Frank
Thank you for joining us.
This is episode 27 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.
Good afternoon, guys.
Chris
Hey, hey.
Andy
How are we doing?
Chris
So, 27 is over half of 52.
You know what that means?
Kevin
That’s true.
That means you can do basic math.
Frank
Well, he was only a month early.
This is actually just on the other side of the six months, though.
So we, yeah, we’ve been doing this for six months, and we haven’t missed a week yet.
Andy
That’s impressive.
Frank
I know that Andy and I have got vacations planned this summer, assuming that you guys do, too.
We’re going to have to work something out.
Kevin
Yes.
Frank
I can probably record from the train, but that’s going to be me.
Why don’t we get into what we’ve done this week?
Andy, have you done anything this week?
Andy
I’ve had quite the adventure, actually, if you guys want me to just take over the entire podcast for the rest of the night.
Frank
Yeah, that’s going to be new.
Andy
So first off, found the problem with my printer.
In past podcasts, I’ve mentioned that I was having some surface issues, some just print quality issues.
I’ve been coming out like garbage, and I went and cleaned everything up really good, and I made sure the printer was physically operating well, and didn’t really see much of a change with my print quality issues.
In fact, it had a lot of problems.
What’s funny, none of those problems were really showing up in prints, but it wasn’t fixing the overall problem I had.
I then tried going into Cura, and I had been using the same profiles.
I got one profile per material, and I’ve been using the same profiles since I started printing, and that was like four different types of extruders ago on my printer.
So a lot has changed, got the new heated bed, and all these other kinds of things have changed about it, and I’ve been slowly manipulating the profiles along, but I decided just to try starting fresh with a brand new profile, a basic profile from Cura on its recommendations, and then make adjustments that I need for this current extruder, and go from there, and I’ll be damned if it didn’t fix all my problems.
So everything is working out really well now.
My print quality has gone back up to where it should be.
I can successfully get that 85 degrees, and can’t get 90, 90 start, or not 90, but any higher than 85 starts to really fall apart.
So I think my limit is actually going to be closer to around 75 to 80 degrees that I could print an overhang with, but that’s right where it was in the past.
So everything’s working really good.
My print quality has come back.
I still need to run a couple of tests with like TPU to fix any stringing problems and get that going as good as I can get, but so far I’ve only printed PLA with it since then, and everything’s working rather well, so I’m pretty happy with that fix.
It’s nice to have my printer back.
As some of you guys have heard, I had given up on SolidWorks and moved on to a different CAD software.
I mostly focused on FreeCAD to swap it out.
Frank’s been trying to push me to a different one, and I’ve been highly resistant of that and things like that, but after all that has happened, I have gone through and I stopped using SolidWorks and moved to FreeCAD and was trying to find a supplement CAD program for myself there, and FreeCAD is a little bit different, but it does what it needs to do and it does it well, but this last week I went and tried to make an assembly, and I didn’t know how to make an assembly, and it turns out that’s not something FreeCAD can even really do, and that kind of broke me.
I need to be able to make assemblies and things like that.
I went back to SolidWorks and to see their program because that’s what I was used to after all these years, and I found that the maker’s version of SolidWorks is all online for all their extras, but part of the maker’s 3D experience platform in SolidWorks is the original CAD software, and I didn’t see this the first time I went over the whole thing because they’re focusing on all the extra stuff it can do and not the original software that comes with it, and that’s what I wanted is the original software, so I got excited.
I know it’s a cut-down version from Enterprise software, but it should do everything that I wanted to do as far as my modeling for 3D printing goes, so I looked around hard not to advertise for SolidWorks, but the maker’s version is 100 a year, and I managed to find a coupon code on YouTube, on a YouTube video that gave it to me for100ayear,andImanagedtofindacouponcodeonYouTube,onaYouTubevideothatgaveittomefor80 a year, and I don’t know if that’s just this first year and it goes back up to 100 after that, but the way it’s worded, it looks like it might be100afterthat,butthewayit′sworded,itlookslikeitmightbe80 from now on, which is kind of cool.
After taxes and everything was done, it was $84 a year, and I’m pretty happy with that actually.
I feel like I’m actually getting my money’s worth for how much I struggled without the software, so I’m back.
It’s so nice to be back in that environment because it’s what I learned on, it’s what I’m used to, and I’m loving it.
I’m back to feeling like I can take what’s in my head and make a model of it without thinking how to get from this point to that point.
It’s really important to me to be able to do stuff like that, where I spend more time constructing a fancy little video that shows the part exploded in stuff to share with you guys than I do actually designing the part.
So I like that a lot.
Frank
That kind of explains why some people haven’t upgraded from Windows 95.
Some people just feel like change.
It’s amazing.
We don’t want to upgrade.
Andy
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, and you know what I mean, I’m very adverse to change.
Once I get anything, it’s like pulling teeth to move on to the next thing, even if that next thing might be better.
Chris
I wouldn’t necessarily call FreeCAD an upgrade from SolidWorks.
Frank
There’s that.
Kevin
Well, I mean, the difference between paying for software and getting it for free, you know.
Exactly.
Andy
Yeah.
Yeah, definitely.
Frank
Obviously the free software is going to not be as up to the level as you’re used to.
Andy
Yeah.
And that’s the problem.
Not everybody’s going to need an assembly function and things like that.
And that kind of stuff is important to me the way I design.
And I like design using simulations and things like that to better my design.
And you know, most people who’s 3D printing are going to do stuff like that.
So if I’m looking for just the absolute basics, FreeCAD did all those things.
I only struggled with that it didn’t do more than the basics.
And that’s what I’m interested in.
So I mean, just today, you know, I wanted to, some of the things I wanted to do is just not possible to do in FreeCAD.
And it was really nice just to get into it and do it.
So as far as 3D printing goes lately, guys, I’m, I’m on cloud nine feeling like I’m back on my game.
The last few weeks has just been like, I’m only like partially doing what I’m actually capable of doing.
And now I’m back to having a fully working printer.
I’m back to having the software I’m used to and all that other kind of stuff.
So this week’s been quite the adventure and I know I’m adverse to change.
But the wife has signed up herself to do my, my son is in a musical.
And of course, all the parents need to help out with the musical.
He’s only a fourth grader.
So, you know, a lot of parental help and stuff like that, but my wife signed up for a lot of different things to do more than she has time for, like just the way she does things.
