up the tank.
And, uh, they don’t like that.
So having the lid off stresses them out a little bit.
So.

Frank

I guess it hadn’t really thought the fish would have anxiety over certain environmental things.

Andy

Oh my god.
That’s the thing that seems to kill these tropical fish the most is stress.
Most of the treatments I have for my fish are for their stress levels.
It seems to be what causes all the diseases and stuff like that.
But, um, but yeah.
So that’s that project.
I think that’s the only thing I really worked on this whole time.
It’s been kind of a slower week, you know, dealing with the washing machine breaking immediately after the dryer broke.

Frank

Yeah.
I can see how that wouldn’t be irritating.

Andy

Yeah.

Frank

Frustrating.

Andy

Yeah.
But, you know, it worked out pretty good.
So good.
That’s my project that I’m in the middle of, but I got that printed out and working good.
I’m looking a little bit more into an SLA printer.
I haven’t really asked the wife yet if I could get one.
Don’t know why or I will put it.
I’ve got the entire top of a dryer that I could use.
Is that enough room to be able to to run an SLA printer cab as well as your curing station?

Kevin

Probably.

Frank

Three foot squared about one meter for the, for the non-Americans.
Give or take.

Kevin

Yeah, you probably don’t need as much space between the printer and the curing station as I have on my setup.
So yeah, that should probably be fine.

Andy

Okay.
That sounds good.
And I think I was kind of leaning towards the Saturn 2.
It’s kind of what I was looking at a little bit here and there.
It’s not quite a newby one.
It seems to be a little bit more mid-grade printer.
It’s got the 4K screen.
It’s got a little bit of a bigger bed from what I understand, but it’s got a lot of great reviews.
I think it was like $350.
So kind of looking into that, just kind of experimenting.
It’s going to be like a week or two before I actually drop the ball and make that purchase.
But quite jealous of Kevin’s capabilities here.
I want to expand on my own.
But at the same time too, I really also want to get a small CNC machine that I can use for aluminum.
So I don’t know which one will come first.
There’s a lot of wants and very little plans to do anything.
So we’ll see what happens.

Frank

And just in case any of our listeners decide to do their own research on these things and buy something on Andy’s recommendation, let them know that you heard about them from us and say, hey, you should sponsor those guys.

Andy

Yeah, yeah, that would be great.

Frank

Because we’re not going to go looking for like Harries or something.
I’m not going to shape my beard off.

Andy

Yeah, yeah, no kidding. Me neither.
So, but yeah, that’s all I’ve done.
What about you, Frank?
You been up to anything?

Frank

Well, I’ve been fighting the mid-print delamination and under extrusion issue.
Just under extrusion is ugly when you’re trying to do something as a gift in my mind.
So, yeah, I decided that what I wanted to do was try fresh eyes on the statues that I’ve been trying to print for my brother for his birthday.
And my wife asked me to make her some Deathly Hallows bookends.

Andy

Oh, that’s cool.

Frank

And the last time I did bookends, the plastic wasn’t heavy enough to actually hold books up.
And I didn’t print them with the little tab that goes under the book.
So, I talked with her about it and we decided that doing the wooden bookends with just the printed part in the the opening of the bookend would work.
And then I can, you know, do the wood and stain it and have it look real, uh, real good and all that and just have the the support be the Deathly Hallows.
And in the process of printing off a test for that, I ended up with a glob again.

Andy

Oh, no.

Frank

I don’t like globs.
So, I decided to be a little more thorough than I did the last time and was had the heat block on and was feeling around with my dental pick and it sparked.
And so, I just shut it down.
It was midnight one o’clock.
I’m like, okay, I’m not going to do with this right now.
So, I shut it down and actually disassembled stuff and I didn’t cause, I think that what I must have done with my dental pick has gone through a wire and bridged that way.
It wasn’t like a major amount of, it was a single spark, but so I don’t, I don’t even see a hole from where the pick went through anything.
So…

Andy

Okay, that’s good.

Frank

It’s not like the insulation was compromised and in some major way and the wires are touching.

Andy

So, I think they use pretty beefy MOSFETs to drive the heaters anyway.
So, it probably could have handled a little bit of abuse.
A shorting somewhere.

Frank

Anyway, I didn’t see any major damage.
So, I just pulled out whatever plastic I didn’t have to disassemble the whole thing.
I knew better what I was looking for.
So, I was able to get all the plastic out of the underside of the carriage and ran off a print of toothless from how to train your dragon.
This one is kind of more like a chibi statue, if you know the Japanese chibis.
And it actually looks a little bit like stitch from Lilo and Stitch, but it’s definitely toothless.
It’s weird.
Anyway, so I printed one of those off and because I hadn’t changed any of my settings from the Deathly Hallows, I ended up printing him solid.

