Chris
Thank you for joining us!
This is episode 56 of Amateur 3D Podcast, a podcast by amateur printers for amateur printers, where we share our experience and thoughts.
Our panelists this week are me, Chris Weber, and my friends, Franklin Christensen and Kevin Buckner.
Frank
He’s actually known longer than me and somehow he stumbled over Chris’s name this time.
Kevin’s name this time.
Chris stumbled over Kevin’s name.
That was my stream of thought.
Chris
Like, yeah, the guy I’ve known the longest and all of a sudden just my head goes blank.
Happens sometimes.
Frank
When you host the show, it does things to your brain.
Chris
So yeah, Andy’s not joining us.
He had a doctor appointment that we just could not get anyone to schedule around.
So, you know, I’m pretty sure Andy wanted to see his doctor today and not again in two months.
Frank
How dare he put his wife and kids above the podcast?
Kevin
Right.
Chris
Yeah.
Kevin
I mean, we talk about audacity right there.
Frank
And he’s the one always accusing us of prioritizing over the podcast.
Kevin
That’s true too.
Chris
Indeed.
Frank
Indeed’s a whole other thing.
We’re not even going to talk about them.
Chris
Well, we can do an out deed.
Frank
Yeah, we can do that when we talk about the olds.
Chris
Yeah.
Cool.
Well, let’s go ahead and jump in.
Frank
That one definitely went over everybody’s head.
Instead of the news, we talk about the olds.
Kevin
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
You know, if my head is here, that joke was like…
Chris
I haven’t had any coffee today and I got like four hours of sleep, which is pretty, pretty good.
Frank
No, it’s not Chris
Chris
for a weekend.
Frank
No
Kevin
no, four hours is not good.
But although last night, I thought I did fairly well with getting like my seven hours and 52 minutes of sleep or whatever it was just a second, yeah, seven hours and 54 minutes of sleep.
And my wife got upset with me because my sleep score that Fitbit gave me was 82 because she was all happy with her 83, but she got over eight hours of sleep.
And she’s like, how do you keep getting these high sleep scores with very little sleep?
And I’m like, because I don’t need a whole lot of sleep?
Chris
You’re getting competitive with your sleep scores.
That’s interesting.
Kevin
Yeah.
Chris
Like, for example, a couple of weeks ago, my sleep score was 89 with only six hours and 23 minutes.
My wife already says you totally sleep better than I do.
You can sleep anywhere.
And I think I’ve already proven that.
Frank
Just once or twice.
Chris
Yeah.
Kevin
Yeah.
Chris
I apologize for last week a little bit.
I was a little stressed and pulled an all nighter.
I shouldnt’a.
Frank
Well, for you, our episode is going to air tonight from last week and you get to listen to us ridicule you mercilessly for the first time.
And then we’ll just go on from there.
Yeah.
Chris
Yeah. Allright.
But really, though, you can’t blame a bat for sleeping in the day.
Frank
No. Now, if it was Batman, he would find a way to spend all of his money during the day and still be up all night.
Kevin
So yeah, I’m pretty sure his superpower was amphetamines.
Frank
Yeah, I’d accept that.
Chris
Yeah.
Frank
I read a fanfic actually just this morning where people were in the Marvel or the DC universe hypothesizing about how Clark Kent must be Batman and Bruce Wayne must be Superman.
And I’m sitting here going, I know there’s a fourth wall in here, but they are so close.
And yet so far away.
Kevin
Right.
Frank
Yeah.
Kevin
But hey, you know, we do know that Chris has been busy with his 3D printer this week.
So…
Chris
oh, and how?
Oh, did you guys see the butt print I sent you?
That was great.
Kevin
Yes, I did.
Actually, I was looking at that.
That looks like a butt.
Chris
So I had started the print and I was using the first couple of layers to adjust some settings to make this print finally work.
And it did.
It did finally work.
Frank
Oh, the beginnings of a sitting pony.
Chris
Yep.
Frank
Is that the butt print?
Chris
Winged.
Yeah, the winged pony.
It’s basically a baby Pegasus.
Yeah.
Frank
Gotcha.