And so she’s offloaded a bunch of it to me to be able to do.
And you guys know, I don’t typically print toys and stuff like that.
But I’ve got a bunch that I need to do that I pulled from Thingverse, which you guys know I am adverse to using as well.
And so I’m doing that.
So and jay…
Frank
I am Jack’s complete lack of surprise.
Chris
You know, as an adult, being able to just grab something and print it and not put any thought into it just to placate your kids is actually really worth it.
And I’m glad you’re discovering this.
Yeah, it is kind of nice because I can’t, I don’t have that kind of talent to design, you know, some of the things that right now I’m printing a jumping spider that is gonna be like 280 millimeters long.
Frank
It looks like it was about as big as your print bed.
Andy
Yeah.
It was pretty big.
And I’ve got like four of those little creatures I need to print in there.
I’ve got to be marionette like puppets.
And so I’ve got a bunch of like ring holes on them and stuff like that.
And I got to make little handles to make them work for the kids and things like that.
So I’m having fun with some of that stuff.
But for the design of them, I had to, I, you know, went to Thingiverse and great the Thingiverse there.
It’s a great resource for all those kinds of things.
I love that being able just, you know, put in a search and come up with hundreds of different things that would work for it and I could remix them however I wanted to to make them work for me.
So I hear you.
It does.
It’s worth it.
Chris
Speaking of, if you’re using Thingiverse and they, somebody posts a Patreon or Patreon, you know, throw, throw, throw a little, throw a little money their way if you get it.
Andy
Yeah.
No kidding.
Donations for stuff that you use like that, that saved you some, a lot of time to do is definitely worth, you know, helping out, even if it’s just a couple of bucks.
It’s worth doing.
And being a member of a Patreon is good to do anyway, because it’s so nice just to hear a podcast that you like, you want to throw a dollar or two, four, because you really enjoyed it or anything like that, it’s, it’s, it’s nice to contribute.
Frank
Maybe that’s why I haven’t put up any payment stuff or ask for money from our listeners.
At least part of it is because I don’t do any of that myself.
Yeah, I think it’s kind of a, what’s the word, hypocritical, hypocritical, yeah.
To say, no, I don’t do that, but you should pay me.
Andy
I like to be able to, to, to donate some of the funds for one of the, some of the podcasts and things that really affect me.
And I think Chris is right on these models that if they do have stuff like that, contribute a little bit.
I mean, that, that dollar or two, you might throw their way probably means more to them to receive it than the actual monetary value that you’re sending, you know, so.
Kevin
Probably.
Andy
Yeah.
Kevin
Like I, I know that anytime I see that somebody has bought my book on Amazon, I’m just do a little happy dance.
Andy
Yeah.
Definitely.
But that’s been my week.
It’s been quite an adventure for 3D printing and, and I’m kind of back on my game.
It feels wonderful.
All right.
Yeah.
Good deal.
Frank
Um, you remember January, I think it was, I was fighting with my printer basically the whole month to for stupid, you know, just chasing stupid problems.
Andy
Yeah.
Frank
I, I feel like that’s very much a part of the printer thing, you know, machine operation.
Um, can’t wait for Kevin to run into his issues.
He’s, he’s pretty smart.
I like him, but, uh, mechanically challenged.
Kevin
That’s fair.
Andy
I don’t know, I think you can get a pair of pliers and round out anything you need just fine.
Chris
I think it’s just not mechanically intuitive.
You show, you show him what something is and how it works.
He’s got it for forever.
Frank
Well, that’s because he’s very smart.
Like I said, Kevin…
Andy
I feel like we’re talking behind his back with him right here.
Frank
I, I won’t say anybody or say anything to someone’s back.
I won’t say to their face.
Kevin
Right.
Well, and it’s, it’s not so much that I’m not, I mean, I am not mechanically inclined, but it’s more that I’ve never been really shown how to do the things.
Um, cause my dad is even worse off than I am when it comes to machinery, at least like Chris said, if you show me a part and what it does and how to install it, I can do that.
It’s just that when it’s initially something breaks down, I don’t know how to go about diagnosing what broke because I don’t have that experience.
But to answer your question, Frank, yes, um, I did, I set my knitting aside for a little bit because, um, um, I wanted to with Easter coming up and you showing us those eggs that you printed, I thought, Hey, I, I want to do a couple of those because I’ve talked before about the possibility of me changing, um, colors, colored resins in the middle of prints.
And I thought, what better thing to demonstrate that on than an Easter egg.
So, um, last night I started trying to print some.
Um, now, uh, I went with the wavy and the, the, the one that’s got hollowed out, but it’s like really complex and, um, Chidubox wanted to have a whole bunch of supports on the inside of that hollowed out egg.
And so I said, no, I don’t, I don’t want to do that.
And so I took away all the supports and I just added my own manually and I got it printing with yellow.
And then I went to add the orange, um, and so I paused the print and it came up and I saw that the supports were all on the build plate.
Oh no, the, uh, the eggs were not, uh, oh no.
So I said, okay, well then let’s try just printing with no supports.
And it sounded like it was going for the first couple layers.
And so I was like, great.
And I went downstairs and, uh, started watching a show and did some knitting for an hour and then came back up to add the orange and there was nothing on the build plate.
Andy
Oh no!
Chris
Absolutely nothing.
Kevin
Absolutely nothing.
So then this morning I got up and I started it again and I was like, okay, I will let Chidubox do what Chidubox wants to do.
And I re-sliced it and, um, it’s going now, um, the wavy one has fallen off of the supports.
I can see that.
But the other one is going and so I’m, I’m, I’m on the red now.
So it’s gone yellow, orange, red, and, uh, looks like there might be a hole in the resin.
There shouldn’t be though, but the next color to do will be purple and that’s coming up on time to do that soon.
So that’s what I’m doing.
Frank
Cool.
Andy
That is one neat thing about your printer is as you have, you start to have a failed print, he can keep on going without it messing up.
The other thing that’s that are on his print bed.
Kevin
Right
Andy
Like if we have, if Frank has one of his eggs pop off, the, the, the second egg that prints after that egg is going to have boogers all over it.
Frank
Yeah.
Chris
And if, if you got too much of that stuff, it’ll catch and then grab the other part of the print and you’ll have a whole bed of mess.
