Frank
Thank you for joining us.
This is episode 25 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 Cottam, Kevin Buckner, and Chris Weber.
Chris
Moo.
Frank
You guys had a good week, I’m assuming?
Kevin
Reasonably
Andy
Oh, yeah.
Chris
Yeah.
The new job is just, it’s really chill, and it’s really nice.
Andy
Oh, that’s gotta be nice.
Kevin
Nice.
Chris
So not, not stressful, awesome.
Frank
I do feel like it’s been much quieter on the Discord server this week.
Andy
Yeah.
Frank
Everybody’s been notes of the grindstone, getting it done.
Andy
I know on my end, weather’s really kind of been in and out with the snow up here in Utah, and we’re getting all this melting all of a sudden from the warm temperatures.
So it’s made, made work quite interesting.
Definitely spending a lot more time doing that than 3D printing, unfortunately.
Frank
Probably a lot of construction companies planning on doing work soon.
So is this your, your busy season?
Andy
Uh, no, uh, busy seas. Busy season usually starts more around April and lasts until about November.
Frank
Okay. November.
Well, Utah, the last decade or so hasn’t gotten any more than an inch before Christmas anyway. So.
Andy
Yeah.
Kevin
Yeah.
Andy
No kidding.
No kidding.
Kevin
Right.
Frank
This year was an anomaly.
Chris
Yeah.
Kevin
Yeah.
Frank
That’s fair.
Well, uh, Andy, you started talking first, you get to talk about your projects first.
Chris
I’m sorry.
Andy
I didn’t mean to.
Um, so the only thing I wound up printing, uh, this week was, uh, my, uh, I mentioned this last podcast that my, my brother came to me asking if I’d reprint a bowl filter for his air compressor and turned out really great.
Everything worked out well.
Um, he wound up using, um, uh, what do you call it plushy fleece stuffing, like stuffed animals and stuff as the filter, which was a little bit of a surprise.
I thought he was going to use something a little bit more similar to like a normal air filter for a lawn mower kind of material, you know, that, uh, uh, furniture foam kind of stuff.
Frank
Okay. Yeah.
Chris
Yeah.
Andy
Apparently didn’t have any of this.
And, but he told me that, you know, in the back of the cup, I had made a little bit more like a funnel so that it would kind of hold the filter away.
So it wasn’t just sucking through one little small hole in the filter.
However, with the way he was using it with this, uh, this, uh, the fleece stuff is that it was completely in the, in the actual intake hole of the, the filter cartridge.
And so he was mentioning that, yeah, it now takes like four minutes to fill up the tank instead of the original too.
Is there anything we can do about that?
And, uh, so that’s the time I got to see what he’s, he’s doing.
So we, I wound up making the actual bowl itself substantially larger, about three times the volume that it used to, it was 30 millimeters in diameter.
And now it’s maybe 70, 60 or 70 or so in diameter.
So quite a bit bigger.
And I also put some, um, little, uh, uh, put, let’s see how many would it be?
Six little standaways from the back end.
So that way it’ll create little pockets in the material he’s trying to use.
That way it can suck through the entire filter and not just the, the little entry hole in the filter.
But we’ll see how well that works for it.
However, while I was printing this, my quality that’s coming off my printer is embarrassing.
You guys, I got boogers all over the place on it.
The layer lines just look like the whole dang printer is vibrating the entire time it’s printing.
It just looks terrible.
And so this weekend, after we’re done with the podcast here, actually, I plan on taking my printer apart and cleaning it up.
There’s a lot of plastic that’s just gotten into, you know, the bottom, uh, where the, the, the, for the track for the bed is and things like that.
It’s just kind of gotten dusty and messy with plastic and all that kind of stuff.
So I want to take everything off, suck it all out with the vacuum, get a wet rag in there, wipe it all down because I’m sure there’s overspray with hairspray.
I mean, I’ve had the printer for three years.
I never really cleaned it.
It looks terrible under there.
I noticed when I pushed my bed back and forth manually, I can feel little bumps like it’s running like the track, it’s running over stuff in the track.
Frank
I would expect that to affect the print quality on its own.
Chris
Quite a bit.
Kevin
Yeah.
Andy
Yeah. I don’t know why it’s printing, as well as it is, the way it feels, I never play with it.
It’s just, it’s kind of embarrassing, but that’s all.
That’s going to be my plan.
I got to do something about my quality because right now I can’t print anything that isn’t just strictly like a mechanical function because it just, it doesn’t look good.
Um, I could show you guys here at the, my, my last phone case.
Frank
Visual print.
Andy
Yeah.
The edge of this phone is just the, the print quality is just garbage.
You can see it.
Chris
Yeah.
That looks nothing like your last phone case.
Andy
That’s, yeah.
It’s just bumping all over the place.
And so that, that’s, that’s not the best.
I mean, the back still came out really nice, but still it’s not…
Chris
You’re getting some alligator, alligator teeth around the edging.
Yeah.
Kevin
Yeah. Looks like you can stand some wood with that.
Andy
Yeah.
So I’m going to clean up…
Frank
It’d knock off all the edges.
Chris
hook it up to your jigsaw.
Andy
I’m going to clean up the machine really nice and try to get it just to see if that fixes the problem.
It’s going to clean it up really nice.
Going to take the entire bed off and take the, the wheels off of it.
I got some extra, um, what’s the name of that plastic they use on the wheels?
We talk about it every once in a while.
Frank
Oh, uh, I don’t know.
Andy
Oh, anyway…
Chris
Nylon?
Andy
It’s not nylon.
It’s, it’s something else.
Anyway, going to replace the, the wheel bearings on the entire bed, the, the X and, uh, Z seem to be just fine.
They run smoothly, but the, the bed is a mess.
And I don’t think that’s actually what’s causing the problems, unfortunately.
That’s kind of the bad part.
So going to do that.
And I’m also going to put a thermostat on my water cooling system so I can lock it down to a temperature instead of just running it on, and I’m also going to rework the plumbing a little bit.
That way the, uh, uh, water comes directly from the reservoir into the pump and then gets pumped to the head and then back to the Peltier plates and then back to the reservoir instead of the other way around, which is the way it’s currently set up.
That way I can have some, you know, normalization, some averaging within the, the reservoir itself.
And then I can monitor the temperature of the reservoir and put a, a simple thermostat on it.
That might get rid of one, or at least give me control over the, the cold side temperature of the unit.
Cause I love the fact that hey, I can, you know, I can make the head cold on the cold side.
And I don’t think many people do that, but I don’t know how that’s impacting the print.
And unless I turn off the cooling altogether, the Peltiers, then it warms up pretty substantially.
So I want more control over it.
So I’m going to put a thermostat on there and, and then I’m going to start debugging why the heck my prints look like crap.
So that’s, that’s what I got going on.
Disappointing prints for my brother that was embarrassing to hand off to him and say, I’m sure it’s strong.
I promise it’s strong, even though it looks like this, you know.
Frank
So I have a design question about the part.
Have you thought about building a manifold into it?
Andy
The part for the air compressor.
Frank
The funnel, yeah.
Chris
Doesn’t it plug straight into the manifold on the air compressor?
Andy
Yes.
Yes.
It’s kind of sandwiched into the manifold.
So it holds the plastic piece.
It’s kind of like a pipe that comes out of the manifold itself.
Chris
I think what Frank’s, Frank’s talking about is like a circular plate with a bunch of holes in it for the stuff to fit against.
Frank
And a manifold is when you take multiple, say pipes and bring them together to one location and then like with your exhaust manifold, it goes from normally, it goes from say four cylinders out to a manifold that brings them down to one and then to your muffler.