Chris
So my sister-in-law just got back from the hospital a week ago, a week and a half ago.
She got out of the hospital from having a baby, a little girl.
So we’re putting a little cake together, obviously, you know, and infants don’t have to do cake, obviously, but, you know, we’re doing a little vote.
Frank
I hope that’s obvious.
I imagine there are some people for whom it’s not so obvious.
Chris
Yeah.
Anyway, so this is the cake topper for her cake.
Frank
Gotcha.
Chris
We really just made the cake to my sister-in-law’s tastes.
Frank
Gotcha.
Chris
Well, she can eat it.
And the baby can get it secondhand.
Frank
Yeah.
Yeah, I guess that it does affect the flavor, doesn’t it?
Wow.
The things we talk about on this podcast.
Chris
Yeah.
Well, you know, I’ve already said that I really, really wished I’d had a printer back when I didn’t have to spend, you know, $80 a set for breast pump adapters.
You know, I could have just printed them myself.
That would have been great.
Kevin
Yeah.
But anyway, did you guys work on anything?
We’ll get it back around to me, I’m sure.
Kevin
I mean, why not just finish out with you?
You did more than just those cake toppers.
Frank
You started.
Chris
that single cake topper.
I did actually another cake topper because the same sister-in-law, her boy just turned two.
And so we’re doing his party and my mother-in-law’s party this afternoon.
So I was printing a, I printed up a nice little fairy to put on grandma’s cake.
She likes, likes fairies.
And I printed a laying baby dragon to put on the nephew’s cake.
Frank
Is this a bad time to say that tracks that your mother-in-law likes fairies?
Chris
Yeah.
Frank
She strikes me as a very earthy, you know, fairy type.
Chris
Yep.
She’s got, she’s got garden gnomes and frogs all out in her flower beds and she’s got fairy figurines galore.
So yeah.
So now she’ll have a nice little thing to hang in the window, you know, because we’re just doing, we’re just hot gluing it to a stick and putting it in the cake.
Frank
Okay.
Kevin
Okay.
Frank
That is cool.
And that was the 2D fairy that you shared in the chat, right?
Chris
Yep.
That one.
Frank
What is the production company with the moon and the fairy?
That’s what it made me think of.
It’s not Pixar.
Chris
Who is it?
DreamWorks?
Frank
DreamWorks.
Yeah.
Kevin
That’s not a moon and a fairy.
That’s a kid fishing from the moon.
Frank
True.
Chris
And now it’s, now it’s just various characters fishing from the moon, but yeah.
Frank
And of course they don’t do the, what looks like a ornamental filigree in the moon for DreamWorks either.
Kevin
Right.
Frank
But yeah, that’ll be fun.
I think she’ll like it.
Chris
Yep.
And now that that’s all done, the wife has picked out all of the additions she wants to print for her costume.
And so that is going to be going on tonight and tomorrow.
It’s… I’ll show you guys that stuff and we’ll talk about it next week.
And I’m going to be printing a, I’m going to be reprinting that pop out sword for my costume.
Frank
The one that didn’t work the last time you tried it.
Chris
Yeah.
So I decided to dissect that thing and see what went wrong.
And I, it wasn’t, it wasn’t necessarily that I, my plastic was bad or anything.
I just, I think it’s the, I printed the walls too thick.
And so they all just kind of, they, they printed too close together that the bits of them got stuck up, up and through, but I dissected it and got almost all the sections apart.
You know, so I like cut through the, cut through the palm one, popped everything out and was like, okay, why is this not working?
And the way that the way they slid and fit, they didn’t pop the, they didn’t do right.
So what it is is I made the walls too thick so that they didn’t actually enter in there.
They’re not interacting the way they’re supposed to cause they’re too, too, too close together.
Kevin
Yeah.
Frank
Wasn’t Andy saying that there’s a setting to help you account for that interference print style or something?
Kevin
I think they say something about that in Cura.
Chris
Yep.
So I need to go find that setting and just turn, turn the wall thickness down and turn the, you know, try to make sure that the spacing between each little thing is a little, is just a little more apart.
Frank
Gotcha.
Chris
So I picked up some, some silver plastic to print it out of.
