Frank
They’re uh…
Audacity Up
Kevin
Yep.
Chris
Yep
Frank
and there’s Craig.
Kevin
Hi, Craig.
Chris
they’re recording.
Frank
Thank you for joining us.
This is episode 85 of Amateur 3D 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 and Kevin Buckner.
And of course, it was Andy that chose to do something
besides hang out with us this morning.
Chris
And he had something else to do.
Frank
Uh-huh.
Wow, on top of that, we started later.
I feel like we’re a little more chill this morning.
Chris
I had a good night’s sleep.
Frank
That would do it.
Chris
Do do do it.
Frank
Uh-huh.
Kevin, did you do anything this week?
Kevin
Not with 3D printing. No, I, I spent all my free time.
Knitting my project, trying to finish the fourth clue before
clue five came out and I failed clue five came out on the 15th.
So I finished clue four yesterday.
So that’s what I did.
Frank
And you’re just working the catch-up
Kevin
Yeah.
Frank
Fun, maybe,
Kevin
And then, then, then today I went to start swatching clue five and
I need size four needles and the needles that I have that say their size
four are actually like either five and a half or six.
So
Frank
don’t they go by the gauge at the handle?
Kevin
yeah.
Frank
So the lower the number, the bigger diameter,
Kevin
No, no, no, actually the lower the number,
Frank
or is it the bigger the number?
Kevin
the bigger the number,
the bigger the diameter of the needle.
Frank
Okay, so it must be like millimeters or something.
Kevin
Except for a size four US is a 3.25 millimeter needle.
Frank
So much for that hypothesis.
Kevin
Yeah, it’s just, I don’t, I think it’s kind of arbitrary, but it is standardized arbitrary.
Frank
Right.
Kevin
If that makes sense.
Frank
If everybody uses it, then is it still arbitrary?
Kevin
Right.
So.
Frank
The answer is yes.
Kevin
So.
I went today.
Before this to hobby lobby to see if they had what I needed and they did not
have any size for single point needles.
They didn’t have size for double point needles.
They didn’t have size for interchangeable needles.
They, they did have one size for circular needle, but it was too small.
Like it only had a 16 inch cable.
I need a 32 inch so that didn’t work either.
So I just ordered them on Amazon.
Frank
Well, fun.
Kevin
Yeah.
Frank
Chris, did you do anything this week?
Chris
Yes, I printed USB port plug, dust protector thingys
I used TPU for the first time on my printer.
Frank
Okay.
How did that go?
Chris
So, I needed to go better.
Frank
There is a little bit of a learning curve,
but not usually too bad.
Chris
Yeah, I got a lot of string stringing off of the TPU.
Frank
You will, no matter what temperature you run it at,
you will.
Chris
Oh, okay, so my original settings were probably pretty good then because yeah I had a lot of stringing on it.
Frank
Um, I will say, if I remember right, you have to go a little bit slower.
Then you’re using, then a PLA.
Chris
Yeah, so I went and so Cura’s got this really nice recommended setting things for various materials.
So, I went with the Cura settings right and it printed okay but it had a lot of stringing so I went down the forum rabbit hole and different printers.
So, different people with different printers have different optimized settings for TPU.
And so…
Frank
Just like anything else, we all have our opinion.
Okay.
Okay.
Chris
yeah, yeah, but it seemed to me like a lot of the same types of printers had very similar very similar settings, what people would find.
Yeah, but I didn’t see anybody talking about their artillery genius. They were just, there was some people with some bamboo labs and yeah.
Frank
Maybe it was just a short run of printer.
Have you seen a whole lot of talking about them online?
Chris
Yeah, I found somebody else that had a volcano nozzle like mine and they basically said the same thing as Cura did.
Frank
Okay.
Chris
So, I went and because I had played around with my settings and my prints had only got worse using TPU, adjusting away from the optimal settings that and I was like so why am I still getting so much stringing.
Frank
Because TPU is just one of those materials that when it’s hot,
it strings, but it extrudes well.
And when it’s cold, it doesn’t extrude well,
but it doesn’t string either.
Chris
And yeah.
So, I was thinking that I’m going to instead of print when I’m using TPU, I’m going to start printing individually items instead of letting it print two things across the same layer, when I’m using TPU like that, does that make sense.
Frank
Okay.
Chris
And that’s that’s why that’s why it was a problem because I was printing three different kinds of these plugs.
Frank
Mm-hmm.
