Frank
Thank you for joining us.
This is episode 59 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, Chris Weber, Andy Codham, and Kevin Buckner.
And for the first time in like three weeks, we’re all together.
Chris
Yeah.
Andy
We’ve had a couple of weeks where somebody was always missing at some point.
Frank
Yeah.
Chris
Frank even made me host once.
That was an enlightening experience.
Frank
I’m sure it was.
Chris
Yeah.
Frank
Maybe it’ll lead to you not interrupting me so much there, Chris.
Chris
Ouch.
Shots fired.
Frank
Oh, no.
If I’m going to fire shots, it’s going to be Old Navy style with 40 of the 50 pounders pointed to your direction.
Oh, and you’ll see me coming.
Andy
It’s good to see all three of your beautiful faces all at the same time.
Frank
Anyway, yes.
It’s good to see everybody’s wonderful beginning of November, no shave November, already grown out beards.
Andy
Oh, yeah.
Because we shave regularly, let me tell you.
Especially you.
Chris
Yeah.
Andy
You’re the one that tops most of us.
Frank
Well.
Chris
Yeah.
I already lost the no…
The no November thing, because I had almond joys.
Frank
Yeah.
That’s a different, yeah, no November.
One of my co-workers posted up for a Movember, and they’re like, check out my five o’clock stubble.
And I was like, I’m not going to shave for this, but I’ll compete in the six inch plus category at the end of the month if we do a great competition.
Andy
Nice.
Frank
Who are we going to start with this week?
Andy
Up to you.
You’re the one in charge.
Chris
(whispered) Kevin
Frank
Okay, Kevin.
Kevin, you’ve been nominated to go first.
Okay.
What’d you work on this week?
Kevin
I worked on writing my book.
Andy
Nice.
Frank
And, you know
Andy
That’s Printing, just 2D.
I gues 3D printing is arguably 2 1/2 D.
Kevin
Now, but this morning, my wife did wake up and say, well, you know, because I mentioned, like, we got a late start today.
We slept in rather late and she said, so would you, would you like some rice pudding?
And I was like, sure.
And she said, because we got talking about time and I was like, but you know, it is 930.
And so I’ve got my podcast in, in a half hour.
And she said, well, speaking of that, could you print up a spice rack to mount on the side of one of our cabinets or across our kitchen window?
Andy
Oh, that would be fun.
Chris
Yes.
Kevin
I was like, yeah, I can, I can see what I can find.
Like I can search thingyverse to see if I can find something.
And if not, I could probably design it.
It would be a fair…
Andy
I bet you can find Homer’s old one from the Simpsons that you could print up.
Chris
I mean, it’s just to step up from what you did with the, with the tube racks.
So yeah, all you do is you take a cylinder and holes in it instead or something of the…
Kevin
Actually, it might even be a step down because it’s just, this is for our larger containers of spices.
It’s not for our little tubes.
It’s for, it’s for
Frank
For the bulk spices
Kevin
The big stuff.
Yeah.
Chris
And also it’s for threemes.
Okay.
Kevin
So it’s just basically a glorified shelf.
Andy
Yeah.
Oh, that will be a fun project put together.
Frank
Chris, I think you missed the detail when he said on the side of the cabinet or in the window.
And I feel like you, I feel like you were talking about the, like a lazy Susan design.
Chris
Yeah.
Kevin
Right.
Chris
That was the first thing that popped in my head when you said it was a vice rack still.
Frank
My impression has been that she doesn’t really make a lot of requests of you and 3d printing stuff.
So this will be a fun, an interesting thing for her to experience requesting it and actually getting something that works instead of going to the store and buying it.
Kevin
Yeah.
I mean, I did also a couple of weeks ago, it’s been sitting for the longest time on, on the build plate.
I did try to print the headless horseman in the forward position and it didn’t work.
Andy
Oh no.
Kevin
I mean, it worked better than what I actually, so when I say it didn’t work, I mean…
Chris
Okay, visual listening.
Kevin
Right.
So the horseman worked and like most of the horse worked, but it’s missing its rear hind leg and its tail.
Chris
So we got a bipedal horse at this point.
Kevin
No, it’s a tripod.
Frank
Instead of a headless horse, like we talked about last time, it’s a buttless horse.
Kevin
Yeah.
Frank
It’s a hindless horse.
Andy
A hindless horse.
I love that.
Kevin
So it’s got the, it’s got the, it’s got the left leg in the back and the, the half that’s attached to it.
Frank
A half hindless horse.
Chris
You know, actually, I see that this, this would be a wonderful campaign enemy for one of your dnds.
He’s the hindless horseman.
Kevin
Oh, and I also just noticed that he’s missing his cape.
But yeah.
Frank
And it’s not even the, the headless horseman at this point.
It’s the headless horseman on a hindless horse.
Chris
He’s the h-less horseman.
Get it.
Kevin
And then I did buy another spool of that blue, green silk PLA so that I could print up more tube racks.
Andy
Oh, cool.
That was pretty when you did that last time.
Frank
Yeah, looks good.
Chris
Yeah.
