Kevin
Thank you for joining us.
This is episode 43 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, Kevin Buckner, and my friends, Andy Cottom and Chris Weber.
Frank won’t be joining us today.
He had a scheduling conflict.
I thought that family time was more important than us.
Andy
I tell you what, man, people keep on getting their priorities all wrong.
It’s all supposed to be about 3D printing comes first all the time.
Kevin
Exactly.
Chris
He should know better.
Andy
Well, thanks for taking the wheel on this one, Kev, for taking over for Frank.
I know he usually guides everything.
Thanks for running with it, man.
Kevin
Yeah, I figured I could give it a shot.
Allow Frank to have the occasional vacation.
What have you guys been working on this week?
Chris
You want to go first, Andy?
Andy
Sure.
I’ll hit it up.
Unfortunately, I haven’t been actually running the printer a whole lot this week.
I’ve been quite busy with a lot of other things, which is probably not the best situation for the podcast here since we’re going to be missing Frank and what he’s been doing.
But I haven’t really been doing a lot with the printer.
I’ve got a couple of things lined up.
The wife wants me to print a couple of things.
The kids, my son’s been creating objects in that 3D paint from Microsoft program.
Kevin
Nice.
Andy
The paint 3D.
And he’s been wanting to print some stuff off.
I told him that he could print off one 25 gram of PLA a day if he wants to.
And if it’s more than that, then he’s got to pay for the material he uses.
And so he’s been fully utilizing that and cutting up his components into 25 milligram or smaller parts that he can glue together.
So he’s been taking advantage of the system.
Chris
That’s a great way to teach him how to budget to start.
Andy
Yeah.
He’s been doing that.
So I’ve been running it for that.
I do have a project I need to do.
This is mostly ideas or whatnot.
But a little while ago, Chris was, we printed up some rockets for the 4th of July and was having fun with that.
And Chris had mentioned that it would be fun to put a Raspberry Pi controller on there and get it to do stuff.
Chris
And I think that those Pico controllers that can fit in there with all the other gizmos.
Andy
Yeah.
Yeah.
Raspberry Pi is a little bit big for a little rocket stuff, but there’s tons of other microcontrollers out there that are small that would be fun to do.
And one of the things that I came across when I was considering doing something like that, because that would be fun, even if it was something as simple as controlling the rotation of the rocket and keeping it pointed vertical, with only needing two control surfaces on the rocket in order to do those kind of maneuvers.
I thought that would be fun to kind of experiment with.
And so I was kind of putting together some of the things that I would need in order to play with that because I don’t have all the components.
I’ve got several microcontrollers that I like, PIC controllers that would be great.
But one of the things I didn’t really have is a good power source for something like that.
So I was kind of looking it around to find some cheap little lithium ion battery packs that are used in like, you know, it’s like a pen video recorder.
So it’s a little like pen spy cams or little things like that that contain little tiny batteries or the old school vape pens, you know, batteries like that.
And so I was just kind of looking around to see if I can grab two of those, then I could use just a very normal butt converter to get me the 5 volts that I need in order to run this microcontroller that I’m thinking of using on this particular project.
And I came across something that I did not know that they made.
And that is button battery cells with your normal lithium ion chemistry on the inside rechargeable button battery cells.
And this this kind of is something I didn’t even think about was an option.
And it’s really cool.
Yeah, so I wound up buying some larger button batteries.
I bought some of the 2450s, which are, you know, quite a bit bigger.
They’re almost the size of a quarter.
And if you stacked, I don’t know, three quarters on top of each other might be a little bit bigger than these batteries.
That’s about their size.
But that’s a standard, you know, 3.2 to 4.2 volt lithium ion cell.
And it’s no different than any other lithium ion cell.
And I thought that was really cool.
These are going to be fun.
And and they’re cheap too.
I bought 10 of these suckers for I think it was $8.
Kevin
Wow.
Andy
And and these are not normal button cells.
They are the the lithium ion rechargeable kind.
So and on top of it too, they’ve got 100, they’re rated.
I haven’t checked these yet.
But I’m pretty certain they will I’ll get what I paid for here because these aren’t like, you know, China brand cells.
So I’m pretty certain the labeling will be correct on them.
But I’ll have to double check.
But they claim 120 mAh on these little batteries.
Now, most of the big 18650s, the high quality 18650s, the best you’ll find is 2800 to 3000 on those.
And for a while there, I had bought some really cheap Chinese 18650s that only have like 350 to 400 mAh that I use in my flashlights.
Because I got tons of those little Chinese flashlights that are really super bright that take those 18650s.
And even with those 400 mAh batteries, those flashlights have a burn time of like 10 minutes.
