Frank
Thank you for joining us.
This is Episode 39 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.
How’s it going, guys?
Kevin
Pretty good.
How are you?
Frank
Good.
I like the earlier recording sessions, honestly.
I can make plans for one o’clock and try to make them a little bit easier.
Andy
I had to push back at dinner that we usually do at 11 a.m., but we’ll make it work on our end.
Frank
Dinner at 11 a.m.
Andy
Just kidding.
I’m just kidding.
Chris
Just making fun of my swing shift, because I just barely crawled out of bed.
Frank
So my grandmother lived through World War II, all the other fun stuff.
She distinguished between breakfast, supper, or breakfast, lunch, supper, and dinner.
Andy
Really?
Frank
Yeah.
And my parents, for whatever reason, I grew up thinking the supper and dinner were the same thing.
It wasn’t until, I don’t know, in the last couple of years.
The last 10 years or so, I came to the appreciation that supper is different from dinner.
Andy
What is the real difference between the two?
Frank
Supper is more like evening tea.
Kevin
Supper is after dinner.
Andy
Okay.
Like that.
It’s a snack before bed kind of meal?
Frank
The American rendition of it.
Chris
It’s a bigger thing in Spain, actually.
In Spain, they have supper, and then they have a bigger dinner later, typically.
Andy
Okay.
That’s cool.
Frnak
And there we go.
So our topic this week is home improvements from the printer.
Andy
I’m excited about this one.
Frank
More Tim Allen stuff.
He’s going to hear this and go, hmm.
I don’t know.
I mean, I guess if anybody could have copyrighted the sound, it would be the guy that made it popular, right?
Andy
Yep.
Frank
His, what’s it called?
Audio trademark.
That’s what it is.
Yeah.
It’s an audio trademark.
Chris
We differ more than 10%, so we’re fine.
Frank
Yeah.
So Andy, have you done anything this week?
Andy
I have done a lot of things this week.
This week has been an entertaining one for printer.
So much so, I’ve even made a list of the things that I’ve printed so that I wouldn’t forget them.
Frank
Oh boy.
Chris
The limit switch broke, huh?
Andy
Yeah.
That was definitely one of them.
So I made a new stand for my phone that I was whining about last podcast about it melting.
I got to know the one of those printed out.
I got some new canister filter baffles for my fish tank.
I want to show you guys these.
They turned out pretty nice looking.
These are just flat wafers of plastic with a bunch of holes in them like a screen door that I can stick in between the filter media inside the canister for my fish tank filter, keep the medias from merging into one solid block.
Chris
That literally looks like the screen I have on my floor drain.
Andy
Oh yeah.
That kind of does.
That’s actually a good way for the audio people to know what I’m talking about.
Think of a two or three millimeter tall floor drain.
What would you call that shape?
Frank
Oh, wide?
Andy
A reticle?
It’s called a reticle.
Frank
The slice of a sphere?
Andy
Is that a reticle?
No, I’m confused.
What’s a reticle?
Frank
Oh, you’re talking about the design of the surface.
Yeah, that’s like a…
Like a scope reticle.
And you’re looking through a scope in a long firearm?
Andy
Yeah, yeah.
Okay.
So that is the right word for that.
Frank
Yeah, crosshair.
Andy
That bull’s eye shape, right?
Frank
The colloquial word is crosshairs.
Andy
Okay.
Sometimes I don’t know where words come from in my head or what they mean.
I just use them, you know.
Frank
No, it’s a very good… uh.
Gaming they refer to the reticle a lot because it’s always in the center of your screen.
Andy
Okay.
Frank
But you can choose the size and the shape of it and all that depending on your gaming style.
They refer to that as the reticle.
Andy
Very neat.
Frank
Also, just because it’s the same shape.
Andy
But yeah.
Makes sense.
I made some C-clips that I can fit around vinyl tubing on my fish tank pump stuff.
I wound up having an absolute infestation of pest snails in one of my fish tanks that was terrible.
I could not get rid of them.
We’ve completely cleaned the tank out and physically removed everything we could find.
And apparently I still had eggs.
We’ve tried chemicals.
We’ve tried specific fish and other snails to get rid of them.
That didn’t work.
So last week, I used the nuclear option and I sous-vide the entire tank after removing the fish.
And that worked.
That got rid of everything, which is great.
I brought the whole tank up to 160 degrees and then it sat for like two hours as it cooled down on its own.
And then I pumped all the water out of it.
But the filter, my canister filter also had a bunch of those pest snail eggs and stuff like that.
So I left it running in that time.
But the heat collapsed my vinyl tubing that is used on that system.
So I made a bunch of little C-clips that I could put around the vinyl tubing to help round the tubing back out over time.
And it’s working.
I printed a bunch of those.
And yeah.
It works pretty good.
The fish are pretty happy.
I’ve been there for a week.
I did come for those people who are into aquariums.
Yes, I did completely destroy the cycle of this tank.
It is gone.
It is toast.
However, I did a half water change of a different tank and I used its dirty water into the tank that was sous-vide.
And so that’s given it quite the boost for a new cycle.
But yeah, all that’s taken care of and everybody’s happy and my pipes are slowly rounding out, which is good.
I didn’t want to replace those two things.
So I made a bunch of those C-clips.
And let’s see here.
What else did we do?
Chris
Did you put some on a croissant?
Andy
I finished up my blowers for the top of my fish tank and got those completely done.
One of them needed an extra cover designed the same way as the blowers clipped onto the tank.
And I had designed and printed that as well this last week since the last podcast.
So all that’s going good and those tanks are looking great.
I discovered something that is so much fun and I think we talked a little bit about this last podcast and that was my son has been using 3D paint and windows making his own little objects and things like that.
And the other day it kind of occurred to us like I could just slice those objects.
I mean, he’s not making measurements, fine measurements and things like that.
He’s just putting together shapes and by, you know, I can scale things all day long inside of cure inside of the slicer.
And I might be able to let him be able to print his designs that he’s doing and he got really excited about it.
And what do you know 3D paint can save in a 3D or a 3MF file.
So that’s great.
It should work.
No, Microsoft doesn’t keep up the standards and that’s not a 3MF file, even though they call it a 3MF file.
Frank
Because it’s Microsoft.
Andy
Yeah.
It’s terrible.
Microsoft makes another crappy tool though called 3D builder, which is also just as crappy, but it can open up crappy 3D 3MF files and export proper STLs.
So my son has been printing almost every single day wanting to print something.
Frank
His own designs.
Andy
Yeah.
Yeah.
His own things.Nice.
His very own things.
He’s 10 years old for those who are curious.
But yeah, I told him he can spend up to 25 grams of PLA a day and that will be fine.
If he wants something bigger, he’ll have to pay for the plastic used.
And so I sit down with the slicer with him because he wants everything to be as big as possible and so kind of letting him weigh out how fragile do you want this item to be for how big it is because we’re being fairly firm on that 25 grams unless he wants to pay for the plastic used, which you guys know is actually pretty cheap.