Chris
So, I wanted to see how each one turned out. And so I ended up with stringing between all three of them, as it was printing. So if I had.
Frank
Just like little spider webs going across.
Chris
Yeah. And so, if I did just printed them one at a time, zip, zip, zip, you know, I don’t think I’d have got so much stringing.
Frank
not if you don’t have any infill on them.
I can’t think of why you would for a USB protector.
So.
Chris
Oh, yeah, no, these things were 100% unfiltered. These things are tiny. Yeah.
Frank
Um, it will…
Pardon.
Chris
I printed a few more out of PLA and, you know, those came out just dandy. So
Frank
The TPU will elephants foot a little bit too.
Not super bad in my experience,
but it will just a little bit.
Um, yeah, just slow down.
Um, it also doesn’t do because it’s so soft.
Extractions can be a little awkward.
So.
Chris
yeah, so I turned off my Z. Yeah, I turned off the Z hop and
Frank
The ZHOP has more to do with the carriage moving.
I can see how maybe turning off or reducing your,
uh, retraction to zero and keeping the ZHOP might help
because the strings will start by going up and then break
when it goes horizontally.
Maybe.
I don’t know.
Chris
Yeah, no, most most most posts I saw said to turn. Yeah, I said to turn off the extraction or the retraction. Oh my gosh. Yeah, turn off the retraction and then turn off the Z hop too
Frank
Okay.
Chris
so
Frank
And, you know, I think the ZHOP is probably a preferential
thing if it works better than do it.
Right.
Chris
Yeah, but and depending on your printer, apparently, if you want to print well with CPU, you also change your flow to 110 to 120% somewhere. So, but apparently with with with cura it automatically fixes that for you.
Frank
Yeah, there, there are some automatic adjustments to the…
Because Cura is… it translates it all to machine code.
Right.
Mm-hmm.
Kind of it translates it to machine commands.
So it’ll automatically increase your flow.
And then when you go into the settings,
you’re increasing the baseline for that material type
to like 110 or whatever percent.
Um
There have been times when I printed on TPU settings
before I realize and change it.
And it’s been almost the same except for the speed.
So.
Chris
Yeah. That’s what I thought was a little strange was when I was.
Frank
I said TPU.
I meant PLA.
Chris
That cura would that the the TPU settings for cura were almost identical to my PLA settings that I’d already had crazy.
Frank
And some of that really is the transition across,
like I said, but some of it is exactly the same as your PLA.
So.
Chris
And so yeah, there there was me looking up this looking over at the the the the recommended settings on the side of their TPU real gone. Is this really right? Yeah, yeah, it is. Okay.
Frank
Well, you’ll remember a couple of months ago,
I had to re-re-re-remember that I needed to go slower
with TPU.
I actually haven’t tried it since I upgraded my carriage.
So maybe one of these days I’ll play with it.
Chris
Yeah, I do need to upgrade to the newest cura. I’ve been delaying that for a little while, because we’re now we’re cura 5.6.
Frank
I don’t know that I’ve been counting.
I’m one of those people that always upgrades
and doesn’t pay attention to the version unless it’s a problem.
Chris
Yeah. Well, I’ve just been using 5.5 for for a while. You know, it’s one of those things where I wait for something like Windows updates and I’ll update all the other stuff while I’m at it.
Frank
That’s fair.
Chris
So, and it’s been beeping at me this week to to to do to do the windows upgrade. So, next time I’m over at my desk, I’m going to just let it go and upgrade it upgrade it both, or update both of them anyway.
So, I can see your lips are moving Frank, but we got no audio from you.
Frank
I fixed my mic because I saw the graph was picking up my AC,
and it still is, at least on the audacity.
Yeah, that’s not getting any better with me changing the gain.
So I guess I’m just going to have my AC running on my audacity.
You guys don’t hear it though, do you?
Kevin
No.
Chris
No.
Frank
Okay.
Is my voice clean at least?
Kevin
Yup.
Frank
Okay.
We’ll go from there then.
Chris
So Frank.
Frank
So you did start talking about having other projects besides your TPU.
And I cut in on you and went back over those.
Chris
Right. So, yeah, so week after next, I think the child is going to another friend’s birthday party this this time twins. So, I’m going to be printing up some more of those Pokemon card boxes.
Another, another set of those.
So, yeah, her, her friend, her friend that got the cards and I thought that was pretty dang cool. You know, got a purple, purple base and the glow in the dark top.
Frank
Yeah, seems like 3D printing still gets a lot of surprise from people,
Kevin
Oh yeah.