Frank
Okay
Kevin
cool.
Frank
Yeah.
Chris
Yeah.
See if it turns out nice.
Kevin
Yeah.
So that’s me.
Did you make anything this week, Kevin?
Kevin
Yes.
So I’ve started printing another tube rack.
So I’ve, I’ve gotten the top and the bottom done.
I’m currently printing the middle piece right now.
And I decided to use the, the rest of the, the two sided or the, the double color green and blue silk PLA that I got.
Cause I used that to print the splash diverter for the, the wastewater condensate that I talked about before.
And I was like, eh, I’ve already used a good portion of that role for work.
I might as well just finish it out.
So, and after I finished the, so I printed the bottom first and then I printed the top because I wanted the top to be here.
Cause I had a feeling that there wouldn’t be enough to do all three pieces with this blue and green silk that just kind of comes out with as green with kind of a bluish sheen on it.
Frank
It’s still a good looking color.
Kevin
Yes.
It is.
So sorry, Chris, what were you going to say?
Chris
Oh, I was saying, uh, I was talking to the wife just yesterday about using up all the rest of my little bits of plastic.
And I was like, look, Hon, if we get ourselves one of those nice little digital kitchen scales, you know, I can use this plastic up because I’ll know how much I need when I’m making a print.
I think you need one of those too.
Kevin
I do have a scale, um, but I was able to eyeball the remainder of what was on the spool and say, I know this is not going to be enough.
Um, so I fit, I decided I would also, um, I would finish out the piece with just the black that I had used for printing the other two, tube racks that I did.
Um, and I tried, I tried to fuse the ends together.
Um, but when I got it…
Chris
That’s not easy.
Kevin
No, it’s not, it is, especially since it was, I was fusing the ends together while the printer was running.
Frank
That becomes a problem.
Kevin
Yeah.
Chris
So that makes us so much harder.
I got it.
I got the ends to stick, but they were blobby at the end.
And so I, I was trying to trim the blob so that it would fit through all the necessary holes and, uh, they separated.
And so what I ended up doing was just watching it.
And, um, when it got to the point where it had pulled all the rest of the blue and green into, or through the, uh, direct drive, I fed the, the black in right behind it and held it there until it went into the, the, that white tube.
I don’t know what that tube is called.
Chris
The Bowden tube?
Kevin
Is that the Bowden tube?
Frank
Yeah.
Um, when with the direct drive, there’s still just a little bit on there as opposed to having it go from the, uh, the feeder all the way back by the frame.
So yeah, still just a little bit.
Kevin
Yeah.
Chris
But yeah, I did the same thing when I, when I, uh, was using the end of the roll the last time I was just like, okay, wait till it’s all, there it is.
There it goes.
Kevin
Yeah.
Chris
Feed the new one in.
Kevin
So I decided it might be beneficial if I find some kind of, uh, a welder device like Andy was trying to make months ago, um, to, to facilitate sticking the ends together and making them the right size so that they’ll just feed automatically.
Cause there was, there were some panicky moments there, um, trying to get it in without burning any plastic in the nozzle.
And I obviously paused the print when it got to that point so that I could get everything lined up properly.
Cause I don’t know how you guys are, but when I, anytime I put new filament in, I have to fiddle with it, trying to get it past the gear into the, the hole that feeds into the Bowden tube.
It’s, it doesn’t ever, like, I guess I shouldn’t say it doesn’t ever, but it rarely just slips right in.
Chris
Really?
Kevin
Yeah.
Chris
Well, um, so like mine, mine does, mine goes in really easy, but I make sure it’s straight first.
Kevin
Yeah.
Chris
So, you know, it’s slightly curved.
I make sure that it’s straight for about two thr… two inches-ish and go straight, straight in for me.
Not a problem.
Kevin
And I try to do that, but it rarely goes straight in.
I have found that if I clip it so that it’s got kind of a point to it, um, then that point will catch on the edge of the tube and help it, um, go in.
Frank
Um, mine, even then sometimes I was going to say something about, uh, because once it’s past the gear, you’re actually pushing it in with your new piece.