Andy
Okay.
Frank
The manifold is the part that goes from four to one.
So if you were to do it reversed, well, kind of reversed have say four intakes at the big part of the funnel and have them come down to one, you would still get the supports, but you would have natural supports coming all the way up and it would be drawing from however many points as you print into it down to the one.
So it wouldn’t be putting too much pressure on any one place inside of that funnel.
Andy
Yeah.
I guess that would be a hard way to, or not the hard way, but a way to end you up having multiple filters.
Frank
Well, no, if he puts the stuffing just over the big part.
Andy
Oh, I see what you’re saying.
Yeah.
Let’s say you broke it off into four before those four pipes then enter the filter cup.
That way the back of the filter cup has four separate outlets in the filter cup itself, right?
Frank
Well, no, it would be right at the funnel part.
So you still put the same amount of filter material in front of the funnel and it would just have four suction areas pulling on it into the intake.
Andy
Yeah, that’s not a bad idea.
The one thing that I was, that I do have to worry about is the case of the air compressor is right next to it.
I don’t have a lot of room from the actual compressor itself and the protective casing.
I think I’ve only got an inch and a half, maybe two inches at the most I could utilize right there.
Frank
It’s a good thing you got a 3D printer so you can put whatever geometry you want into that space.
Chris
Yeah.
Well, I don’t know.
Right now I want to take Bet’s 10-1 to Andy break something during this upgrade.
You know, Andy, while your printer’s down, you are welcome to just send me anything you need printed.
Oh, thank you so much.
I think this will be more, I mean, unless I actually break something, I’ve got enough pieces to nearly rebuild the whole entire, a whole extra printer.
So I like having extras of everything.
That’s like why when we were talking about the extruder, I was able to just go and grab the identical one that my uses to show off.
I didn’t pull it off my printer.
It’s just I got two of them.
I buy two of everything.
Even vehicles, if you guys remember back when we were younger, I always had two of the same car.
Frank
I know you had two sprints for a hot minute because you were expecting to use the parts from one on the other.
Andy
Yeah.
I was able to fix both.
So it worked out pretty good.
I had two Xteras.
Kevin
But you only got one bus.
Andy
Oh, don’t say that.
[Names have been redacted to protect the innocent] won’t let me buy another bus.
I already asked.
Frank
And you brought up the one vehicle of Andy’s that I damaged.
So…
Andy
however, however, the bus is a GMC.
And my van for my private locating stuff is a Savannah.
And they’re like the exact identical same thing.
Everything is identical
Chris
transmission and drivetrain.
Yeah.
Andy
Yeah.
The interior even and stuff, like just the way it set up, it’s all I don’t know what was it.
Frank
I don’t know if you’ve thought about how they make a short bus, but they take a regular vehicle, probably a van, and chop off everything behind where the driver sits and build a new frame on it for the bus.
So…
Andy
yep. Yep. Yep. Yep.
But as far as the vehicles, I do have practically two of the same vehicles, even though one’s got a Collins bus on it and the other one’s still the normal van.
So it’s almost the same vehicle too.
So I still stuck with the two vehicles bit.
Kevin
OK.
Andy
Got a got enough components on the printer to be able to fix just about anything that goes wrong.
But if I do break something, I’ll definitely come crawling if I need anything.
Chrissy, thank you.
Frank
It is protocol to have a backup with just about anything.
Kevin
Yep.
Chris
Yep.
Frank
Or at least it’s a good protocol.
How about that?
Everybody doesn’t practice it.
I know I don’t.
With almost anything.
Chris
I do try to have backups.
Andy
I like having two of everything.
Frank
Kevin, have you worked on anything this week?
Kevin
Not with my 3D printer.
I’ve been really busy with the St. Jude knitting fundraiser thing.
Frank
Ah.
Kevin
I’ve made a couple of Jane Cobb hats though.
Frank
Well, if there’s such a thing as a good reason to not follow Andy’s protocol, if you must print something, that one’s probably the most acceptable.
Kevin
Yeah.
Chris
You know what?
Well, the great thing about that is you don’t have to go down to the local hobby store to try to find new needles.
If you want specialized needles, you can just make them the way you want them and print them up.
Kevin
I think it’s cute that you think I might need extra needles.
Chris
I think it’s a good thing you could.
Frank
I think it’s cute that he thinks it’s OK to use a printed needle when you’re knitting.
Kevin
That, too.
Chris
I don’t see what there would be a problem, but I’m not a knitter, so.
Frank
Yeah, that’s why it’s so cute that you think it’s OK.
Kevin
right?
Chris
Well, Kevin’s resolution is incredibly high.
Frank
It’s not about resolution, actually.
Kevin
It’s more about the structural integrity of the needle.
You put a lot of strain on those when you’re doing certain stitches.
Frank
When you’re doing basic stitches, you’re putting a lot of strain on those.
You might get, I don’t know, five or six rows on a very well-printed needle, if you’re lucky.
Kevin
Yeah.
Frank
Unless, of course, you’re doing something that’s like an inch in diameter for the needle.
You might get away with that, but there’s so little I can think of that you would want a needle that big for that the answer is no.
Kevin
Right.
Chris
OK.
Frank
Well, and that’s kind of why we do this, right, so that we can educate where our experience overlaps.
Andy
Yeah.
Kevin
Now, I mean, in your defense, Chris, the thought had occurred to me when I first got it and first started knitting or printing.
Not when I first started knitting.
That was 18 years ago, but then I quickly decided, no, it wouldn’t work.
The needle would snap.
Frank
And it’s all context, right?
Kevin
Yeah.
Frank
Printing what?
Andy
What about printing the yarn?
Chris
I think that would go over kind of like those ladies that knit mats and things out of old grocery bags.
Andy
Yeah.
There you go.
Frank
The funny thing, Andy, is you say that and I think of ways we can make it work, except for you wouldn’t really be printing yarn, you would be printing fibers for the yarn and then spinning it.
Kevin
Right.
Frank
But it would work.
Kevin
I mean, that’s probably what they do with acrylic yarn anyway.
Frank
Right.
Andy
Yeah, I wonder if those of us who print using PETG can just keep their strings and into a bucket and then go and wind them all together and make some yarn out of PETG strings.
Frank
No reason you couldn’t.
Kevin
Right.
Chris
Maybe it was more worth your time just to go buy some acrylic yarn.
Frank
Yeah.
It would be very tedious.
Don’t get me wrong.
You would not get time benefit out of it, probably, just because there’s not enough material.
And the acrylic yarns are made by machines at this point.
Andy
You almost get a cotton candy machine maker.
Just feed PETG into it.
Chris
Well, actually, you don’t even need that.
So all you need is a small heater element and an old hard drive motor and you have a cotton candy maker.
Frank
So I talked a little while ago about making a rope winder.
Andy
Yeah.
Frank
It wouldn’t be that far off to use it on yarn or anything else that you’re using the little strings from.
And yeah.
So it’s funny.
It’s a joke to you.
But I actually think I know how I can make it work.
Andy
I believe it.
If anybody here could, it’s going to be yourself.
Frank
Maybe.
Andy
You are the rope maker.
Frank
I mean, the wound, or not the wound ropes, the woven ropes, like most of our paracord and climbing ropes and that sort of thing are now, is just a core with the rope machine cars that interweave all the fibers.
And yeah, there’s no reason you couldn’t use TPU, I think would be best, but any of the other thermal plastics we use would work.
And instead of printing it on a bed, you just extrude it and capture the long filaments and use them that way.
It would work great.
Andy
Yeah. Yeah.