They’re pretty good.
If I put an actual 18650 in those flashlights, they will last a real real real long time.
But those cheap ones 400s will still last a while.
So having these little button cells that are only four quarters thick do one third of what those batteries do, I think these are going to be fun for little projects.
And so I plan on using two of these in my next rocket project idea.
And I actually think I’m going to do it not on an Estus style rocket, but I’ve got a nice little kit that we do with the kids that is, you know, the water bottle rockets, where you fill a two liter up and you know, shoot it off, fill it up with water and then pressurize it.
A lot of times we’ll we’ll get a our pressure, my extra pressure tank for filling up car tires was just the tank by itself, seven gallons, you can lug around, fill it up with the air compressor and then lug it about my air compressor goes up to 160 psi.
So I’ll usually charge that up all the way.
I will haul that tank up to the park with our little rockets and we’ll fire these these water rockets off.
And so I thought it’d be fun to, you know, build a water rocket using these, you know, control surfaces and stuff like that.
And my first attempt, I think, is just going to build a logger to see what the accelerator accelerometer data looks like when you shoot off a rocket and kind of what you’re experiencing to know if this is a project that even be worth putting a servo on it or two, you know, for a control surface and just kind of go from there.
Don’t know how long it’ll go.
But for right now, one of the things I do need to do is I don’t have a battery charger for these lithium ion cells, now they’re normal cells.
So I can charge them in a normal charger.
And I’ve got, you know, the kind of battery chargers that can figure that out easy if you can clamp it to it.
But I think what I’m going to do is make something that looks like, you know, three quarters of a lithium ion 18650 battery.
I’m going to 3d print one of those that’s got that kind of shape, but then has a slot in it that I can put these batteries into and then be able to put that piece of plastic battery holder into a normal battery charger to be able to charge these up.
Chris
Oh, so you’re not welding them or you’re not soldering them together for this for this project?
You know, and then individually?
Andy
Yeah, yeah.
And I don’t like soldering on these either.
I’ve got a little spot welder I use specifically designed to tack batteries like this together.
But I think I’m just going to use these as normal cells where you put them into a spring loaded slot.
So those tabs that you use to connect battery packs together, those little nickel strips are the perfect kind of shape to be able to make a battery compartment contacts and things out of.
So after the podcast here, I think I’m going to sit down and, you know, make an 18650 cylinder and put a slot in it to be able to put these, you know, coin batteries into just one of them and then make it so it’s got paths for those nickel strips to go from the front of the battery, from the front of the 18650 where the charger will connect to the cell, to the coin cell.
That way I can just charge it in the normal battery charger.
That’s what I was going to do today, but that’s about it for me, really.
I haven’t really come up with a whole lot of projects to do this week.
How about you, Chrisy?
Chris
Have you done anything?
Yeah, actually, I ended up printing a car tool.
Andy
Oh, really?
Chris
I posted it on the chat for you guys.
But basically, my brother’s wife, her car started running really crappy.
So they took it in for a, they took it in for a diag and the guy said, oh yeah, well your timing belt slipped.
And so what’s happening here is his exhaust valves are open during the compression stroke.
Andy
Okay.
Chris
Well, or not during the compressor, during the firing stroke.
So he’s getting a lot of blowout of his exhaust and absolutely no power.
So we, but the shop wanted $2,000 to fix this.
Oh, wow.
He’s like, yeah, I don’t really have that sitting around at the moment.
So we brought it up to my garage yesterday and we got turned into it.
And I just, I had one heck of a time lining up the cans because they’re right where they need to be lined up.
They’re both spring, they’re both spring loaded because of the valves.
And so you can’t get them both lined up and slip the belt on them without a tool.
Well, I mean, I knew this ahead of time and we had looked for a tool and my brother had picked up a Ford-Mazda tool, not a GM tool, because this is a Saturn.
Andy
Okay.
Chris
And so we ended up looking around and we saw this.
So there’s this tool that we can order on Amazon.
We can have it in, you know, about three to four days or, you know, off of any other car site, but there’s no car part places around here that have one in stock that we can get for this particular application, which is weird because it’s, you know, the 1.8 liter EcoTech that like loads of GM cars are.
Yeah.
So long story short, we were like, well, we want to be getting back on this sometime this weekend, you know, he’s he’s busy.
He’s busy today.
And I was going to be busy today.
And so we’re going to get together tomorrow and can continue lining lining it back up because I thought I thought we had the gears lined up and we started the engine to see and it was just it was better, but it was still running not right.
So I’m not sure if it’s an interference motor.
So I’m not sure if a valve was damaged or or not.
So we need this tool to make sure we absolutely are 100% lined up.