Frank
The upside is that, uh, if I have 12, only one of those eggs, assuming there’s only one that fails, only one of those eggs is going to have all the extra plastic on the side.
Andy
Yeah.
Frank
Whereas the rest of them are going to be clean.
Andy
Yes.
That’s true.
That’s true.
Frank
Realistically though, none of them are really clean and pretty anyway.
So there’s a little bit of work that needs to be done.
Andy
It works out Okay.
I saw the pictures he did.
They look like they turned out good.
Chris
Yeah.
Frank
Um, the one that I didn’t expect to fail broke while I was pulling it off the raft.
Okay.
So the one that I thought looked least good actually seems like it’s probably the most stable, at least of the ones that are hollow inside, half of them are hollow and half of them are solid.
Kevin
So I think the one that I, that I mentioned has come off the supports, it’s cause I didn’t hollow it.
So I’ve re-sliced it, uh, and I hollowed it.
And so I’m going to try it again after this one’s done.
Looks like we’re all having Easter, Easter issues.
Andy
So as you start doing, um, the color change, are you, uh, dumping out the resin you’re currently printing in and putting in new resin of a different color or how’s that work?
Kevin
So when I went from yellow to orange, I didn’t do that because the, um, the orange I had was still just a little bit more red than I wanted it, but I knew that there was the yellow in there.
So I just added it, but then when I switched to red, I did dump out all of the orange resin and then I put red resin in there.
And so what I’m doing to get these colors though is I’ve, I’m starting with white resin and then I have a set of dyes in, uh, cyan, magenta, yellow and black.
And I’ve been using those dyes to get the colors I want.
Andy
And you are really good with colors that we’ve touched on before.
So that’ll be neat to see how those work out.
Frank
Yeah.
Kevin
Yeah.
Chris
Beautiful.
Andy
I’m excited to see those.
How about you Chrissy?
Chris
Um, yeah, I’ve just been, I’ve been doing the Easter stuff too.
Um, but it’s all been these Pokemon, Pokeball Easter eggs.
So they’re, they’re, they look like Pokeballs, but they’re egg shaped.
Andy
That’s kind of cool.
Chris
Yeah.
Um, I’ve been having a little trouble though because in the, in previous stuff I’ve printed, they’ve had, um, inter inter weaving, um, hinges and these ones are, is just an interlocking hinge where, you know, it prints a rod on the back of the center of it.
And then the top part just has a C-shaped clasp that kind of pops on top of that.
Right.
Kevin
Okay.
Andy
Yeah.
Chris
None of those have been working for me.
Andy
Oh, bummer.
Chris
And the same thing with the latch, the latch has this little button in it where same thing, you know, it’s very similar to the latch I did for the Christmas Pokeball.
So I put some, uh, some, some of that foam in, foam in it so that, you know, it’s, it’s springy and retractable, but, um, when the, when the, when the, when the little latch goes down to sit into it, didn’t, the stuff doesn’t quite line up right.
And I have to clean up mod and re-apoxy those latch bits too.
The buttons are doing fine, but the top, so, uh, yeah, I’m having to epoxy quite a bit of these back together to make them work and fit right off the print bed.
Frank
So that’s a bummer.
Chris
A lot, a lot of post, post print, um, fixing.
Andy
At least they look nice.
Chris
Got to give them that.
Oh yeah.
That’s pretty cool.
I, I, I’m using different colors.
I’ve got the shiny pink for some of them and, uh, we’ve got a couple in the original, just red, black, and white colors, um, doing a couple of them with glow in the dark bottoms and buttons.
So yeah.
Andy
Nice.
Frank
That is cool.
Chris
Good deal.
How about you, Frank?
You work on anything this week?
Frank
Um, well, I finished my three, two, one blocks, um, I did have to move the holes closer together, but I also had to make them a little bit smaller to get the effect I wanted.
Andy
Yeah.
Frank
Um, I also got a, uh, it’s like a tablet laptop thing, um, really small.
It’s like got a 10 inch screen on it.
Um, I got it for 50 bucks from my wife’s work and it’s been sitting on my desk.
I haven’t had any need for it, but I thought, you know, I’m just going to plug this thing into my printer and then I don’t have to walk the two feet to start my print up anymore.
Andy
So there you go.
Chris
Nice.
Frank
So I did that.
Um, it turns out that Creelty does not like to play with other software or other, uh, like the Cura and that sort of thing in respect to monitoring.
Um, so like if I was going to monitor the job itself, I wouldn’t have to use the Creelty software, um, and I loaded it up and played with it a little bit and it’s different enough that I don’t feel like messing with it, especially when the system I already have already works.
Andy
Yeah.
Frank
Um, yeah.
And then I, I did the eggs that Kevin mentioned earlier.
There was a, I just did a general search for Easter egg stuff and there was a couple of stories about the, uh, a dozen or so eggs that some kid had created and, uh, at least that was the news reported.
I don’t think the person that posted them on Thingiverse was a child, but it, you know, it could have been the kid’s dad or whatever.
Anyway, um, so I just pulled the whole dozen eggs down off of Thingiverse and, uh, ran them off and my gray first to see how they’d all look.
Um, I’m only printing 11 now, but I’m printing them in a, uh, a really soft pink.
Um, and I’ve also got like a sky blue and a really light green that I’m going to run some off into and give them out to family members and that sort of thing.
So, okay.
Sounds great.
And that doesn’t even count any other Easter stuff that I find.
Chris
Well, you guys remember those twirly bells that we printed for Christmas, right?
Frank
Yeah.
Andy
Yeah.
Chris
The same, uh, the, the same, uh, user on Thingiverse, Daisis, he has a bunch of Easter eggs that are like that too.
So, okay.
Okay.
Just, just a thought.
I tried to print some, actually I did print two of those up from that guy last, last Easter, which is, uh, how I found him for Christmas.
Frank
Um, I, I have seen a lot of really fun things, um, kind of each season brings new stuff and you know, the old stuff is still up.
With the eggs I have been thinking about printing the solid ones, hollow and, um, manipulating them a little bit so I can cut them in half and then maybe put stuff in them for the kids and then put them back together, but I haven’t quite gotten there through the whole process in my head yet.
Chris
Um, You just gave me a great idea, Frank, so we will have the one…
Frank
So I got the idea bingo this time.
Chris
Yeah.
So, yeah.
So you put the big prize in one egg, you hide it really, really well, but it’s like super glued epoxy together or whatever else.