That’s why I started just using the change filament option on my printer because it backs out what’s in there and then I can put the new one in and get that one figured out.
Um, because…
Chris
do you guys have the spring release on the gear?
Kevin
Yeah.
Frank
Yeah.
Yeah.
Chris
Okay.
Frank
So, um, but if you’re trying to push it in and it’s pushing up against the, uh, the old filament before it’s all the way down, then you’re pushing on filament, trying to get it into the feeder and that’ll push it to the side too.
I’ve gotten, um, especially with TPU, but I’ve gotten it with the other filaments too, where it goes outside and then goes to the bottom of the, uh, the feeder, but doesn’t actually go towards the nozzle.
And so like I’ve broken filament inside there and all kinds of stuff.
Kevin
Oh
Frank
trying to figure that out.
Chris
Huh.
Kevin
I guess I got lucky today.
Frank
Yeah.
Chris
Okay.
The way mine works, if you, if you have the, uh, hot end just, uh, cranked up and set, I can push plastic straight through all, all I want, you know?
Kevin
Yeah.
Chris
So if the hot ends hot, I just can put new stuff in and push, push all the old stuff out.
You know, so that I can start to clean print without, with a different color or different kind of plastic.
Frank
Yeah.
I just, I just back out and start the new piece.
Kevin
So I, and I’ve seen the change media option on there.
I haven’t known what it does though.
Cause I’ve, when I’ve been changing spools out, I’ve pushed on it and it didn’t seem to do anything.
Frank
Change media.
Um, I know that when I updated my, uh, Marlin, it changed from saying print from TF, I think it was the term that they use for the, the little card.
And after I updated it, it says print from media.
I think that what you’re talking about is printing or, I don’t know, changing the drive that it’s printing from or whatever, which is weird.
Um, but there should be while it is actively printing an option for you to select to change the filament while it’s running.
Kevin
Oh, I haven’t, I haven’t seen that.
I haven’t really looked for it that much though while it’s running.
Chris
Time to read the manual.
Kevin
It didn’t come with a manual.
Chris
Oh, mine did.
Mine did.
And it was all of five pages of…
Frank
legalese?
Chris
Yeah.
Kevin
Right.
Chris
useless instructions.
Kevin
I think, I think mine might have had a manual telling me how to assemble it, but that was it.
There was nothing about this is how to use it now.
Chris
Yeah.
That’s true.
Mine had assembly instructions and then it was like, Oh, and this is how you load the software.
And I’m like, this software is garbage.
Frank
Use this QR code and use our proprietary slicer.
Kevin
I guess there was a little bit of how to.
Because it said you can either put the micro SD card in the reader slot on board the printer or you can run a USB cable from your computer to plug it into the micro USB slot on the printer.
And then it said, but don’t do that because if your computer ever goes to sleep, you’ll lose the print.
Frank
I never read that anywhere.
It makes sense.
And it’s funny that they would warn you.
This feature is there, but don’t use it.
Kevin
Right.
It made me say, then why, why put the feature in there?
If you’re going to say, don’t use it.
Of course, you know, I know computers to never go to sleep.
And I know that there are other printers that have on them a way of telling the computer, I’m printing from this file right now.
Don’t go to sleep.
Chris
Yeah.
Kevin
For for Creality to say, yeah, we’re going to build in this feature to allow you to print directly from your computer, but we’re not going to tell the computer to stay awake for the duration of the print.
It’s like, why not?
Chris
And
Frank
there’s no reason.
Chris
Yeah.
I don’t get it.
My printer has both the regular USB thumb drive slot, and then it’s got the micro card slot.
And then it’s got the USB type B that, you know, like you, like you have on your normal paper printers.
And I plugged that into my computer.
My computer sees it as a COM port.
And so as long as I have my computer set not to turn off any of the COM ports, when it goes to sleep, then I have no problems.
Frank
Hmm.
Kevin
Hmm.
You know, maybe one of these days I’ll give it a try.
Frank
Mine only has the micro SD chip.
Mine only has the micro USB spot and the SD card slot.
I’ve come to appreciate, though, that my my printer is a much older model than I suspected when I bought it.