Frank
Was that about it?
Kevin
Yeah, that’s about it.
I, I did obtain a whole bunch more STLs so that I can print storage boxes for all the thousands of miniatures that I have and maybe adapt some of them to be the table box thing for my nightmare chess set.
Frank
Okay.
Kevin
But yep, that’s, that’s what I’ve been doing.
Frank
Cool.
Andy’s disappeared from his screen and he’s muted.
So, uh…
Chris
Andy went all mute.
All right.
Frank
He’ll do that sometimes.
Chris
Yeah.
All right.
So, um, the, the wife has requested some things to print up for the Christmas and her birthday, which are coming up in a little over a month.
Actually, yeah.
And so, um, getting on, getting on those, I did finish printing up all of the stuff for her costume, which was really, really nice.
I, um, so I printed off this really big, long spade and ended up gluing it to the end of a staff.
So she actually had a, it looks like it looks like a spear…
Frank
So you didn’t get a shovel handle to put it on.
You actually put it on a staff.
Chris
A modified broom handle.
Yes.
So, um, yeah, yeah, looks, looks, looks pretty good.
You know, I still was thinking about just going out and getting her a spade shovel instead, but you know, she wasn’t having it.
Made me actually print something for it.
Frank
Um, I have been thinking about tools that I can put on the end of a broom handle.
Andy
Okay.
Frank
Things like, uh, um, not quite the claws that use the extension claws, but like, uh, something that will close on a light bulb.
So I can spin it in and then release it remotely.
Rather than, rather than the way most of them in the hardware store are is a, uh, it’s got an elastic band around it.
So you push in the bulb and then you spin it on and then you just pull it off around the bulb.
I want to physically release that pressure if I can.
Chris
Oh yeah, just something out of TPU with TPU grips on it, you know, that’d be.
Frank
And it’ll require designing the linkage and all that other stuff, which I should have thought of before now, but you know…
Chris
Yeah, maybe you, maybe you, you might be able to grab some pieces from, uh, the prosthetic hand concept.
You know, people that, yeah.
Frank
Um, it just wouldn’t have like a, the opposable thumb with a, with a prosthetic.
So, um, yeah, sorry.
This was your, uh, your show and tell.
Chris
I didn’t have, I didn’t have much beyond that.
Cause the
Andy
That’s still a neat project
Chris
Yeah, the wife has been sick this week.
So most of my time away from work, I’ve been spending taking care of her and the child.
So…
Andy
That’s never any fun.
Frank
The, uh, the not COVID has been going around and some people have been getting the COVID too.
So…
Chris
Yeah, it’s been something rough going around.
Frank
For sure.
Andy, did you get anything done this week?
Andy
Um, so I haven’t actively printed anything this week.
Um, but I have been, I have been starting on to my next project, which is that Beetlejuice sandworm.
And, uh, so the most difficult part of that project there is to create the model for it to hook all the servos together and stuff like that.
The actual programming for it’s going to be pretty easy because, um, so I’m, I’m planning on making the worm be able to move for a cosplay fixture for my wife or a feature for my wife.
Something that she could wear on her shoulder and, um, you know, it can stick its head out and look around and scream at people.
And we thought that would be fun to try to automate.
Right now we got two of these worms.
Um, she originally got to make her Beetlejuice cosplay a little bit more recognizable.
But when she got this, we decided to get two so she could still have one for her costume.
And I can play with one to see if I can make it animatronic.
Frank
And for the, for the visual listeners, it’s the worm from the movie in plushy form.
Like it’s only long enough to go around the neck.
It’s not, it seemed like a continuous worm in the movie, if I remember correctly.
So more or less anyway.
Andy
Yeah.
Yeah.
The one in the movie is very large too.
This one here where she’s, she’s calling it a baby.
This will be a baby sandworm.
So, um…
Frank
the little makers.
Andy
Yeah.
It’s about the size of a large knee-high sock.
Um, is the puppet itself or is the plushy.
Frank
But it kind of looks like a Jim Henson knee-high sock too.
So.
Andy
No kidding.
Right.
But, um, so this is the goal.
Sat down to create the skeleton, which will be the most complicated part.
Cause you got it, you know, interface with several servos.
And then when it comes to the, the programming, the microcontroller behind it, I’ve decided to take it easy.
And I’m just going to take something very similar to my skeleton here.
And instead of servos, I’m going to have the joints be potentiometers.
And that will essentially give me a controller that I can move around and record the positions from the potentiometers.
And then just convert those to what I would use with the servos.
So, and then it would be just playing back that movement.
And so programming them won’t be very hard at all, although I’m sure I’ll still take me three or four weeks to do, but because I don’t have a lot of time, but we’ll see where that goes.
But for the modeling, this was kind of tough because, you know, servos, servos only have one spinny part on top.
And if I’m going to use them for a hinge, you kind of need to make the, the, another hinge point directly on the bottom of the servo in the same place as the turny part of the servo, right?
And so that kind of got a little complicated.
I really got stuck in my head on how to do this.
In fact, you guys have seen my model.