Frank
It would definitely fall into the not what it was designed for category two.
Andy
Yeah. We’re good at not using these machines for what they were designed.
Frank
Chris, you work on anything this week?
Chris
There it is.
My muttee button was stuck.
Sorry.
Frank
Oh.
Chris
Yeah.
Yeah, I did work on just a little thing this week.
I printed a nice little link-shaped pencil cup and my two-color filament actually worked as intended this time around, so it was green on one side.
Frank
Link Shaped. I don’t remember seeing a link in what you shared.
Chris
Well, not like Zelda Link, but like chain link.
It looks like chain link.
Frank
Gotcha.
Chris
Yeah.
Frank
Yes.
Yes, it does.
It’s like a pencil cup with links through it, like a chain link fence, sort of.
Frank
Okay.
Chris
Yeah.
It turned out green on one side and blue on the other, just like it kind of shows in the display pictures when I bought the stuff.
Good.
Frank
What are these other tools?
They look like clamps?
Chris
The bottle openers.
Frank
The bottle of nurse.
Chris
So you see the one has kind of longer handles.
That’s for my elderly neighbor, because she had mentioned that they were starting to have trouble with bottles and things around the kitchen.
Andy
So they’re making so much easier using those.
I’ve been using a hand saw this entire time.
You know how nice it would have been to know that these existed?
Chris
Hand saw?
Frank
I use my forearm.
Chris
You keep one in your kitchen?
That’s awesome.
I’ve been making my sandwiches wrong, I think.
Andy
Can you imagine how easy it would be to spread mayo with a small back saw or something?
Oh, my gosh.
Kevin
I remember, I’m remembering now the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie where there’s the scene with one of the people, one of the humans cutting carrots in the kitchen with Leonardo’s katana.
Frank
That would make me angry for its own reasons.
Kevin
Yeah.
Chris
And I had to print the wafer replacement because I think my little sister had come by and whatever else we’d got to talking and we ended up giving her the bottle opener that I’d made last year for my wife.
We’re like, no big deal, he’ll just print another one.
Okay.
Nice.
Frank
Well, there you go.
Building value.
Chris
That’s all I did this week was just miscellaneous this, that, and it’s nice that, oh, I did have something happen with my printer this week though.
I want to get started.
I want to get started on those and my printer, when it gets ready to do the smear, it touches the bed really quick and then does the smear, right?
Well, this time it came down to the bottom corner and did its thing where it taps the bed and then this time it was a thunk.
My bed was way too close.
I don’t know how and whatever that happened, but I mean, I’m glad I didn’t do that.
I didn’t start the printer remotely or go off and walk away as soon as I hit print and was waiting for it to warm up.
So yeah, I’m glad I was there to watch the print start because, yeah, I could have very easily broken something, so I was able to stop the print and re-level my bed.
Andy
That is kind of weird, they would do that so your bed just got severely unleveled somehow?
Chris
Just out of nowhere.
And that’s the thing is I’m the only one that goes in my office where the printer is at.
Frank
Gremlins. Or is it Fairies?
I can’t remember who it is that got blamed for random things going missing and stuff like that in old Europe.
Chris
Yeah, it’s Gremlins, yeah.
The only other thing I can think of is my cat, but she can’t turn knobs.
Frank
Maybe she brushed up against it.
Andy
Well, still, I mean, that’s four separate screws that would have had to been cranked down.
Was it just like one corner was off or was the whole bed seemingly off?
Chris
It could have just been the one corner.
Everything else seemed okay when I was leveling the bed, so, because that’s the same corner that I start with when I start leveling my bed.
Frank
So you brought it into spec and then everything else, maybe something slipped?
Chris
I guess, yeah.
Frank
Your springs are too powerful on that one corner, Chris.
Andy
One thing that comes to mind is a long time ago, I was having a problem with clogs and not being able to level my bed all of a sudden, where it just, I would go through and level it and it seems like it would change and be wrong again.
And I was getting clog after clog after clog.
And it turns out I had, last time I had put my head together, I had only thumb tightened down the nozzle and it had backed off and just the heat and cooling down, it had just come loose, the nozzle.
And so the nozzle was unscrewing that was causing it to make it look like the whole bed was on level one, really, it was the nozzle that was.
Frank
And it wasn’t going back in if you ever took it off and put it back in.
There would have been plastic in that gap, so it wouldn’t have tightened the same distance either.
Andy
Yeah, yeah.
So that did cause me some problems there, but I don’t know if that would be something to look at, but it was something that did happen.
Frank
You remember me fighting with my nozzle and the little bit of Bowden tube that’s in it and all that, that was part of my problem I decided was I had plastic between the old Bowden tube and the nozzle.
And when it was hot, it was loose, but once it cooled off, you know, I couldn’t tighten any further or anything like that.
So
Andy
yeah.
Chris
Okay.
Yeah.
So that means I should be checking my nozzle when I have to re-level my bed.
Andy
It might be something.
I don’t think I check it every time, but it was something that did happen to me once.
And now I think whenever I pull it apart and go to put it back together, I’m very knowledgeable.
I definitely have to make sure this is torqued down properly, you know?
I mean, there are brass nozzles too.
You don’t want to over tighten them at all either, but you know, you do want them a little bit tight.
Frank
It might not be a bad idea to clean the tube.
And I mean, I’ve got the Bowdoin tube, if I remember right, you guys don’t, but it’s still not a bad idea to take like a pipe cleaner or something in there and get any plastic out of where the nozzle threads into just to make sure you get a tight, it’s not a seal, but get it metal on metal as tight as you can inside of the hot end.
Andy
I know the heat block is threaded the same way all the way through, and if you don’t have a tap that you can just run down it to clean it up, you can use your heat break tube because most of the time on those, the threads are the largest part of the entire heat break tube.
So you could thread the heat break tube all the way through the hot end, making sure that those threads are clean all the way through as well too.
It’s not as good at cleaning up, but it will definitely verify that, you know, this screws through easily all the way through.
So I know I got all the plastic out.
Frank
I’m a mechanic.
I should have a tap hanging around.
I used the S-word, fine.
Frank
Well, no, it’s more, I want to encourage you to be very careful that you don’t cut new threads while you’re at it.
You know this because you’ve done it a long time, but it’s still something that I feel should be said and I don’t want to.
Chris
You use the S-word.
Frank
That’s part of the problem, right?
Chris
I said it, no, I said it again.
Andy
And back to having two of everything, you should definitely have a complete hot end set up again, ready to go because they are easy to mess up.
And you know, it’s only like 10, 15 bucks on eBay.
If you use a normal like V8, it’ll be a hot end set up.
Chris
Yeah, I really should.
I need to get that ordered.
Too many S-words.
Andy
I think I’ve only had to replace one so far though.
So it’s not like they go out fast.
I know I have damaged two separate thermal resistors just because they’re easy to break off.
You got to be careful.
You know, you get the TPU that starts leaking out funny out of the hot end and starts covering the entire hot end and you go and you try to get that plastic off and it’s all around the wires for the heater and the thermistor and it’s easy to mess up the thermistor in those situations.
Well, you’re talking about all these spare parts you’ve got for yours, you know, and I’ve been like that too.
I’ve had two of the same car just so I’d have enough parts so that no matter what happened, one of them would always be running.
I don’t have that kind of thing for my printer.
I’ve only got the stuff, the extra parts that came with it, you know, the extra rollers and the nozzles and a couple of cleaner tools.
Andy
Yeah.
Well, it sounds like too, you’ve got a much newer printer and you haven’t really had that many problems with it so you didn’t have to really dig into it yet either.