But for a 10 year old, that could be a, you know, that is a lot of money.
So I want to spend 50 cents on a big print.
It’s a lot.
Frank
He’s got to learn about economics at some point.
This is as good a time as ever.
Andy
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, yeah.
And we’re working really hard with that.
I don’t give him an allowance.
However, we do have bank of dad that pays out ridiculous interest rates.
And that’s how I do allowance to the kids.
They have to be financially smart and invest their money.
We have bonds that he can buy in the bank of dad in the bank of dad’s account has a pretty good interest rate of 4% per week.
Frank
So that is awesome.
Andy
Yeah.
Frank
I wish I had the kind of bank.
Andy
as he abuses the system.
I told him, um, I will just extend the length of time and we’ll keep the numbers to be about what you find in the real world.
So you know, bonds going for, you know, five to 6% the checking account that he’s got 4%.
They’re all higher, but they’re all close to reasonable numbers that you find in the real world.
Frank
That is awesome. I like that idea.
Andy
And once he gets up to the hundred to $200 range, if he really starts abusing it, which I hope he does, I’ll just lengthen the term and that way everything kind of stays the same and he doesn’t break me financially.
So that’s how we’ve been doing that.
So he kind of earns interest that way or earns an allowance by being good with his money.
Frank
I don’t, I mean, it’s very possible.
Like you said, he’s a very smart kid.
But I suspect that he won’t really get it until he does algebra and starts learning logs.
Andy
Yeah.
Frank
He’ll go Oh!
Andy
Yeah, no kidding.
Exponential calculations are really fun financially, especially if dad doesn’t catch on quick enough.
I set these up for graphs and I have like the first half of the displayed graph is his actual balances.
And then the second half is a different color that shows projections.
And that really allows him to see like, oh my gosh, okay.
I’ve had it for four months, this much in it.
And for the next four months, if I leave it in there, that’s how much it will grow to.
Oh my heck, you know…
Frank
I love this idea as a non parent myself, I can see myself eventually getting to a point like this if I had kids.
So yeah, I really, I applaud your foresight and engineering and insistence on teaching how to manage their finances instead of waiting until they’re 18 and saying, go on, get out, go do.
Andy
Yeah, figure it out yourself.
I really want to set up a separate sheet and I have some ideas on how to do it, but haven’t implemented it yet because I do bonds.
But let’s face it, when you’re a teenager, you’re not going to go out and buy that many bonds and that’s not the real good way to invest at that young.
You want to get into the market itself.
I wanted to kind of set up an artificial market that would update daily, that would just have a closing cost and that would be random, but have a certain amount of growth over a certain amount of time guaranteed and then have that growth stick within that ridiculous interest rate but allow me to change the growth without changing the numbers drastically.
And I’m preaching strictly ETF funds for that.
Yeah, that’s the next little project for Bank of Dad.
Frank
I like that.
Andy
He’s doing well with it.
Frank
Very well done.
I guess it helps that you’re a techie and a programmer and all that other stuff that you would think of something like that.
It’s out of reach for, I suspect it’s out of reach for a lot of parents even if they do think of it.
Andy
But there’s like apps and things like that out there you could do.
We could make Excel dance all day long and get it to do exactly what we want to do and how it would work it, but a lot of the apps out there that are kind of okay will still do a pretty good job with that kind of stuff.
Frank
Even without being a techie though, I’m a cheap bastard.
Andy
For a while though, he was abusing me.
He got up to like 60 and was making like60andwasmakinglike15 a week or so in interest and it was just like it was about to fall over the hump because he would take, he would cash out his bonds or they would mature for him and then he would go and I give him access to our Walmart shopping list which is a weekly purchase and our Amazon order which we just purchase, we just close out that shopping cart every once in a while.
I tell him you can purchase stuff that way if he wants as well as much as he wants to spend his own money.
So he’s got access to stores too that he could regularly use and he usually, he does it perfect.
He spends a couple of dollars each time his bonds mature, he’ll spend a couple of dollars and then he’ll reinvest all the rest.
So he’s got it down perfect.
Frank
I wish I would have been in a position to learn finances this way.
Andy
I wish my parents would have done something like this too.
Frank
Yeah, yeah.
Andy
I would have put me in such a better position.
Frank
You know what?
I feel like of all of the tangents we’ve ever gone down in this podcast, I think this is one of the more enlightening ones I’ve seen us do.
Andy
Oh, yeah.
Frank
I like that idea very much.
Andy
Maybe good advice.
Not just ramblings.
Frank
Yeah.
No, that was very good advice.
That’s almost as good as it’s very much more techie and more inaccessible for most people.
But I heard this podcast where this couple, both of them techies, had set their child up in a sandbox on the network.
Andy
Okay.
Frank
And as soon as the child was old enough to figure out how to break out of the sandbox, they could access a bigger sandbox progressively until they were old enough to make good decisions.
It’s like, oh man, this is inaccessible to like 99% of the world, but it’s such a good idea.
Andy
That really is.
That is.
That’s good.
Frank
We need to get people to figure out how to change their SSID by default first though.
That’s a losing battle.
Andy
Yeah.
Yeah, unfortunately.
So those were all the prints that I, oh, sorry, because…
Chris
I’m perfectly fine with my network being labeled, what is it, Comcast number XX3570 with the password that’s also equally impossible to remember.
Andy
Yeah.
Frank
I liked Andy’s SSID there for a long time.
Andy
Oh, the FBI Surveillance Fan?
Frank
Yes.
That was hilarious.
Andy
It was funny when we first put it up, but I think it was old about 10 minutes after we changed it, and then it just never got changed.
Frank
Right.
My favorite one is I don’t use my phone’s personal use.
I don’t use my phone’s Wi-Fi hotspot very often, but when I do turn it on, it shows up on everybody else’s phone as “not Wi-Fi.”
Andy
I like that.
Frank
I had to use it at work a while ago, and one of my coworkers sticks his head up over all the cubes and goes, who’s is not Wi-Fi?
That’s me.
Andy
I like that.
Frank
Can I connect to your phone?
I said no.
It’s not Wi-Fi.
Andy
Beautiful.
Beautiful.
Yeah.
But yeah, so we’ve done that.
The whole printing with the 3D paint is really good.
For him, building stuff is really good.
I think that is a wonderful middle step to actual CAD software where you might actually measure stuff out, because it is a little bit more idiot-proof and easy to learn on and get it to do what you want it to do, even though.
Frank
You can absolutely set parameters, but it’s all primitive shapes.
Andy
Yes.
Frank
You have to work real hard to get complex geometries on it.
Andy
Yeah.
He’s a 10-year-old.
He’s doing great.
If he does want to do something more complex and serious, we can sit down and work on SolidWorks together.
I worry about teaching him that particular version, though, because licensing for SolidWorks is complicated, but I don’t know.
I think we’ll see.