Andy

Oh, no.

Frank

Luckily, he was only 30 millimeters tall.

Andy

Okay.

Frank

It was a lot of plastic, a lot more than I would have normally printed with, but you know, when it’s a gift for your wife and she’s got a bunch of little things and extra heavy little pieces not going to ruin anything.
So, I gave that to my wife and then I ran another print of my brothers See-no-evil, hear-no-evil, speak-no-evil frogs.
Okay.
And there is almost no under extrusion.
Like the one or two places is easy to work with for me.
So, I got that project done and my next project is to redo my key holder, which fell off of the wall.
The one that I talked about many months ago now.
And I’m going to do a holder for the guards for my clippers.

Andy

Okay.

Frank

Because they’re just loose inside of the bag and it’s painful for me.
So…

Andy

Yeah

Frank

To sort and rearrange.
So, I’m just going to create a holder for them all and base it off of the head of the clippers so that they actually clip into the thing and see how that goes.
I think it’ll be fun.
A lot of work.

Andy

And I’m glad to hear that it sounds like some of your under extrusion issues might be resulting themselves.

Frank

Yeah, like cleaning the heat block three times in a row with almost no prints in between must have done something.
Could have been, could have been.

Andy

Did you did you at any point ever measure to see how much plastic it’s using to see if you’re not that your steps would be wrong, but that you’re extruding as much plastic as you think you’re extruding?
I have not done that test.
It’s a good one to identify if you’re having a hardware issue or a software issue.

Frank

A lot of that issue is kind of the drawback to temperature adhesion in my mind because if it doesn’t stick or if it comes loose it’s not going to re-stick and then it’s just going to drag the part around while it’s extruding.
Yeah.
And that’s what’s been happening.
I’m pretty sure.
So, it’s not it’s not that the head is overextruding.
It’s that it’s dragging a part that is not sticking to the build plate.

Andy

Oh, no.
I mean with your under extruding problem.

Frank

Oh, no.
With that issue, I have just been slowly, you know, one or two percent at a time between prints increasing my flow until they’re in a manageable position.

Andy

Okay.
Okay.
It’s it’s pretty easy if you ever if you ever wanted to.
Yeah.
I have watched a few videos and from the point where after you measure it, they’re still saying and then adjust from there.
I’m to the point where I’m at adjust from there anyway to fine tune it.
So, I’m not as concerned about the initial measurement.

Andy

Got you.
Okay.
Or whatever works.
That’s good.

Frank

And I am a stubborn SOB and I refuse to let a piece of plastic get the best of me.

Andy

So, you’re in the long, the wrong line of interest here.

Frank

I will contend until I win.
Damn it.
Yeah.
I only wasted a quarter spool in the last two weeks on these issues.
So…

Andy

that’s actually not too bad figuring the level of problems you have had.

Frank

Yeah.
It’s been a lot of small prints for the most part too though.
So, that’s where the balance is, right?
When you’re not confident in your print, you print small stuff until you figure it out.

Andy

Yeah.

Frank

That’s the epic big stuff.

Andy

That is very true.

Frank

It makes turn around a little bit easier anyway.

Andy

It gives you time to do those little simple adjustments and things.

Frank

Yeah.
Agreed.

Andy

But yeah, that’s good that that’s working out.

Frank

And I haven’t printed any tools.

Andy

Yeah, it’s been a long time since I’ve printed tools.

Frank

Well, no, I guess last week I printed another 321 block.
That’s a tool.

Andy

Yeah.
Yeah, that very much is.

Frank

Printed it solid.
It does better as a 321 block when it’s solid.

Andy

Yeah.
True.
I made a Gator bite release tool a couple of weeks ago.
Gator bite.
I couldn’t find me.
I just like a half C shaped washer that’s like, I think I made mine like 15, 20 millimeters thick.
I see shape the size of the pipe and you just clip it over the C and then you can push the piece of plastic into the Gator bite to release it.

Frank

Oh, for like those fittings that I had never seen before for the PVC where you get the two things that you can put them together and they got the special tool to release them.

Andy

Yep, that’s exactly it.
And then the ones I did were for copper, but…

Frank

The not Chinese finger traps for piping.