The servos I designed for the model are gorgeous looking.
I even colored those things.
They look perfect because, you know, I’m really big into making an assembly to make sure the interference parts will fit better.
So the servo is something I did need to create as part of my model so I can make sure everything’s lining up and stuff.
So I spent probably like a good two or three hours making my servos and the fancy little ends and things that they connect to.
And before actually sitting down and getting some of the model out, some of the skeleton out and what I got so far kind of works.
I’ve decided to use what, four servos, four joints for the head, both a two up and down, one left and right, and one to rotate the head.
So it will be kind of similar to your arm.
You’ve got your elbow that can move up and down, the wrist that can move up and down, and then as well as one that moves side to side and one that can rotate.
So that should give me a lot of headroom.
And then I’m using another small servo to control the mouth.
And I’ve got a small speaker and a very small MP3.
Let me show you these things.
These things are pretty cool.
I like some of these modules that they’ve come out with for a lot of these kinds of projects.
Although a lot of the time it feels like you are just building with like someone else’s components, you know, you’re not building it yourself, but some of them can be very useful.
Like this one here, I’m showing you guys, it’s about the size of an SD card holder.
And this, I don’t know, maybe one and a half centimeters by one and a half centimeters.
It’s fairly small, takes an SD card.
And I can interface with this with my microcontroller and it will read the SD card and it will play back MP3s from the SD card that I can completely control with my microcontroller.
So I’m going to sit down with the Beetlejuice movie and pull some of the audio of the sandworm screaming, make them a little bit higher pitched, because again, this is supposed to be a baby.
And I’ll be able to make it make noise whenever it opens its mouth.
Chris
I just had this strange idea that you could make the exact same thing with an Audrey II.
Andy
What’s an Audrey II?
Chris
Audrey II, you know, from Little Shop of Horrors.
I’m afraid I didn’t, I’ve never seen that cartoon when I was little, but like the new movie and stuff that came out I haven’t seen.
Chris
Oh my goodness.
Frank
He’s talking about the flower.
Andy
Is that the name of the flower?
Kevin
Yes.
Chris
Feed me Seymour
Kevin
Yes.
The flower is named Audrey II because the guy who owns the flower shop has a massive crush on a woman named Audrey, but she’s interested in an evil dentist.
Andy
Okay.
Yeah.
The Little House of Horrors.
I remember watching a cartoon from that when I was 10 years old, Little Shop of Horrors.
But that’s it.
I don’t remember anything from it and I haven’t seen any of the new movies.
Sorry, I didn’t get the reference.
But yeah.
Yeah, I totally do stuff like that.
I’m assuming this works out.
This is kind of my first go at making something animatronic.
And stuff like this I’m really interested in because it’s something that correlates with what the wife does.
Chris
Right.
Andy
And we are very different people and don’t have a lot in common, but we love to do projects together.
We never have.
The only projects we’ve done together are the kids and you’ve seen how they turned out.
Chris
You’re actually doing pretty good.
Andy
Thank you.
Frank
I mean, worse things have happened to better people.
Chris
You know, an Audrey II I swear would be right up her alley, just saying.
Andy
Yeah.
Yeah.
But I’m hoping to be able to do a little stuff like this.
So this one, I really want to work out.
So you guys have seen the model I’ve come up with so far seems to be pretty good.
These servos I’m using when I was playing around with them to get an idea of their strength, these bigger ones on my model that I shared with you guys.
I cannot stop with my fingers.
Like it will just tear my tear the skin off my fingers rotating, even if I try to hold it down, but I haven’t put it on an arm yet.
So we’ll have to see.
They should be strong enough to be able to whip this thing around and make it do whatever I want it to do.
The little one I’ve used for the mouth.
Frank
Leverage is a crazy monster.
Andy
Yeah, no kidding.
So we’ll have to see if the one that’s making up the elbow can in fact move it around pretty easily.
Because even though I can’t stop it from turning at the servo, you know, when you get to that foot longer, so section of the arm there, it might be a little bit easier to slow down.
So we’ll just have to see.
Frank
And that might be a good thing too.
You don’t necessarily want a plastic infrastructure from the worm smacking people in the face.
Chris
I’ve got this picture of your wife walking through the con and the worms just going over and smacking random people as she walks by.
Andy
That would be great.
Frank
And then looking at her and going, can I do more?
This was fun.
Andy
Yeah.
A lot of people in the Comic Con stuff do stuff like pets like this.
But what they’ll do is it will be just their arm and they will be using it like a puppet and then the arm on the costume will be fake.
But this one I think I’m hoping will be realistic enough that it kind of gets that same feeling of being neat looking, except that Jenny’s still going to have both of her arms completely free.
Frank
Right.
That’s definitely going to give her an elevated presence.
Andy
Yeah.
Frank
Because don’t get me wrong, the arm and the puppet is cool, but having an animatronic puppet and the use of both of her arms is going to make people go, oh.
Andy
Yes, yes.
And so everything seems to be working out for this.
I’ve got to finish the mouth, which won’t be any different than the rest of the model you guys seen.