So the kid has to figure out how to, how to break in to get the ultimate prize.
Frank
Uh, they’re children.
I don’t think it’ll take them long to figure out that they can just throw it on the ground and break it up.
Andy
Step on it, curb stop it.
Frank
Well, yeah, um, so we did have a topic that was supposed to be our topic this week, but I thought about it and I decided that I wanted to do a retrospective because this is going to air as the first episode in the last six months of our one year or our first year.
Andy
Okay.
Um, I just thought, you know, we have talked about some of this stuff offline, um, things like, uh, how the production quality of the episodes has kind of increased it.
I mean, I feel personally invested in that because I’m the one that’s doing it all.
Andy
Yeah.
Frank
Um, I don’t feel like it was poorly produced in the first place.
I feel like the first couple of episodes were pretty good, but I’ve also learned a lot in the process.
Um, I was wondering…
Chris
we’re all, we’re all getting more comfortable with it.
Frank
Yeah.
Is there anything that stands out for anybody with, um, like something that we talked about that you thought was great, uh, just six months worth of doing a podcast that we didn’t expect to do for six months?
Andy
I’m scared to death of rocking in my chair and I’ve never been able to get rid of all the squeaks.
Frank
So, uh, well, to your credit, I haven’t had to edit them out for the last five months.
So we’re good there.
Andy
Yeah.
Chris
We still get my cat in here and there.
So, you know, where’s that?
Frank
Yeah.
I mean, your cat has earned the privilege, I think.
Hell, think it back on some of the things that the topics we’ve talked about.
Andy
I think when we had, um, your, uh, uh, what was it, step, step, uh, family member that came on the podcast as a guest, as a machinist.
Frank
My brother-in-law?
Andy
Yeah.
Brother-in-law.
Yeah.
That was kind of neat.
Um, having a guest on like that, it wasn’t just us talking about ourselves in our lives.
It was actually nice to…
Frank
As good as we are at that.
Andy
Yeah.
But to have another person’s opinion on things, that was kind of cool.
I think I’d like to see, you know, some more of that, not, not flood the system with it, but you know, it did add a little bit of variety, which was kind of nice.
Frank
Yeah.
Well, and obviously I have lots of people in my family in the, uh, commercial, uh, production world.
Chris
Yeah.
Frank
Um, I’ve even talked to my dad about just having him in as a guest.
Andy
Yeah.
He’d be good.
I mean, he does his own things, his own way, but it would be neat having that kind of perspective.
That’s, there’s a lot of years of information and knowledge that that man has.
Frank
Yeah.
For sure.
Um, I do have another cousin who wasn’t able to be on when I had my cousin, uncle, and my dad on like episode four, episode five.
So…
Andy
yeah.
Frank
Um, I can always reach out to her and ask her if she still wants to participate in any way.
Um, and obviously guys, I don’t have to be the only one inviting people to be on the podcast hint, hint, nudge, nudge, Chris, um, you know, machinists, well, and I’m sure everybody has somebody that can bring some perspective.
It doesn’t have to be specific to the 3D world necessarily.
Andy
Um, it even offshoots of it’s still pretty good.
Um, I wish I had a better relationship with, I wish I had a better relationship with a dentist.
Frank
That, that is a whole new realm for us to be talking about in the, uh, the, the podcast there, Andy.
Well, maybe you shouldn’t know a dentist better.
Andy
Well, it’s like when I went into the dentist to have a, um, a tooth made for a, uh, implant, like they got into my mouth and scanned my mouth optically on both sides of my mouth so they could create a tooth that is identical from the other side of my mouth for the one that they’re replacing and, and have it fit that hole perfectly, but be the shape of the other side.
And so they took a scan or went and scanned my whole mouth and, uh, me and Chris were talking, um, yesterday about scanners, 3D scanners, but that’s very much part of the 3D printing community there.
Frank
Sure.
Kevin
Yeah.
Andy
It’s, it’s part, going to be part of the design sense and, um,
Kevin
Well, and, and I’ve had a couple of crowns and, um, my current dentist thought it was odd that I requested to know how much they would charge me to, to give me a crown and do their molds and send it off to the lab and all that process.
And it turned out that it was going to be a little bit more than a plane ticket to Oklahoma where my brother is a practicing dentist and, uh, he does the same thing.
He’s got, uh, the, the ceramic CNC mills in his office and he’s got the scanner thing that he’ll put in your mouth and get images there.
And then he’ll use his CAD software to build out the crown and then he’ll send that over to the CNC mill, put a ceramic block in there and it’ll mill out the, um, the crown for him and it accounts for the shrinkage that will happen and everything.
And then it’s a perfect fit and you’re, you’re in the office for all of an hour and a half.
And then you’ve, you walk out with a permanent crown instead of one of those temporaries that you have to have for a week or two that hurt.
I’ve, I’ve done that before.
It was a miserable experience.
Frank
Well, they, uh, while they get the tooth made from the, the cast that they made and…
Kevin
right.
Chris
And they’re not always very good.
Kevin
Right.
Frank
So it’s been a while since I’ve needed a crown.
So my most recent experience was still with the, uh, with the casting process.
Kevin
Well, I’ve had two crowns, one of them, um, I’m not sure I actually needed, but the dentist said, well, we need to do this crown.
So let’s just get it going right now.
And I said, okay.
And then it was with the, they did the temporary and it was a miserable experience.
I had to go, um, cause the, the first time they came to where I worked.
And then after that, I had to go to their office in Harriman to get the permanent crown.
And it was a week or two after the, I got the temporary, well, then that’s when they found out that the lab had screwed up and, um, didn’t make the crown properly.
So they had to put the temporary back on and then I had to go back down to Harriman a couple weeks later to get it done.
And it covered the tooth, but it left a gap between that tooth and the one behind it that food kept getting stuck in and it hurt a lot.
And so then my brother was out visiting and he said, well, just come to me and I’ll, I’ll fix your crown for you.
So that was the first time I went in the second time I went, I was like, I’m just going to go to my brother from the beginning cause I know he’s going to do it right.
He’ll get a crown on that works.
And it was a lot better.
Frank
Huh.
Chris
Wow.
Andy
That technology that they have to be able to do stuff like that.
Kevin
Yeah.
Chris
Well, how, how sad is it that you can’t get that kind of service lo, locally?