So you’re probably just fine not having any.
It’s just if you’re reliant on it like I feel like I am around the house and it’s, you know, like you say, having two of the identical same cars, it’s good to have a backup that way.
You don’t lose that tool for the home.
Andy
Yeah, you know what I think I’m going to do?
I’m going to do a little bit of forum searching and see how many people have had issues with this particular printer and then the thing that seems to pop up the most have extra parts for that.
Andy
That’s a great idea.
That’s a great idea.
Frank
I get in trouble whenever I go through forums like that though.
Everybody says, oh, I upgraded this for the CR-10 and I upgraded that for the CR-10.
It’s like, I’m not looking for upgrades right now.
That’s cool.
Oh, that’s cool.
No, no, no, I’m not looking for upgrades right now.
Oh, look at that.
Chris
Like taking a walk through the electronics store.
Oh, oh, oh!
Frank
hands in pockets, hands in pockets.
Andy
Yeah.
Chris
Okay.
Yeah.
So this week.
Yep.
Frank
Mm-hmm.
Kevin
Mm-hmm.
Frank
I guess that that’s Chris’s prompt that maybe I should talk about something this week too, huh?
Kevin
Yeah.
What have you been doing?
Frank
I have been working on the calipers case that I’ve talked about.
Yeah.
I got it really close finally.
The universe conspired to make it so that when I scaled up my blanks, it moved the thing, the finger nubs for moving the carriage on the, or for moving the jaws on the calipers and moved it away so far that that prevented the calipers from fitting into the case.
Chris
Oh, so the thumb rollers were off just a little bit.
Frank
I don’t have any with the rollers, but yeah, where that would be.
So I went in and loosened my tolerances a little bit more just on those and saved the STL and put it in my printer and made sure I got a good first level and went to bed.
And when I woke up this morning, I had run out of filament after 10 layers.
Oh, well, at least I didn’t waste a ton of plastic on all but the last 10 layers, right?
So I go and I look at my filament and I go, I don’t have any more.
I have other colors, but I don’t have any more of the gray that I wanted to make this out of.
So I have to wait for it to come in and tomorrow I will have the correct filament to print hopefully the last iteration of the case part.
And then I’m going to do the top out of TPU so it’s flexible.
I just pop it on or pop it off.
I’m trying a new way of doing a lid like that where the hard part, the PLA part, has got a kind of ridge all around the recessed area and I’m going to use that as a negative inside of the TPU part.
So it’ll just have that ridge that the loose part clips onto and have edges on the corners so that I can peel it off like a uh…
Chris
So like my phone case. Yeah
Frank
I don’t know.
Maybe. I was thinking more like a Tupperware thing where you pull it off and it kind of pops almost still good.
Yeah, like that.
And then yeah, that’ll be done and I’m probably going to redo my small screwdriver, like my glasses screwdriver set in much the same way.
I liked the sliding lid when I designed it, but now I look at it now and it’s like, oh, that is so rudimentary, I can do better.
And I’m just in the revising loop for some of the projects that I did a year ago.
It’s been almost a year since I got my printer.
Andy
Nice.
Chris
Yep.
And it has been a year since I got mine and since Kevin got his.
Kevin
More than a year actually, yeah.
Frank
And didn’t you guys get yours for Christmas?
Kevin
Yep.
Chris
So, yeah.
And then I used mine to save Christmas.
What is the irony?
Frank
I don’t know if that qualifies as irony.
I think that qualifies as good planning, practical use.
Chris
practicality.
Yeah.
Frank
Yeah, I don’t think that’s irony though.
Kevin
Nope.
Frank
Irony would have been.
Kevin
Nice try Alanis!
Chris
Practicione.
Frank
Sure.
Okay.
No reason.
Well, I mean, Shakespeare made up half of the English language.
There’s no reason Chris can’t add a few words himself.
Kevin
True.
Frank
So, we had a topic this week, which was supports.
Andy
Oh, yes.
Chris
I support you, Frank.
I think you can make more cool stuff.
Frank
Well, I appreciate that, Chris.
I depend on your support.
Chris
Sorry, I’m crying.
Andy
Yes, supports.
I got three main ones that I use.
You got the normal straight support, and then you’ve got the tree support, and then you’ve got the multi-material support, where you might use, like, PLA on a PETG print for supports or vice versa.
Which is very nice if you have a dual extrusion setup.
Chris
Otherwise, you have to pause the print and change filaments.
Andy
As much as my printer’s been giving me problems this last week, that new 10 log printer, IDEX that came out, is looking kind of tasty.
You guys looked at that one at all yet?
It’s one of the newer brands that came out.
It’s about 500 bucks for an IDEX, a full-size 300 mil IDEX printer.
I would love to go to being able to do a multi-material support print, because I hate supports so bad.
Kevin
Don’t get an SLA printer, then.
Chris
You know what?
I have found that I’ve added supports to some of my prints, and they haven’t been that hard or difficult to clean up.
I feel a lot less wasteful about them when I get, as opposed to ruining a print, because I didn’t use supports.
In the end, it is less wasteful to use supports.
If you have the proper tools, it’s not that hard to clean them up.
I like them.
In the end, I like them.
I was scared of them at first.
Don’t be scared of using supports.
They’re very, very useful, and they’re very, very, very, very simple.
Andy
I had to use them for my brother’s print recently here for that compressor filter bowl, and I was just reminded of how I don’t necessarily like them that much, but you are right.
They weren’t too much trouble, but if I could print the supports using a different kind of material so they don’t adhere together, that’s the thing I’m interested in.
I’m not too much into the multi-colored prints and things like that.
Frank
When you can print a different material for your supports, you can print stuff that’s water soluble, and then you don’t have to cut them off or do anything like that.
You just drop them, or it doesn’t even necessarily have to be water.
Just something that you can dilute, I guess, the material with and leave what you printed and not have the same kind of post-processing that needs to happen.
Andy
Yeah, that is true.
The water soluble stuff, I’ve even got some of that here at the house, but I’ve never opened it because I’m so darn afraid.
I’ve heard horror stories of, if you use it all up right away once you open it, you’re good, but if you open it and then set it aside, it will swell on you, and it’s practically impossible to dehydrate and keep dry, because it’s just so…
Frank
It’ll degrade.
I expect.
Chris
Do you have one of those vacuum sealers for your kitchen?
Andy
That I don’t, but that would be a good way to put it back.
For my filament, I tend to store things in the plastic Ziploc bags.
I store each one of my reels of plastic in its own separate Ziploc bag.
Chris
Yeah, Ziploc bags are good, but vacuum sealing is even better.
Andy
Yeah, you got a good point.
Chris
They’re actually not that expensive either.
You can get a really good one for like 40 bucks, and it rolls up plastic for them, or 10 bucks or less a piece, and they last forever.
I use mine for freezing stuff.
I have that nice big deep freezer that I’m always freezing stuff.
It doubles as a sealer for hygroscopic items.
Yeah, absolutely.
Andy
Yeah, I can see why that would work.
My biggest issue behind the water-soluble stuff is I’ve only got a single extruder printer.
I don’t even know why I bought it in the first place, because I can’t even use it with a single extruder.
I don’t know what I was thinking.
There’s probably a reason why it’s still here.
Frank
You were thinking it would be a fun trick to play on somebody, build this thing, and you can take it to the pool.
Chris
I was thinking that you’d make something for your kid and say, hey, here’s a brand new rubber ducky for your bath, son.
Andy
Throw it in the water, just melts away.
Chris
Like that raccoon that gets caught in candy.
Andy
Yes.