Andy

Yeah, the ones you’re never supposed to use.
And for everybody saying, well, that’s definitely Andy not knowing what he’s doing.
They’re absolutely right because I didn’t know what I was doing.
I didn’t know how to sweat a proper pipe fitting back then.
So I used Gator bites.
And as they fail, which I actually haven’t had any fail, as they make me worry, I swapped them out for, you know, just properly soldering them in place.
So got to be able to get them off in order to do that.
And I had it lost my key a long time ago.
So I just made one real quick.

Frank

You don’t want to spend 20 bucks at the hardware sort of getting a new one.

Andy

Yeah, or sit there and try to do it with like a pair of pliers or something.
Like, I’m sure there’s people out there who just pop it really quick and get it off.
But I am not one of those people.
I’ll sit there just fight with struggle with it.
So just making the pretty close to the identical tool piece of plastic that, you know, you get when you buy those, it was all it took and was able to get it off and, you know, sweat the pipe properly and get a proper soldered fitting on it.
And I did a lot of piping back then.

Frank

Maybe use a soda can like you do with the when you’re compromising a dial padlock.

Andy

Oh
yeah
Yeah

Frank

just it’s the same idea right?

Andy

No, no, not really.
It’s more about pushing the release ring with equal pressure all the way around at the same time to get it to release on those.

Frank

So instead of coming overcoming the one ball, you’re overcoming all of the releases.

Andy

Yeah, it’s almost like if you imagined, let’s say your padlock idea, let’s say you would you would put your your bypasser in place.
But then you were having a hard time pushing the bypasser in.
So you made another tool to push the the bypasser into the lock to disengage it.
Okay.
So it’s like it’s already got that piece built into the fitting.
You just got to be able to push it down.
But since it’s grabbing all the way around the pipe, you have to push it down equally on all sides all at the same time with about the same amount of pressure.
So there’s a nice little tool to be able to to do it all at once that they make.

Frank

Japanese finger trap.

Andy

Yeah, pretty much.
It’s actually looking at the first resisting the urge to put your finger in one of those fittings.

Frank

It does occur to me to wonder, I think I heard somewhere that the Japanese actually have nothing to do with those things.
And they just get blamed for it.

Andy

I wouldn’t be surprised.
We’ve done that with so much things.
I mean, don’t even look at what we call different foods from different countries as if it actually ever came from that country.

Frank

American Japanese food versus traditional Japanese food or Thai food or…

Andy

Yeah.
And I like our Americanized stuff.
I’ll take that, you know, what we call Hispanic food or that all day long over the real stuff.
Unfortunately, I’d rather have the Americanized stuff most of the time.
So…

Frank

I don’t know.
I think traditional Thai food is very good.
I mean, I don’t like the American rendition of it.

Andy

Oh, that’s what I’m saying.
As I do still enjoy the American rendition.

Frank

Well, then you’re a true American and I’m apparently a little bit of an outsider.
Well, without Chris here, we managed to get through these topics and ideas real quick.

Andy

Yeah, I’m wondering if if Chris may have been the one to put the topic in place too, because he does do a lot of a lot of things.

Frank

Idea generation.

Andy

Yeah, I mean, he definitely keeps the conversation going.

Frank

We’ll have to pester him on that one.

Andy

There’s a lot of neat tools that I think would be fun to design that used multi materials like printing a pair of pliers that uses, you know, the pliers itself is, you know, made out of nylon or PC or something, you know, hard like that, a PETG.
And then, you know, make the joint in between them out of TPU to make, to construct the hinge out of little things like that are kind of cool.

Frank

Like a living hinge.

Andy

Yeah.
Yeah.

Frank

Okay.

Andy

I’ve seen those.
That’s from multi material prints when you’ve got the, when you’re running like an iDex machine or something like that to be able to print them, you know, to print the joint right into the part all in one go.

Frank

Yeah.

Andy

Which I think I’d be an interesting thing to be able to move to print wise.
I mean, all of us only run single extruder printers.
Oh, that’s a really gotten into multi material at all to be able to see its perks but…

Frank

When I get to the point where I do replace my printer, I think I’m going to look much closer at something that does at least two filaments.

Andy

I agree.
I agree.
At least to have the option there.
Right now, I don’t think it’s worth purchasing a brand new printer to do multi material.

Frank

Oh, no.
I’ll definitely not be doing that for a while.
I just, you know, when I get to that point.

Andy

Yeah.

Frank

It’s like buying a new car.
You buy the new car and then you start day dreaming about the next car, even though you’ve got another 10 years until it falls apart.