And if we’re still having problems, then we know that the motors.
Andy
Okay.
Chris
So I found this on the 3D Cults site, this little thing to just print up this this tool that costs, I mean, it costs $20 to buy it on whatever websites or whatever.
Andy
Okay.
Chris
For us, it was the convenience of time.
I wasn’t going to have to wait another week to get the day.
Andy
Okay.
And I’ve never been on this site.
What is what is Cults 3D?
Kevin
It’s similar to Thingiverse, but sometimes you have to pay for stuff.
Andy
Oh, okay.
That’s kind of cool.
So I’m looking at the part right now.
So it’s, it looks like something that you’d stick in between two cams, two cam gears, right?
Chris
Yep.
Andy
So it looks like it looks like a block that’s got two, two sets of teeth cut out on it that would fit into a gear.
Chris
Right.
Andy
And it’s not a gear itself, but yeah.
Chris
Yeah.
Andy
And it’s actually two separate pieces so that so you can slip one in and then slip the other one in.
Chris
Yeah.
So you get one gear lined up and pop this on it, then you get the other gear lined up and you pop this in between there and the two pieces act as a block from there to hold the gears in place.
Andy
Okay.
That’s really cool.
I could see how that would be useful.
So when you’re, so I’m not, I’m not a, an automotive person per se.
So when you’re putting the timing chain on, does, do these have a tendency to kind of rotate on their own?
Is there like pressure on them to try to rotate?
That’s what makes it hard?
Chris
There is.
On a lot of cars though, you can, you can, you can get them set just right and then slip the belt or chain over it and it’s not a problem.
But some of them, you need a tool because there’s just that much more spring tension on where they need to be lined up at Top Dead Center.
Andy
Okay.
Is this just like tension from like the valve springs pushing on the cams or something?
Chris
Yes, exactly.
Uh huh.
So the valve springs are pushing on the lobes on the camshafts and causing them to, to, to have rotational pressure.
Andy
Okay.
That makes good sense.
That’d be, that’d be a pain to keep them lined up just one tooth away from where you need it and have to hold that, that cam and hold the other cam, which might be at a slightly different pressure at a different angle and get the belt across while you’re pulling on the tensioner.
That sounds like a nightmare.
Chris
Yeah.
Well, actually the tensioner has this little key in it that holds it in the, holds it in the not tight position.
Andy
Okay.
Okay.
Chris
So you can slip the belt over it, you can get all the gears lined up, slip the belt over it and then pull this little key out and the, the, the, that let’s go with the spring for the tensioner.
Andy
Okay.
So that, so that then tension is applied.
Chris
And a lot of times you have to take that into account because it’ll slip the cam back just, just a hair when you apply the tensioner.
Andy
So it’s almost like you put it on, get it lined up perfectly and then see, see what you have to advance.
Chris
Yeah.
You have to advance the one just behind the tensioner, just a little bit so that when the tensioner pulls the tension, they all, it locks back and everything tightens up and is lined up taking that into account.
Andy
That sounds like that would be tough.
But this, this tool here will hold both cams in place in the right position.
So you just get one can lined up, put the tool in place, get the other cam lined up, put the other half of the tool in place and then it’s done.
You get hands off and both cams are being held at the right place.
Chris
Yep.
And you can slip the belt on and that sounds so much easier.
Andy
And you know what the, this is, this is one thing I absolutely love about 3D printing, man.
Because like you say, this little stupid piece of plastic would cost you quite a few pennies to just purchase.
And I mean, I know you work on a lot of cars and might get more than one use out of it, but most folks are never going to use that tool ever again, you know?
And I know you could probably go in and rent one or something like that.
But when you need one on the spot, like the situation you’re in, and this is just something that you can just 3D print.
Chris
Yep.
That’s why I love, I love this as, as I was, I was able to just 3D print what I needed.
But, and the likelihood I’m going to use this tool again is actually not that great, because I’ve worked on a couple other GM cars recently and they, not the same situation, but okay, you know, I did a timing belt for a Suzuki and they use a GM GM motors and it was a 1.6 and, you know, not the same situation.
I was able to just get all the gears lined up and pop the belt on.
Andy
That was the problem.
That’s still really cool that you could just print something up like that.
That’s, I love that about 3D printing.
Chris
Yes.
Andy
That’s great.
Chris
Yep.
That’s what I printed this week.
Andy
That’s cool.
Well, how about you, Kev?
You do anything?
Kevin
Yes.
So I talked last week about the, the splash blocker for that, that waste jug that collects the condensate and how it kind of, it stopped the spray from going all over the place, but it didn’t do as good of a job as I wanted because it didn’t direct it into the bucket that the jug is sitting in, rather it, it kind of just caused it to spray out all over the floor.