I just got a, the reason why I stopped is the little ends for the small servo have really, really the mounting points have really, really tiny holes that I can’t really get a screw through to screw it down.
So I kind of installed on how I want to connect my servo up to the jaw.
But coming directly off the model, I’m going to have the upper jaw and then the lower jaw will be controlled by the servo.
So that should work.
Another thing, there was a couple of things that if this works well that we might change on it.
My sandworm has this cute little tongue sticking out of his mouth.
You see that?
Kevin
Yeah.
Andy
And we’re thinking how cool would it be to take a piece of wire that’s bent to go through this tongue and then somewhere back along the skeleton be able to spin that wire.
So the tongue whips around and does its little thing, you know, moves around on its own too.
So we’re looking into that.
I also have, you know, since I’m making a controller for it so that I can be more organic with the movements, I was looking a lot of animatronics that people do.
And I noticed that the movement, the way it moves seems to be more important to make it look realistic than like the quality of how it’s moving.
Like one of the ones I saw was a crow.
The crow looked real, completely real when it wasn’t moving.
It looked like it was what you and Chris used to do.
It was stuffed.
Frank
Oh, taxidermy?
Andy
Yeah, it looked like it was a taxidermy crow, but then occasionally it would move around.
And the part that really kind of got me thinking about it is when it was moving, it was very like one servo was kind of moving at a time and it was very full speed to a certain position and then stopping, you know, that kind of stuff.
And that made it not look really great.
But then there were some other animatronics that I saw.
One was just the skeleton that they were showing.
It was of a face of like a skeleton dog for like a Halloween decoration or something.
And so you can see everything inside and that it was just white plastic because it didn’t have the, it hadn’t been colored in yet to make it look like a skull, but it was skull shaped and stuff.
But the movements were very fluid and very smooth and the speeds were all kind of doing, you know, kind of doing its own thing.
And that made it look more real, more alive than the crow.
So that’s why I’m thinking of if I’m going to do this, I should also build a controller for it.
That way I can move the controller by hand and record those motions versus program, you know, program the motions in one at a time for whatever you want it to do.
Frank
Being able to reset that and reconfigure it is, in my mind, it’s a good idea anyway.
So
Chris
yeah.
And sometimes you just got to finish up and go through the motions.
Andy
Yeah.
When I say programming it too, I don’t mean like like hard coding the movements into it.
I mean, like when you come up with your movement that you’re going to play through, did you go in there and choose those values?
Or, you know, are they recorded values from other organic movement, such as my hand moving it around?
So I’m hoping that will make it look a lot better.
We’re also going to make the eyes light up on it.
These are plastic eyeballs.
And I don’t know if we’re going to do both sets of eyes because, you know, the sandworms have two eyes, but we’ll see.
Chris
Put a certified organic sticker on the bottom of it.
Andy
Yeah.
So I’m thinking of making the base like a plate, like a saddle that then she could strap to her shoulder with normal straps and then make it look like there’s chains going over the top of the worm to make it look like it’s chained down on the back end and it’s just moving around from that.
Frank
I like it
Andy
That’s kind of out there.
Another thing that I might want to add after doing all this work, if it is a functioning project, which would be fun is taking that controller.
The initial idea was just to leave it on a breadboard and record it with the computer, something simple like that.
But it would be kind of neat to turn the controller into a project itself.
I’ve got some radios, radio modules I can integrate into this project.
And so I can make a controller for the worm that I can then take over and control the worm, you know, from feet away from where Jenny’s at or whatnot.
Frank
And set yourself up with a headset and talk through the worm and audio.
Andy
I couldn’t really do audio.
I don’t think audio would be a little bit too hard.
But I would be able to make the controller be able to play the onboard audios that I’ve already got preset.
Chris
So you wouldn’t be able to have like a simple wired walkie talkie receiver?
Andy
Well, I guess you could add something like that to it.
But just the things I’ve already got to do this, if I was to add, make it radio controlled, I wouldn’t be able to send audio over that.
Chris
Right.
Andy
A lot of the controllers I have are digital controllers, so I open a channel and then I can send serial data through it.
And so that would allow me to, like, the controller that does the worm, I’m going to have an, I’m going to build an interpreter that actually controls the servos and stuff.
And then the programs it will run, I will push into the interpreter.
But then if I make a controller for it, I can have the receiver side jump in and push stuff in from the receiver directly into the interpreter.
And then that would make the, then I can make the remote, you know, be able to turn on and take control of the worm when I wanted to, or go back to, you know, preset program movements that it can do.
So adding audio to that would be a little hard.
Like I said, though, I could make it so that it can play onboard audio that I’ve already set up through that little mp3 player thing I showed you.
Chris
Seeing that it’s an SD card, there’s an almost infinite amount of audio room there for pre-recorded stuff.
Andy
Yeah.
And I don’t remember too much about Beetlejuice, the sandworm scenes.
I know there’s a couple of scenes with the sandworm making noise, but I’ll have to check to see if it’s even worth going.
If there’s not a lot there that I could even use, I might have to go into other animals and making scream noises and stuff.
