Frank
Thank you for joining us.
This is episode 44 of Amateur 3D Podcast, a podcast by amateur printers, for amateur printers, where we share our thoughts and experience.
Welcome panelists this week are me, Franklin Christensen, and my friends, Andy Codham, Kevin Buckner, and Chris Weber.
Chris
Yo.
Kevin
Hello.
Frank
I just remembered.
There’s a, I was going to say something.
There’s a podcast vendor that is no longer going to be doing podcast app anymore.
Andy
Yeah, Stitcher.
Frank
Stitcher.
That’s it.
Stitcher is going away at the end of August, so yeah.
Andy
If you’re running an Android device, use Podcast Republic.
That’s my favorite.
Chris
And I’ve been using Google Podcast.
Kevin
That’s what I’ve been using.
Frank
Google Podcast is perfectly fine.
I’ve been using Pocket Casts myself.
Andy
I’ve heard good things about that one.
Frank
I’m on the 5,5,15 a year program, and I can choose podcasts that I want to load.
I can load automatically into my queue.
They just added a folder feature, so you can separate your podcasts a little bit more.
They added that like six months ago.
So it’s a kind of new podcast vendor, but yeah, it’s all been good.
Chris
Can you get into the shameless plug?
Oh, there we go.
Frank
Yeah.
My shameless plug, because I’m going to get paid for, I’m going to get paid personally for advertising for Pocket Casts, so.
Andy
Yeah, there’s a lot of different ones out there, so make sure you look around and find a good one if you use the Stitcher app.
Of course, if you use the Stitcher app, you’re probably sick and tired of all of us podcast people telling you that Stitcher is going away, since everybody’s saying Stitcher’s going away, so.
Frank
You say that, but about half of the podcasts that I have going live have said anything about it.
Andy
Oh, really?
Frank
Yeah.
That’s why I figured it might be a good idea for us to bring it up, just in case.
So that we’re on the half that is looking out for our listeners.
Andy
Definitely.
Kevin
See, I had no idea.
Chris
No clue.
Frank
How many podcasts?
Andy
You listen to many podcasts there?
Kevin
I don’t listen to all that many, though.
Frank
That was going to be my question right there.
I have like 20 that I follow, so.
Andy
Me too.
Me too.
It’s my entire workday is listening to different podcasts, so there is a lot.
Chris
I have the angry music while I’m working.
Kevin
That’s typically what I have also, but largely due to the fact that I can’t have my ears fully covered when I’m at work unless I’m doing something that I cannot be distracted during.
That’s when I’ll listen to podcasts is when I’m like, I can’t be distracted, so I’m going to put on my actual headphones and block out all the ambient noise so that I don’t screw up.
Andy
Yeah, definitely.
Especially in your line of work, we want your attention on the job.
Kevin
Yeah.
So, but all the other times I have to have my open ear headset that’s a bone conducting unit, and it’s just so hard to understand everything people are saying, whereas, you know, if you’re listening to music, that doesn’t matter so much.
Frank
Right.
You don’t need to hear every lyric or guitar riff.
I mean, it’s fun.
You may want to hear it.
Kevin
And it’s easier.
It’s easier to hear the guitar riffs than it is to hear the spoken things.
But also with the kind of music I listen to, it’s kind of hard to understand every single thing that is said in the song anyway.
Frank
There’s a lot of complexity with most of that music, for sure.
Interestingly, I did recently get a Bluetooth headset that calls itself air conduction.
Kevin
I used to have one of those.
Frank
And my first thought was, isn’t that what every headphone is?
Andy
Yeah.
Kevin
Well, not necessarily because and I got my son one of these air conduction things.
And my wife has one also because the one I had was so good.
And it was great for a couple of years until it stopped taking a charge.
And that’s when I got the bone conduction thing.
But it it leaves your ear open.
Frank
Right.
Kevin
And so it the speakers are just loud enough that it uses the air waves or sound waves through the air to get into your ear canal.
Whereas a lot of the like earbuds and stuff are right into your ear.
So technically, yes, they do conduct it through the air that is in your ear canal.
But I think when they’re saying these that this is an air conducting headset, they’re saying it’s not going directly into your ear.
The speaker is sitting in front of your ear.
And.
Chris
Oh, OK.
Yeah, my wife’s got a pair of those.
They call them ear slugs because they look like little slugs that kind of clip on the edge of your ear.
Frank
And to be fair, what they do is it’s targeted sound like there’s not a lot lost like into the nothingness of the rest of your environment.
So nobody would really be able to easily tell that you’re listening to something.
Kevin
Right.
Frank
But it also leaves your ears open so that you can hear what’s going on around.
Chris
Yeah.
So the ones my wife has look kind of like just large, funny earings almost.
Andy
OK.
Frank
OK.
Yeah.
I think I have seen those.
I have been interested in the cochlear ones for a while now.
I think that it would be interesting to just have a cochlear headset.
That would be bone conduction ones.
Andy
Yeah.
Frank
As opposed to the kid that most of us grew up with who needed the cochlear implant so that he could hear just because it’s the same technology.
It’s just one is installed so that you can live your life.
And one of them is transmitting through skin and then to the bone.
So
Chris
yeah, I mean, I don’t know if you’ve I don’t know if you’ve seen him lately, but his his child and my child go to the same school.
And yeah, it’s it is not you can’t even tell anymore that he’s got one.
Well, the technology I’m sure is so far.
Yeah.
Frank
We’re talking 20 years since we were all in high school.
So yeah, I’d be surprised if that technology hadn’t grown up too…
Andy
Don’t remind me.
It’s been that long.
Yeah.
Frank
Yeah, Andy, you’re old.
So, Andy, since you’re so old.
And you.
Did you work on anything with your printer this week?
Andy
Yeah, yeah.
So after our podcast last week, I got involved in a couple of different around the house projects that turned out kind of nice.
One of the things that the prep and to do here is I want to, you know, we’ve been doing the model rockets and that worked out so well for the 4th of July here.
We’ve been interested in continuing to develop some things for that that would be fun that I could do with the kids and to learn myself now.