So I redesigned that and I reprinted it so that it’s got a bit of an underhang on it and it curves.
There’s a concavity in there so that the water instead of just going straight out will hit that and then be directed downward and inward.
So I mean the previous iteration for the visual listeners here didn’t have, it stopped it at this ridge right here.
It didn’t have any of this underhang stuff there.
So I think that’ll be a lot better.
I haven’t done anything with my resin printer this week.
Andy
You need to get with like standard plumbing and help them redesign their urinal splash guards.
I think that would be something.
Kevin
That would indeed.
But speaking of the resin printer, have you had an opportunity to try those things that I printed for you a while back?
Andy
So they’re inside my car that’s in the shop.
So I still have not had a chance because it’s been gone for the last three months because I was an idiot.
So after we had our little get-together that we did, they were in the car and it was on that trip home that our car had problems and so that next day I brought the car into the shop and haven’t seen it since and I’ve been having the entire engine replaced on it and then that has some problems.
I got to go in for some warranty work on the crate engine that we bought for it.
So it’s been a little bit messy but yeah.
So I missed it by one day by leaving those in the car and they’ve been gone every since which really bothers me because I want to try them out too.
I mean that’s some using your adapters.
So people know I’ve been trying to, I put some new pumps on my fish tanks filter canister set and I needed some components, some special adapters to make that work that are completely custom and I printed some using FDM and it didn’t work out very well because FDM isn’t exactly watertight.
Kevin used his resin printer and printed out some beautiful adapters for me and I really want to know if they’ll work too and put them on the printer or put them on the fish tank and see how watertight those are which I believe they will be.
I’ve seen the rest of your you know SLA printer stuff that seems like it should definitely be watertight but yeah they turned out beautiful and I want to be able to put those on because for myself I am waiting on seeing how well that works in order to you know get myself a resin printer as well because you’ve definitely convinced me that that is a tool that is worth having on the docket in case you need that kind of precision and you know high DPI settings for 3D printing.
Chris
Yeah not only that…
Kevin
they are great.
Chris
I’m thinking I’m thinking I may step into that world too because I really want to make some controllers and things too and doing that with FDM just isn’t the same.
Kevin
No it’s not.
Andy
I heard something that sounds very interesting about when it comes to coloring stuff that I know exists but I never really considered it and it might be easier than I thought so you guys know do you know what PVA plastic is?
Kevin
No.
Andy
That’s the water soluble support plastic.
Kevin
Okay.
Andy
So apparently you can buy you can purchase this plastic in sheets in paper thin sheets paper thin sheets that you can run through your printer your normal you know two-dimensional printer.
One thing about this is you would be able to run it through your printer print something on it and then hydro you know using that that that paper you can make it a hydro dip by putting that paper you know in your water letting the PVA dissolve and then you’ll have the image that you printed on the paper for your hydro dip so then you spray your solvents on the the ink at the surface and then you can hydro dip your 3D printed part nice with whatever image you wanted on it and that sounds cool and I was looking at PVA paper and it looks like it’s no more expensive than your standard high quality like photo paper so six or seven bucks for 25 sheets kind of thing.
Kevin
Nice.
Chris
Wow this is groundbreaking it’s kind of like when I discovered that you could print on wax paper to transfer onto wood.
Andy
Yeah yeah so this is kind of exciting I didn’t look too much into it I don’t know I run personally I run a laser printer so I don’t know if toner would work for that now I’m assuming PVA would be able to go through the fuser on a laser printer because I mean it’s 3D printed stuff I know it’s a thermoplastic but I don’t think the fuser gets quite that hot
Chris
I don’t think it’d get hot enough.
Andy
I’d have to double check those kinds of things or if toner can be you know re-solidified with whatever chemicals you use in the water once you’ve got it done to be able to make it so it’ll stick to you know a new surface but it’s something to look into I think I did a little half the research on it and need to look into it more but I think that’s a tool that I would love to have in my back pocket to be able to print stuff and be able to paint it like that.
Kevin
definitely
Andy
that would be cool yeah very cool but yeah
Chris
so what topic were we avoiding this week?
Kevin
I don’t know was it
Chris
Oh we that’s right we didn’t have a topic we didn’t want a topic
Andy
yeah Frank’s been not doing topics lately and been trying a little bit of a different route
Chris
no last week after the after the podcast he specifically said there was no topic
Kevin
right yeah um and that
because it’s we we have talked about a wide variety of topics and we’ve avoided a bunch of other topics so I think the logic there is we’re just going to talk about what we’re going to talk about and and it it didn’t always seem all that natural to be like okay well we’ve been talking about this thing and now let’s pivot suddenly and talk about this other thing
Andy
yeah yeah do you guys got any projects that you’re thinking of doing in the next couple of weeks 3d printing related?