Frank
which is surprising to me.
A couple of weeks ago when I was helping that neighbor move,
there was something that came through.
It was some kind of lamp cover.
And I went in to stow it and it’s like, what kind of plastic is this?
Oh, it’s 3D printed.
I could see layer lines and some of the stuff inside it.
It wasn’t very well cleaned out and stuff like that.
I was like, what was this for?
I wonder.
But still just out in the wild, people are surprised by stuff that is 3D printed.
Chris
Yep.
Frank
I think it’s fun.
Chris
But I think it’s time to start to start looking into what kind of hopper adapters and stuff I need to convert my, my printer from filament to shredded material.
Frank
Oh, that’ll be fun too.
Kevin
Yeah
Frank
At what point are you going to just buy the nozzle that feeds into,
or not the nozzle, whatever, the fitting that feeds into your carriage
and print your own hopper?
Chris
Well, yeah, I can always make my own hopper beforehand. I’m just saying, I think you need a whole new, I think I need a whole new carriage set up and possibly even a new nozzle and all that just to accommodate shredded material.
Frank
Maybe.
I guess it also kind of depends on what shredded material you’re thinking about putting in there.
Chris
I do want to use various kinds of plastic because there’s the P, PET from, from bottles and then there’s the, the lighter plastics from milk milk jugs and things like that and then.
So, I want to be able to use reuse a lot of a lot of the materials that you get from various household plastics.
Frank
Right.
Chris
Anything, anything that can be cleaned well and shredded up.
So, I want,
Frank
Sounds like a plan.
Chris
yeah, I want to get, get a functional operation in place where, you know, I can have a different shredder for each different type of plastic that’s used.
So that I’m not cross contaminating very different plastics for myself. And then so I have a full system in place and understand it. And that way I can translate that to other households, other people want, want to do this.
Then this is, this is, this is my setup. This is how I do it, you know, and it’s, it’s, it’s pretty full proof. It’s pretty bulletproof.
Frank
Good deal.
Chris
Oh yeah. What have you been printing?
Frank
I had it.
I got the male tip for the broom handle worked out.
Apparently, the standard is the Acme three-quarter five,
I think generation five, whatever, type five,
for those parts that screw together,
but designing it and printing it off,
it wasn’t working in the stuff that I already have here.
And I want to be able to use these sticks across different tools.
Figured might as well just make sure that they work with all the other tools that I already have.
Put a broom on one and that sort of thing, right?
So I ended up having to just kind of scrap the whole,
I’m going to try to do this using the preset standards in fusion,
measured it out and ran my own configuration on it,
and it worked the first time.
Chris
Noice.
Kevin
Nice.
Frank
So much for the Acme standard.
Chris
Because like, well, that’s, that’s weird because like, I have a two different kinds of handles for this sort of thing at home myself.
I’ve got one that fits like broom handles and mop heads and stuff like ones around the house, but the ones in my shop are actually sized slightly bigger so the scrub brushes and the, oh my gosh, the long brooms.
Frank
Push Broom
Chris
Push brooms. Yes. The, the, the push brooms and the scrubby, you know, and stuff that I have out in the garage are big are a bigger size.
Frank
They’ve all been the same size for me.
Like, I’ve got this extensible broomstick for my squeegee,
you know, I guess it’s a squeegee stick, not a broomstick.
Chris
Oh yeah, yeah, I got one of those for my, yeah, for my paint handles, which actually speaking of my, my, my paint handles seem to be kind of right between the two weird right.
Like, I can take my broom, I can take my broom handle from in the house, and I can also use the extensible or extender handles and they both work fine on my paint rollers.
Frank
My impression has been that all those are supposed to be close enough that they’re interchangeable.
Chris
That’s been the case for me anyway.
Frank
So, I mean, that’s the idea of interchangeable parts in the first place, but…
Chris> But that that
But yeah, that the household handles if I take it out to the garage and put it on my bush broom, like, it’ll go in, but it won’t hold on very well enough that it kind of pops loose as soon as you type try to actually tighten tighten it.
That doesn’t, doesn’t work.
Frank
Well, I based my threads off of this extendable,
I think it’s probably going to be more of the outside industrial grade, I guess, industrial size.
Just because it is meant to be extensible and put up with some force from people using them for rollers and squeegees and all that other fun stuff.
So…
Chris
Fun stuff being stuff it’s not really intended for because you know, guys at the job site.