Kevin
It’s pretty, well, like, cause I’ve talked to dentist here and my wife has her dentist to, she, she mentioned it to her dentist and he said, well, I’ve just never seen the benefit of having the mill right in the office.
And I think he’s talking from like a cost perspective versus what the insurance will pay and all that.
But to me, it’s the patient comfort is the benefit.
Frank
Well, and it goes back to trying to sell 3D on a commercial level in the first place.
Has been challenging partly because you’ve got these companies, you know, I said earlier, if the system works, you know, use the system, but you’ve got these companies that are sitting here going, well, if we do this, we’re going to have to retool the whole shop.
And that’s going to be preventatively expensive when we’ve got a process in place already.
It’s not quick, but it’s cost efficient and, you know, all these other things.
So there’s not as much of value into the transition.
And I get it, you know, they spent 20,20,30,000 per machine for, you know, the rudimentary machines, they spend even more than that for some of the more complex like CNC machines and stuff like that.
And so from a transition period or a transition perspective, I can see why even dentists would be resistant to the change.
I think the biggest value to having the mill in the dentist shop, though, or the dentist shop is vacant prototype.
I’m assuming it doesn’t take any more than say 20, 30 minutes to cut out a little profile on a tooth, right?
So they can scan it, get the job going, do whatever prep work they need to in your mouth while it’s running off and then test fit it right there.
Kevin
Yeah.
Frank
And as long as it’s reasonably close to spec, they can install it right away.
And they know that it’s correct from the tooth that was just there, as opposed to two weeks later, they’re looking at it, they got to play with it.
And if it’s wrong, they tell you to come back later, instead of, sorry, we’re going to give you a little bit more Novacaine, thank God we live in the US, we’re going to give you a little bit more Novacaine, sit tight for a couple of minutes, we’re going to fix this and then we’re going to get the right tooth in.
Kevin
Well, and that was, that was exactly it, you know, I went out there and he did his scans and sent it to the mill.
And then that’s when he started grinding down the tooth to prepare it.
And then when he was done preparing the tooth for it, it was a matter of 10 or 20 minutes until it was done and then he could test fit it and go from there.
Frank
Then you hop on the plane and come home all in one day.
If you want to do it that way.
Kevin
I spent a couple days out there, but yeah.
Frank
that I don’t know, I just get torn, you know, I understand how the cost of transition would be preventative.
And I understand the other argument, which is you can turn out a bunch of this product in a reasonably short amount of time and you don’t have to keep the inventory.
So I do feel like there’s an aspect where it’s just better for a startup than it is for an existing company.
But the existing companies are the ones that are getting paying for the buildup of the technology.
Andy
Yeah.
Well, you guys are talking slightly off topic here.
You guys are talking about having a mill in the office and that got me thinking.
I wonder how, if it would be worth looking into getting a small CNC, you know, there’s a bunch of different ones out there that are just a couple hundred dollars.
I wonder how well those would work for like aluminum.
You know, I got into, I got some stuff for aluminum casting hoping I can do a loss material casting with our PLA parts and just ended up not being able to make the small components that I wanted to just because aluminum is very viscous.
But I still have everything to be able to produce aluminum ingots and whatever shape that I want.
It kind of got me wondering, maybe I look into seeing how easy it is to transition a cad part into an aluminum component, that would be nice to be able to produce aluminum components even if they’re small.
Frank
I can’t remember the specific videos, so it would take some work, but I have seen some YouTube videos where somebody asked that exact question on some of the less expensive hobby CAD machines.
And from what I saw, it’s not necessarily, the mill itself was designed for wood.
Andy
Okay.
Frank
You know, like a balsa wood, whatever, you know, it’s not the laser mill, but it’s kind of the same idea.
So the tool and the motor that runs it and all that were designed for cutting wood, not aluminum.
So obviously, if you did a lot of aluminum with it, the tools would wear out faster and possibly the motor too.
But it worked.
Chris
Actually, all you’d have to do to keep the life in that is just run things slower.
That’s all.
Frank
Okay.
Chris
Yep.
Then you’d still keep a decent life out of the motor.
You’d have to buy harder tools, obviously, than you’d expect to for wood.
But you know, as long as you just went slower, I imagine the motor would just, you’re not putting as much work into the motor at the same time.
So as long as you’re just cutting slower to the machine, it’s like it’s cutting wood.
Frank
I think more than anything, it would take trial and error to figure out where things are.
But like I said, I’ve seen it done.
So it’s just a matter of how much work you can get out of it at that point.
Andy
I know you’d probably have to get proper tooling to cut aluminum on some of those.
And I know the tooling is unfortunately expensive.
Chris
Not really.
Andy
Is it really reasonable?
Frank
Well, and there’s a scale on it, right?
If you’re cutting hardened steel, you want to pay for a harder tool.
And if you’re cutting titanium, you want to pay for a different tool.
If you’re cutting aluminum, which is one of the softer metals, then it doesn’t have to be as over-engineered as tempered.
Chris
You guys forgot that I was seeing aluminum pieces for a while.
Andy
No, I definitely know this.
And I’m kind of looking at your picture on my screen when I’m talking to all this.
Frank
Oh, I’m sorry.
Go ahead, Chris.
I just like to talk, y’all.
Andy
Well, let me ask you this, Chris.
Are those kind of machines working cold OK or heat?
Is this a tool that I could keep out in my workshop?
Chris
Well, obviously, when things are colder, they get harder.
But that would be completely up to the kind of CNC that you’ve got.
Andy
OK.
Chris
As to whether it would work better in colder conditions.
But in warmer conditions, they would all work.
In warmer conditions, they would all work, Dandy, I would think.
Andy
OK.
But it’s not like sensitive, like 3D printer.
I can’t keep a 3D printer out of my shop for obvious reasons, because it’s not climate control in there.
Chris
But yeah, CNC would do just Dandy OK out there.
Yeah.
Frank
Keep the box that comes in and just put it over the thing while it’s running.
Andy
Keep all the metal filings all in one spot, and you can just dump them back into the bowl and reheat them up and melt them down.
Frank
What’s the fun in that?
Andy
I’m liking this idea.
I think I might have to go look into something.
I mean, Chris talked me in this week to buying a darn scanner.
I mean, I’m loaded with money, so it’s spend it all.
Maybe, I don’t know, cost my family financial distress with all my hobbies.