I’ve gotten into a lot of pit controllers and microcontrollers and having them do all sorts of things, and that’s kind of fun.
And so we thought it would be fun to let’s let’s put one on a rocket here with a gyroscope on it and that way you can sense the movement and stuff and and use a little not solenoid actuator to be able to control a control surface on it and see if we could do little things like spin control and stuff like that.
And so we’re kind of moving that direction.
I got some small microcontrollers and stuff ready to go.
But one thing I don’t have is a very good power supply for stuff like that.
And a little over two weeks ago, I was kind of looking around at getting myself two small lithium ion battery packs, maybe ones that are used in like the little remote control helicopters from our days past or something like that, you know, small ones.
And I came across something that I didn’t really know they made.
It makes total sense that they do, but I didn’t know it.
And that is button cell batteries with normal lithium ion chemistry on the inside.
So I’ve got button cell batteries.
These ones here I picked up are the 2450s.
So they’re the much larger ones.
They’re not like the 2025.
So the 2032s that we always see.
Frank
All that nomenclature means nothing to me, by the way.
Andy
Oh, really?
Those are the ones that look more like a quarter.
Those who have had to replace quarter sized batteries.
Frank
Okay, got you.
Andy
And so the ones I got are a little bit larger around than a quarter, just a little bit.
And they’re about the size of maybe two and a half quarters stacked on top of each other.
But this is a normal lithium ion cell completely rechargeable and everything playing around with it.
After I got one, it holds about 80 milliamp hours on the inside, which is pretty awesome for a battery that that’s that big.
Now, a lot of the batteries that I’ve used are the 18650s.
And you guys have probably seen we’ve gone camping and stuff.
I’ve got a lot of these little flashlights here that take an 18650s.
And a while back, I bought a bunch of these 18650s.
They were out of China.
They claimed to have 5000 milliamp hours, which is impossible.
Most really good production cells are around 2800.
Sometimes you can get a little bit more.
I’ve got a couple that were up to 3000.
And one of the things that I myself enjoy doing is when I get a battery pack that goes bad, I like to pull it apart, pull out the cells, find the bad cells that go bad.
And then I keep all the rest of the cells for projects.
And so that’s a lot of these.
Yeah.
But these cheap ones from China only have about 400 milliamp hours in them when you test them.
They’re really crappy.
Chris
They didn’t need 5000.
They meant 500.
Andy
Yeah, exactly.
But inside of these little torch flashlights, they will last.
They’ve got a good like 10 minute burn time, full power on them, which is perfect for these little flashlights that you use, that I give to the kids and stuff like that, that are really super bright.
And that’s a lot of power.
So finding one, these little button cells that are 80 milliamp hours is kind of like opening doors for smaller projects.
I could take two of these, stack them on top of each other, and have a voltage cut off around what would it be, 5.2 volts or something like that.
So I don’t hurt the cell.
And bada bing bada boom, there’s something I can run into a voltage controller for whatever projects I’m using, and it has practically no weight to it.
So one of the things about these cells getting into the 3D printing stuff is I didn’t want to buy a charger for these cells.
These are normal lithium ion chemistry and can be charged with a normal lithium ion battery.
So I wound up 3D printing something about the size of an 18650 that can fit inside my charger that I can then put these coin batteries inside.
Chris
It looks like a pencil sharpener for a visual sharpener.
Andy
Yeah, and put inside my battery charger and charge it like a normal cell, which works really good.
So that was kind of nice to be able to sit down and 3D print, you know, exactly something that I would need to have this work.
And I used the little strips of, not nicam, nickel strips that you use to make battery packs where you spot weld onto these batteries as my contact plates for this and worked out really good.
So that was one project I did.
Another project, what’s that?
Chris
The pictures you posted with that mounted in the battery pack, looked like it was a really good fit.
Andy
Yeah, yeah, it worked out really good, kind of impressed with it.
That’s going to open up a few doors for some smaller projects when you don’t want to use a large battery for anything.
One of the other things I wound up doing this week is my littlest son has got one of those little tiny push pedal-less bikes that’s supposed to, you know, help you learn how to balance and stuff.
And the wheels are plastic.
The entire wheel is plastic.
They’re such garbage.
But I had the bearing come out of one and just get destroyed.
And being able to 3D print a little insert that would hold the bearing into the wheel properly to replace the part that broke, it was really nice to sit down and just with a little bit of CAD skill and create that complete replacement part.
And that way I can still keep the bike around for them, because you can’t just buy those little tires.
You’d have to buy a whole bike, which is only about $40.
So it’s still not that expensive of a bike, but, you know, it’s saved from having to purchase a new one just so I can get the darn tire for it, because he’s not done using that particular bike.
Frank
Sure.
Andy
Put that together and print it off some interference parts, one for the bearing and the one for the outside of the tire, where it makes contact with the tire itself.
And both fit really good.
So I printed the entire thing and it worked just great.
He’s been riding around on it, printed it out a PETG.
So it’s a little bit more durable because it’s going to have some compression issues.
And I printed a good part of it where the bearing sits and transfers the force to the wheel, solid plastic.
And then the rest of the gromet that just kind of holds it into place, I did just the normal 20% infill with just a couple of shells.
And that’s been working good and carry in his weight around quite a bit.
And if it does happen to break, it is on the back tire.
And so, you know, it’s less of an issue if something goes wrong.
And however, I think the 3D printed part in this particular scenario is actually more stronger than the other side of the wheel where the bearing is hooked up because it’s just a cheap bike.
So, those are the projects that I’ve been working on for the most part, I did have something kind of fun happen at work today, or not today, but this last week.
And that was one of my fellow employees has gotten involved into printing 3D.
And, you know, a couple of weeks ago, he asked me about it, thinking of getting one, and then a couple more weeks later, he’s got one.
And then this last time I talked to him, he’s got it up and running, and he’s printing off a bunch of things and how excited he is, and how many problems it’s going to solve.
And he was asking for recommendations on, you know, 3D CAD programs.
So, I pointed him to a couple of the ones that you guys use that are, for the most part, free to use and good to learn right off the bat.
And he’s going to run with that now.