Frank
Except for that’s what this is designed for on the label.
Chris
Guys at the job site, screwing around.
Frank
Paint rollers.
Paint rollers and squeegees.
Now, there’s no reason for me to have a 10 foot long pole for a push broom,
Chris
Yeah, there is.
Frank
although that would be interesting to see.
Chris
It’s like, so when we were working repairing those windmill blades, right the last two weeks of the project.
They had to pay us to stick around and clean up but we all clean we cleaned up early so the last actually week of it. We just sat around and we played broom hockey and stuff like that.
Frank
I mean, if they’re going to pay you to play broom hockey, why not?
Chris
That’s pretty much what we did.
Frank
But yeah, I did just think…
I said it and then I thought of a use, like when you’re texturing concrete, you want a longer handle for that.
And you can use a push broom for it.
I think most contractors prefer to use the actual, the wide brush that’s only like two sets of bristles deep or something like that, that does better.
Chris
Yeah, it depends on who you got doing it. I’ve seen it both ways where somebody has used
a bush broom to texture it, and then
Frank
And it’s all about just roughing up the top anyway.
So I guess you might want to wait a little bit longer to texture it with the push broom because it’s heavier, but that’s the only consideration I can think of.
Chris
Yeah
Frank
Well, so yeah, I did that.
I will be putting the threaded part onto the tip for my broom handle.
And I still need to do the female side so I can do my own tools and go from there.
And then I’ll start looking for a good weekend to go out and clean up my park.
With you talking about shredding and all that, I did have an idea.
I’ve had an idea on and off and I really just need to sit down and actually build it.
But I want to build a dry detergent, basically shredder, that’s what it would be.
But you know how you get the dry detergent by the time you get to the bottom of the box It’s all clumped up from the moisture and all that.
So just a little PLA grinder doesn’t need to be too big, just enough to get one cup of detergent in there and you grind it up into the little cup and then you can spread it without ending up with chunks.
Chris
Oh yeah, I think something like, have you seen those.
They’re used in mining. So it’s basically three sets, three heads that all rotate with each other and they’ve got little nubs at at the end of yeah.
Frank
Yeah, like the big drills, like it rotates and then there’s bits on each of them that rotates and then there’s smaller bits on each of those that rotate as well.
Chris
Yeah, I was thinking just the simple one which got the three on the end that nubs on it but and then and then anytime they they wear out you know you just print a new print a new head.
Frank
Yeah, well and honestly what I’m thinking is more like a metal shredders or even just regular household paper shredder.
Where it’s got the discs that interlock and they’ve got the tooth on one side of each of the discs so it’ll catch odd shaped things and just break it up.
Chris
Oh yeah.
Frank
It doesn’t need to be too much.
It’s really not that difficult in the end to break up the powder by hand.
I just don’t care for the need to go wash the soap off my hands afterwards, you know.
If I can make it quick and just dump whatever I’m going to put in the washer anyway, dump it in the top, grind it into the same cup at the bottom and…
I don’t even really need the cup at the bottom if I mount it in the right place.
Yeah, maybe put a motor on it so it doesn’t all automatically.
We’ll see.
Chris
Getting your hands on a little motor powerful enough to do that real easy.
Frank
Yeah, I shouldn’t be hard at all.
Especially if I put the motor on a gear configuration that just makes it all torque or at least a ton of it torque.
I don’t mind spending more electricity to get high torque out of one of those little motors.
Yeah, that’s everything I did this week.
Man, without Andy here, we only took 20 minutes.
No, that’s wrong. I’m looking at the wrong thing. I started my audacity late.
Kevin
Yeah, yeah.
There is one…
Frank
30 minutes.
Kevin
When I was having my game night on Saturday,
I play a bard, because the first time I ever played a bard I did such a good job that I got Pidginholed as The Bard in my group.
Frank
What? The singer-songwriter guitar player got pigeonholed as a bard? Say it ain’t so.
Chris
Yeah, well the thing about the thing about your typical Bard though that I think Kevin would have trouble with is wanting wanting wanting to bed every cara… of every character he could think of your typical Bard is a horn, horny.
Frank
Just because it’s the stereotype that doesn’t mean that it has to be that way.
For one and for two, it’s all a role-playing game in the first place.
It’s not like you’re sitting there with a bunch of naked statuettes on your coffee table saying, I like that one, I like that one, I like that one.
Chris
That could be fun.
Kevin
Any way…
Frank
I think your wife would have a problem with that, Chris.