Kevin
I do yeah so there’s still the the the nightmare chess set that is always on my mind but
Andy
how is that coming out because I seen like when you printed the the the queens for it yeah things like that but how far have you gotten on that one?
Kevin
um I haven’t made much progress lately I I’d be I’m sure to update you guys anytime I do something new on it so it’s been a couple weeks since I’ve done anything with it um but another thing though is that my younger son has recently started a DND club that he’s hosting and um I’m the dm for that because so he he and his friends had been doing a DND club at their school which I thought was the coolest thing ever that there was a DND club at an elementary school yeah no kidding um but then when he uh so my older son for his birthday got all the things necessary to run a fifth edition campaign um and I don’t know anything about fifth edition really I I mean I don’t I wouldn’t say I don’t anything I don’t know much about
Andy
yeah
Kevin
um because I’m more familiar with pathfinder and pathfinder second edition but I did do DND 3.5 for several years before making the switch to pathfinder and so the other part of it is that the when I guess the background is my older son wanted to have his friends come over fridays for DND and that made my younger son say well I want that too um of course maybe we could take turns or whatever and I and my wife were like okay well how about instead of trying to take turns you guys could both meet every week and depending on group size I could run a 3.5 game or whatever and
Andy
okay
Kevin
or you or you couldn’t and my son said well I’d rather you do it because we didn’t actually play by the rules in DND club we just kind of got together and uh made our stories and but he said I I want to actually learn how to play and so okay okay I can I can be your dm then so…
Chris
How much do you like math kids
Kevin
right so uh anyway we’ve been making characters yesterday so two weeks ago no last week last week we had our session zero got the characters mostly made and then uh yesterday they came over and finished making up characters and did a little introductory uh thing of go to the inn kill the rats um just to start getting a feel for how the game works you know okay uh but the point is uh after that long long long tangent um what I’m planning on doing now is going on to Titancraft and making miniature minis for all of the characters that are in this campaign
Andy
oh that’ll be fun for them
Chris
cool
Kevin
yeah
Chris
um so are you gonna make them paint them
Kevin
if they’re painted sure um because I I think that they they probably have get a kick out of that and I did recently back on Kickstarter um and have the stls for a paint station like it’s a modular paint station you can it print up shelves for your paints and um I can print I have access to miniature holders and all that that I can print um so I’ve got a lot that I can I’ve got a lot on the horizon that I need to get done with printing and just not not enough time to do it all unfortunately
Chris
story of being an adult
Andy
yeah yeah no kidding
well that’ll be a lot of fun with them I know at our family whenever we’re doing any kind of project the painting and getting the family together to paint their thing or whatever is always a big part of you know everybody contributing and things like that so yeah whenever I like 3d print anything for a project for the family and everybody sits down and we’re getting really good at painting 3d printed stuff at least the kids are getting used to it
Kevin
nice
Andy
but that’s a good adventure for them a good a good thing to add to it yeah and drink uh what was like well my my kid uh she loves to paint she loves crafts she hasn’t painted any of the 3d stuff I print but most of the time she just wants me to print it in one color or another
Andy
does she think that that that that might even be an option because I mean you do offer up hey what color do you want this to be printed out of or something that in her world that might be it like okay well this is the color it’s got to be instead of all this just is the base color for what I want I can make it anything I want it to be
Chris
maybe yeah that can be asking about not sure we’ve considered
Andy
yeah but that’s still that’s that’s a lot of fun I love getting involved with the family and doing those kind of paint jobs but this paint station that you’re talking about is it just um just like for holding all of your paints and stuff like that?
Kevin
so it’s got places to hold all of your paints it’s got a place for a wet palette I think it’s got printable dry palettes um cool drawers for your brushes it’s got it’s fully modular so fully customizable um and I I just need to get space for it and after that I think it’s gonna be a really good thing to have because I’ve got I’ve got literally thousands of miniatures that need to be painted.