Andy

Yeah.
And with these printers, they’re so easy to fix.
It’s like, I don’t know how long mine’s actually going to last me.
Probably keep it for a long time, just replacing things that break on it.

Frank

Your printer barely resembles the one that you bought in the first place.

Andy

That is true.
That is true.
But I haven’t, I haven’t made any, any change, last change I made on it was switching over to the H2 extruder package.
So I can have the really tiny extruder.

Frank

Oh, I didn’t tell you.
My dad has been talking about getting a new printer.
And he’s like, and I just, I don’t like the direct drive.
I want to do the Bowden.
And I’m sitting there going, what?
Okay.
That doesn’t make any sense.
But we’re also talking about the, he did 40 years as a machinist.
You know, he’s got his ideas and he knows how to do stuff.
But…

Andy

yeah

Frank

He compromised his machine.
He didn’t like how it was doing temperatures.
So we put a manual dial on there to manually do the temperature.
And then it wasn’t getting up to temperature and he couldn’t figure out why.
And so I got him through that issue.
And he just hasn’t done anything with his printer since then.
And I keep telling him, I’ll give it to me.
I’ll work on that old thing and try to get it.

Andy

Yeah, I get it.

Frank

Try to figure it out because it’s the older technology.
I have no problem with playing with the hard way to do prints.

Andy

Yeah.

Kevin

Right.

Frank

Just to learn, right?

Kevin

Yeah.

Andy

Yeah.

Frank

And if I get it up and running, I’ve got a second printer.
Even if the bed is half as big as my current one, then I can do fun stuff that way.

Andy

Yeah, that’s true.

Kevin

Yeah.

Andy

Might be interested in something like a Delta printer or something, get something clear out of the ordinary.
If you’re going to stick with a second FDM printer, you know.

Frank

Well, if, if I’m going to invest money, that’s a whole another thing.
If someone’s going to give me a printer, I’m just going to take what they offer.

Andy

True.
Very true.

Kevin

Which makes sense.

Frank

What?
I mean, I’m suddenly reminded of the idiom that you shouldn’t look at gift horse in the mouth.
Right.
And my response to that is why not?
If I’m going to be feeding the thing, I’m going to make sure it can eat what I’m feeding it.

Kevin

Right.

Andy

Yeah.

Frank

My dad’s printer, they’re very least.
I have a clue as to what’s wrong.
So I can fix it.
But I’m not going to take just anything and put money into fixing it, you know.

Andy

Yeah.
Well, you’re right.
If someone is going to give you a horse, that’s a hell of a gift.
There’s probably something wrong with it.

Kevin

You want to make sure a horse is healthy.
So I’m, I’m pretty sure that the person who came up with that idiom is somebody who was giving sickly horses away and getting offended when people were looking at them and saying, now, how long is this horse going to last?

Andy

Yeah.

Frank

Should I invest in food that it can’t eat?

Andy

Yeah.

Frank

So yeah.

Andy

I keep on trying to go back to tools and what kind of tools I’ve made.
I don’t print a lot of tools.

Frank

Yeah.
It must have been Chris’s subject.
Maybe we should have looked at that a little closer before we started.

Kevin

Yeah

Andy

It’s all good.

Frank

Or, you know, like I said, it’s a topic that we’re not going to talk about.
So we’re going to spend, I guess, now 15 or 20 minutes talking about how we’re not going to talk about it.

Andy

That works.

Kevin

That works too.
I mean, it makes for great listening, just like everything else we do.

Frank

Hey, you know what?
Actually, you know, might as well just go back and talk about the thousand listens.
We just crossed that line.
We got a thousand people that have listened to us, a thousand times someone has listened to us ramble for at least an hour.

Andy

We’ve wasted a thousand hours of humanity.

Kevin

Yes!

Andy

Our plan to conquer the world is slowly coming to fruition.
There is the bit where we’ve got 28 subscribers or 24, sorry, 24 subscribers.
If we discount my wife who I think is still subscribed, she hasn’t said she isn’t, but you know, she may just be avoiding hurting my feelings.
And the other let’s assume three people that are friends and family.
That means that there’s 20 people subscribed to us.
That we don’t know.

Kevin

Well, I’m a subscriber.

Frank

Okay.
So you’re one of the four on Spotify.
Are you a subscriber on Spotify?

Kevin

No, I’m subscribed through Google podcasts.

Frank

I don’t think that they share their metrics with Spotify.
So

Kevin

okay.
So it’s 20…

Andy

And I’m the podcast republic guy.

Kevin

So it’s 24 subscribers through Spotify.