Oh, I’ve seen that video.
It’s so cute.
You feel so bad for the little sucker.
Oh, but yeah, I’m really interested in the multi-stip material support.
I’ve been hearing some people talking about how well it works, because the two materials just don’t adhere together, PLA and PETG, they don’t adhere at all.
So if you do 100% support density, then your surface quality under the support is perfect with a different material, and I’m really interested in trying that out.
Frank
Cool.
Kevin
That would be cool.
Andy
But I don’t have a multi-head printer, and I’ve been kind of looking at this ten log thinking about it.
I put so much work into mine, though, and I feel like, oh, it’s this cool printer.
It’s been beat to hell, and it’s not even anything like what it originally was.
It’s more my own design, it’s water-cooled, it’s got all the stuff that makes printing TPU really super easy now, and then I’m considering maybe getting a new one.
But the more I think about it, I think, well, I really wanted a CoreXY.
If I’m going to buy another printer, I want it to be a CoreXY.
And is there, does anybody even make an IDEX CoreXY?
Is that even possible?
It’s a lot of thought processes that just keep getting more and more and more expensive.
Chris
I’ve got two thoughts.
Andy
What’s that?
Kevin
Just two?
Chris
Yes, I do tend to overthink things.
The first thing that came to mind was two heads are better than one.
Kevin
No.
Chris
This is kind of serious in this case, though.
Frank
This is exactly why I need to have a soundboard.
Andy
You should get one.
Chris
Second is, you know, maybe you should splurge a little bit and get yourself that upgrade because that will give you an opportunity to let the kid play with the old 3D printer and get a feel for it and whatever else, you know, as he is getting toward that age anyway.
Andy
Yeah.
Well, I mean, getting a FDM printer setup isn’t too difficult for a kid.
I mean, the biggest issue you’ve got to worry about with the kid operating, it is the temperatures involved.
You know, I’ll usually load the filament for him, but he’s figured out how to navigate the menus to the item he wants to print and get it going and stuff like that.
Chris
Which is awesome because my wife still won’t even let my kid operate the poster.
Andy
Oh dear.
But the idea of having a separate printer for my kid, I don’t think is really too useful.
If I got another printer, it would be a replacement of my printer and my printer would be boxed up for parts kind of situation, you know, or, you know, boxed up for an emergency situation where I lose the good printer because I just don’t have a lot of room.
My entire printing environment is the top of my washer and dryer.
That’s the space the wife has allowed me to use for 3D printing.
So that’s kind of all I get unless I want to move everything out into my shop.
Frank
That’s almost not fair.
Doesn’t she have a whole room dedicated to her cosplay?
Andy
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, she does.
She’s got her own gym now as well in this house where she’s got like four or five pieces of gym equipment.
Frank
I’m surprised you let her lock you down like that.
Chris
You should have at least be fair.
Frank
While we say that, but Andy’s probably got the desk where his media server is still his and the workshop is technically your space.
Andy
Yeah.
That’s what makes sense.
Frank
So that puts you at about half as much space as she does.
Chris
But if you’re worried about space, then you can do what I do when I decide to get a new car.
As I sell my old one, use the money that I made from that to put a big chunk down on my new car.
Andy
Yeah.
Yeah, that works good.
I just barely did that with a laptop this other day.
I bought a new laptop, turned around, sold the original laptop, and it took a huge chunk out of the price of the new laptop.
Frank
Well, there you go, that works.
Andy
Yeah.
But there’s only room up there for one printer.
So all I’ve got is room for just the one unit.
Frank
Yeah. Well…
Kevin
That’s pretty much how much room I’ve got too.
I’ve got a table though.
Frank
Yeah.
I’ve got a dedicated table in my office, but I also have my work desk and my play desk and two bookshelves and a bunch of stuff on the floor because there’s nowhere else to store it.
Kevin
My table’s like a four-foot long, probably 30-inch wide table, which sounds like plenty of room that I could fit another printer on, but I’ve got my wash station on there also, my wash and cure station.
Chris
Yeah.
So yeah, SLA printers have a bit more post-processing, so you need a little more space than you would need.
Frank
Dedicated space.
Well, some of the stuff that I have on my floor is actually dedicated for post, got all my tools there, and my wife likes to take pictures of me playing on the floor with my new stuff.
Andy
That works.
Frank
So on the subject of support, is there a better support that anyone has?
Like, I know, Kevin, you were talking a little while ago about playing with different kinds of supports.
Is there one that works better for you, kind of, generally?
Kevin
Not that I’ve really noticed.
Okay.
I know with my own figurines, you know, with the FDM, the tree supports are actually really good with that, and they’re easier to take off, kind of.
I guess with Tracer, I did spend quite a bit of time taking the supports off of that, kind of, generally speaking, though, you can go with a more or less reasonable overhang and just have the tree supports build up to that point, and they definitely use less plastic.
But I also feel like when I’m doing the table parts, having a regular support is better there, just because there’s less that can go wrong, I guess.
Kevin
Yeah.
I do tend to use more regular supports than tree supports, just because I’m paranoid about plate adhesion.
Frank
Okay. Yeah.
That does make sense.
If that comes off at any point, you’ve got a lot more cleanup to do.
Kevin
Yeah.
Chris
I’ve not had much issue with tree supports, especially because you can do a couple different kinds.
You can do the ones that touch the build plate and then the ones that touch the part.
But there was a big difference in the supports between the old Cura, Cura 4, whatever, and the new Cura 5.
Frank
And going with the new engine apparently made that much more intuitive, I guess, is the right word for how they’re applied.
Chris
Yeah.
Actually, so there’s the regular supports, and those are better on the new Cura also.
In the old Cura, I’d have to cut out the regular supports.
They were a little more solid, and I’d have to cut them.
When I was doing one of the versions of that bathroom caddy for that little hole, I used a regular support there.
And when it printed up, I just gave it a little bit of a punch like you do when you’re opening a box of mashed potatoes or something, right, where you just punch the box.
It was just kind of like that.
I just kind of punched it and all the supports came out, all the support stuff, and it was a really easy cleanup.
And that was a big difference on the Cura 5 that I really liked.
Andy
And that’s good.
Kevin
A lot of the time, if I’m using standard resin, I can just pull the supports off with brute force, but with this Tough resin, it’s so flexible and tough that I actually can’t, usually.
I have to pull it, or I have to cut it off.
Hey, I did just pull some off.
That’s cool.
Chris
Yeah.
Kevin’s here actually cleaning up a miniature as we speak.
Frank
One thing I really don’t like about the new Cura is the concentric supports don’t seem to work.
Andy
I haven’t really played with that one.
Kevin
Centric supports?
Frank
Yeah.
I was using them before the update.
And what they do is they follow the shape of whatever you’re printing in like a border to the extent from the inside of the support to the outside of the support, and there’s still walls on either part.
And with the new concentric support, it only does the inside and the outside, no matter how big the space is.
And my problem with it is it doesn’t really support anything unless it’s something small.
So I’ve had to go back to a different kind of support.
But other than that, I do agree that all of the supports are at least comparable, if not better, with the new Cura.
Andy
It’s been my experience.
I think it has less to do with the support and more to do with the bridging techniques that Cura is able to use on the component itself.
It seems like it under-extrudes that first layer intentionally to give it a base to be able to do a normal layer on top of that.
And since those under-extrusions have a lot more less surface area, they bond less with the support and make it easier to break those off.
Frank
Okay.
Chris
Yeah. Yeah.
I can see that.
Kind of like I was looking at that Christmas tree thing that I came out when I was, I ended up with that little tree looking support.