I think that one will be fine.
It’s a real CAD software.
I don’t want to even try anything like FreeCAD or anything.
Frank
Using Fusion 360 would set a limit for him of 10 active things that he can work on, but the base functionality is the same as any other CAD program.
Andy
Is it fairly idiot-proof, as far as if you don’t …
Frank
I mean, I’m using it.
What does that say about idiot-proof?
Andy
I like the joke, but you’re actually a very smart man.
Frank
Thank you, Andy.
It’s like the second awesome compliment you’ve ever given me.
Andy
I’ve got to balance them out somehow, or I just feel bad dogging on you all the time.
We’ll cross that bridge when we get there, but for right now, he’ll be using the 3D Paint, he’s loving.
That works good.
I did have a neat problem with my printer this week that I want to share as well.
I made a mistake when I was setting up a print job.
It was actually building these baffle things was the job I was doing.
One of them was three layers off of the surface of the bed.
I don’t know how I sliced it that way, but I made that error and didn’t catch it.
It was touching another model, and it’s like it didn’t set down on the bed.
It stayed up in the air.
My printer tried to print it, and of course, it instantly turned into an air print in a blob.
I think that blob got caught on something.
It wound up tearing off the duct, the nozzle for my part cooling fan, and broke that, which is a 3D printed part, the one that keeps melting that I always talk about.
However, it was broken, but it wasn’t melted, so I’m doing something right with it because it’s been on there for a while, but it did break.
It actually physically hit something and broke it off.
On top of that, once I got it all cleaned up, I started up the printer again because it’s obvious a problem.
It was a slicing was the problem and did an air print, but I started printing the, turned on the job and started printing a new version of it, and it warmed up for a little bit.
It started printing, and then it had a thermal fault.
So I started looking over the thermal fault, seeing what the heck was going on there.
It turns out one of the wires for the thermistor had broken off and was just making contact here or there with the thermistor itself, so it was half working.
Okay, no big deal.
I mean, a lot happened during that last crash.
It probably grabbed the wire, and I do have wires hanging off my head because I don’t want to have any more weight on there as possible.
Like encapsulating the wires nicely isn’t, you know, I don’t want to do that, so I just kind of got them zippy tight into a bundle, and then that goes into one of those plastic split shrouds that runs away from the printer that everything’s in.
So I’ve only got that one big shroud that comes in to the carriage, and I even got my cooling lines on the inside of that shroud, and then it’s the plastic at the filament that comes down, but it could have snagged on one of the wires.
So I went and I tried to pull out the thermistor, I unscrewed the screw, tried to pull out the thermistor by the wire, it was stuck in there pretty good, so I got a torch out, heated up the head with the torch because thermistor’s not working, so I can’t use the printer to heat itself up.
So I torched it up a little bit, got it, got the plastic molten, and it’s still stuck in there pretty good.
While I’m playing with it, that last wire finally gave out and broke off, and so now it’s broke flush with it.
So I got in there with a pick, tried to dig out the thermistor itself, the actual head, couldn’t get it in there, fought with it for like 10 minutes, finally gave up, went out to the shop, got my drill, got a bit just a little bit smaller than the thermistor, and drilled out the thermistor.
That worked out pretty good.
Yeah, I just, I mean, they’re glass, so you just drill until all the sand comes out and the shiny starts coming out from the aluminum, right?
So it worked out pretty good.
So I got the new thermistor in there, which turned out to be an old one from an old head.
I wound up pulling all my parts out and see what I had to use, and I’ve got three or four new ones, but I had some old ones, and I figured I’ll put an old one in there.
So did that, that worked pretty good, brought it up to temperature, checked the temperature to see if I needed to change the offset.
It was about half a degree off.
I set it for 205, and it was 204.5 after about 10, 20 minutes of sitting there.
So I went ahead and just left it alone there, and went to go starting to print again.
And this time, when it honed the carriage, the X-axis, it crashed hard into the home.
I mean, just, you know, it just comes back to home like normal, and then it grinds out.
Frank
So your bed was off balance and your Z-axis was way out?
Andy
No, no.
So the Z was fine.
No, it actually, the carriage crashed.
It was, so it was pulling the carriage into the home position.
When it got into the home position, it did not stop pulling the carriage into the home position.
It continued to try to pull it in.
So I shut down the printer real quick, just powered it down, and then turned it back on, pulled the carriage away, and I looked over the micro switch for the stop, and it is smashed in.
I don’t know what happened.
Now, the carriage crashing into it that hard could have smashed the switch.
The actual pin on the micro switch, the plastic on the pin, is like squished out.
It’s badly damaged.
And so I don’t know what, it went wrong if the switch just failed to switch on the inside, and then it got crushed by the head, or what.
Anyway, the end, that stop, that limit switch is completely dead.
I got some micro switches out my shop.
I went out and grabbed one of them, brought it back in.
It’s a totally different size.
So I went back out and got another one that is the correct size, but it’s not a lever type switch.
It doesn’t have the lever on the micro switch.
So that’s not going to work either.
So I went ahead and ordered new ones, which it was like eight bucks for a box of five.
And I went and just bought the ones that are already on the board with the plug to make it easier.
I could have just swapped out the switch itself, but the little PCB it’s connected to wasn’t any more money, really.
So I went ahead and did that.
And then to compensate in the meantime, this is the fun thing I had.
I wound up going in to the Start G code in the slicer, and I took out, it used an M28 to home everything.
I took that out, I remmed it out, and then I added two more M28s, but specified to only home the Z and the Y axis.
And then I wound up zeroing out the X axis at negative 15, which from memory, when it’s at the home position, it’s like negative something.
I didn’t remember.
No, I set it for negative 18 because I thought it was negative 15 that I remember.
That’s what it was.
And so now, until I get those switches, because they’re supposed to arrive on Tuesday, and I still want to use my printer, now I just home the carriage manually, just throw it all the way over to the edge, and then when I go to start the print, it will only automatically home the Z and the Y, and it’ll leave the X where it is.
And then there’s going to be a little bit of an error, so I got to assume my bed can only do like 290 millimeters instead of the full 300 because the X isn’t home properly.
And Marlin sits there throwing question marks on the X axis during print, saying that like it didn’t home, and that there’s something wrong, and it doesn’t know if it’s accurate, but…
Frank
I think this is right.
Andy
Yeah.
Something happened, but we’re going to go with this anyway, and you know what, it works just fine.
I just got to remember to manually slide the head over all the way to the home position before starting the print, and that will be the Jimmy-rigged version of being able to still use the printer until I get the replacement parts on Tuesday, and then probably install them next weekend, so that’s my adventure this week.
Frank
That is kind of chaotic, Andy.
You have had a long week.
Chris
I broke it, but it still worked.
Andy
I know it’s kind of hokey having to push it over to get it to work, but you know what, at the moment I don’t have correct parts, have to wait on a shipment, and so this will work perfectly fine until then.