So, I think, I think, I’m sorry, my brain just melted.
I don’t know where it went.
But yeah, that’s what I’ve been doing.
Chris
That’s cool.
Along those lines.
Frank
You might want to check your earphones to make sure that they’re not full right now.
Andy
Full brain?
Yeah, that would explain a few things.
Chris
So, along those lines, yeah, my little brother just barely got a 3D printer.
He delivered to his place in this last week.
So, he’s going to get it set up and he was asking recommendations.
And we basically both kind of decided that Fusion 360 is probably the way for him to go.
Andy
Okay.
Frank
Inexpensive and robust.
Hard to argue with that.
Chris
And he was really impressed with those gear holders that I printed up for him.
So, we could set the timing on his wife’s car.
So, he’s pretty excited to get going into 3D printing, too.
Frank
Cool.
Andy
I’m getting closer to the…
Oh, sorry.
Frank
Go ahead, Andy.
Andy
I was going to say, getting closer to finally getting ready to purchase an SLA printer so I can join Kevin in his SLA works there.
Probably two weeks from now, two more podcasts from now.
Kevin’s going to have to help me figure out all the problems he went through.
So, I don’t have to go through them personally.
And that’ll be fun.
Frank
You get to find your own problems.
Chris
Yeah.
Andy
Yes.
Yes.
I’m good at just making problems.
I don’t have to find them myself.
I can just make them for me if I want.
Frank
You just sit there and they find you.
Chris
You may want to move your setup away from the laundry room, though, because they put off fumes, so it may make your laundry smell.
Andy
Yeah.
That was a big concern of mine.
But Kevin was telling me about the system he has on his for dealing with the fumes and how not so much of a problem that is.
So, I’m banking on whatever one I get to have a similar filtration to what Kevin says that he’s using on his.
That way, I won’t have to worry too much about that.
But if it does become a problem, I bet I could come up with a way to integrate a ventilation system right into the exhaust for my dryer.
Chris
I was just thinking that.
Frank
It’s not like you don’t have the resources to print a splitter.
Andy
No kidding.
No kidding.
Frank
For your ducting.
Andy
Yeah.
Not only that, it’s forced air fan on it.
Chris
It’s pretty cheap to get an inline fan on those two.
I mean, down at the local hardware store, they’re only like 10, 20 bucks to get one.
Frank
Andy’s got the motors and the resources to build his own fan if he wants that.
Andy
That’s true.
That’s true.
Frank
So, Chris, have you done anything with your printer this week?
Chris
No, not with my printer.
It’s been a it’s been a crazy week.
So, I mean, everybody knows about last week where I printed the gear holder for my brother’s wife’s car.
But that alone did not put the cam gears in the right place quite.
So, you know, I was I was a little under the weather and really tired with it.
So, yesterday I was able to make my own tool because you need to line up the cam gears on the other side of the engine.
So, on the opposite side of the timing, you need to flat out the cam gears.
And you kind of need like a specialty flat tool that holds them level with the top of the top of the cylinder head.
And I found some old angle iron that was about the right thickness and cut it up with my grinder a little bit, cleaned it up a little bit, you know, and use that to line the cam gears up just right.
So, I could use my 3D printed gear holders, hold it in place, get the timing all lined up.
So, anyway, that part of it went really well.
The car runs smoothly.
It’s got lots of power again, but it’s still smoking like worse than a campfire.
Andy
Something else is going on, huh?
Chris
Yeah.
So, I’m just going to I’m not sure what it is at the moment and I’m not sure I want to dive into it.
I’m pretty sure that some part of his engine is toast.
So, they were thinking about not keeping the car anyway.
So, at this point, I’m just going to let him drive it home and decide what to do with it from there.
Andy
Okay.
Chris
But aside from that, my father-in-law’s car also, I had to fix this week.
It sprung a coolant leak, the water pump.
I had to replace the water pump a couple of them a little over a month ago when I was doing the timing for his car.
And the gasket that came with the timing set and the water pump was apparently not that good.
Andy
Something you got to pull back apart and put a new gasket on it kind of thing?
Chris
Pretty much.
Yeah.
I pulled it apart, put a new gasket.
This time around, though, I put a crud ton of sealer on it just to make sure.
Andy
Yeah.
I mean, it’s not ideal because the next guy that has to change the water pump is going to have to deal with a whole bunch of gasket sealer.
But…
Andy
it’s a shame that such a high thermal area could have printed your own gasket.
Chris
No, I’m pretty sure TPU would have done really well, but the gasket, in this case, was actually one of those steel gaskets.
Andy
Oh, okay.
Chris
One of those painted steel gaskets, which is kind of odd that they would use that for the coolant system.
Andy
Yeah.
Chris
What it was.
So.
Andy
That is weird.
Chris
So, yeah, I spent my whole week fixing cars and my sister-in-law’s car had something funny going at the power steering that I had to adjust her belt and tighten a couple things up to take care of a leak.
And so, yeah, I haven’t even got to my own things that I wanted to do like, you know, touch my pool table.
Andy
Yeah.
Frank
That sounds like we’re almost out of the pandemic, you know?
You’re back to the normal load of family members demanding things from you, Chris.
Andy
No kidding.
Chris
Yeah.
Andy
Can hear the joy in that, voice.
Andy
Yeah.
What about you, Frank?
What have you been up to?
Frank
I’ve got quite the epic, actually.
Um, so I had an issue with a game from, and I’m going to name names here, Ubisoft. Suuuuucks on computers.
Um, so I’ve been having issues with the game and I followed every detail I could online and being a techie for most of my life.
I just blatantly ignored everybody that said, oh, reset your Windows 10 and that should fix the problem because that’s not a fix.
And I’ve dealt with it for two weeks trying to figure it out.
And it just kept nagging at the back of my head.
These people thought that it was a fix.
Nothing else is working.
I was like, okay, I’m going to go with a nuclear solution, even though I don’t expect it to be a solution.
And so I reset my machine.
The reason this is relevant is because I archived off things like the podcast and my STL files and all that, but I had to rebuild my software on my computer.
Andy
Okay.
So when you say you reset, you’re not talking about power cycling.