And yeah, that’s pretty much it.
It is very thin and hollow and almost nothing to it.
Andy
Yeah.
But it’s enough to hold it up so…
Chris
Like if you could make foam out of 3D printing plastic, this would be it.
Frank
Okay.
Yeah.
Andy
I bet somebody’s gone through and made a G-code file of something that would be very foam-like that the printer could pull off.
Frank
Well, if you do, like there’s the organic options with your CAD designs, I’m, I don’t think it would be that far of a leap to tell it do an organic bubble structure in whatever I’m printing.
Andy
Yeah.
Frank
And then if you do it out of a softer plastic, then it would act like a sponge.
Chris
And you could put it in somebody’s bubble tea.
Frank
Or not.
Chris
Don’t.
Don’t do that.
Frank
No.
That’d be bad.
Kevin
Going back to things not to use your 3D printer for.
Frank
right? Is there a preferred density that anybody has for their supports?
Chris
Still playing around.
Andy
I don’t even know what I have mine set to, to be honest.
Kevin
I think I’ve got mine set to 70%.
Frank
Okay.
Chris
Wow.
Andy
Yeah. Mine is 15%?
Chris
Yeah.
I’m like, I don’t think I’ve let mine go over 20%.
But I range anywhere from 10% to 20% based on how much area I’m supporting if that makes sense.
Frank
Yeah.
I almost wonder if we’re on the opposite side of the spectrum as Kevin and he actually does what we perceive as 30, which might still be a, if it’s what works for your printer, that’s great.
I feel like anything more than 20 for my printer is just unnecessary.
Chris
Wasteful.
Frank
Yeah.
Chris
It seems to me.
Frank
Yeah.
Well, especially on the supports.
Kevin
If I go, if I go too much less than 70%, things stick to the FEP and pull off of the build plate or off the supports, really.
Frank
Okay.
My normal infill is usually at 20 and my normal supports are like five or 10% normally.
So unless I need something much more dense or something like that, I don’t waste the material on infill either.
Chris
Well, I know when you need something really dense, you’ll end up calling me.
Kevin
Yeah.
I think next podcast, I’d be disappointed if Frank doesn’t have some form of a soundboard set up.
Frank
Oh no.
Now you’re putting a timeline on it.
I was planning on letting it be a joke for the next couple of episodes and then forgetting about it.
I guess I can’t do that now.
Andy
Oh, I think you won’t look for an excuse.
Frank
No.
Chris
It’s okay.
We actually need to get one of those soundboards like on red-green.
Frank
Oh.
Andy
Oh, there you go.
Frank
No.
I am not doing a 52 key soundboard.
That is not going to happen.
I’m seeing a wonderful 3D printing project coming to fruition right here.
Frank
Oh, I’m going to have to get a freaking Arduino, aren’t I?
Chris
Get one of those cheap Amazon keyboards and, you know, no.
Frank
Let me revise that.
I’m a software engineer.
Why would I go with a physical soundboard when I can probably write one?
Andy
Go both ways.
Make it a touchscreen system with your software running on it.
Frank
Then I have to get a touchscreen device that I plug into my computer.
I’m not going to do that either.
No.
No.
No.
I say that and I don’t even have to have it connected to my computer.
I just have to have it join the podcast room where we do our recording.
And because it’s discord, if there’s not a soundboard bot that I can have join the podcast, I’m going to be very disappointed.
Andy
Yeah, there probably is at some point.
I’d be, like you say, disappointed if you couldn’t find one.
Chris
Well, check with the guy that made our current recording bot and see if he’s got something else.
Frank
Well, they might.
Chris
It might be easier to go with the same guy.
Frank
We’re not paying for the pro right now, but you know, there might be something there that’s worth looking at.
Chris
Yeah.
Andy
Yeah.
Upgrade the podcast.
Frank
How far can we upgrade and still call ourselves amateurs?
Kevin
Hey, we’re still not getting paid.
Frank
Yeah.
I mean, that’s the important thing too.
Kevin
Right.
Frank
I might have to start asking for contributions from you guys if we start costing too much more to produce because…
Kevin
that’s the definition of a professional as someone who gets paid to do the thing.
Chris
That means I’m not a professional mechanic anymore.
I’m not getting, I never get paid to fix cars.
Andy
Yeah.
Frank
Yeah.
Well, and let’s be clear, there is a line between being a professional and being an expert.
Andy
Yeah.
Kevin
Yes
Frank
Being an expert and not get paid for it, and you can be an amateur and get paid for that.
So.
Andy
Yeah.
Frank
No.
Kevin
You can be a novice and get paid for it.
Frank
Novice and get paid for it.
That’s the word I was looking for.
So yeah, I don’t know.
I don’t feel like upgrading from being a novice right now either.
When it comes to angles that you support, the way I did it is I printed off an angle finder and went with the highest angle that my printer does well… and I know Andy, you and I are on opposite sides of that.
You gauge the same angle, but you put it into your system on the opposite side from what I do.
Andy
I think the biggest thing was is just I had designed my own angle test, and I wrote the angles down on my unit based off of the ground, not 90 degrees to the ground.
So it was just the difference there.
I wasn’t using Cura.
You were right.
I looked into this after we talked about it, and yeah, Cura does do it off of the 90 degree thing.
And so the way I was describing it was wrong because I had designed the item myself and based it on my measurements off of something else, but right now, I don’t think I can even do 90 degrees successfully pretty with my printer.
Frank
So well, okay, so I printed 75 seems to be a good number for my printer.
Anything more than that needs support and definitely stuff that overhangs irritates me because I have to go to a much lower angle or put in custom supports.
Sometimes I have to do both, which frustrates me too. Um, Chris, is there a favorite angle for your printer?
Chris
Yeah.
Usually Rafael, Michael, sometimes Gabriel.
Kevin
Angle, angel.
Chris
Really though, somewhere between 70 and 75 actually ends up being the one I use the most because it’ll vary depending on what I’m printing and which PLA I’m using because I like to switch colors.
And so it seems to be that when they have the higher temperature range, because I have some that print better about between 220 and 240 and some that print better at 205 to 220, the ones that print at 205 to 220 do better with the higher angles versus the higher temperatures do better with the lower angles.
So I’m printing out the higher temperature, I have to put my support angle down.
And then if it prints at a lower temperature, I can put my support temperature up a little bit, or I mean support angles up a little bit.
Yeah.
Frank
And I do tend to print with some higher temperature PLA myself.
So I mean, and 75 is where I start to have problems with more of an overhang.
But if I’m not as concerned about it looking reasonably well, I could go higher without supports too.
So that is interesting though.
Chris
But you want to find good supports for the material you’re using a lot like you do for your underclothes.
Frank
Yeah.
Kevin
Yeah.
Frank
As we all sit and think about it.
Kevin
I tend to go with a 45 degree angle.
Frank
Chris, we’re all too noble.
We just don’t react.
Chris
I know that was a low hanging fruit and I’m glad you’re not going to have to edit anything out.
So you go with 45 degrees on yours, Kevin.
What is fundamentally different about that that makes that such a different?
Kevin
That’s just the default.
Frank
So you don’t play with it?
Kevin
I haven’t played with it.
Frank
For a scientist, you’re very not curious about this printer.
Chris
We have to think about it though, because it’s kind of amusing.
We have gravity acting on opposite ends of our printer.
So when he uses 45, that would be the equivalent of what, 54 for us?
Well, and it’s supported from the top.
So it’s more about holding parts in the same place than it is about holding them so they don’t support hold so it is in the same place.
But you don’t want it to drop is kind of what my brain is trying to get me to.