Andy
do you ya
Kevin
um so one of my favorite games is zombicide and that that uses mini figures and I’ve gotten so much stuff for that game that a lot most of the mini figures I have are for zombicide okay but it uh oh right that’s what I was gonna say so for the rest like we don’t my group hasn’t typically used mini figures in our games because it’s all theater of the mind but I mean these yeah with working with these kids I think it could be beneficial at least to um have terrain and stuff and um I have access I or well I purchased a bundle from loot studios who isn’t sponsoring us yet um yeah right it would be fantastic if they do yeah but it’s modular 3d printable terrain so…
Andy
oh that’s cool
Kevin
yeah
Chris
so it is that the one where they’re all they’re all hexagons and you just kind of bottom up together and that’s the terrain
Kevin
they’re actually squares that you would print and so I’m actually thinking that I might be able to use that even for the nightmare chess set
Andy
oh just to make the board
Kevin
yeah that would be cool yeah well yeah you print parts of the board modularly and then glue it all together right yeah
Andy
okay that would be really neat
Kevin
like it wouldn’t take much for me to design the squares myself to do it but I’m like okay they I bought this bundle because it was I got a really good deal on it in June it was part of their massive June sale and I was like okay I bought the bundle I might as well uh use it to the fullest extent
Andy
yeah
Kevin
and you know if I can have somebody else do the work for me to design the stl file why not
Andy
yeah no kidding
Chris
yeah I’m that kind of guy
Andy
that is kind of cool
Kevin
I mean I’ve got so many other hobbies and responsibilities and things going on that taking the time to design my own things is not always feasible
Andy
yeah especially the complexity of designing the stuff that you that you would be designing for like figures and stuff that’s far more complex than you know making a mechanical object for a repair or something like that
Kevin
right
Andy
I totally agree with you that’s that’s that’s something you buy from somebody else who does it for a living or something
Kevin
yeah
Andy
it would be a nice skill to have and it’d be fun to know how to do stuff like that but yeah I think that’s kind of a thing all on its own
Kevin
yeah
Chris
and again you know because it is so time intensive yeah it’s worth pay paying somebody else to do yeah
Kevin
right
Chris
and they’re if they want to do it they’re getting paid.
Kevin
right and they’re not charging a whole lot like this this modular terrain bundle that I bought like I said it was on sale but I think I paid like 40 for the whole bundle and that might even be an overestimate it might have been closer to 30 and it’s a huge bundle and to put that into perspective I wanted at one point to, I looked at 3d printing the Lilith figure from Diablo 4 and I found it I think was on cults actually and the person who designed it wanted40forthewholebundleandthatmightevenbeanoverestimateitmighthavebeencloserto30andit′sahugebundleandtoputthatintoperspectiveIwantedatonepointto,Ilookedat3dprintingtheLilithfigurefromDiablo4andIfounditIthinkwasoncultsactuallyandthepersonwhodesigneditwanted34 for the one figure
Andy
oh man now that would be a little high isn’t it
Kevin
I mean so it it would be a big figure and it it’s printed in many pieces that are then glued together but yeah it’s that’s a lot for just one figure but at the same time it is such a highly detailed thing that I’m sure they spent tens of hours designing if not more and so they want compensation for that and I respect that but I don’t know that I can justify spending 34 dollars on this point
Chris
yeah there’s what’s reasonable there’s what’s reasonable for you but you know he’s probably got it posted because it is reasonable for somebody
Andy
yeah oh I I’m sure there are people who buy it every day yeah and that’s why it’s a market too like if that’s the way he’s able to make money or he or she’s able to make money doing that that’s great I mean it’s all about like the overall I think you know if they could sell more by selling it cheaper you know that’s great but if they make a piece that you know is only going to be great for some people and you’re not going to sell a lot of it then yeah it’s going to be a higher cost because they need to recoup the same amount of money on their end yeah it does kind of make sense yep now I’ve really envied how like some of the neat things you get to do in some of your games when it comes to printing these figures and stuff like that and it’s you know it’s a lot of fun sitting down and playing a D&D game with figures all the all of my D&D experience has just been you know role of the 20 no absolute set rules kind of thing DM that knows what they’re doing but just chooses to kind of do their own thing for the story so getting into the stuff that you’re that you do sounds like a lot of fun
Kevin
yeah my friends have told me there’s a reason I kind of became the forever DM in the group yeah because I I have a way of describing things that help it come to life and then there’s also I’ll kind of act out what’s going on sometimes just to help help people like picture it and bring it to life
Andy
that’s cool
Chris
yes you’re definitely the most creative and detailed positive kind of guy it’s it’s incredible so yeah
Andy
so how many going back to the chess set there how many figures have you gotten printed up for it or where you add on your figures
Kevin