Chris
Well, to be fair, the scanner I saw, I just was too good not to share.
Andy
Yeah.
Frank
Well, let’s remember that this is our midlife crisis, too.
So it’s still less expensive than the charger.
Chris
Stingray.
Frank
Whatever.
And I’m hoping to get into the next podcast or two, or probably a little bit down the road.
Andy
I don’t think the one I purchased was an early shipment one, and I don’t think they’re going to ship until the middle of March or April, so I’ll have to see when it comes.
But I definitely want to talk about that because a lot of the things, and this goes back to SOLIDWORKS, too, when it comes to designing, if I’m designing something that has an interference with something else, like, for example, if I am going to make a light switch cover, well, maybe not a light switch cover.
That’s almost a little bit too simple, but I’m going to use that example anyway.
I might design the box.
Really cheaply take measurements for where the holes are, the size of the box, little things like that, just so I can put the parts together in an assembly and see if they’re accurate.
Because if I got one wrong or the other wrong, then they won’t fit right, and I’ll know I need to check one or the other.
But it stops me from having to go back and reprint stuff over and over.
I can’t tell you how awesome it would be to take that light switch cover that I’m doing, scan it real quick, just the hole in the wall, and import that STL, and then mesh everything against that STL, you know?
Little things like that I’m really excited for.
Chris
Oh, well, I just wanted to copy vinyl records.
Frank
It could work for that, too, I guess, printing them off would be a whole other problem.
But as long as you’re virtualizing the record in the first place, just make them 3D objects that are available for Meta or something like that and have it played in VR.
Andy
Let me ask you this, Chris.
I know you’ve worked with machines, back to the whole CNC question, I know you’ve worked with machines that were very high-end, for the most part, commercial in nature.
But when it comes to designing a CAD part for it, you have a slicer version of software that you put your object into and then convert that into what the GCode to CNC would wind up reading or how does that work?
Chirs
I’m not entirely sure.
I was more on the operator end of things rather than the engineer end of things.
Andy
Okay.
Okay.
Chris
What I understand, like I said, yeah, there were CAD models that the customer would supply the engineers and they would play with and manipulate as needed in SolidWworks at the company and then, like, I know he would have availability to them on the CNC.
I mostly, when it came to those, it was just me importing them into my CMM program for measuring parts after they were completed and ready for inspection.
Andy
Oh Okay.
Okay.
Well, I think I got some research on me.
I know it’s not additive manufacturing, which is the primary topic of our channel, but it feels close.
Chris
Subtractive manufacturing.
Andy
Yeah.
Yeah.
I think I’m going to look into that one, too, because that would be nice to be able to make aluminum components.
Chris
Yeah.
I know that the CNC that I worked with making for the ductile and tensile properties, it was a very basic machine.
It was the cheapest, one of the cheapest machines they could get because it wasn’t involved with making customer product.
It was always for helping make a few special pieces for setup for the custom machines and then for me milling off pieces to test.
So it’s basically, it’s a lot like our printers and the fact that it is dumb.
It just runs code and that’s all it does.
But you can generate code on your computer from the STL to say, okay, it should be able to come in and use this tool and that tool and the other tool, come in and mill these specific features if I have it set up in this orientation.
And then you take that and on a flat, that kind of code on a flash drive, plug it into the machine.
The code is all there for the machine.
You just make sure that you use a little probe and make sure that your part is where it ought to be for your code.
Does that make sense?
Andy
Okay.
It does.
It does.
I think I want to play around with this.
I really, really like this idea.
I love the idea of being able to make parts out of aluminum.
So that’s kind of cool.
And it definitely works a lot better than anything that I have tried to sandcast.
Not that that’s been a complete failure.
It’s just, if I could come out with a milled component and back when I was working up to be able to do the loss casting with PLA, I was making a lot of aluminum ingots because I figured out I should have a couple of these to be able to melt down and do.
And I don’t want to just buy aluminum.
So of course I’m saving up my soda cans and melting those down and all the aluminum I’ve got, I think I probably got maybe about three kilograms of it or so of aluminum that I’ve melted down out of soda cans.
It’s just pure aluminum.
Chris
That is a normal amount of aluminum for somebody to keep on hand.
Frank
That’s also the result of one week of Andy drinking soda.
So…
Andy
Almost, I did throw some cans away.
I didn’t use during work.
But generally speaking, it was melting all those down.
But it was fun.
It was an enjoyable thing to sit around the furnace and just throw cans into it, watch them melt, play with molten metal and things like that just to make ingots.
And that was an easy thing to do with that equipment and it’s something that I did well.
And when it comes to being, so I feel like I would have an endless amount of aluminum to be able to make components out of.
And I’m going to really check this out.
Thanks for spending all my money, Chris.
Chris
You’re welcome.
Andy
I think the family is really happy with me financially.
Chris
No, seriously, though…
Frank
He’s not even your spouse either.
Chris
I was looking at that little scanner and I was going, Oh, baby.
Andy
I’ve been looking for scanners too for quite a while.
The ones I’m looking at are like 800 bucks and I’m thinking it’s not worth 800 bucks.
And I’ve been doing a lot of photogrammetry trying to create models and that does work if you’re willing to throw tons of time into it and a few thousand photos and it’s messy.
And what you get out of it isn’t necessarily the greatest anyway.
And so having an actual scanner, I’m kind of excited to play with.
That’ll be fun.
And that it’s like half price compared to, you know, for what it does is it’s going to be kind of cool.
Thanks for letting me share those thoughts.
I just rambled off on a me thing again, many apologies.
Frank
Yeah, that’s all right, that’s all right.
Anybody who listens back on our six months of recording will see a trend.
Kevin
Yeah.
Andy
If it makes you guys feel any better?
I feel seen being able to always talk about me.
So thank you for letting me have that out.
Frank
Well, and there’s the aspect where obviously we all like to talk about ourselves or else we wouldn’t be doing a podcast in the first place, except for Kevin.
Kevin doesn’t like to talk about himself as much.
He usually keeps his mouth shut.
Kevin
I do.
Frank
But that’s kind of half the fun though, right?
Kevin
Right.
It’s been said of me that I don’t say much and therefore I say a lot or thereby I say a lot.
Frank
Yeah, well, that’s the old adage, right?
Kevin
Yeah, I mean…
Frank
Better to be thought a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt.