So if the angle is just right, I imagine it would flex a little bit, maybe, which is why you would use a lower angle.
Kevin
Well, and I think it’s also largely that I don’t want the supports to go up and like, touch the model.
And so it’s saying that this will go, the support will go up and then it’ll have the top of it come out at a 45 degree angle to actually make contact where it needs to.
As a poet, that’s what ChidooBox does.
It’ll make sure that the supports that it adds aren’t touching the model itself, except for at the contact point, Photon Workshop doesn’t do that, which is annoying because it’ll have the length of the support running up the side of the thing and then that creates a lot of extra work when I have to clean it off.
Frank
I hadn’t even thought that you have two different kinds of supports because with FDM, we only have the one kind, but you have the support that holds the model and then you’ve got a support that contacts it.
Do you have different settings for the angle there?
Frank
No.
Frank
Okay.
Kevin
I mean, I guess the angle is mostly for the top because the support itself is going to be straight up and down until the very top part and then it’ll reach out and make contact with the model.
And then I think that’s also probably also the support structure between the supports because if you’ve just got a single support going for like six, I mean, this is a really extreme example, let’s actually say three inches all by itself, it’s going to have quite a bit of wobble by the time it gets to the point where it needs to hold the model in place and so it’s better to have a few supports next to each other and then there’s this lattice structure that goes between the supports and that’s generally at a 45-degree angle also.
Frank
Okay.
Chris
And that’s the things that look like the roller coasters, right?
Kevin
Yeah.
Chris
Yeah.
{bad impersonations of Tim Allen grunting}
Andy
So you don’t have a whole lot to say about supports, it’s not something I use a lot of them.
Well, I do what I need to, it’s just since I design most of my stuff, I always try to design it so it doesn’t require supports, you know, so it’s not just like a refusal to use them, I’ll use them when I need to, like with my brother’s filter thing, you know, it did need supports in order to print that as one piece, but and it ain’t going to kill me to print supports, I’d rather do that than print it in like two separate pieces and glue it together.
Oh.
But, oh, talking about gluing it together, I think, I don’t know if I mentioned this during the last podcast, but…
Frank
The new chemical stuff for TPU, right?
Andy
Yes, yes, tetrohydroforan, I’ve tried this stuff with TPU, it’s neat.
It is very neat, it is, if you’ve ever worked with ABS and did ABS welding with acetone, this is like, yeah, it’s just as good, but it works like about half the speed.
Frank
It’s slower.
Andy
Yeah, it’s slower, it doesn’t work as good, I mean, the welding it makes is just as good, but the speed of the reaction and how it melts the TPU is about half the speed of ABS.
Chris
So you want to give it like five minutes then, huh?
Andy
Yeah, yep, yep, yep.
Frank
I do feel like there would be some applications where that’s better, it allows you to make sure that things are lined up and it’s not so, such as a tight timeline to put it together.
Chris
Sounds kind of like the epoxy that I’ve been using for PLA, it’s got a like a half hour set time.
Andy
So yeah, you know, that’s what this is, it seems to have, oh, sorry.
Chris
Yeah, it seems like after about five to 10 minutes somewhere, you can’t really move it anymore, but you get that whole five to 10 minutes to make sure everything is in good lined up.
And so it seems that’s good.
Does that seem about right?
Andy
Yeah, yeah, I would say so.
I think this is a little bit longer.
The piece I tried that I clamped together was about three hours or so before it stopped smelling.
It also stinks way worse than acetone.
Definitely going to use it outside and not inside.
It’s so much more aromic than acetone and all the safety instructions are extremely similar to acetone, but I think it’s worse than acetone because it’s easier to breathe in because it puts so much more into the air.
About that three hour mark, my part seemed to kind of stop smelling like this stuff, which told me that it had all evaporated off.
And then trying to pull the two little tabs of TPU, I stuck together.
It was one piece.
It was one solid piece of rubber.
You weren’t getting them back apart, no matter how you flexed it or whatever.
And that’s another thing.
It was different glue.
It was, you know, there is no glue there.
It’s just the TPU just got melted together, so it was still, the joint was just as flexible as the old one and all that other kind of stuff.
So once I get my printer going again and I get ready to do my phone case again, I think I’m going to do a much simpler cut, cut the two pieces apart.
I might just do like a beveled cut straight across because if I welding it together with this stuff here, I’m not going to need any kind of fancy way to glue it together to make sure it’s just as strong.
Frank
Like you were talking about with the wires and heating it up and all that.
Andy
Yeah.
Yeah.
So Tetrahydroforan, I bought this, what is this, eight ounces?
Chris
What’s a well-ventilated area, man?
Frank
Chris, that explains so much.
Andy
But it was only like $15 on Amazon and that’s like quite a bit too.
Frank
So I was talking what you were thinking through that, Andy.
How much was it?
How much volume?
Andy
I think it’s 15 bucks.
Volume, I think it’s eight ounces.
I could check real quick.
Frank
Oh, it doesn’t say on the can.
That’s concerning.
Chris
That’s strange.
Frank
Something like that, I would expect to have a volume printed on it.
Kevin
Unless the stuff stripped the ink off, I’ve had that happen.
Andy
There’s a lot of text on here, I might just not be seeing it.
Let me just go to Amazon, that’ll be quicker.
Chris
But that looks like it’s about eight ounces.
Andy
Yeah, it does.
But yeah, it seems to be some good stuff, definitely something I’m holding onto as part of my tools.
And knowing that I can also do smoothing with TPU layer smoothing with this, kind of like how you could with ABS.
So I’m really excited about that.
Chris
Like with the end of a soft cloth or a Q-tip?
Andy
Yes, yes, yes.
It was eight fluid ounces and I lied, it wasn’t 15, it was15,itwas40.
Frank
Whoa, that’s a little bit different.
Chris
But still worth it.
Andy
I thought it was 15, but this is a lot, I mean, that’s half a pint.
That’s quite a bit.
Frank
Yeah, that’s going to take you a while to work through.
Andy
You’re using it as a glue, it’ll last you a real long time.
Chris
Yeah, because you’re using only like three to five drops per use, right?
Yeah.
Oh, yeah.
Frank
And you’re not like huffing it or anything, so at least I hope not.
Andy
Yeah, I hope not.
That’d mess you up more than acetone would, I think, just how the roll make it can get.
Chris
Yeah, so knowing when to glue your model together versus make some insane amount of supports for it.
You know?
Kevin
Right.
Andy
That’s another thing.
I’ve always loved being able to print a model or print something out in multiple pieces, so you wouldn’t need supports as well.
Chris
Yeah, because, I mean, sometimes it’s worth it not having to have a support like weigh the crud up here when you could have just print that little piece separate and insert it and glue it.
And the thing about it is, is when you’re doing chemical bonding like Andy’s talking about or a proper plastic glue or epoxy, it is stronger where at the gluing point done properly than the actual print itself was.
So…
Andy
yeah.
Yeah, you’ve got a good point, having to worry about de-layering and things.
And I’m sure too, there have been parts that I’ve printed out in the past where I needed strength amongst one part of that part or on two separate parts of the part, I needed different kinds of strengths that could be helped out by the direction it was printed in by, you know, the layer lines heading a different direction.
So cutting that piece off so I could print them in different orientations to get the layer lines in the direction that would best benefit the part and then being able to bond them back together with something like this.
When I was working with ABS at the very beginning of printing, that was a useful tactic.
But since I could only really kind of move to using glues for PLA and PETG, I didn’t really think too much about it.
It wasn’t until I needed to glue some TPU that I looked up to see, you know, what’s the best way to glue TPU and discover it off.