Chris
Oops.
cheap’s cheap.
Kevin
Right.
I mean, that’s, I’m pretty sure mine’s an older model.
I’m actually, I know it is, especially since it’s got that micro USB port on it, because micro USB has not been a thing of choice for a couple of years now, but it was cheap.
And it said this is one that’s great for people who are just getting into FDM printing.
Frank
Yeah.
Well, and like with mine, I felt like I did a reasonable amount of research, but at the same time, I wasn’t looking for a high end printer either.
Kevin
Right.
Frank
You know, I felt like the 400 I spent on it was a good price for the time.
And it’s stood up.
I mean, I’ve run it almost nonstop for a year and a half now.
Kevin
Nice.
Frank
And it’s been nice.
I’ve only had to replace the wheels on the carriage.
Right.
So…
Kevin
right.
Frank
And the occasional nozzle.
Kevin
Yeah.
So other stuff that I’ve done is I went on Titan craft and made a headless horseman.
Frank
I saw your, was it pictures that you shared or were you just talking about it?
I think you shared pictures, didn’t you?
Kevin
On my Facebook, I shared a link to the project on Titan craft.
Frank
Okay.
Kevin
Yeah.
So that’s what I shared, but I am now currently printing it on my SLA printer.
So I’m hoping that turns out because I was pretty pleased with what I did with it.
And I was showing it to my wife.
And when I, when I was first showing it to her, there was just a little stub of a neck poking out above the collar of the armor he’s wearing.
And she’s like, that looks cool.
Except for that little stub of a neck.
Why is that there?
And I said, because that’s as small as I could get it.
I thought about it and said that way that’s as small as I could get it with the bone limits being on.
So then I turned the bone limits off and I was able to make it shrink completely away.
Frank
There’s no bone limits.
So you pushed the neck into the torso.
Kevin
Yeah.
Chris
Oh, but that’s funny.
Actually, I’m going to be the headless horseman this year.
Yeah.
Kevin
Nice.
Chris
Very cool.
You know, because having a big chunk of my neck taken out already, you know, that was, I felt that would be appropriate this year.
Frank
Yeah.
Kevin
Yeah.
Frank
Sounds like fun.
Kevin
And then just one final thing is going back to me sucking at marketing.
I’m going to be doing a book signing event at Layton Hills Mall this Friday.
So I say I suck at marketing because by the time listeners hear this, it will be two days in the past.
Chris
After the event.
Kevin
Or by the time this episode airs, I should say, it will be two days in the past.
Chris
Well, I’ll put it on the bookey facey.
Kevin
Yeah, I will.
So that everybody who was in the podcast knows, but nobody else cares anyway.
Kevin
Right.
But yeah, that’s that’s been my week.
Can we can we throw this on the end of the episode ending tomorrow?
Then maybe we might can still get it.
Frank
That’s already up, dude.
Kevin
Yeah, it’s too late for that.
Chris
Too late.
Oh
Kevin
yeah.
Like I said, I am terrible at marketing.
So, Frank, what have you been working on?
Chris
Yeah.
Frank
I did learn something interesting.
My dad has always told me that electrons travel on the outside of a wire.
And which is why you get better.
I think it’s current when you use multiple wires or multiple wired cables.
And so I actually decided to go and do some research.
And as Mari Povic would say, that was false.
DC travels through the cross section of a wire while AC travels on the surface.
Section of the wire and tends towards the cross section, depending on frequency.
So that would be, you know, the only modifier for the AC.
And we are we do know that like DC doesn’t travel very far on wires and AC.
The reason we have AC going to everybody’s house before we trans before we change it into DC is because you can have the power plant in Central Utah and power the whole state from there rather than everybody having a battery.
Or DC charging stations central to each of the neighborhoods.
Chris
Even though we’re kind of going back toward that, lots of people are putting battery stations in their house now, but oh, and it gets better.
Frank
Everybody is charging the battery stations using solar and converting inverting it, sorry, inverting it into AC to put it on the grid.
And then when they pull it back off of the grid, they’re changing it back into DC so that they can use it in their household appliances.
Chris
Yeah, which is funny how that works.