Frank

Yes.

Andy

Okay.
Okay.

Kevin

That’s pretty cool.

Frank

Yeah.

Kevin

Just in that.
Yeah, just in that one realm.
That’s kind of cool.

Frank

Yeah.
20 people who like to listen to us not talk about our topics.

Andy

That’s good.

Frank

That’s worth it to me.

Andy

It’s not like we do this for anything more than just the opportunity to hang out anyhow.

Frank

So yeah, we need that excuse because the game night wasn’t working.

Kevin

I thought it was fine.

Frank

Yeah, Until Andy decided that he needed to work and got together after he left.

Andy

Really?
Isn’t that quick?

Frank

Yeah.

Kevin

Well, it also, somebody was was saying that the game we were playing was getting boring or something weird like that.
I was fine with it.
You know, it’s I was treating it more like I do with poker. It’s like the purpose of it is to hang out and have something to do while you’re hanging out and chatting with each other.

Andy

Yeah.

Frank

I do.
If I remember right, Andy was feeling that Among Us was a little violent.
No, that would be a friendly conversation.

Andy

No, that wasn’t me.

Frank

Maybe it was Chris or maybe it was Chris’s wife.

Kevin

I could see it being Chris.

Frank

I would accept that being Chris’s wife too.
Oh, yeah.
But yeah, fun met and lots of stuff that I’m going to have to cut out.
Maybe. Does anybody have anything else that they want to say.

Andy

God, I wish I did.
I would love to talk more about this.
But the tools issues, just not something I do a lot of printing of.
Not even like shims and things.
I did make a shim for my dishwasher so that the locking mechanism would work properly.

Kevin

Hey, that’s a good idea.
I mean, so we talked about that leveling isn’t actually making it level per se just making it so that the entire build plate is equidistant from the nozzle or well, with my resin printer, the table I’ve got it on, the table top is pressed wood and it had spent some time in a rather moist environment.
So it’s warped.
I need the intention when I first brought it in and said this is going to be my printing area was that I was eventually going to get some actually not warped wood to replace the top with and that just hasn’t happened.
And I thought I need shims to actually hold this thing level because you do want it to be level with when you’re working with resin because of it.
If the resin level gets low on…

Frank

it’s not going to be an even print.

Kevin

Yeah, you want it to be the resin level to be equal throughout the whole thing just to make it so that you don’t like run out of resin on one side and have that whole part of the print missing.
I’ve actually I did that one time with the altar that I printed up for Gods of Metal Ragnarok and yeah and it you could see on the print where it kind of failed because the printer itself is not completely level and one side ran out of resin before the other and it was it just looked bad.
So I need printing shims though.
That’s a good idea because I’ve been thinking I need shims for this.
I’ve been trying to use like the user manual for the printer and and the paper funnels and stuff and but they they keep getting flattened too much.

Andy

Yeah, that would work.
You could print like a bottom to the printer that conforms to the table however bumpy the table is or what not and then it makes the top of the table completely level for the printer to sit on.

Frank

I keep thinking about dials and screws too. kind of like having…

Andy

Making it adjustable.

Frank

Yeah.
That also kind of explains the confusion going from SLA to FDM because you’re actually leveling it to the earth when it’s an SLA printer.

Kevin

Kind of.
Yeah, well I mean you have to when you level the build plate you actually do make it level to the screen.

Frank

Sure.

Kevin

The same in the nozzle.

Frank

That’s not as finely tuned though as it is with an FDM because yours you just got the one ball joint you loosen it or tighten it right.
So

Kevin

yeah.
Yeah.

Frank

Yeah.
So we tram and you just you know yeah eyeball it.
Well and I but your machine needs to be level to the earth and our machine can be sideways as long as it’s tramped correctly.

Kevin

So exactly but I do also tram a bit but I tram and level.

Frank

Makes sense.

Andy

I’ve always wondered how much more of an angle I could get on my FDM printer if I cocked the whole printer up on the side.

Frank

You know what?
You can 3D print some tools and figure it out.

Kevin

There you go.
There’s those extreme angles but I don’t know if the kickstarter is still active or not but I’ve seen it advertised just so much on Facebook the the one that is saying yeah it’s an FDM printer that prints upside down and they insist that it works and everything I’ve read about it is that it they don’t have a working prototype and that the the prototype they do have actually doesn’t do as good of quality as they have.
I’ve talked about it before.
It’s the one that claims they can make a 3D model out of a single 2D photograph.