so I have I’ve printed the king and the queen the princess eight pawns two bishops and that’s oh and the warlord that’s what I’ve printed so far I’ve gotten I’ve identified pieces for and this is all for the black army I haven’t done anything with the white army yet well I did I did identify the white rooks but I’ve identified what I’m going to use for the black rooks and uh the black… I I want to see if these goblin bat riders will work for the black knights um otherwise I I’ll have to find something else to use for them
Andy
okay and I know you got an idea for the board but is that idea set in stone yet or is it still kind of a work in progress
Kevin
it’s still a work in progress
Andy
well good deal
Chris
nice
Andy
so what about you Chris anything oh sorry oh I came across something this week I wanted to mention uh so I was at I was at the grocery store and you guys remember that articulated rose dragon that frank had printed up for the wife
Kevin
yeah
Andy
yes yes
Chris
for his wife yeah so they were selling those at the store oh really $18 a piece were they 3d printed they were 3d printed
Andy
really
Chris
every single one of them and they had crystal dragons and so the wife looks at me and she says hey honey I can tell that this has been 3d printed okay so I’m gonna be doing that one and then and probably pretty shortly
Andy
that’s cool now was was this a um uh like a big box store or was it something smaller
Chris
uh it was the local grocery store oh really huh yeah
Andy
yeah they had a little end cap and they were all in you know in this little bin in an end cap and had a sticker on the on the bottom $18 I was like crazy that’s kind of cool I wonder if they if somebody like I’m sure somebody set up a print farm to be able to make 3d printed stuff and stuff like that but uh you know it was bound to happen but it’s it’s kind of neat starting to see that kind of stuff in the wild
Kevin
yeah
Andy
now everybody can start learning not to
trust 3d printed stuff they’re gonna pick up stuff like that and expect the same kind of quality as a you know a molded piece and yeah quickly discover that
Chris
no no there’s it’s not the same as pressure molded
Andy
yeah unfortunately right well that’s neat that she found stuff like that that’s um one of the things the wife has got on my docket of things to print for her is one of those dragons
Chris
huh
Kevin
Nice
Chris
that’s it guess it’s a thing
Andy
yeah well thanks to you she saw the dragon the first one that you brought up and was like oh that’s cool I want one of those so she made me get some of the colorful plastic that you usually use and now I’ve got some of that colorful plastic so now it’s just a matter of uh slicing it and actually printing the darn thing.
I haven’t just got I haven’t really gotten to it yet so…
Chris
yeah I was describing the sneaker net to my little brother yesterday yeah we when we did when we determined that we needed this little tool I saw that it was available on Cults 3d we uh both walked down into my office and showed him my 3d printer and he was like oh yeah you know I just got a 3d printer but I haven’t even hooked it up or anything so he’s he’s getting excited to jump into this
Andy
well that’s good yeah now he’s got someone to call when he realizes how difficult and sometimes be to get them to work right
Chris
yeah I got a guy what’s that oh I ended up I ended up pulling the tape back out to print this thing too because I was using the the cheaper plastic that I don’t really like because you know it’s just one of these things I’m it’s a tool nobody’s ever gonna see and I’m possibly probably use it whatever yeah so yeah and I forgot that my subpar plastic doesn’t stick to my bed very well so I picked up the picked up the tape, lay it out after I’d ruined the first print when it went ahead and came out great
Andy
well that’s good that’s really good
Chris
yeah I had it on hairspray but I forgot I haven’t bought hairspray
Andy
man I am I am absolutely swearing by hairspray it’s just too useful it works too good
Chris
it would have been a lot easier to clean off my print bed than the than the tape was
Andy
yeah you know that’s fine I mean it takes care of all the adhesion problems but I know it’s not for everybody not everybody’s gonna want to use something like that and you do have to clean off your bread your bed about every 30 prints or so has been my experience but it’s not like just a you know a wet rag wiping it down and then recoating the whole thing all over again with a brand new layer of hairspray that’s all that there really is to it that and that’s where you also get the shiny prints from well not totally from but it definitely increases the amount of shine you get from the uh or you know reflective surface from the part that contacts the bed definitely increases that but I guess to each their own
Kevin
yeah that’s that’s something I don’t get with my textured surface but I don’t have to do anything special to get adhesion either
Andy
yeah yeah that’s good that’s nice that you were able to that your printer you were able to start off 3d printing FDM and not really have those issues
Chris
yeah because I think uh we all did but I think all the stuff we figured out ended up being bit way beneficial for Kevin we you know our our bed leveling and temperature control and all that and yeah us having so many issues getting our our our bed adhesion just right
Andy
yeah unfortunately but it works now so I think that’s good although I think Frank is still having some under extrusion issues that would be nice if he was able to get that worked out permanently
Chris
I I thought he had he had uh chalked that up to to bad plastic but…
Andy
I’m not hoping that’s the problem
Chris
yeah but it’s definitely a thing so yeah as I just showed as an example I’ve got this one particular plastic that won’t stick to my bed
Andy