Frank
It just happens that storing the power that you’ve collected from the sun on the grid is the easiest, you know, lowest maintenance way to do it.
So
Chris
yep
Kevin
yep.
Chris
Anyway
Frank
so besides that little tangent, I did finish the granite looking dragon from my mother-in-law came out really nice, actually.
And that was before I took it down and cleaned it up with a wire wheel on my rotary tool and made it look even more pretty.
I actually just gave it to her today and she absolutely loves it.
Kevin
Nice.
She said that she’s going to make a point of taking it to Korea with her when she goes to Korea in four months with her husband for a two-year adventure for their religion.
So that’ll be interesting all on its own.
I have been working on, I had never heard of a skink before I printed it the first time.
And my nephew asked me to print him off a skink like what I’ve got here.
Chris
Yeah, they’re fun little lizards.
Kevin
Yeah, they are.
Frank
This guy.
Chris
Yeah.
Frank
And so I’ve been trying to print off one for him and I’m still having an under extrusion issue with anything above 20 millimeters per second.
Chris
Hmm.
You know, it’s funny.
I fixed my over extrusion problem by simply printing faster and turning the temperature up just a hair.
Weird.
Frank
I operate at almost the maximum nozzle temperature for my system, kind of normally.
And I, you know, with all of the test towers I’ve done in the last week or so, the optimal temperature for me is the 250 and apparently 20 millimeters per second.
And I haven’t, I haven’t done a whole lot of research on that.
I only put the two together while I was doing the dragon in the first place and that was PETG.
So I wasn’t certain if I was going to have the same problem.
But I am.
So I’m going to.
Chris
Yam.
Frank
Yes.
I yam, I yam.
I’m Sam, I yam.
Kevin
I yam what I yam and that’s all that I yam.
Frank
That one too.
Kevin
That’s Popeye.
Frank
I do like spinach.
I just got distracted.
My brain went back to me being on the sub go figure.
Chris
But we were talking about extrusion issues.
Yeah.
Frank
Yes.
So I do need to do some research on that, see if I can figure out if anybody else has had this problem.
I’ve noticed that sometimes the internet is really helpful and sometimes it is not helpful at all.
So if I don’t find a quick and easy solution, I’m probably going to start disassembling stuff on my printer again just to see if something, you know, shakes loose.
Chris
Yeah.
Cause that doesn’t sound right at all.
Cause like I’m, I’m printing it like 205 to 210, you know, somewhere.
Like Andy was, Andy was right that, you know, with this other, with my over extrusion issues, I needed to take the temperature down quite a bit from where I had been printing.
And that fixed a lot of the problems.
And then it turns out that I needed to kick my speed up just a little bit.
And as you guys saw, my prints came out looking pretty good this week.
Kevin
Yeah.
Frank
There is the bit where the temperature difference between, you know, I got the thermostat checker and the temperature of my bed, for instance, is about five degrees Celsius below what my controller says it is.
Chris
Hmm.
Frank
And I did notice when it had cooled down that my nozzle was reading about 10 degrees different from my bed.
Kevin
Hmm.
Frank
So I wonder if, you know, the synapses are firing right now and I’m putting stuff together.
You remember a couple of weeks ago when I was cleaning some plastic off and I got the sparkly warning that I shouldn’t be fishing around behind my heat block.
I don’t remember.
I don’t think I was having trouble with my, with under-extrusion before that.
I may have screwed up my heat block or at least the sensor.
Kevin
Yeah.
Chris
Yeah, there’s the gears.
There’s the gears going.
Frank
Put that together.
That does explain a little bit.
And I don’t have money right now, so I’m just going to have to suck it up and print it 20 millimeters per second until I can figure out how to fish $20 out of the barrel and get a new heat block or at least a new sensor.
Oh, you know, if I’m going to do that, I might just replace the whole extruder assembly like I have been wanting to for a while.
This hobby is expensive.
Chris
It can be.
Kevin
Yeah.
Frank
Well, the extruder assembly that I was looking at was $60 from extruder to nozzle.
And I kind of decided that I wanted two of them so I could have one off and be cleaning it while the other one is running.