You’re talking about reformatting the hard drive and stuff.
Frank
Uh, complete, complete back to zero for my operating system.
And as a techie yourself, Andy, you know, as well as I do, that that’s not a solution.
Andy
No, no.
Frank
And it wasn’t.
I have the same problem.
I actually have more problems with their software now than I had before the reset, which if I had really thought about it, I could have foreseen.
And their tech support is just absolutely atrocious.
Andy
Yeah.
Frank
They ask for feedback and then ignore you until you submit a new ticket.
Which is why I’m so angry at Ubisoft.
Ubisoft.
Anyway.
In the process of, I also have been reprinting some of my sheet clips that I did a while ago.
Andy
Okay.
Frank
The TPU part broke.
And then while I printed off a new TPU part and printed it at 100% instead of probably 20 when I did it.
Andy
Okay.
Frank
And when I was reassembling it, the PLA part broke.
Andy
Oh no.
And so I went to reprint it and I ran into an issue that I have a couple of times when going from TPU to PLA.
My machine complains until you disassemble the whole carriage and clean it and reassemble it.
Andy
Oh no.
Wait.
Let me put one thought in here.
Are you preheating for TPU when you still might have PLA in the system so you bake the PLA at the higher temperatures?
Frank
The TPU I’ve been using actually prints at the same temperature for both.
Andy
Oh, okay.
Okay.
Yeah, that’s one of the things that I have liked about the brand that I’ve been using.
Frank
I threw shade at Ubisoft.
I’m going to praise Overture materials because I just love Overture for whether it’s TPU or PLA.
And even their PETG has been decent for me.
I just haven’t had a lot of need for the PETG, but they’ve been great across the board for me.
Andy
I think I’ve got a bunch of Overture too and it’s not bad stuff.
Frank
Anyway, so I took advantage of the computer reset because, well, it wasn’t an intentional advantage.
I lost on my profiles for Cura.
Oh, okay.
So it’s like, well, I have to baby my printer a little bit anyway.
I’m just going to restart from zero with Cura and that has actually gone fairly quickly.
It only took me two days to get it dialed in instead of the week that it has in the past.
Still a little bit of under extrusion, but I think that I can figure that out with a couple more small adjustments.
I finally got the hard part of the clip together and I got it tied together and put back on the sheets and yeah, that’s everything I’ve done 3D printer wise in the last two weeks.
Personal drama, which our listeners don’t need to hear about, but you guys got an earful of before the podcast adding to everything.
It’s been a busy couple of weeks for sure.
Andy
Yeah, it sounds like it.
You’ve had a lot going on.
Going back to your printer, since you redid the entire, since it got a brand new profile and still hunting down the under extrusion problems, have you ever checked to see if your steps per millimeter are correct on the printer itself?
When you tell it to extrude, say 100 millimeters, you are actually extruding 100 millimeters?
Frank
I have not.
The way I’ve been attacking it with my printer, because there’s some complexity with adjusting like steppers and that sort of thing, it’s still the OEM flavor of Marlin on the printer and it’s a little complex to get that changed out and I, well, there’s a part of me that’s, there’s a part of me that’s torn between, it works well enough, do I really want to mess with it?
Okay, so I just attacked the under extrusion with things like the flow setting in Cura and that’s how I’ve gotten, in the past, I’ve gotten really good prints, like consistently, so I just need to carefully up it from here to get the one or two little under extruded parts in my outer wall.
There is a hope, maybe in the next little while, there are some new hot end and heat exchanger, heat block, all that stuff, assemblies that Crealty has, they’re a little expensive, they’re like $80 for the whole assembly, but I keep thinking that if I got two of them and rigged them up with quick connects right at the carriage, then I could set up, set myself up with a work area on a heat power supply so that I can adjust the heat on it and position it how I want it and clean it and get it all set up so that then when I do need to clean, I can just exchange the carriage or the hardware on the carriage, continue to use my printer and then take my time in cleaning the old one.
Okay.
It’s not so inconvenient that I can’t just leave it connected and warm it up with my controller from my printer right now, so it’s doable, I wish I could just remove one and put the other one in, tram and be good to go.
Andy
Yeah, it takes the whole unit out of commission when it’s having to clean it.
Frank
Right.
And that’s where I am on that.
Andy
Okay, that’s good.
It still seems like you have to clean it a lot though, but it could just be the type of extruder that you got.
Frank
Well, and I’ve had to disassemble and clean it every time I go from TPU to PLA.
Andy
That’s crazy.
And I don’t know why, like there’s a good seal on, there’s a little bit of Bowden tube between my, because it’s a direct drive extruder.
Yeah.
There’s just, it’s 80 millimeters of Bowden tube between the extruder and the nozzle.
Okay.
And the way I did it this last time is I added an extra one, one and a half millimeters, so it compresses into that tube for the nozzle.
Yeah.
And there, so it’s got a good seal there.
It’s got good pressure from my extruder.
If I do get the new assembly, I’m also going to get new extruders to go with it.
Andy
Okay.
Frank
But it, I just don’t know why it complains so hard whenever I transition.
And I’d rather just, if I have to clean it, I’m going to, I would like to be able to remove it and put the, put another one in so that I can still print while I’m working through the cleaning issues with the other one.
Andy
Okay.
Frank
So that would be a neat, neat setup to have.
Andy
It’d be almost kind of like a tool changer with a couple of extra steps.
Frank
Well, and I have seen where there have been some makers who have created a quick connect for the whole extruder assembly.
Yeah.
And those look fun, but I, I don’t know, like if I’m going to do that, then I have to account for the extra distance in front of the carriage too.
Yeah.
And it’s not like I have a lot of things that take up that much in my build space, but if I do, I want to account for it at the beginning of the process, instead of after the fact going, why can’t I build this thing?
Why is it acting like it’s 10 millimeters too big or whatever when, you know?
Andy
Yeah.
So that’s a neat project to do though.
Frank
Yeah.
And honestly, the other thing is, is it’s, it should be fine.
Like my whole extruder assembly is cased in plastic.
I don’t think it’s thermal plastic.