Chris
Sure.
It’s kind of like when your starter dies, you purposely park on a hill so that you can just leave it in reverse and start it, as you’re going at the driveway, yeah.
Andy
No kidding.
No kidding.
I had time with my car growing up, making sure I was in those kind of situations.
Chris
For those of us that have never had to pop-start a manual, that’s how you pop that, if your starter dies, you can still start your car by leaving it in gear, popping and letting go of the clutch while turning the ignition key, as long as you have some sort of momentum on your car.
Andy
I think it’s fun to do just even, like even with, I’ve got a Nissan XTERRA and a slanted driveway, and it’s a manual, and usually whenever I get ready to go, I just put it in reverse, take off the brake, and push the clutch in for a minute, and it’ll start rolling a little bit, but it’s on enough slant that when you release the clutch there, it’s not jerking, it just starts cranking the engine as it goes back and just fires right up.
It’s kind of a neat little thing where you just start rolling back, and it’s just kind of running by the time you get to the end of the driveway.
Chris
Yeah, I did that with my CRX in your driveway a couple of times.
Andy
Yeah.
So, sorry to take up half the podcast.
How about you guys?
What have you been up to?
Frank
Hey, Chris, why don’t you go next?
Chris
Oh, biscuits.
Frank
Or Kevin, let’s let Chris get his life together.
Andy
Ducks in order…
Chris
Give me a break.
I just woke up.
Frank
The downside to recording at 10 is Chris is only barely human by 10.
Kevin
Right.
Andy
He’s got a different schedule than us.
It’s all good.
Kevin
So I didn’t actually do any printing this week.
I spent quite a bit of time looking up tutorials on Blender on YouTube.
I’ve seen advertised on Facebook quite a lot that there’s like this Blender mastery course that’s 80% off so you can learn Blender in four weeks for only $97.
And I was considering asking my wife if I could if I could spend the money to do that.
But then before I did, I read up on it and saw that it was dealing with animations and lighting and rendering and texturing and all the stuff that I don’t really need to know because I’m only interested in the 3D modeling aspects of Blender.
And so the thought occurred to me that I could probably find tutorials for what I need from this bit of software and so for free.
And so I did a search and found a few that were called that were indicating that they were tutorials for beginners and I started on one to make a donut.
And then this morning I got onto the computer and I opened up Discord and Blender closed itself and I hadn’t saved anything.
So as we’ve been talking, I recreated the donut mostly from memory.
So I’m learning it.
But I’ve also spent a little bit of time slicing files for my nightmare chess set.
I haven’t printed them though.
Once we’re done recording, I’m planning on printing up a batch of them.
Andy
Nice.
Chris
Kevin turned on his printer this morning.
Andy
I’m excited to see those prints. Those are always pretty.
Chris
He goes, Doh! Nuts.
Andy
I saw the donut that you created though.
That’s neat.
That’s a neat thing that that software can do.
And it makes me a little bit more interested in it because my first thought is how would I accomplish that in SOLIDWORKS?
And then that makes me giggle a little bit because the normal software suite would really not be capable of making those kind of organic shapes.
Kevin
Right.
And you saw it in progress.
I’ve got it now to the point where I had it when I lost it and I’ve saved it this time.
But… uh…
Andy
that’s neat.
I like how you put like the little drips of frosting and stuff like that dribbling down the side.
Kevin
Yeah.
Chris
For our visual listeners.
Kevin
Right.
Frank
Yeah. We do so much for our visual listeners, we might as well.
Kevin
Right.
I might try to see if I can find a way to put this on something so that people can see it.
I don’t know how I would do that, but just so that they can see it.
Frank
There’s no reason you can’t share the finished product, at least on the Facebook page.
Kevin
Right.
Frank
And of course in the Discord chat so that everyone knows what progress you’ve made.
Kevin
So yeah, I think I’ll do something like that.
But yeah, that’s as far as I’ve gone on the tutorials so far.
But yeah, it’s been extremely helpful.
Frank
Yeah.
Andy
That’s really organic looking.
Like it’s not just like a, what is it called a toroid?
Kevin
A torus.
Frnak
A torus.
Andy
Yeah.
A torus shape.
I mean, it’s got like a little bit of lumps and imperfections along the sides and everything.
Chris
Yeah.
Andy
It looks like a freaking donut.
Chris
Yeah.
Frank
I have a two boxen of donuts.
Chris
Pick it up off of the store.
Andy
Yeah.
That’s impressive.
Kevin
Thanks.
Frank
Yeah.
Chris, did you get your stuff together enough to talk about what you did this week?
Kevin
Oh, because I gave you so much time to prepare.
Chris
Yeah.
I actually, I had forgotten that I printed up some, another set of those grips for my stepmother or…
Frank
Oh, the, the twist bottle grips or the twisted cap grips.
Chris
No, Nintendo grips.
Frank
Oh.
Oh.
Chris
Yeah.
Andy
Was it the same model that you used for yours that you, you had put together?
Chris
Um, yeah.
Okay.
So it’s the same ones that if you’ve got the, uh, controllers connected to, um, the Nintendo and you’ve got the screen.
Frank
The full, the full switch.
Chris
Yeah.
Yeah.
It’s, yeah.
A set of those again.
Okay.
So I printed one for the kid and I printed one for, um, my, my, my stepmom this week.
Andy
That’s good.
Frank
Actually, at some point, would you mind sending me the STL for, uh, the link for it?
If you don’t have the STL that you can share.
Chris
Sure.
Frank
Um, my wife might like something like that for our switch.
Chris
Yeah.
Well, there’s
Andy
I am kind of interested…
Frank
It’s only a month after your first talked about it.
And I’m only just now thinking of my wife.
Chris
Yeah.
So there’s a couple of, yeah.
So there’s the Joycon grips that are good for the, like that, the, the half controller that you use for like stuff like Mario Kart.
And then there’s the, there’s the, the, the grips I just printed for portable use.
And so they’re, they’re, they’re two different files, obviously.
Yeah.
Frank
How does the smaller one handle the, uh, the position lights?
Or do you just ignore that?
Because I know on the handle that you get with the system, they’ve got like, uh, pieces of glass or something in there that funnel the light from the side of the Joycon to the front.
Chris
Oh yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Which indicate which controller you’re using?
Um, so on, on these ones, it doesn’t really light up, but that’s because, um, even on the aftermarket ones that I bought, um, first got the system, they don’t have that either.
Frank
Okay.
Chris
So you just kind of ignore them.
Frank
And it’s really not necessary.
I get, I can just kind of see how it might be nice to have them available.
But it’s not required.
Chris
But on the full Joycon grips, you know, that lets you use both of them, that lets you use both of them, you know, away from the system that you’re watching the TV.
Um, those ones do have the little light glass things.
So you slide them in.
So you’ve got both controller, you know, you’ve got both, yeah, both controllers.
Frank
Yeah.
Oh, um, so maybe I was confused.