Chris
Oh, no, no, no, no.
Okay.
So there is plenty of sandworm audio on the cartoon.
Andy
Oh, I didn’t even think about the cartoon.
That’s a great idea.
Chris
Yeah.
From what you remember.
Frank
There’s another point too.
It stands out in my mind because my wife and I are listening to Dune right now.
But it acts very much like a sandworm.
You could probably pull audio from that in a pinch too.
Andy
Yeah.
Yeah.
So we’ll have to see what’s out there.
I want to get this actually moving first before I kind of start making it complicated.
But so far, everything’s going along the right lines.
You know, 3D printing this out shouldn’t be a problem as long as I can fit it into my sock here, that is the sandworm.
And I’ve made servos move all over the place.
I’ve recorded potentiometers all over the place.
So programming the movement shouldn’t be hard at all.
I’ve never played with MP3 players yet.
So there’s questions there.
I do got some op amps I can use to amplify it if it’s too quiet.
I’ve got some small speakers I should be able to use that are the same homage that the MP3 player says it can handle.
So I don’t see any problems with the audio.
But and then the radios.
I haven’t used the radios yet.
I haven’t used some Bluetooth radios to talk to the phone.
But haven’t used any of the radios that can go from one device to another device yet.
So I have to play with those.
There’s some questions there.
But that’s why I like the the radio controlled wireless radio controller thing is kind of if this works, then great.
We’ll move that direction and make it even a little bit funner.
But I don’t have any experience using those yet.
So like I said in the past, a lot of my projects are to learn how to do things.
So the sandworm will get perfectly fine.
Chris
But that’s the fun part.
Frank
Indeed.
Andy
Yes.
But that’s what that’s all I really got for for this is getting this project done and we’ll see how much more I can complete.
If I complete the mouth after this podcast here, I’ll start printing it out and putting it together and seeing if I can make some movement with it.
And if that works, I’ll probably sit down this weekend or next weekend and build the controller for it and go from there.
Frank
Sounds good.
Andy
Yeah.
Thanks for letting me share.
Frank
Of course.
You took a little more than 15 minutes, but we’ll let it slide.
Andy
Sorry.
Try to make it over next time.
Take so much time.
What about you, Frank?
What did you do this week?
Frank
So we talked about the doom piles with your wife.
My printer has been my shame pile this week.
I am to the point where I want to disassemble the whole carriage and pull the thermistor and the heat block and all of that stuff.
And I’ve got it partially taken apart for our visual listeners.
They will not see the chain that is disconnected and the actual carriage part.
Chris
I’m going to barf.
Frank
And like I said, the shame pile is my pile of shame for not making more progress because it really should only take like an hour and a half to get everything disconnected.
I just haven’t actually know an hour and a half is a long time.
It should be an hour and a half to disassemble troubleshoot and put it back together.
Chris
Frank
Frank
I just haven’t.
Chris
You’ve been using the S word.
I think you can catch yourself some slack.
Frank
But, but, but…
I don’t know.
Can I say but a few more times and still keep our PG rating?
So I haven’t really made any progress.
I also wanted to…
I didn’t finish my Halloween costume.
I actually didn’t do anything for Halloween.
My wife had a test that night, a Trig test.
And so she wasn’t able to go hang out with the family and I just went long enough to introduce the in-laws to the dog.
And then I came back home and turned off the lights
Chris
for shame.
Frank
I know shame piles and should piles all over the place.
Kevin
I am very disappointed in you Frank.
Frank
Me too.
You’re never going to be harder on me.
You’re never going to be harder on me than I am myself though.
Chris
You probably don’t get trick or treaters much your way though, huh?
Frank
If we did, I was gone.
I wasn’t gone that long, but apparently I was gone…
Kevin
long enough
Frank
because we live in the condos with garages on the ground floor.
Instead of doing…
Because we don’t have lights by our main door.
Just everybody that wanted to participate and give out candy was encouraged by the HOA to design their garage in a fun way.
And give out candy from their garage.
So it’s kind of a mixture of trunk or treat and regular trick or treating.
With the whole community involved.
Chris
Well, seeing as how a lot of these kind of homes are being built around here, that might be a thing.
Frank
Yeah.
We’re definitely on the verge of becoming a vertical city.
And I think that half the population out here doesn’t like that idea.
Andy
Yeah.
Kevin
Yeah.
I’m one of those.
Frank
And, you know, I’m about as vertical as I care to be, but I’m also in the boonies of Salt Lake Valley.
Andy
True.
Yeah, as long as you’re still on the outside, you can keep your horizontal ways, but closer you get to the center.
It’s all going up.
Frank
Yeah.
And out of need, right?
Andy
There’s a lot of people.
Frank
It is.
And limited housing.
Lots of people needing homes and not able to afford the whole big thing.
So we’re not quite to the point of the UK, for instance, where a one bedroom apartment.
Big enough to swing a dead cat is being occupied by three generations of a family.
Andy
True.
Frank
I guess it’s not really that bad, but it’s getting there, I imagine.
Anyway, yeah, my printer is out of commission right now and not making much progress on the things I want to do with it.