Kevin
There… one of the things the Bard that do is Anthem of Courage in Pathfinder 2
and that gives all allies who can see or hear the performance plus one to their attack
plus one to their damage.
plus one to vairous saving throws.
And so in my group we just call it Do Better.
So as we were playing every round people would be like Is the Do Better active?
And so the GM said Kevin what you aught to do is 3D print a sign that says Do Better.
And when it’s active you put it on the table, and when it’s not you pull it down.
Frank
The one that comes to mind for me is just like the sign for your dishwasher. You just flip it around.
Chris
Oh, oh, oh, you know what I should.
So, yeah, you know what Kevin, this actually should be really easy. Let me send you the free CAD program I have for stamps, or for like, so the one I use to make your custom keychain thingy.
Kevin
Okay
Chris
It lets you pick out what if you open it and free cat it, you can adjust the different settings for what kind of font you want to use, you know, it obviously lets you put in all your, all of the characters you want, or don’t want.
And then what kind of, you know, it’s got a few different settings you’ll like it.
So let me make a note to myself to email that to you.
Kevin
Here we go.
Do Better.
Nope. That didn’t do it.
Frank
What’s the other side of the sign you’re going to say, though? Something like, be normal.
Kevin
Both sides will say Do Better, because we sit around the table.
Chris
And then he just takes it down and puts it in his box when it’s not active.
Frank
I guess that works. If you make it something that flips over, then you can have one side say, be normal.
And then the other side says, do better.
Kevin
I could do that.
I could do that too.
Um
Okay
so this… how big is that?
okay.
so now I just need to get the Cube back
Oh, but I’m not done with this part… I need to extrude.
Frank
Oh, you’ve got green and red, right? So there’s a color cue as well for one.
Kevin
well…
The green and red I have is that Dual color filament.
so there’s not really a good way to control which side is which.
Frank
Which side is green and which side is red?
Chris
no, actually. So, if you guys will remember, when I printed the dishwasher signs, you know, Clean Dirty.
All I did was aligned that on my printer. And then I had the one color toward the back when I loaded the filament and the one other color toward the front.
So, as it fed, I got more of one color on one side and more of one color on the other side so when it’s flipped over and says dirty it’s kind of greenish.
It’s very, it looks more, it looks very much green. And then when it looks over to clean, it looks very much purple.
Frank
Hmm, the two colors that I printed the rose out of for my mom’s mother’s day gift.
The colors mixed all the way up. So orientation orientation would not have affected that for me is all.
Chris
Hmm. So okay, Kevin’s got the same printer style he would have.
Okay, so yeah, Kevin’s got the same kind of printer so he probably would have the same issue.
I know that my printer has been doing pretty good about keeping orientation ever since I decided to play with it. So, I mean it’s not great it will occasionally move but it doesn’t move like a lot.
Frank
What was that Korean show that came out last year, the year before?
Something games.
Squid game.
Kevin
Squid Game
Frank
You could always go creepy and find a model of the doll for the stop go game and use that maybe.
Kevin
Make this object…
Chris
Yeah, okay.
Kevin’s got the gears turning it looks like he did find something.
Frank
Yeah, he’s in full project mode.
Kevin
Yeah.
Edit placement wil move that up…
Frank
Well, I’m okay with a slightly shorter episode this week. I do have things to do. So why don’t we just wrap this up and Kevin can go full full project mode and we’ll go on with the day.
Kevin
Sounds good to me.
Chris
Oh man, do I have to
Frank
You missed your cue…
Alright, we’d like to thank everyone for listening to the very end.
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.
Chris
the very, very end.
Frank
If you have feedback, you can find us in our Facebook group, amateur 3d pod. You can email us at Franklin, Kevin, Andy or Chris @amateur3dpod.com or you can email us collectively at panelists@amateur3dpod.com.
Wow, I keep doing that in one breath and it just, it doesn’t… whatever…
Kevin Buckner wrote the music for this episode. The Bard. Singer-songwriter.
Chris
And every episode.
Frank
OpenAI’s whisper completed the heavy lifting for the transcripts, which you can find in the description.
Our panelists are me, Franklin Christensen and my friends, Kevin Buckner, Chris Weber and Andy Cottam.
Until next time, we’re going offline.
Kevin
Keep your FEP tight.
Chris
I forgot to load plastic in my printer and printed nothing. So I gave it to a friend.
Frank
Yeah, thanks for nuthin’.
Frank
Was that natural enough for you? It felt natural.