That does happen often.
Um, so you’re not talking about printing off a controller for both Joycons.
You’re just comparing it to that controller.
Chris
Right.
So this, this thing is a grip.
So the first grip I’m talking about this does just one of the two controllers.
Right.
Frank
Right.
Chris
So it’s either a left or a right, but it’s not both.
It’s for those games that let you use half one.
Like there’s, uh, some of the games we have that, that are like that.
There’s Monopoly and, uh…
Frank
Multiplayer games.
Um, are you using the one that I showed a little while ago for the single Joycon or did you find a different one that you liked?
Chris
Um, I had found one.
Frank
Do you remember?
Chris
Um, I had found one for the single Joycon, like quite a while ago.
Frank
Okay.
Chris
Um, and it’s, it’s, it’s actually a really good file because it’s a single print, no supports.
And then there’s like three little, three little places you clip when you’re done at to clean it up.
And that’s it.
Frank
Right.
So you have like not even five minutes of cleanup and you’ve got a fully functional Joycon.
And the great thing is it’s got really big, um, L and R, uh…
Yeah. Shoulder buttons on the, on the grip.
And that’s what really makes, makes it, um, on top of it being longer.
So it’s not given your hands cramped.
Um, it, uh, works really well like that.
So…
Frank
good deal.
Andy
Okay.
That sounds good.
Chris
The, the grips I printed were this week were, were for the full.
You’ve got the Joycons connected to the switch screen, you know, and so you’re not trying to grab a flat surface with both, both hands.
It gives you a nice cup to, to pull you, sit your hands around.
Frank
Yeah.
Chris
Sit your palms around.
Yep.
Frank
Good deal.
Chris
And then, uh, oh, I, and, and I told you guys last week, okay, that I’d printed up the headphone mounts for my, so I did that last week.
Frank
Uh, yeah.
You did.
Kind of got me curious about some other mounts for myself, but yeah.
Chris
Yeah.
I, I was kind of happy to have somewhere to sit that, that triangle still a little excited about it, that it’s not just kind of floating around wherever in that room.
It’s got a designated place now.
Frank
Good deal.
Andy
How about you, Frank?
What have you been up to?
Frank
Uh, this week, surprisingly, I, I don’t, it feels like I did more some in some ways and it feels like I did less in some ways.
It’s been one of those weeks.
Um, I got the Deathly Hallows, uh, at least the 3D printed part for the Deathly Hallows bookends printed out for my wife.
Andy
Okay.
Frank
Um, I’m going to put them on some, uh, three quarter inch thick plywood, uh, for the, so there’s actually some heft to it because the set that they’re holding up are the, uh, fully illustrated, uh, versions of the books that have been coming out.
And so they’re, they’re bigger actually than, oh no, they’re probably about the same size as your first edition hardback, uh, copy of the books.
Andy
Okay.
Frank
Um, and so we need some hefty bookends for them.
So the, uh, the woods going to contribute a lot of weight and, um, we’re going to paint them black and then install them and put them up on a shelf so that everybody can admire the set that we’re building.
Um, I think they’ve only got five or six of them out that are the illustrated ones.
Andy
So you’ll be able to show off your woodworking skills on top of your 3D printing skills.
Frank
That is the hope.
Um, also I went back to a project that I did a little while ago.
The command strip, uh, wall sticker stuff.
Um, we’ve moved away from like putting nails on the wall and even the, uh, the hooks, uh, we don’t do anymore.
And especially now that I’ve found a hole that I put in a pipe, I’m really wary of doing them.
Um, but we’ve been using command strips, especially the, the, the Velcro ones.
So you put the piece together in the Velcro and, um, stick one side to your picture.
And then when you put it on the wall in the right place, if it’s not perfect, you can pull it off and re-adjust it, but you’re not putting holes in your, uh, your wall.
Um, so I had the brilliant idea of trying to print off some of the, uh, some other kinds of stuff to go with the command strips.
And, um, most of your command hooks are like a clothing hooks.
They have this big protruding hook that comes anywhere from an inch to three or four away from the wall.
Andy
Yeah.
Frank
And, um, that’s too big to hang a picture from.
It’s gawdy.
Andy
Yeah.
Frank
So what I did was I created a, uh, a part and I don’t have it in my office.
I thought I did anyway.
Um, that is made for hanging pictures when the only thing on the frame is the wire, like some of the bigger frames.
Yeah.
And, um, so it’s just a, uh, a, what are they called?
Uh, uh, words fail me.
Um, no, it’s a ramp.
So it’s a, uh, a 100 meter… millimeter long ramp with a rounded part at the top.
So the wire will hang on it.
You can still adjust the picture.
And it’s, so it’s only five millimeters thick.
So it’s a little profile enough that it doesn’t interfere with the picture.
Chris
Oh.
Andy
Does that Pull the wire pretty close to the wall?
Frank
It should.
Um, for the last year I’ve been struggling with it because the command strips do not like to stick to PLA.
Andy
Oh.
Frnak
And I’ve been trying, you know, trying to smooth it, trying to, you know, all these other things, but for whatever reason, the command strip just doesn’t like PLA.
So I had the slow to respond…
I am a stubborn moment, a stubborn person moment and thought, Hey, you know what?
I’m going to print one of these out of TPU and see how it does.
Andy
Okay.
Frank
And it does real well.
Andy
Nice.
So, um, so we can hang some of our heavier pictures.
Frank
I mean, obviously it can’t be too heavy, but a five pound picture frame will hang on that just fine instead of just trying to put it on the regular, uh, uh, command strip Velcro.
Andy
Yeah.
I bet it would.
Chris
Well, I know we say that, you know, don’t put too much pressure or force on these things that you print, but realistically, if you print it well in the first place, you, you kind of can.
Frank
Well, and as big and heavy as some of these things are, they’re not, it, you have to gauge what is too heavy.
And sometimes you have to experiment with it.
But, um, I did test, I mean, I don’t have the finger strength that Chris does, you know, um, being a mechanic and untorquing bolts with your fingertips.
Um, but I was able to put it up on my wall where I had some of the Velcro strip up there anyway, and I was able to put probably 30 pounds of downward pressure on it.
Andy
Okay.
That’s good.
I bet just the way something like that’s designed, if you could get some like wire around it or something, I would be surprised if it couldn’t hold a good hundred pounds plus that just, just, you know, just that, even though it’s that little bit, your, since it’s a sheer force on that tape, there’s a chance you could pull out a chunk of drywall before it comes off.
If you’re pulling straight down.
Frank
As long as the adhesive sticks to the part, which it wasn’t doing with PLA for whatever reason.
So yeah, um, TPU looks like it’s going to be the way to go.
And I can print off a couple more of those for the wife so she can finally hang up some other stuff.
And then we’re good to go on that.
And the last thing I did this week is I finally got those blocks dialed in.
I’m happy with how they go together.
I’m happy with how tight they are next to each other.