Andy

Yeah…

Kevin

a lot of clay.
I’m I’m purposely avoiding mentioning the brand name here because I don’t want…

Frank

So that we don’t send people their way.

Kevin

Well there’s there’s that but also so that in the off chance anybody involved in that project here is anything about it they can’t come after me for slander.

Frank

Yeah we don’t want that either.

Kevin

I mean that’s not to say that I haven’t done my share of slandering them on their advertisements because I’ve made comments on and maybe that’s why I keep seeing it is because I’ve commented on it before because I’m like yeah.
I was like what this is a bad idea why are we printing FDM upside down what is the benefit and they said well by housing the all the the extruder and the nozzle and everything underneath it put most of the parts that would normally be moving in a stationary thing so it reduces vibration and makes it quieter and I’m like okay, but what happens when you have adhesion issues because you’re you’re going to have adhesion issues at some point.

Frank

Anybody that buys that printer is going to have more blobs than I do.

Andy

Yeah oh man can you imagine having having a spaghetti print on a printer like that I mean we have a spaghetti print it’s annoying I mean unless you get a glob like you do Frank but you know generally spaghetti prints are a non-event it’s a oh I need better bed adhesion here or something you know but uh…
but if your printer was upside down how that would be such a mess yeah I can’t even imagine

Frank

Pass

Andy

yeah
yeah

Frank

pass all right.
I just keep thinking of this other printer that I saw that has a sideways or a horizontal gantry oh instead of a vertical one and it uses like a scissor lift to move the gantry up and down and then the carriage moves in all three dimensions and the bed plate stays stationary and that was an interesting idea I can see using something like that but yes what it’s still oriented with the build plate on the bottom so…

Andy

yeah

Kevin

Oh wait no…

Andy

Kinematics on that would be interesting.

Kevin

I did misremember it’s not their nozzle isn’t stationary it is still a moving nozzle with a stationary bed plate that only moves on the z-axis but they’re like having it lower reduces vibration or something weird like that.

Andy

I could see that but it would be introducing so many more problems yeah and here we got all this new input shaping technology to prevent you know those kind of vibrations and things like that on on gantry systems that kind of
turning into a non-issue it’s like solving a problem making things worse for a problem that’s almost non-existent.

Kevin

Yeah.

Frank

Gotta choose the lesser of two weevils.

Andy

yeah
but you know who’s the capital W building an entire printer you know from scratch and and getting it going is the people complaining about it so what do we know?

Kevin

true
true true but that you don’t have to be building an entire printer from scratch to be able to look at somebody’s design and point out the flaws.

Andy

yeah.

Frank

that’s science that is rudimentary science right there I have this great idea and then every other scientist comes around and goes naw that’s a bad idea dude
yeah I’m surprised, I mean it’s great that they tried something unique because who knows maybe they would have stumbled across something but the fact that they’re like turning it into a full-blown product advertising for it and stuff that’s the weird part.

Kevin

Right

Frank

it’s putting the cart down the street from the horse.

Andy

yeah yeah.

Kevin

Or like at the bottom of the hill leaving the horse up at the top.

Frank

No the horse is on a completely different hill
all right let’s be mindful of our own time here and just go do other Saturday projects I think.
all right…

Andy

hopefully Chris will be back next time keep the conversation going better.

Frank

I said what I did and I’m gonna go back to we said when you missed an episode that you must have been the one that was driving the conversation but now with Chris gone and us being in the same boat I think it’s really just the dynamic of all four of us because when one person’s gone the whole thing just falls apart

Kevin

Keah to a lesser extent when I’m gone because I don’t say much.

Frank

we still miss you though I know you’re you’re you’re I don’t want say snide your sarcasm is very useful.

Andy

Useful sarcasm beautiful

Frank

All right

Kevin

All right

Frank

we would like to thank everyone for listening to the very end
there it is I’ll start it again no 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 we’re easy to share…
and I’m gonna redo that anyway just so that we don’t have to contend with the airplane that flew right overhead in the middle of the line

Andy

okay

Frank

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 this in our Facebook group Amateur3dPod or you can email us at panelists@amateur3dpod.com
Our individual… for individual feedback you can email us at Franklin Kevin Andy or Chris at amateur3dpod.com the music in this episode was written by Kevin Buckner open a i’s whisper completed the heavy lifting for the transcripts which you can find linked in the description
Our panelists are me Franklin christenson and my friends Kevin Buckner Chris Weber and Andy Cottam.
Until next time we’re going offline.

Kevin

Keep your FEP tight

Andy

Weee. printing upside down