I do think it was molded, but okay.
It’s the kind of thing where it shouldn’t be too big a deal to have a plastic quick exchange for the carriage.
But if I’m going to do something like that, I would almost rather do it out of like aluminum or something.
Andy
Yeah.
Frank
Like design it and have a shop make it.
Andy
There’s a lot of companies out there that will do stuff like that and they’re not that expensive.
I mean, it’s a, it’s going to seem expensive if you had the tools to do it yourself and all that, you know, you’re getting a little ripped off.
But for those of us who don’t have the tooling to accomplish those kind of things, it’s going to seem pretty cheap.
Frank
And that’s always going to be an option, I think.
It’s just a not one right now.
That’s what I used to do with my PCBs.
Like I, I came from, you know, making your, not really your own, but taking breadboards, you know, just drilled out boards with wires on the back and stuff like that to make PCBs.
And then as soon as I came across like, wow, you can design this, send it off and they, and they will send you back, you know, a PCB printed properly looking beautiful, you know, for, you know, six or seven dollars.
And that was like such a big step, you know, like, oh, now I’ve got this, this option that I didn’t have before.
But then I also got into, you know, making my own PCBs, just using my laser printer and etching them myself and stuff like that.
And now I’m kind of looking at it going, wow, seven or eight bucks for a PCB to look that way.
That’s, that’s kind of on the pricey side, you know, I’m sure it’ll be the same way for making, you know, something like an aluminum component or something.
Give them the design file and yeah, sure, you know, it’s 20 bucks for this piece, but we’ll make it for you.
And suddenly doors are open because like, wow, that’s awesome.
Until you get a CNC yourself and think, wow, they were charging me out the butt for that.
Frank
So for something when I’m designing and sending them the file, now keep in mind also, most of those shops are in the mass production space.
Andy
Yeah.
Frank
So someone does the work and sends them a file.
They want 10,000 of this item.
Andy
Yeah.
Frank
And so it’s cost effective to say, well, if you want one, we’re going to charge you this much.
But if you want 10,000 of them, we’re going to give you the bulk discount because we can set it up to EDM 200 of them at a time and just run the machine for an hour, you know?
Andy
Yeah.
Frank
So
Andy
yeah, definitely no shade on them for what they charge.
But once you get the right tooling to do it yourself or what that, realize how much cheaper it is for you to do that.
Of course, then there’s the point too, that if you don’t use it enough to make it worth it, the cost in the gear to accomplish that is where you’re going to be being screwed from.
Frank
And that was always my hesitation for getting a table saw.
I love my table saw.
It’s great.
And I’ve used it a lot since I got it.
When I was getting to that point, it’s like, am I really going to need it though?
I use my skill saw for so much.
Andy
Yeah.
Frank
And since I got the table saw, I built a sled for it and I use it for little fine, accurate cuttings as well as the ripping a board down and that sort of thing.
So
Andy
yeah
Frank
I’m sure that I would find uses if I got the EDM or the mill however I decide to do that.
My other problem is, is my workshop is the size of a one car garage with shelves on both walls.
Andy
Oh, stop bragging about how much space you got.
Frank
Yes.
Just because it’s bigger than your workshop doesn’t mean I have a lot of space.
Andy
Yeah, then there’s Chris.
Frank
He’s got a two car garage with a bunch of storage in it.
So he’s actually got less space than we do, even though he’s got a bigger building than we do.
So I don’t know how that’s supposed to work out.
Chris
That’s my own fault.
Frank
Fair.
I didn’t want to come out and say specifically, Chris, you’ve got no one to blame, but you know.
Andy
I do know that soon as soon as my first kid moves out, man, I’m taking their bedroom, turning that into a small electrical shop, you know, my tool shop out there is great for metalworking and stuff like that.
But having a place where you could work on electronics and things that are more related to stuff like the printer, I’m looking forward to that.
Frank
Set your printer up with its own workbook.
Chris
That is the main things my office is used for.
Frank
So Kevin, what did you do this week?
Kevin
Oh, I’ve done so much this week.
So first off, I was, I printed that headphone holder that you sent me a link to.
And in trying to get the screw into it, I kind of broke the screw.
So I was like, I need a new option.
And so I printed up actually one of those Fibonacci hooks that we had been talking about a couple weeks ago.
And it’s doing the job.
It’s holding the cord in a good position and it’s a place where I can have the headphones set down so that they don’t get destroyed.
And it’s just, it’s great.
And then.
Frank
And it’s easier.
There’s no compo.
Kevin
Right.
Frank
No assembly required.
Kevin
Right, right.
And then after that, I am the DM for my son’s Dungeons & Dragons group.
And so I went on Titancraft and designed miniatures for the four members of the party.
And then I printed those off on the SLA printer.
And I also started printing Dungeon Floor Terrain on the SLA printer and then said, wait, why am I, why am I wasting resin for this?
This doesn’t need to be high resolution.
So I got a bunch of those printing on the FDM printer.
And then I printed up a dozen dire rats and a chest and a mimic on the SLA printer.
And then on the FDM, like it was getting to be Thursday night and I was like, I’m not going to have everything done in time for the game on Friday.
So I went on to Cura and I cranked up the resolution and I printed up some barrels and in another chest and they turned out beautifully.
Like the detail I got on those was extraordinary.
It was almost what I could get with SLA.
So it was, I was very well pleased with it.
Chris
And that’s what I was at the 1.2 millimeter extrusion or the point.
Kevin
.12
Yeah.
Chris
Yeah.
Yeah.
It was, it was phenomenal.
Andy
You did 0.12 layer height?
Kevin
Yeah.
Chris
Point, what?
Kevin
Yeah, 0.12.
Chris
0.12.
Yes.
Andy
That’s impressive.
That’s impressive.
Oh, wait
Chris
my printer does that.
Frank
That’s the high resolution for my print.
Andy
Yeah.
I’m thinking 10, 10, a multiple of 10 off my mistake.
Frank
The system high resolution.
I’m pretty sure I can print at 0.0, whatever.
Andy
Yeah.
Frank
I just don’t.
Andy
Yeah.