I think it’s been a long time since I’ve had bed adhesion I mean as long as your first layer is actually on the bed I think that’s the only problem I’ve had recently was trying to print something that made contact with the bed at like layer three instead of layer one and that caused me bed adhesion issues for obvious reasons their spray seems to be quite effective for me so I think I’m going to stick with it sorry I don’t have a whole lot more to say I don’t really got a whole lot of plans for 3d printing coming up here
Chris
yeah it’s a kind of a take it on the fly sort of thing sometimes
Andy
yeah yeah it…
Kevin
yeah for me it’s it’s kind of like knitting you know where it’s like I like doing it and I’ve got supplies to do it but I just sometimes just need to wait for inspiration to strike and when that happens I say okay I can go do that now you know
Chris
what I am gonna do though is I am I’m just about on the part where I’m gonna be putting the new felt on my pool table okay I’m gonna be printing darts but I have a set of darts but all the plastic stuff on them is kind of cheap and really really flimsy and not working so well I found some some some printable pieces that I can take the metal heads for my darts and put them on so oh I can fix my whole dart dart set too so the wife is kind of not wanting me to fix it until the kid is a little bit older
Andy
yeah and well I mean it’d be nice for you to have you don’t have to have the darts out unless you are actively playing or something that will keep her from you know playing it but
Chris
yeah well we got a little velcro board where you throw these velcro balls at a um at a uh fabric mat that looks a lot like a dart board so I can just hang that and we can play with that
Andy
yeah that would work
Chris
I still I
Andy
I do oh sorry
Chris
still want to have my dart set all fixed up
Andy
yeah yeah I hear you I do got one thing I got to do my uh my little list four-year-old has got one of those pedal-less bikes supposed to kind of teach you that how to balance before you know as you’re learning how to ride the bike and it’s a cheap one it’s all plastic unfortunately but uh the wheel hub the bearing in the wheel has broken loose from the rest of the inner wheel hub and uh one of the things like the the bearing how to explain this here the wheel hub is like a tube right and it’s uh the the front and the back of the tube is big enough to hold a large bearing like close to two inches maybe it’s closer like inch and a half or so so at the front of the hub and the back of the hub the front of the cylinder the back of the cylinder that makes up the hub it’s got one of these bearings but that bearing is larger is smaller than the full circumference of the cylinder that makes up the hub and so the bearing is only attached to the plastic on the front of the the hub and off the outside of the hub because it’s smaller
and it is broken loose from the front and uh one of today’s projects to fix that for the kid is to go in there measure the size of the bearing and then make a 3d printed like washer or not necessarily a washer more like a tube a cylinder that you know the inside of the cylinder can accompany the bearing and the outside of the cylinder will make contact with the outside of the hub and that would kind of act like a spacer between the two and something that I can just glue into place inside of that hub so that the pressure from the bearing to transferring to the wheel hub will be on the outside and not the surface of the cylinder and so that’s going to be a project for today but um just you know having a 3d printer where you could just go in and print something simple like that to fix a problem i love that stuff that’s what makes owning a 3d printer totally worthwhile
Kevin
yeah it is
Andy
I think that’s all I got you guys got anything else
Chris
I think we’re about there dude
Kevin
I think so too and we are coming up on an hour
I kind of I was thinking today was going to be a bit shorter than normal because we’re one person short and that’s how it usually goes
Chris
well frank does like to talk
Andy
he does i do want to thank the listeners for oh yeah i do want to thank the listeners for putting up with uh not having frank and not having the proper you know routine that we do and stuff like that and kind of putting up with us for a little while here while we fumble through this thank you
Kevin
yeah and uh that just
Chris
we’re dead to the end
Kevin
we are getting to the end so we’d like to thank our listeners for listening to the very end very very and uh hang on i need to look up the script i thought i could do this without it but here we go uh let’s let’s try this again
Chris
okay
Kevin
we’d like to thank everyone for listening to the very end
Chris
the very very end
Kevin
if you like what you hear please give us all the stars and subscribe we are available through a wide variety of podcast vendors and so are easy to share
if you have feedback or if you have content requests please let us know you can find us in our facebook group amateur3dpod or you can email us at panelists@amateur3dpod.com for individual feedback or contact you can email us at Franklin, Kevin, Andy or Chris @amateur3dpod.com
the music for this and every episode was written by me Kevin Buckner
Open AI’s Whisper completed the heavy lifting for the transcripts which you can find linked in the description
Our panelists are me Kevin Buckner and my friends Chris Weber, Andy Cottam, and Franklin Christensen.
Until next time we’re going offline, which is Frank’s tagline but I said it anyway now i’m gonna add my own, Keep your FEP tight.
Andy
uh always use hairspray
Chris
duct tape ergo sum
Andy
oh it won’t always be weird no my line it’s always going to be weird