They have acetone for TPU.
That’s amazing.
Chris
Chemical bonding, like when I get a beer from you and you get a beer from me, chemical bonding.
Frank
When bros go out camping and get thrashed on the alcohol, chemical…
kevin
My name is Bond. Chemical Bond
Andy
That’s awful.
Frank
Oh, boy.
Chris
We’re being awful punny this episode.
Frank
Well, it’s because you brought up the whole soundboard thing and we decided that there’s a good time to use the rim shot.
Frank
This is a good time to get derailed as opposed to anything in Ohio.
Kevin
So I have to just show this off.
I don’t know if you can see this.
This thing is translucent.
Frank
Our listeners cannot see it, Kevin.
Kevin
I’m talking to you guys, though, like this dragon wing.
It’s translucent.
Frank
That is really thin.
Kevin
It’s so thin, and I used tough on this, and I’m glad I did because it’s flexible.
I think it would have snapped by now if I used standard resin.
Frank
While you were cleaning it up.
Kevin
Yeah.
Chris
And it’s so tiny!
It’s like literally…
Andy
Look at the detail, Kevin.
Pull off on that.
I mean, just so listeners know, it just looks like a bat wing that’s maybe twice the size of your fingernail, but the detail in that is amazing.
Kevin
And this is a blurry shot because my camera is focused on me and not this.
Let me see if I can get it to focus on…
Yeah, it’s going the wrong way.
There we go.
Andy
Okay, there it comes.
Yeah, look at that.
That’s gorgeous.
Chris
Oh.
I can see clearly now…
Andy
I’m so jealous of your precision.
Frank
I’m just thinking about how the audio for you playing with that is going to sound to our listeners.
Andy
Yeah.
So people know what that sound was.
He was focused manually focusing his camera.
Kevin
Well, this is such an old webcam.
That’s the only thing I can do.
Frank
It’s such an old webcam that it has a manual focus on it.
Kevin
Yeah.
It shouldn’t be coming from my camera, it should be coming from my headset.
Frank
Well, I hate to break it to ya Kevin.
Chris
You got to turn it off sometimes, like in the windows.
Frank
Now it’s off.
Now it’s not anymore.
I heard you said it on your monitor or wherever you’ve got it, so.
Kevin
Oh well.
Andy
Yeah.
It’s all good.
Frank
All right.
Well.
Chris
I can see clearly now your webcam’s on.
Andy
But yeah, SLA persist the resolution you can achieve.
I’m so jealous of that.
Some of the boogers that end up on my prints are larger than that print that he did.
Frank
Well, and your printer is so customized at this point.
It’s impressive that it prints it all, in my opinion.
Andy
Hey! For the record, about a month ago, it was doing pretty good.
I don’t know why it started printing like crap, but I haven’t made any upgrades to it recently that made it go to crap.
But one of these days, I’ll have to do the whole like angle test.
And just to show you how well the bed adhesion can hold a very large part when it’s barely touching any of the bed and the angles it can do.
I am proud of what my printer could accomplish, but right now it’s anything but looking good.
So hopefully after I clean it up, that will fix my problem.
Chris
Frank, the more we doggone Andy’s printer, the harder he’s going to dig his heels in and not get the nice shiny thing for himself.
Frank
Yeah.
There’s that.
So there’s a podcast I listen to that the host goes over like historical documents and reads them and draws his own opinions about from the perspective of a retired SEAL.
And he read The Art of War by Sun Tzu.
And he pulled out this one little line that I had read five times and never thought about.
And it goes, “Never attack an entrenched enemy.”
And Andy is pretty freaking entrenched.
And I should probably not attack him on it because he’s not going to let go.
Chris
Well, this is the other part of the supports.
We want to support Andy in having the nice stuff.
Frank
Because we’re friends.
That’s our job is to support Andy.
Andy
When you have something that you’ve worked on and you’ve built it yourself, there’s more there than just the intrinsic value of the device.
You know, I’m not just losing a couple hundred bucks on the printer.
If I swap it out, I’m losing everything that I’ve ever done with it and everything it’s been through to make it what it’s currently at.
Frank
Because humans will pack bond with anything.
Chris
And sometimes…
Andy
I definitely pack bond with this printer.
Chris
And sometimes you got rid of, you got to get rid of the two seater sports car to make room for the kids to sit in the back seat, you know, you know, at some point, it should be obsolete from your life, but you need to be the one to make that call.
Frank
Andy…
Andy
you know what?
All I need is another carriage because I proved you guys I got more than enough room on either side of the printing area that it can go.
I just need another carriage and I will have an IDEX.
My main board’s got a spot for be able to use a second extruder and everything.
So you got to know what?
I don’t have a second X though, I don’t have a second X.
I would need to get a different board.
Frank
I’m not sure when this became a [shooting] contest, but uh, yeah, let’s just not.
Andy
Don’t cross the streams.
Frank
Not that kind of contest, Andy.
Chris
What are you talking about?
He was, that was like the best Ghostbusters reference ever.
Frank
Yeah, but no, I also have to decide how much of this is the sensor.
Chris
Just say shooting contest instead of, yeah.
Frank
Or I can take you saying “shooting” and put it over me saying [shooting].
Chris
do it, do it, do it, do it.
Kevin
Yes.
Andy
See what you need to start doing is get a voice modulator thing, a synthesizer where you can, you can record over totally different words and put it over the audio.
Frank
In the voice of the person that’s talking, because at this point…
Andy
No no no, just make it as electronic as sounding as possible, you know…
Chris
like the demonic voice.
Andy
Yeah, that looks like a shooting contest, you know?
Frank
well, the AI is to the point where all I have to do is train it on your individual voices and then say it and it’ll sound like you said it yourself.
Chris
Cool.
Andy
Yeah.
Chris
Let’s do it.
Do it. Do it.
Frank
Or not.
Then people might start to wonder if I’m sitting here talking to myself or if I actually have friends.
Andy
Now, we just use chat GPT to, to write out a script to your, respond to everything you say and then you just voice us out with one of those synthesizers.
Oh, we’re really all Sydney and you just don’t know about it.
Frank
Oh, boy.
That would be a problem.
That could be where the technology is going.
It won’t be too much longer until we have podcasts that are like that.
But at the same time, the live content creators are going to be their own niche, right?
Andy
Yeah.
Yeah, it’s true.
Chris
I poked one.
It was dead.
Frank
Yeah, something like that.
I think it’s time to wrap this up.
Chris
Sure.
Andy
Sounds good.
Frank
I think we’re there.
Kevin
I agree.
Frank
We’d like to thank everyone for listening to the very end.
I am going to edit some of this out so no one will know really how long we actually went.
If you like what you hear, 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 any feedback or if you have any content requests, let us know.
You can find us in our Facebook group, amateur 3d pod, or you can email us at panelists at amateur 3d pod.com.
For individual feedback, you can email us at Franklin, Kevin, Andy, or Chris at amateur 3d pod.com.
The music in this episode was written by Kevin Buckner.
Open AI’s whisper completed the heavy lifting for the transcripts, which you will find linked in the description.
Our panelists are me, Franklin Christensen, and my friends, Kevin Buckner, Chris Weber, and Andy Cotten.
Until next time, we’re going offline.
Kevin
Keep your FEP tight.
Chris
Sign off are, you suckers.
Andy
Yay, TPU.
Frank
It’s going to come back to bite me.
Kevin
In de bum.
Frank
All right.
Chris
It’ll be a hell of a thing to show off.
Frank
I think he’s doing this on purpose.
Chris
Oh, you’re starting.