And I think that’s what I heard is, is not because when you see like, because I print pretty much everything at 0.2.
And when I want better quality, I’ll use 0.1.
But when you say like 0.1, I’m thinking 0.01.
And that’s why I’m like 0.012.
Wow.
That is, that’s a very skinny layer height there.
Chris
Andy is bad at math.
Andy
Yes.
Frank
Yeah.
That’s the Z hop that I go up by when I do the Z offset.
There is 0.01.
Andy
A tiny amount.
Sometimes that’s all it takes.
Frank
It’s literally 0.01 between it being so tight to the build plate that you can only see the shadow of where it was printed to you can see some color.
Andy
Oh, I thought, I thought when you said Z hop, I thought you were talking about the Z hop setting.
Frank
Well, the on the on my controller, it’s called Z hop.
You can adjust it manually.
But when it’s in Cura, it’s the offset.
So you find it on the controller, or at least I do.
I find it on my controller and then I set it when I get it right.
I set it on the Cura and it resets that profile with the next print.
Andy
Okay.
Frank
Just them calling it Z hop on the controller.
There’s what threw me off, I guess, because Z hop is like, right before you go to do a travel move, it’ll raise the Z up during the travel.
Frank
That is a configuration on Cura for the travel, yeah.
So that your nozzle does a nice bump something.
Yeah, yeah, which technically it shouldn’t.
Andy
I personally see that setting like when things aren’t working right, you can use this setting to get it correct or whatever, you know, one of those.
But yeah, so the habit on the controller was just threw me off, I guess.
Frank
That plays into when you have an automatic balancer.
Andy
Yeah, yeah.
Frank
Your Z is constantly adjusting anyway.
Andy
Yeah.
Frank
I avoid that as much as possible, but sometimes it still happens that it’s useful.
Andy
Yeah.
Chris
That’s what the thing is.
So do you have just, you know, printing, I just push, push print and go.
Andy
Yeah.
Chris
Most of the time.
Frank
I guess that’s an option for the uninterested in the mechanics of the whole thing.
But I am actually kind of interested in the mechanics.
So I like to play with settings sometimes just to see what they do.
Andy
Yeah.
Frank
Sometimes I wish I hadn’t done that, but.
Chris
For a guy that fixed a bubble jet printer when I was 11 years old, I mean, I, you’d think I’d be more interested in the mechanics of it.
I think it’s just that I don’t allot myself time.
Frank
I have a hypothesis, Chris.
You’ve worked on cars for so long that you don’t have the mechanical curiosity that you did when you were 11 anymore.
Chris
I think that’s part of it.
I think it’s, again, time because like, I’ll make time to get into, well, example, my pool table.
I’m getting it, getting it all tore apart just to replace the felt and everything.
Same thing with like my game systems.
You know, I took the time to mod my Sega Saturn so that I could play downloaded ISOs.
You know, it’s just, it’s so, so far down on my interest list at the moment is all…
Frank
fair.
I accept that.
Andy
One problem with getting into the whole family bed is you definitely, or you’re just getting older.
You just don’t have as much time as you used to.
Frank
To a degree, that’s by design too.
You know, me and my wife don’t have the curtain climbers, but we still feel the need to take it slower sometimes.
Gets a little overwhelming.
So…
Andy
yeah.
Yeah, definitely.
So just this last, what was it yesterday here?
My mother-in-law, my kids had to sleep over my mother-in-law’s house.
And so me and the wife took the advantage and went and had a nice dinner and stuff like that together just because…
Andy
And you took a nap?
Chris
He’s like, I still don’t know what that is.
Frank
I don’t understand that word.
This sounds like English.
I just don’t know what the word means.
Kevin
What does that…
Andy
I love naps.
In my line of work, I would love… For a little while there, I tried it taking a nap because I hate lunches.
I’ve always hated lunch breaks.
The minute you stop to eat, from that day… point on, you’re just dragging to get through the day.
Frank
From that day on.
Andy
Or from that time on, you’re just dragging through the day.
So I always hated that.
But so I thought one day, I’ll try to take a nap instead.
Take a 20 minute or something like that.
And I work out in the field, so I’m in my work car wherever I go.
And so I would often find a place where there’s not going to be too many people and take a nap during my lunch break.
And it was amazing.
I am totally into taking naps in the middle of the day.
20 minutes is nothing time-wise, but oh my gosh, it changes the whole rest of that day.
It feels like a brand new day, you know?
Kevin
It’s almost like the Spaniards knew what they were talking about.
Frank
No, no, that’s going a little too far.
Andy
But at one point, from the outside perspective, this guy comes up.
I mean, I’ve seen it tons of times with like UPS guys.
Well, you’ll see them parked out in the middle of nowhere and the driver just sitting there, mouth open, just gone, taking a nap, you know?
And the first thing you think of is, oh, that’s just someone milking the clock, taking advantage of the system, blah, blah, blah, you know?
Frank
That’s a very American perspective work there.
Andy
Yeah.
And I got accused of that at one point of slacking off and taking a nap.
And so now it’s like, I guess that’s the end of that, not because work had a problem with it.
All I did is explain to my… you know, explain myself, look at the time frame I was during my lunch break.
It was not a problem.
But, you know, just the idea of someone having that perspective of me kind of makes it so, yeah, I’m not going to take naps anymore at work.
It’s, it makes you look like a bad employee.
So just that appearance alone is enough to say I’m not going to do it.
Frank
Yeah, that’s unfortunate.
Chris
I think that’s a poor industrial mindset, but sure.
I agree, but it’s the industry I’m in.
So, yeah, kind of have to work with what you got.
Frank
And my brother actually, he thinks he got fired because they had a problem with him taking a nap during his lunch break.
Andy
Yeah, okay.
Frank
Like he was in the break room, curled up in a corner, just took a 20-minuteer before he went back to work.
And they decided that if he had time to take a nap, he had time to be working.
Andy
That’s one thing I would love to change, because those times that I did take a nap during the lunch break, like I say, it just changed the whole last part of that day was like a brand new day.
I was more productive.
I felt better, you know, just your body feels rested.