Not, you know, so tight that you can’t get them off, but there’s still plenty tight and there’s still a little bit of tolerance in there.
I can go in and smooth off the layer lines on the outside and even a little bit on the inside if I want.
And, um, talking through some of the challenges, you suggested that I build so that we can get the smoothing on the top because, you know, 3D printers don’t do the smooth bottom layer unless you basically fire the filament at .1 millimeters right into the bed and it’s real tight and sticky that way.
I don’t like to do that.
Andy
I was about to say, that’s what I do.
They come off so flat and perfect, they’re mirror surface.
Frank
Yeah, I almost wonder, because I’ve done that without the hairspray and it’s a pain in the butt to get off of the build plate.
Even after it’s cold.
I’ll come back to an hour later and have to use my scraper to chip at the damn thing to get it off.
Chris
Again, as soon as my bed cools down, it pops right off.
So, I don’t know.
Frank
Anyway, I’ll play with that.
One of the ideas that gave me, design-wise, is because I’ve been printing it with the nubs, I call them nubs, the superstructure of the block down printing it upside down.
So, I can print it right side up you suggested that I add like a 45 degree angle going into the center because the nubs don’t go all the way in.
Andy
Yeah, make it like an inverse roof, like a house roof on the inside of the Lego.
Frank
And that way, I’m well within my angle parameters and not needing to do any support structure on the inside.
And then it’ll be smooth on all the top surfaces.
And for me, it’s been smooth even without the ironing, but as I’m doing the finished product, I can see myself doing ironing just to save myself some work in post.
Yeah.
So, I’m going to think through that.
To this point, it’s all been prototypes just to get the right fit and all that that I want.
So, now I can do modifications to the whole design and strategize on the right way to do posts and all that.
Chris
Yep.
Focus on the 3Fs and then do cosmetics.
Frank
And then I can go into production for my parents.
They’ve offered to buy me the filament.
Andy
Okay.
Frank
I’ll just run off whatever color they want.
I think it’d be fun to add some preferred colors for myself.
Andy
Yeah.
Chris
Throw in some glow in the dark in there too.
Frank
Yeah.
That’s what I was thinking.
Throw in some glow in the dark.
It’s mostly primary colors for these blocks.
So, I can add some variety to the colors that have not been available.
Andy
Yeah.
Frank
Or were not available in my youth.
And the funny thing is, is I’m going to all of this work because all the only person in my family that had kids was my younger brother.
Andy
Yeah.
Frank
And I think the part of why I decided to prioritize it is because my youngest brother is going to have a kid.
Andy
Okay.
Frank
And it’s like, okay, so there’s one more that’s going to play with these as a child.
Let’s get a good collection together for them.
Andy
Yeah.
Frank
And, um, go from there.
So, that’s my project for the week.
My projects.
I feel like actually all of my projects this week were home improvement in some way or another, even if it’s just a toy.
Andy
Yeah.
Chris
You made some bookends and you’re going to paint them black.
Frank
Oh, no.
That song is going to be stuck in my head now.
We just got new listeners there, Chris, and now you’re scaring them away again.
Chris
That’s a good song.
Frank
It is.
I’ll give you that.
Andy
So, have you done anything recent as far as the home repair or repair of items that really stands out at all?
I was thinking the last things that I did was like fixing that armrest in one of my vans, in my work van, by printing a piece of plastic that I can glue to the bottom of the armrest plastic because it has disintegrated.
And that’s still working really good in there.
I was impressed with that.
It worked out good.
It’s a weird part.
No one’s going to make that kind of repair piece at all.
That’s not something you could buy in the store at all.
And the fact that it took 10 minutes to design it real quick and then run it off.
That one parked there was like an hour and a half long print.
It was a little bit bigger.
Chris
It’s even still worth your time, though, because to get all the replacement parts you’d need to fix it from the dealer, you know.
Andy
Yeah, it would have been more.
The pleather on it is beaten in the sun, so it’s a slightly different coloration now.
So, if you got a brand new one, it wouldn’t fit the color scheme in there anymore.
But that still works.
It turned out to be a good repair.
I love having that options to just be able to repair stuff like that.
Great.
Chris
Yeah.
Frank
Yeah.
Chris
Oh, and then there’s that.
Yeah, there’s that customizer plate cover that I found, you know, wall plate covers.
Andy
Oh, yes.
Yes, you did do those.
Chris
Yeah.
Those things are freaking.
Just having it as an option is freaking awesome.
Yeah, I agree.
I love stuff like that.
I was hoping to have more to talk about this topic, but it seems like everything that I ever talk about when it comes to those kind of things, you know, what comes to 3D printing is among that topic always involving that.
Frank
Which is…
Kevin
Right.
Frank
Fine, too.
There’s nothing wrong with that.
No.
Yeah.
Well, and kind of the whole point of announcing the topic at the very beginning is we’re allowed to talk about it through the whole episode.
So, maybe rather than adding to, let’s just go with does anyone have anything that they have done along the path of designing or printing for the household that they didn’t do in the last week that they kind of want to talk about?
Chris
No.
Andy
I am excited about the prints that Kevin did for me on his SLA printer were adapters for my fish tank.
This is kind of a household thing and that’s some, you know, it’s a weird threaded pipe on the canister because it goes to a custom pump.
So, it’s a non-standard thread and I needed a ribbed fitting for a vinyl tubing on that.
And that’s just not something that anybody makes.
Chris
Well, not in America.
Andy
Yeah, being able to print up exactly what you need.
And SLA being able to be liquid tight made all the difference.
That’s not something I could do with an FDM printer or at least I tried and it just, it failed.
It just didn’t work.
Even with all the chemical sprays and stuff like that, I could add to it to make things waterproof.
If it screws down, the screws are going to cut that lining.
So, that doesn’t necessarily work.
I can print using our printers like a cup or something and line it and that will work perfectly.
But doing something that’s threaded is a whole other ballgame.
Kevin
Have you used those yet?
Andy
Nope, I have not yet.
They were in my car and my car is back in the shop.
And so, I have not been able to pull them out and use them.
Kevin
I see.
So, he went to all that work and held on to them for how many, like two weeks or whatever, made the point of bringing them to you and you just abandonned them.
Andy
I apologize.
I work a lot.
I got kids and I work 14 to 16 hours a day.
So, this schedule is really tight to get in 3D printed stuff in place.
Kevin
I get it.
I’m just excited to know, to learn how they work for you.
Frank
Andy, I hear you using words but all my brain hears is wawawa.
Kevin
Frank’s like, we need to call the Wambulance!
Andy
I wish I could say I had more excuses but it’s not really, I don’t even have TV time.
Frank
Honestly, Andy, I don’t think there needs to be an excuse, honestly.
Andy
Oh, that’s where you’re coming from.
Okay, I thought you were coming from the other end, like, why are you just coming up with excuses?
Frank
No, I’m coming from the, I’ve known this guy for 20 years and I’m going to tease the crap out of him.