Kevin
Sure.
Frank
Chris.
Chris
Except that he’s a genius.
Kevin
That’s only because when I do say, when I do talk, it’s because I know what I’m talking about and can contribute to the conversation.
If I’m not talking, then I’m like, well, I don’t know that I can really contribute anything to this though.
Chris
But with the whole showing that we will be getting scanners on the cheaper and soon about the same price of our printers, that does bring up an issue with pirating minifigures.
Andy
Yeah.
Frank
I feel like that’s always been an argument against 3D since 3D started to be a thing.
Chris
Yeah.
Well, it was the same thing about having CD recorders and tape recorders and it’s the same old argument with new technology.
Andy
Well, I think for 3D printing, it was all based around, do you have the files for it to be able to reproduce it?
With scanners getting cheaper, you just need the actual thing to be able to reproduce it.
Frank
As opposed to some ability to design it yourself, you can scan it and print it that way.
Andy
Yeah.
With modeling figurines and things like that is what I’m mostly going for, just because the amount of work involved.
Fank
That’s actually another thing.
I think me and Kevin are the only ones that are even marginally interested in Blender, but I’ve found a couple of groups that have tutorials available and that sort of thing and I’m going to play with that as well as everything else that I’m doing with my life right now.
Andy
Yeah.
Frank
To see if I can.
Kevin
I plan on spending some more time with that also after the end of this month when I am not going to be spending all my free time knitting and I get to start working 4 10s on Monday, so I’ll have Fridays free, so that’ll be great.
Frank
Yeah.
Chris
4-day work week, baby.
Kevin
Yeah.
Andy
I’m jealous.
That’s going to be so nice, you guys.
That would be wonderful.
Frank
Mr. I do 60 hours a week.
Andy
It’s been trimmed down a little bit, actually.
Like at work, I used to do an extra project on top of my normal work that involved a lot of coding and things that I did on my own that I turned out to be really good at because I wrote software that helps me out around it and then I’ve advanced that software, even got into my first software ever using neural net kind of ideas and all that.
It was fun and I was being very good at it and then I got really good at it and then people started questioning, why are we spending so much money when Andy can just make all of this extra profit for free, essentially?
Chris
Oh, no.
Andy
And so they shut me down.
Frank
What?
Andy
Yeah.
I got too good at it.
What I was doing was kind of a side step to doing the work properly, or not properly, but doing the work, I guess it doesn’t matter.
I was able to find freebie things that I could close down and that our company doesn’t actually have to spend time on to do.
And then the client was like, why are we paying for those if Andy’s got all of these organized nicely for us, maybe we should start paying less for those ones.
The company shut me down real quick.
Chris
Well, the alternative is it’s better than the alternative where they would exploit all of your programming skills.
Frank
They were to pay me for it, which they were to this point is paying me for it.
That’s great.
But no, it wound up causing a little bit of problems.
It wasn’t necessarily doing anything wrong, but I did kind of lose that part of the job, which kind of sucks, which will bring my normal hourly days from like 14 hours down to 12 hours a day.
So still a lot of work, but not as much as it was.
Frank
That strikes me as the wrong decision for them to make, honestly.
But you know, I’m looking at it from the perspective of an engineer again.
So if that’s the whole purpose of technology in the first place, I made the example of a spear to last episode, you take a repetitive task and make it less repetitive with a silicon circuit and pay for the service of the silicon circuit, which you’re doing with solid works and all of the clients that I work with in my job are paying for this programmed solution.
And they’re paying good money and they’re getting value out of it.
They should be paying you for the thing that you designed that will save them money in the long run instead of shutting you down because the client wants to pay less.
Chris
I would say more or less they should have a specific clock in, I guess, for that rather than just, I don’t know.
Andy
Well, it wasn’t my company that shut me down.
It was my company’s client that started questioning why we were working things the way we were because it was getting so efficient and that maybe they shouldn’t be paying so much for their services.
Frank
Well, and that’s really what I mean, though, you got shut down because the company wants to make more.
Chris
Yeah.
The third party company wants to make more.
Frank
Well, that too.
Andy
Pay less.
I think the question is pay less.
Frank
Well, okay.
So they’re making…
Chris
Pay less equals makes more.
Frank
Right, right, right.
It’s just the opposite side of the equation.
Now, let’s take a moment and appreciate that as much as we talk about the word should, we’ve just been shoulding all over the place.
And it’s hard to recognize when you fall in that hole.
Chris
The should hole?
Frank
Yeah.
Andy
Yeah.
Well, looking back on the whole process, I understand where they’re coming from and it does make sense to me.
I don’t feel wronged.
It does suck for me personally, but I get it and it does make sense from their perspective.
Frank
We’re paying you a lot of money.
We want you to do physical work to earn it.
Andy
Yeah.
That part doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.
And yet at the other side of the spectrum, there’s this thing that comes up for me periodically.
The story of this guy who was hired by a law firm to manage their cloud services and he’s the IT guy for this law firm, probably five or six lawyers and some management structure for the business and all that other stuff.
And he got hired for the job just before COVID.
So he makes whatever arrangements he needs to to have everyone work from home as much as possible and starts working from home and self and spends some time to figure out some things, PowerShell scripts and batch scripts and all that stuff, puts it all together and automates his job until he gets paid good money to sit at home and play video games all day and compare to the logs at the end of the day for like 10 minutes.
Andy
Wasn’t there somebody that did something like that, but they were using like a Mechanical Turk kind of group to do his work for him and he was just collecting on the difference between the two, this company was paying him and then he was paying Mechanical Turk for it.
Yeah, that’s like a service where you can, oh, my brain just melted.
Chris
I saw that break right there.
Frank
So it’s an outsourcing of whatever work?
Andy
Yeah, yeah.
So you can sign up to be a Mechanical Turk and then you will get little tasks that you can choose to do for money and then on the other side of it, you could submit tasks to Mechanical Turk and then pay them to do those tasks.
But so the guy was able to outsource his entire job to a company like that.
I don’t think it was Mechanical Turk, but it was something close to that and he was paying them a lot less to do his work for him than he was getting paid from his boss to do it and was making money that way.
Frank
At some point, the ingenuity is laudable though, right, or should be?
Andy
Yeah, I mean, I hate to say it, but looking at that situation, because I think he got in trouble for it and got sued for it and things like that.