That 20 minutes is like the equivalent of an hour to two hour long nap with the effect that it feels like it has on the body.
Frank
Well, and there’s actually been a lot of study around the idea.
You know, our ancestors, for instance, you know, 400,000 years ago, slept on different schedules, and it’s believed to have been a hangover from that.
Like, it’s all a hypothesis.
We have no way to prove it from the fossil record.
But it seems like it would make sense from a proto-human perspective, where if a couple that sleeps on different schedules, or even a tribe where half the tribe sleeps on a different schedule than the other half, then you’ve always got somebody up and aware, and you’ve always got somebody getting rest.
Andy
Yeah
Frank
and so early risers get together with night owls and all of that for that reason.
Chris
Well, you guys know I’m a night owl, and getting a job on swings has been a game changer for me, too.
Andy
I bet that fits your schedule, huh?
Chris
Yeah, I am naturally up and aware, and I don’t end up losing the first two hours of my day trying to get up to speed with everybody that’s normally up at, you know, five, six in the morning.
Andy
Yeah, because I know we’ve always given you a hard time and stuff.
You know, when we go camping or whatever, you’re the one in the tent until two in the afternoon and stuff like that, but it really is a thing for you.
You also can stay up all night when folks like me, I’m hitting it pretty early, you know?
But that’s awesome that you’ve been able to find a position at work that is better fit to your schedule, because you are one of the ones that is more on the extreme for the night owl side.
Chris
And I’ve been so much more productive on Swingshift than I was on Dayshift, too.
And I retain information and stuff so much better as well.
It’s really a big difference.
Andy
That’s great to hear.
That’s nice.
I forgot that your job was Swings, to be honest.
Chris
But yeah, we should, you know, I feel like it shouldn’t be looked down on on people that, you know, can pop in a 20 or 30 minute nap for their break times, because it is so beneficial.
Kevin
It really is.
Frank
And, you know, when it comes down to productivity, if you can justify giving somebody 20 minutes to take a nap and get an extra hour or two of engaged work from them, you would think that the calculus would be easy for those businesses to be like, yes, take a nap, 20, 30 minutes.
Andy
You can see that a lot, too, and like with people working at home and stuff, that there were a lot of people whose productivity really did go through the roof, but yet they still demanded you to come in and all that, which, you know, took the productivity for those folks way down.
The numbers are right in front of you, but, you know, they’re so used to just these standards that don’t really apply anymore.
Frank
Well, and companies are trying and people are pushing back.
So it’ll be interesting to see where the chips fall, for sure.
Kevin
Right.
Andy
Yeah.
Chris
If your job can be done from home, why not?
Kevin
Exactly.
I do wish that my job could be done from home.
Andy
Just bring the analyzer’s home.
That’s all you need to do.
Kevin
Analyze or make specimens.
Like, I think my wife might have a problem with me storing urine in the fridge.
Frank
Okay.
How about this?
Because it wouldn’t be that hard to set you up with like a robotic haptic feedback type situation.
Where you are still controlling the robots, but they are in an enclosed space where the samples are within reach of the machine that they’re going to be used for.
And then maybe you have to go in one day to get everything prepped.
But the rest of the time, you know, you can be at home telling the computer, okay, turn here, pick this up, you know?
Andy
there you go.
Chris
Yeah.
Then you still maintain medical industry standards by having everything operated at the lab.
Frank
Well, and it can be even more sanitary, because humans are decidedly unsanitary creatures at our best.
And breathing on the stuff would not be the issue that it has the potential to be with you there.
Chris
Yeah, I’d like to see how far we get along with the new VR robots.
Because there are other VR robots.
Slightly interested in that.
Frank
I got really jazzed when I finally read Ready Player One.
Andy
Okay.
Frank
And it’s like, yeah, this is so doable.
There should be more emphasis on this.
Andy
Yeah.
Frank
But you know, there’s always going to be the people that are like, oh, computers are taking my job.
It’s like, technology has always been problematic for society.
Andy
Yeah.
Frank
If you go back 400,000 years, the person who first started using the arrow was probably criticized by his peers.
Because they were used to the endurance hunting.
Chris
Which hunting?
Yeah.
Frank
Well, no, just chase the thing to death.
Andy
And bludgeon it with a rock once it gives it.
Frank
No, no.
So four-legged animals have a decision they have to make.
They can breathe or they can cool down.
Andy
Mm-hmm.
Frank
So humans are the only creatures that can breathe and run at the same time.
And without overheating to the degree that all the four-legged animals do.
So it’s believed, now this is another hypothesis because, you know, we don’t have time machines.
But it’s believed that our earliest ancestors would work together as a tribe and chase their food to death.
Andy
Yep.
Chris
And it’s evidenced by tribes currently doing this.
Frank
Yes, it’s still a practice with some of the modern-day tribes.
So the endurance hunters probably criticized the guy that had the bow and arrow saying, hey, you’re going to get lazy, dude.
You don’t need that tool.
You need to chase your food to death, just like the rest of us.
And while they were out chasing their food, he was bringing food back to the tribe.
Or she, let’s be honest, it could have been a she that decided, hey, you know what, this animal could turn and gore me.
But if I put an arrow in its heart instead, it’s not going to gore me.
Andy
Yeah.
Chris
We’re more talking about the evolution of the atladdl and then, again, the bow after that.
And then…
Frank
yeah, yeah.
Andy
And it kind of surprised that the atladdl came before the bow.
The atladdl just seems like it would have been a more complicated thing to use than a bow.
Kevin
Well, I don’t know about that, though, because you think about the bow and it’s got a string that you have to.
Chris
It’s more complex to make a bow than it is.
Kevin
It’s more complex and to string the bow and all that, whereas with an atladdl, it’s like, OK, I can throw it like this, or I can build a lever that would let me throw it a little harder.
Frank
And farther, yeah.
So it makes sense that the spear, and by proximity, the atladdl would come before the bow and arrow just because of the complexity.
Kevin
Right.
Frank
I mean, I’ve got this broken stick.
I wonder if I can use it with my spear versus I like how that tree looks springy.