Andy
What’s your, what do you think is or what you’re hunting for that could be a problem?
Because right now you’re fighting your under extrusion problem, right?
Frank
So I’ve run into a couple of things online where people are just not confident in the, what is it, lidar temperature guns.
Andy
And I do agree with that the hot end is metal.
And so whenever I measure mine, I only measure the temperature when I’ve got, when it’s dirty, never when it’s clean, because you can’t measure it accurately when it’s clean.
If you got a little bit of plastic buildup on your heater block, then you could measure the temperature of the plastic.
Frank
And I do.
Chris
But there’s also contact probes.
Frank
Yeah, I don’t have disposable income right now.
So, um
Kevin
yeah, I’ll dispose your income.
Frank
Well, my wife does that enough.
Chris
Do you do kitchen thermometers?
Do you have a kitchen, digital kitchen thermometers?
Frank
And I do.
But what I’m going to do is I’m going to inspect the thermistor wiring and all that you’ll remember a couple of weeks ago.
I was trying to get some of the caked on plastic out of some parts of the carriage and sparky, sparky stuff happened there.
And so I’m going to inspect it all and see if maybe I messed up the thermistor or the heat node.
And honestly, I did look a little bit closer online just for the thermistor and the heater.
I can I can get three of them that look like exactly the same thing like they’re even from Creality for like 20 blocks.
Andy
Okay.
Chris
Boom.
Frank
So it’s not like.
Andy
Can offer one suggestion, because if you did spark something, if you fear you may have damaged the board itself where it reads it.
One of the things you could do is locate a resistor of around one K.
And look on the data sheet for the thermistor on about what resistance what resistance the thermostat should read at about that resistance or what temperature should read at that resistance.
You can then disconnect your thermistor and put the resistor in its place on your printer and make sure your printer is reading that temperature.
That could make make sure that you’re because on these thermistors we don’t have controls for them because they’re supposed to be precise.
The thermistors themselves are supposed to read a specific temperature or it’s supposed to read a specific resistance at a specific temperature and it doesn’t really vary.
So they shouldn’t be out of proportion.
You know with this so that is one way to check to see if your board is working okay because then you could also test the resistor or with your multimeter.
You can test the resistance of the thermostat of the thermistor and make sure that the board is reading the temp the correct temperature that correlates with that resistance on the data sheet for the thermistor.
Chris
That’s interesting.
You say it because I was actually about to do something similar with my car.
I think my my car temperature sensors been acting up and saw how you check that as you get a resistor, and you plug it into the pigtail to see how the car reacts.
Exact same concept.
Great.
Andy
That is good.
Yeah, and that probably checks to make sure that the thresholds for the fans and stuff are operating correctly on the car.
But with your printer, you would be able to even check it more thoroughly by seeing you know what temperature it’s actually reading.
When you hook up, let’s say a one K resistor, but definitely don’t just go off one K either.
You’re going to want to check it with your multimeter and see what resistance it actually is because they can vary quite a bit and then go with what your multimeter says.
Yeah, but that would at least help you rule out a problem with whatever you sparked if the board was damaged in any way.
Frank
And, you know, looking at the carriage, all of the controls.
I mean, there is a little bit of the the lining coming off of what looks like the cable for the the heater.
Andy
Okay
Frank
so it could have just been that and maybe putting some electrical tape in there to make sure there’s well clean it up, obviously, because just looking at it has got at least ash.
If not plastic on it, so I want to clean that up and we seal it.
Andy
Yeah.
And if you got to use any tape around the heater, you got to want to use Kapton on tape electrical tape will just melt.
Frank
Good call.
Otherwise, though, yeah, that’s been my this coming from the same person who saw us or who observed Andy rather burning up one of his chips.
Andy
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Don’t do as I say not as I do that’s for sure.
Frank
We’re all good at that do as I say not as I do thing.
We don’t do as we say we just say be smarter than us.
Chris
Dad?
Are you making popcorn?
It smells horrible.
Andy
Oh, no kidding.
God, I wish we weren’t having any problems with your printer there because I remember when mine went down for a little while to it was frustrating and mine wasn’t down nearly as long as yours been down.
Frank
Well, and it’s been touchy, you know, for a while, and to be fair, I have been working the crap out of it for a little more than a year at this point so things are going to fail on it.
Um, I just, I haven’t had the the mental reserves to troubleshoot them this week.
Andy
Make sense.
Chris
Shut up.
It feels like a failure.
Frank
that too
get out of my head.
Um, yeah, I think we’re there.
Yeah, I still have stuff to do.
Chris
Yeah, I wanted to mention that Octoprint posted that they’re in a little bit of a funding trouble.
So if you use Octoprint, you know, for your network 3D printing needs, you know, throw them a few bones, they’re having a little problem.
Frank
And as far as I know, they’re like top of the the recommendation list for that kind of thing too.
So…
Chris
yeah.
You know, they’ve been awesome being, you know, a free source and all that.
So…
Frank
it takes a lot of work to maintain that code.
Yeah.