And just looking back at it, I think it should have been fine if his company was willing to pay him for the work and they were receiving what they needed to receive.
Frank
The value for cost.
Andy
As long as it was legal, it should be fine.
Frank
I can see how there would be an issue with he wasn’t being upfront about it.
Andy
Yeah.
Yeah, possibly.
It’s like sublating a property too, so.
Frank
Right.
And…
Chris
well, and then there’s extremes, you know, because it might be that they were worried this would lead down an ethical extreme because then you end up with, you know, sweatshops in China like…
Frank
crowd sourcing stuff…
Chris
Apple’s being accused of, you know.
Andy
Yeah.
That’s got a good point.
Frank
Yeah.
It’s all potentially problematic in some way.
I will go back to the guy that wrote the scripts.
He was hired to be the IT guy and all he needed to do was manage their cloud services.
And their expectation was being met by his work.
He just wasn’t actively doing it.
Chris
And that’s not necessarily true.
He was actively doing it because simply by monitoring it at the end of that actively doing it, I would say.
Frank
But he wasn’t actively engaged the whole time he was on the clock is really what I mean.
That’s true.
But, you know, cost for value was there for the company he was working for, is working for as far as I know.
So…
Chris
I guess that also depends on whether he was hourly or salary because if he was salary, then what’s the difference?
Frank
They don’t get extra hours out of him for the same pay.
That’s the difference.
Chris
I call him a chicken chicken winner on that one.
Kevin
Right.
Frank
Yeah.
No kidding.
Wow.
We’ve been talking for a little more than an hour.
Was there anything else that you guys feel stood out from the podcast?
I’m thinking that maybe you’ve learned or may have value or am I just putting you on the spot and your brain isn’t working?
Andy
No, there’s been a lot of value to it.
A lot of things shared when it comes to the 3D printing world that.
Kevin
Yeah.
Frank
Just nothing really stands out to you right now.
Kevin
I think I’ve learned a lot from you guys about how FDM printers work
Andy
and vice versa with SLA.
Kevin
Right.
Frank
Yeah.
I agree.
Kevin
I’m considering getting an FDM printer, I found one that’s on sale right now for $150.
It’s just no matter convincing the wife that it’s something I ought to do.
Frank
That’s worth the investment.
Kevin
Yeah.
Chris
Well, you can print bigger things.
Kevin
Now, it’s still not a very big one.
It does say that it is for beginners.
It’s a 200 by 200 by 200 millimeter print volume.
Frank
It’s still pretty big.
Kevin
It’s still bigger than I’ve got, though.
Frank
Yeah.
For sure.
Yeah.
That would be interesting.
Kevin
Yeah.
Frank
You would be the first of us to have both printers, too.
That’ll put more pressure on Andy to spend more money.
Kevin
I do support Andy in his statement, though, that he doesn’t know that he’d use resin printer enough to justify it.
Like I’ve said, if you ever want something that’s done in resin, just let me know and I’ll be happy to do it for you.
Andy
That was on my mind just today alone.
I was starting a big print and I was just kind of looking at that.
You know, just watching the printer for the first little bit to make sure it was working okay.
Right.
I noticed my coolant is a little bit on the low side.
These really thin tubes that I wound up using on my printer are the type of material they’re made out of, I think, is allowing evaporation, which is fine.
It’s not that big of a deal.
I wound up using windshield washer fluid as the coolant for my lines.
That way, nothing grows in there and things like that.
So it’s this nice blue color and I’ve been noticing it getting bluer and bluer.
So it’s not leaking.
I think it’s evaporating the water out of it.
Chris
You need a refractometer, dude.
Kevin
Yeah, it’s also more likely the alcohol that’s in the windshield washer fluid evaporating because it has a lower vapor point than water does.
Andy
Okay.
Is it about to use like propylene glycol of the water temperature being lower?
Chris
I thought they used ammonia.
Andy
Oh, really?
Yeah.
Whatever they’re using.
Anyway, I was kind of looking it over and on that part, the tubes I used were so dang small, finding barbed reducers for three millimeters was hard because the outside, the OD is three millimeters on those little tubes.
So I wound up printing one using, I don’t remember what I printed it out of.
I think I honestly used PLA because I needed the high quality for only the three millimeter circle I needed to make and to make it hollow and all that kind of stuff.
I could only use one ring of the printer or one print line.
But I was just kind of looking over that particular adapter while it was there and I’ve been using it this entire time and I was just kind of impressed that it didn’t leak.
Now, of all the components that I had considered asking Kev if he had print for me, that was the number one so far, but I figured I’ll try and then if it fails on me, I’ll bug Kev for it to print it because he can print a waterproof or a watertight solution for that particular part and have the resolution to print it super small.
So I definitely got you on my mind when I’m thinking about small things like that and I really appreciate having that option too.
Frank
So yeah, I guess we should call it, huh?
Andy
Yeah, sorry.
Frank
Part retrospective and part just every tangent we can chase.
Like every other end is what we do.
Andy
At least users could see what happens when we’re not pushed to switch to a topic.
Frank
Yeah, we peter out and don’t stick to any topic, kind of like we’re friends and we’ve known each other for 20 years.
Andy
Just like to, you know, bull should for a little while.
Frank
Yeah.
Yeah.
And I’ll decide if I want to censor you before we put that out.
Chris
No. Just say bull should.
Frank
Or I’ll just take what Chris just said and put it over you.
Andy
I like that.
Frank
Like I did that one time.
Yeah.
Should just bull should
Frank
Well, we’d like to thank everybody for listening to the very end and, you know, for listening to us jabber for six months.
Chris
If you want to skip this episode, that’s okay.
Frank
They’re going to learn that at the end, though.
Chris
Yeah.
Frank
So they will have always listened to it.
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You can find us on our Facebook group, Amateur 3D Pod, or you can email us at panelists at amateur3dpod.com.
For individual feedback, you can email us at Franklin, Kevin, Andy, or Chris at amateur3dpod.com.
The music for this episode was written by Kevin Buckner, OpenAI’s Whisperer, completed the heavy lifting for the transcripts, which you can find linked in the description below.
Our panelists are me, Franklin Christensen, and my friends, Kevin Buckner, Chris Weber, and Andy Cotta.
Until next time, we’re going offline.
Kevin
Keep your FEP tight.
Chris
Sign off are ya suckers.
Andy
Oh, a bull should.