I’m going to put a string on it and see if I can find myself a tiny spear to put on it and see if that gives me more.
Andy
Got a very good point.
Chris
But yeah, it’s been that way about technology.
The people, the older people that are confused by the by the new complexity of the new technology is always saying, oh, you don’t need that.
Frank
I could be misquoting, but I believe it’s Aristotle was like, why would we want to start writing things down?
People are just going to forget stuff if we write it down.
Kevin
Yeah.
Frank
And the same argument was made about the printing press and the radio and the TV and the, you know.
Chris
And now we have 3D printers.
We can literally make our lives so much easier just by printing whatever we need.
Kevin
Right.
Andy
Got your own production right at home.
Frank
It’s going to destroy the economy.
Kevin
Well, I mean, I did actually see on Facebook recently in one of the, I think it’s Pathfinder groups that I’m in, somebody was complaining that he can’t find minifigures to purchase anymore because the demand isn’t there for purchasable figures for these TTRPGs because people are more interested in buying STLs and printing them themselves because it’s less expensive that way.
Andy
Yeah.
Chris
But then again, you’ve got the local hobby shops.
Maybe we could interest local hobby shops into having their own printer for…
Kevin
But his complaint there was that he’s like, yeah, I can get the packs of things.
He’s like, but I just need a bunch of goblins and all I can get is two goblins in a pack that’s got a whole bunch of other things that I don’t need.
And it’s more expensive than I want to pay for just two goblins.
He’s like, especially since I need to get like 30 goblins and doing it two at a time is…
Chris
I don’t know about you, but that’s the issue I’ve always had with game packs, though, is you have to buy the whole expansion or whatever when you only want one or two pieces from it, you know?
Kevin
Yeah.
And that’s why being able to print your own is so much better.
Andy
Yeah.
Frank
And there’s so many hobbyists out there, let’s be honest.
Hobbyists who want to print off the pieces and put the effort into painting them and all of that, they can turn around and sell them or they can use them.
And there’s plenty of hobbyists who sell them.
Kevin
Right.
Frank
And if you want a custom pack, you can order painted or not from a hobbyist and they’re going to charge you whatever.
But you have to do the work to find those hobbyists as opposed to going to the hobby store where all they’re going to have is a generic pack that works for the greater portion of people that want a pack.
Chris
Yeah, or the generic pack on whatever said, you know, game site.
Kevin
And to that point, actually, for his birthday, my mom got my son a packet of plastic tavern parts to use with his D&D game.
And when he opened them, we looked at him, we’re like, oh, these were 3D printed.
Frank
You can see the lines.
Kevin
Yeah.
Yeah, and it’s all true.
Andy
In a lot of games that you play there, Kev, I know a lot of them don’t necessarily require models.
Have you been adding models to it to kind of add to the gameplay itself?
Kevin
Yeah, I mean, so I just barely started that because with my typical group, we’ve been doing Theater of the Mind as it’s called for so long that they’re like, I’m not sure how we would incorporate this.
But I said, I’m going to do this for my son’s group because it’s a bunch of 12-year-olds.
And I’m like, I think it would just be easier for them to actually see what’s going on in the battleground than to try to imagine exactly how far away everything is and everything.
And it also helped me out to see what’s going on also to be like, okay, because they’ve got the question, well, how many can I hit with this burning hand spell?
And it’s right there.
Instead of me having to think about positioning and stuff, I’m like, well, you can actually hit these three from where you are.
Frank
Sure.
Yeah.
Kevin
And they’re like, okay, that helps.
Well, and visual aids have always been helpful once again since the dawn of humanity.
Yeah.
You know, when you can describe something, that’s great.
You get the theater of the mind thing.
But when you can sketch it or model it, it helps everybody understand what’s going on.
So.
Kevin
yeah
Chris
when it’s, yeah, I love games that, you know, it’s on the table.
It’s right in front of me.
And I can, I can see as we’re doing whatever the game is doing, you know, whether it’s old fashioned board games or if, you know, story games, I mean, clue.
Frank
It’s true.
Um, I think that we’ve gone far field enough to justify calling the podcast.
And I actually have some other stuff that I want to try to get it done today anyway.
So, uh, why don’t we call it?
And, uh, we’ll…
Chris
call it what?
Frank
Amateur 3D podcast.
Call it done.
Yeah, call it done.
Call me mud.
No, don’t call me mud.
Don’t call me mud.
That guy, uh, will forever go down in history as a bad guy.
Anyway, Kevin’s got a confused look on his face.
Kevin
I don’t understand.
Frank
I only believe this bit based off of what I heard on, um, National Treasure 2.
It could have been an arbitrary thing, but I feel like it was one of those throwaways that if I researched it, I would actually find details to support it.
So, uh, maybe I’ll just have to research it to be sure and stop talking about it until, uh, okay.
We’d like to thank everyone for listening to the very end.
Chris
The very, very end.
Frank
If you like what you hear, please give us all the stars and subscribe.
We are available through a wide variety of podcast vendors, and so we’re easy to share.
If you have feedbuck… or feedback, because I know how to speak good English.
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 at amateur3dpod.com.
For individual feedback, you can email us at Franklin, Kevin, Andy, or Chris @amateur3dpod.com.
Kevin Buckner is the one that wrote the music for this and every episode, except for like one or two.
I don’t think I went back and edited those.
Uh, OpenAI’s Whisperer is the one that completed the heavy lifting for the transcripts, which you can find linked into the description.
Our panelists are me, Franklin Christensen, and our, my friends, our friends, we’re all friends.
Kevin Buckner, Chris Weber, and Andy Cottam.
Until next time, we’re going offline.
Kevin
Keep your pep tight.
Andy
Use hairspray.
Chris
When my printer sucks, I use it to clean the carpet.
Frank
I want to see how that works.
I was not expecting that.
I want to see how that works.
That would be awesome.
Kevin
Indeed it would.
Andy
Oh my.
My wife wouldn’t get on my case for not cleaning the living room.
Andy
It would just take one time if you trying to clean it with your printer, she would never ask again.
Wow.
Yeah, that one was way left field, but
Kevin
that works.
Frank
that’s great