And on the subject of funding and stuff like that, it’s really just a calculus thing, you know, if everybody gives 1����ℎ��ℎ����������������������ℎ��1andtheyhavealotofpeoplegivingthem1 to keep the software if I’m going instead of a single income source, you know.
Andy
A lot of companies that do stuff like that have often have donation buttons.
And I know whenever I have contacted an app designer because I’ve got a bug or something like that, I’ve always followed it with a donation of like five bucks or something like that.
I feel like, you know, they’re taken out of their time to do something and most of the, you know, these are apps that typically aren’t, you know, driven by ads and crap like that.
They’re just doing them because they enjoy writing that software for people, you know, it’s nice to be able to give them something.
And even if you’re as big as Octoprint, having that out there for free like the way they do, we should be contributing a little bit to stuff that you like.
And since they’re kind of the only thing out there and they’re good, we want to, we want to keep them going.
Chris
Yep.
Frank
Indeed.
Da, da, da.
Chris
Did we already mention the, yeah, we did last time the ISO standards being applied.
Frank
Oh, yes.
Chris
Looking forward to seeing more of that.
Frank
Because we were talking about that maybe contributing to my problem, but I’ve literally tried everything I can think of.
It must be a hardware issue at this point.
Chris
No, no, I think the ISO thing is really just going to improve the quality of our already okay-ish prints.
Frank
I agree.
Andy
We’re talking about the PLA being standardized, the formulation.
Chris
Yeah.
Frank
ISO standards.
Andy
I don’t know if that will actually change a whole lot about things.
At the very beginning, it definitely would have because PLA was all over the place.
But it’s really, it’s kind of hard to come up with a bad bowl of plastic anymore that isn’t bad because it’s old or something like that, you know.
Chris
That’s true.
Competition has driven out some of the crappier plastics already.
Andy
Yeah, yeah.
And people are really quick in the 3D printing world to put the red flags up for bad plastic.
And I don’t know about you guys, but I checked the comments to see if anybody’s been having problems printing that, you know, so.
Chris
Well, you do when my wife goes, ooh, I like this color.
She doesn’t, she doesn’t look at anything but the color.
Andy
How about yourself though?
Chris
I do.
Andy
You’re the one that you’re the one that actually wins a buying it in the end, you know, and making sure that it would be good for the machine and whatnot.
Chris
That is not entirely true.
She’s gone to…
Andy
Oh really.
Chris
She’s gone.
She’s gone to, oh, I want to, I want to use this stuff.
Click.
Andy
Okay.
Yeah.
That could be a little problematic.
She’s just got to go through once or twice a buying like three millimeter plastic for you instead of the 175 or something.
Chris
No, no, no, no.
She buys specifically 175 PLA.
She looks for those.
Yeah.
Andy
That’s good.
That’s good.
Chris
Kevin’s got a visual.
Kevin
Yes.
While we’ve been talking, I’ve been designing the very thing that my wife asked for.
Frank
That looks fun, dude.
And I’m assuming are you thinking or are you thinking more modularize it?
Kevin
So I’m probably going to end up having to split it.
I was just seeing if I could do it.
But I’ll probably have to print it in, in multiple pieces.
Just because of the size restrictions that I’m working with.
Frank
Sure.
Kevin
And the size that just really wants it to be.
But like, I think this is a, a nice first start here.
I still haven’t, I still haven’t figured out how to carve things out of blender.
Frank
Okay.
Kevin
Like to make negative spaces for, for.
Like
Andy
punching holes.
Kevin
Yeah.
For interlocking systems.
That’s what I wanted to say.
Other than like, so I, yeah, I don’t know how to do that, but I’m sure I can probably use additive things to make like a tongue and groove fit for this.
Chris
Yeah.
Tongue and groove and a bit of glue.
You’ll be set.
Kevin
Yeah.
Frank
Indeed.
Chris
nice.
Andy
But for a visual listener listeners, it looks like a railing.
Chris
Yeah.
Looks like a Victorian style railing.
Yeah.
Kevin
Yeah.
Andy
That’s cool.
Frank
All you need is a lathe and a couple of two by fours.
Chris
Yeah.
Chris
Well, you don’t even need a, you don’t even need a lathe.
You just need a, a 3d printer.
To print a chuck and then attach that to a drill.
There we go.
Frank
eeee.
Chris
I’m just, I’ve seen people.
I’ve seen posts of people doing that.
And I’m going, oh my God.
Frank
That’s cringey.
It’s cringey.
That’s almost as scary as watching Adam…
Gold wedding.
Kevin
Almost what?
you cut out.
Andy
You cut out yourself.
You cut out.
Frank
Oh, uh, watching Adam Savage, uh, work on a lathe with his wedding band on his finger.
Andy
Oh, yeah.
Frank
I love the man, but, uh, he terrifies me.
Andy
Yeah.
Chris
Well, you know, uh, Jamie Heinemann had his, uh, uh, had some issues for a reason.
Frank
Yeah.
And I don’t think I would have gotten along with Jamie better than Adam.
So, I mean, they got along, right?
They were good co-hosts.