Andyh
Okay, that makes me feel better.
I felt the need to defend myself so I apologize for that.
Frank
I’ve noticed that I do that a lot and I’m trying to be better.
Andy
Oh, you’re fine.
Frnak
Some days, some days I don’t give a crap.
Andy
Some days.
Just walking around the house, like, I just got up here a minute ago to go take some medicine for a headache that I was kind of coming down with.
You notice while we were on the podcast here and I went to go use my sink and there’s a plastic 3D printed nut that holds the goose neck in place.
It looks really good and everything on there that’s 3D printed.
When I opened up the medicine cabinet, I had a little, like, I don’t know what you would call it, a little holder that’s taped with double stick tape to the door of the medicine cabinet that holds all of our picks and things to the door.
Chris
So that’s a mount.
Andy
Yeah, a mount.
Sorry, my brain just melted a little bit.
I don’t know what happened there.
And that’s just, you know, the 3D print stuff that I passed on the way to the bathroom.
The towel rack in there is the towel rack itself is 3D printed because I have children that like, are monkeys that like to hang on stuff.
And so the normal ones you sell in the store, you can’t screw down to a stud on both sides because they tend to be like fixed lengths and stuff.
So I went in 3D printed ones so that I can screw them down into studs.
So the monkeys that will hang from them no matter what I do won’t hurt themselves because it won’t break away from the wall.
Chris
Can I interject here really quick?
Andy
Yeah.
Chris
Well, I was actually trying to find rods that would be at 16 inch intervals when I was remodeling my bathroom years, you know, four or five years ago and drove me absolutely nuts that I could not find any.
They just don’t make them.
And I’m wondering if that’s on purpose.
But…
Andy
Yeah, that way it breaks.
Chris
You have to buy a new.
Yeah, that made me very unhappy.
Andy
Yeah, that’s a weird problem to have.
Chris
Because like I was like, I have a kid and I know that it’s very likely the kid’s going to going to break it if I don’t screw this into a stud.
Frank
And sure enough…
Chris
You just can’t find them.
Andy
That is weird because people got kids.
You’d think they would make them, you know, within the 16 inches length.
Frank
You would think.
And that would be your first mistake.
Chris
Yeah.
Frank
I haven’t.
I haven’t been enormously conscious of it until recently.
But I’ve decided that a lot of the reason stuff doesn’t get created is people forget to create it.
Andy
Oh, I completely agree.
Frank
Simple negligence.
And as we get to the point where we can, 3D printing has helped with this, right?
The cost of creating this little thing to save ourselves time or effort is so small compared to what it was even 10 years ago.
Andy
Yeah.
Frank
We just do it.
But 10 years ago, we would have seen it as, why are you complaining about that stupid thing?
Andy
Yeah.
Yeah, that is true.
I do have something that need… requires fixing that I haven’t done yet.
My little brother came over needing to weld something using my welder.
And so I got the welder out for him.
And I noticed the, I don’t know what you would call it, the harness for the handle itself that hooks into the machine.
You know, they usually got a big rubber garment to relieve the stress off of the tube full of the wires that go to the handle.
It’s a, it’s shredded.
Frank
You said garment.
Did you mean grommet?
Andy
Grommet?
That might be the right word.
Yeah, because garment’s clothing, huh?
Frank
Yeah.
I was a little confused.
Andy
Eh, words.
Can’t expect me to use them right.
Well, it’s shredded.
And that would be a, that would be a nice little TPU print to make a flexible stress relief for that tube to be able to replace that.
Also considered doing it for my laptop cords, like the one that my, I mean, just, just looking at some of these, like even the one right here on this machine here, the stress relief for the laptop is broken.
And most of my cords, you know, have that problem.
And then that’s where they usually start to break.
It might be nice to make a little TPU thing.
I could, I could clamp onto that and maybe screw down with a screw to lock it in place or, or maybe use like something where you slip a zip tie in there to lock a, a C-shaped stress reliever over the end of the cord, you know?
Frank
Yeah.
Andy
I love little repairs like that.
Got my brain going even though it’s melty.
Frank
Yeah boy.
Andy
Even, even, even like, well, I guess there’s not much of a repair, but just sitting right here.
My, my, all my fish tank supplies in a nice little caddy that I 3D printed, you know?
It’s just 3D printing stuff is starting to just appear all over my house is like a mainstay part of just what makes this home work.
Frank
Well, and to be fair to the rest of us, you’ve got another two and a half years over the rest of us doing that.
I’m sure that our houses are going to look much the same after three years of doing this.
Kevin
I’ve, I’ve got, I’ve got a shelf in my dining area that’s, that’s full of 3D printed things already.
Yeah.
Miniatures and whatnot.
It’s, and it’s, it’s growing and the collection, I mean, the shelf is not unfortunately, I’m running out of space really fast.
Frank
My shelves are bookshelves with a bunch of other stuff on them anyway.
But they’re running out of space for me to put my 3D printed stuff on as well.
Andy
You should 3D print more shelves.
Frank
No, I want something a little more sturdy screws and wood is going to have to do it.
Andy
Yeah.
Frank
Or at least do like I did with my desk where it’s more fixtures that hold the wood together.
But the wood is actually very certainly bound together anyway.
Yeah.
So I’ll figure it out and then brag about it later.
Andy
That’s good.
I do got my, I did print a shelf at one point for my, I got a spice rack that’s got like glass doors on the front of it that I use for flavorings and stuff.
I wound up printing little shelves so I can have more shelves in there.
Chris
I 3D printed a corner shelf, but yeah, it’s, it’s only like an eight inch corner shelf, you know, so.
Frank
Well, your corner shelf is part of why I’m hesitant to do some things.
I’m sure that, you know, between us, we could figure out how to get it done.
I just feel like that’s a lot of plastic to risk.
And so I will, when I design stuff, I’ve actually started designing in smaller pieces so that then I’m only replacing one modular piece.
I’ve been trying to go that direction anyway, but smaller modular pieces that are easy to replace.
Andy
That is a good idea.
I was just thinking about that today, like these fans that I made for the fish tank work beautiful.
They are amazing.
Yesterday when I came into my room here, we had it closed up.
The door was closed and the air conditioner and stuff was off in here.
Now we’ve got a few things in here that make quite a bit of heat.
And so when without the AC keeping the temperature low, if the door shut, the temperature raises, it was almost 85 degrees in here.
And these fish tanks were solid at 75 degrees, right where they should be 76 with the water coolers on them.
Frank
To be clear, that’s Fahrenheit, right?
Chris
Yeah, yeah.
Or they would be melty too.
Frank
Well, I don’t know, 70 degrees Celsius would be, is that warmer Fahrenheit?
At some point, there’s a transition.
Feels like it would be cooler than Fahrenheit still.
Andy
Well, 100 would be 217 degrees or something like that, 220.
Chris
100 degrees Celsius is boiling point, which is like 212 Fahrenheit.
Andy
212, yeah, yeah.
So if it was like 75, that would be like 140 degrees or something like that.
Frank
So 70 Celsius would be very hot.
Andy
Yeah, I already got one of my fish tanks up to that kind of temperature range, and I took the fish out beforehand.
That would be bad if they were still in there.
But anyway, it’s cooling great.
But, and this is kind of the obvious point, my evaporation in these tanks have gone through the roof.
It’s about, I got two 20 gallon tanks in here, and it’s about half a gallon every other day per tank that I’m evaporating off now.
So they are overcooled, don’t really need it.
I should really make this micro control and put a thermostat on it so the fans only turn on at a certain temperature.
But that’s kind of leading into other things like it would be really nice if I had another jug in here that I could bubble water in to get rid of the chlorine and stuff and have the tanks automatically top themselves off, little things like that.
I would love to do a different heater setup than these heaters that we use.
It would be nice if I could just get like a ceramic cord stick in the tank and then control that myself to control the temperature.
And so part of me is thinking I would be really nice to put together like one solid unit that’s micro controlled that takes a care of all these extra things that, you know, the tanks are doing taking care of the temperature, turning off and on heaters and coolers like the fans.
That way they can run a little as possible.
But now I’m left with if I do something like that, I’m going to have to reprint the housings for those fans because I glued them together, the shroud and the base.
So if I wanted to change just the base, I’d have to reprint the shroud too because I glued them together.
And where I’m going with this is your modular design idea is great.
And I should really start designing stuff to work that way without necessarily having to rely on glue to glue them together.
I made them like clip together or something instead.
Chris
Yeah, I was like that’s really easy.
You put holes in one and then you put those spated clips on on the other end.
Andy
Yeah, all those like C clips.
Frank
No, not the screws.
The spated clips are the ones that you put under the screws and like your power supply.
Yeah, so it’s for your printer.
Chris
It’s it’s it’s it’s a imagine an an arrowhead shape, but it’s got a slice in the middle of it so I can spring.
Oh, those ones.
Andy
Oh, OK, that’d be hard to 3D print.
Frank
Those clips, you don’t necessarily want 3D printed anyway because the clip needs to conduct electricity.
Andy
Spated clips.
Oh, a spade connector like that.
Chris
Yeah, spade clip.
Andy
Oh, OK, yeah, that’s a good idea.
Yeah, I’m sorry.
I’m just thinking about how I could implement that kind of concept that would work.
Yeah, all you do is you 3D print a hole with this with a step, you know, however far deep you want it.
And then you have the spade this the spaded part printed with the the end of the spade, however deep you need it.
And so that when they meet and you hear it go clip, you know that you’ve got it set.
Andy
Yeah.
Chris
And then if you need to pull it apart, all you do is just get a little pick in there to pop the spades back together a little bit enough for you to pull it pull the plastic apart.
Frank
So… I was thinking completely wrong, obviously, because I do that.
So you’re thinking more like, like with car components, you the clip in the squeeze it together and pop it off or like the.
Chris
Yep, like…
Frank
those strapped clips.
I don’t even know what those are necessarily called, but bring two straps together with the spring clip in the middle.
Chris
Yeah.
Andy
I have to think about a different way to connect things.
There’s a lot of options there that are always blue.
Chris
Yeah, see the great thing about plastic is it’s a little bit flexible.
So like you can give it a little bit of flex to kind of push things together and clip clip together.
And then if you need to take it apart, you can just, you know, use some.
Use use tools like needle nose pliers and or or or picks or small screwdrivers to just bend them just enough that you can pull them back apart again.
You know, it’s…
Andy
I’ve made clips for clamshell boxes before they do work good.
I think my only complaint is is there there an interference fit part so they take a little bit extra designing and testing to make them work right.
Chris
Yeah.
But for this thing I’m talking about, it’s a clearance fit part, not an interference fit part.
So I would think…
Andy
I have to have to play with some of those ideas.
There’s a lot out there that could work that isn’t always just gluing things together.
That way, when you do want to replace the part, you, you won’t have to rebuild the whole thing.
Like I’m considering down the road that project.
Either way, I like your modular idea there, Frank.
Frank
Well, I wish I could take credit for it.
Andy
Well, you were the originator from it from the beginning of time.
So of course.
Chris
Wait! So you were the Norsemen that started Ikea.
Frank
No, not even an ancestor.
I wouldn’t be living in a condo with my wife.
If I had that kind of notoriety.
I’m like Bluetooth is another Norse.
Chris
So I know that I’ve done a few home and just little home improvement things throughout the year and a half.
We’ve had this printer.
Holy crap.
Frank
See, I’m not the only one.
Chris
I had a whole train of thought and it gone.
It’s ghost train.
Andy
I’m the only one with the melty brain.
That’s good to hear.
Frank
You can’t even blame me for derailing it this time.
Chris
Nope.
Just disappeared.
Like I had printed some, some handy stuff for the bathroom like Andy, you know, airbrush, airbrush holder and razor holders.
But there’s more to be said about home improvement too.
Because I just found that, you know, you can 3D print these nice little hinges that are great for like this did display windows and things because there’s not that much pressure on them.
And I mean, you could get the same, you could get the same thing down at the hardware store, but they’re all metal.
Andy
Yeah.
Chris
And if you want something that’s a nice light plastic, boom.
Andy
Yeah.
You can print them straight up.
Frank
Yeah.
Well, all good ideas, guys.
Yeah.
This is a morning for derailment.
I had a thought and it went the same, jumped on the same train as you guys.
I blame you, even though I probably started it about 20 minutes ago.
Chris
I wonder if we should go ahead and call it then because something’s, something’s going on with us.
Frank
Something’s in the air.
Andy
Three out of the four of us has got brains leaking out of their ears, it seems.
Frank
Yeah.
Something’s in the air.
Andy
Kevin might, might be too, but he’s just not talking so we can’t tell a whole lot.
Kevin
No, my brain’s not leaking quite yet.
Frank
Yeah.
We’re all looking forward to that one too.
Kevin
Right.
Frank
All right.
Well, we’d like to thank everyone for listening to the very end.
Chris
The very, very end.
Frank
At least Chris is on the ball for that.
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The music in this episode was written by Kevin Buckner and OpenAI’s Whisper completed the heavy lifting for the transcripts, which you can find linked in the description.
Our panelists are me, Franklin Christensen and my friends, Kevin Buckner, Chris Weber and Andy Cottam.
Until next time, we’re going offline.
Kevin
Keep your FEP tight.
Chris
Insert current thought here.
Andy
Got to print some air plugs, keep your leaky brain staying in your ear.
Chris
Audacity as he’s going.
Hello, Craig.
Andy
Got mine going
Craig here.
Chris
Van Craig.
Kevin
Hello Craig
Frank
I mean, I guess it would be nice if I pulled up my script for the intro huh?
Kevin
Maybe
Frank
There it is.