Chris
Yeah.
Frank
They had their own issues.
Um, I think we’re ready to call it unless you guys have got anything else.
Chris
My cat has something apparently.
Andy
I am considering getting my, uh, SLA printer going.
I, um, the past couple of weeks I had my laser cutter out was doing stuff with it.
And it was stinking up the entire basement and no one was complaining.
Chris
Yay.
You going to name it Leia?
So you have a slave Leia.
Andy
So I
Frank
wow.
Wow.
Chris, Chris, Chris, Chris, Chris.
Kevin
That was, that was bad.
Frank
That was bad for you.
Bad.
Like, wow.
Chris
I’m just saying, you know, it’s going to be good being used for cosplay, essentially.
So, you know.
Frank
Yeah.
Something tells me, something tells me she’s not going to do the, uh, Jaba slayer costume.
She might just, I don’t think, I don’t think Andy would ever let her do the, the Jaba slayer costume.
That would be a bit much for him, I think.
Chris
Ooh, no, no, but I can totally see Andy in the, and Andy in the bikini and her dressed up as Jaba.
Andy
Yeah.
She would do stuff like that.
Frank
Or one of the kids
Andy
…costumes.
Chris
Yeah.
Andy
She’s always doing the bigger and more huge or costumes.
So, uh, so I doubt she’ll be the one in the skimpy dress.
Frank
as evidenced by the, uh, giant, um, fly catcher part from costume that goes on her shoulders.
Yeah.
Andy
I got stuff like that.
Just sitting all over the house, just random costume pieces like that.
So it’s all over.
But yeah, so, uh, I might, I might put together the SLA printer and do what Kevin, I think it was Kevin suggested.
Why don’t you just try and see what happens
Frank
Run a test print?
Andy
Yeah.
And see who complains.
So, but we’ll see.
I got this project for the worm I want to do.
I don’t know if I want to put the printer together, but I think I should, and I should try to print something so that I know how to do it so that it’s there when I need it, you know, work out trying to get the bugs working out now.
Frank
Who knows?
You might come up with some components for the worm that are better on the SLA printer instead of FDM.
Chris
Yeah.
Better to work on, better to take a little time and work on your should pile before it’s a problem.
Andy
Yeah.
Well, the should pile never ends.
It’s a bottomless pit.
Chris
That’s true.
Frank
Maybe we, instead of calling it a should pile, we should call it a should hole.
Andy
Yeah.
There you go.
Chris
Yeah.
Kevin
Yeah.
Frank
The should hole.
Andy
That makes it feel like anything that goes into the should hole can be just simply forgotten about.
I don’t like that idea.
Frank
To cover up the mess, we put a house on it and we call that the should house.
Andy
There you go.
Kevin
There you go.
Chris
Wow.
Wow, really going.
Frank
You started it, Chris.
I just finished it.
Chris
Just so awesome.
Okay.
Will you go ahead and finish it there, Frank?
Frank
All right.
We’d like to thank everyone for listening to the very end.
Chris
The very, very end.
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 we’re easy to share.
If you have feedback or if you have content requests, please let us know.
You can find us in our Facebook group, Amateur3DPod.
You can also email us at panelists@amateur3dpod.com.
If you…
Or…
Mouth salad.
I still haven’t worked this out.
I’ve only been doing this a little more than a year.
You think I have this work done by now.
You can email us individually at Franklin, Kevin, Andy, or Chris @amateur3dpod.com.
Are you okay, Kevin?
Oh, everybody’s doing it.
Gotcha.
Are you trying to see me talk through your camera?
That’s weird.
Kevin Buckner wrote the music for this episode.
OpenAI’s Whisper completed the heavy lifting for the transcripts, which you can find linked in the description.
Our panelists are me, Franklin Christensen, and my friends, Kevin Buckner, Chris Weber, and Andy Cottam.
And the transcripts…
The transcripts are having problems right now.
I’m working on it, though.
Until next time, we’re going offline.
Kevin
Keep your FEP tight.
Andy
Always use our spray.
Chris
I tried to print abstract art.
My printer had a crisis and broke down.
Kevin
Yeah.
Frank
Existential crisis?
Kevin
Sure.
Andy
We’ll go with that.
Chris
Yeah.
Frank
It just needs a voice box.
It’d be the existential printer instead of the existential toaster.
Chris
How about a crumpet?
Frank
Would you like some toast?
Kevin
A crumpet?
Oh, wait, no.
The line is cricket.
Man, you got to know what a crumpet is to understand cricket.
Andy
What was with getting your face really close to the camera there, Kevin?
I’m curious now.
I’ve got a desire to see what kind of goofy shit I could do on the camera to see if I could get Frank to leave the script.
Kevin
I mean
Frank
all three of you doing it got there.
It was a little distracting watching you all go.
I didn’t need to see that much detail on either of your faces.
I love you.
Just not that much.
Andy
Not the individual pores on our faces, though.
Frank
I don’t think my camera has the resolution.
I didn’t notice if any of yours did.
Kevin
I would be very surprised if mine does.
Andy
Beauty.