Chris
But to be fair, I did just, I just blew $60 in plastic just to print stuff for Halloween costumes and have a little leftover to do Christmas stuff.
So.
Kevin
You’re not helping to disprove that this is an expensive hobby.
Chris
I’m just saying that, you know, it’s.
Frank
I’m not convinced that he was trying to disprove that it was an expensive hobby.
Chris
I’m trying to justify, you know, blowing a little bit.
It’s not as much as, you know, what you normally spend in plastic throughout the year.
Frank
Yeah, Let’s not go there.
Chris
it’s like putting gas in your car, you know, it’s.
Kevin
Although it does this, this conversation does remind me of an email I got from Lute Studios earlier this week that.
Chris
Yeah.
Kevin
It made me laugh because they were, I don’t know exactly why they thought I needed this email, but they sent me this email that said, hey, you know, just who are we?
Well, we’re a bunch of nerds.
We are into tabletop gaming.
And that’s why we decided we’d start this company.
And we’ve determined that printing your own minifigures is much less expensive than buying pre-made minifigures from the hobby shops.
And it’s true, you know, you can accounting for the cost of the subscription, which is $15 a month and the cost of the resin and all that.
You’re looking at maybe somewhere between 30 and 50 cents per minifigure.
Frank
As opposed to buying them for anywhere from a dollar, depending on their size and material, anywhere from a dollar to, I don’t know, $200.
Kevin
Right.
Chris
At least if you make them on the regular like you do.
Kevin
Yeah.
Right.
So then they followed this all up with, so what we need to know from you is what is keeping you from getting into 3D printing.
Frank
Now I understand why you were confused.
They have you on the wrong mailing list.
Kevin
Right.
I replied to them and said, I think you might not really understand what I’m doing here because I’ve been a subscriber with you guys for many months.
I don’t know exactly how long, but I know it’s well over a year at this point.
And I said that I got my anycubic Photon S two or three months before I subscribed with Loot Studios because I was looking for inexpensive STL files to print minifigures for my games.
And then I saw these guys and saw the quality of their STLs and that they had their fantasy themed things.
And I was like, well, this just looks perfect for me.
And so I subscribed and so I told them this and then I said, in fact, I’m part of a podcast that we talk about 3D printing.
And I’ve mentioned you guys and how great you are several times on the podcast.
Frank
Oh, so this is you telling us that you got a sponsorship?
Kevin
I wish.
Frank
Actually, you know, I see Loot Studios as being since we’re already kind of broadcasting and selling their stuff, you know, their subscriptions and all that.
Anyway, if Loot Studios wants to reach out and say, we appreciate the work, here’s free subscriptions for everybody on your panel.
We’d be okay with that as a sponsorship.
We don’t need money.
Just give us, you know, access.
Kevin
Right.
Chris
Yeah.
And we toat thingivers enough to that, you know, anchor mate might.
But yeah.
Frank
Well, except for thingy versus thingy versus free anyway.
What are they going to do sponsor us for talking about stuff that we get for free from them?
That said, I guess we do encourage contributing to the artists.
So there’s that.
Chris
That I think that is more that’s that’s more important.
Yeah.
Frank
Yeah.
Interesting.
Kevin
Certainly true.
Frank
Yeah.
Kevin
So as we’re talking, I’m here still removing supports from this Rook that I printed.
I’m regretting choosing this guy as the Rook.
Frank
Can’t see enough detail.
What is it?
Chris
It looks like a dragon.
Kevin
It’s, it’s called an Ashen Shrine Titan.
Just a second.
Chris
Oh yeah.
For our visual listeners, he’s going to share a screen here.
Kevin
Yeah.
I just need to get logged into thing here.
Chris
Did we, did we talk about my failed ABS print last week?
Frank
A little bit.
It was coming off of the build plate for you.
Chris
Yep.
So I went ahead and just spent the spent the 10 bucks on the internet empire, Amazon, and got me the, because I was getting the cable connector anyway.
So, and it turns out that it was almost right, but not quite right.
I ended up having to cut some of the plastic in order to make the stereo fit.
But I, I got it all fit in this morning.
Stuff showed up Thursday.
And so last night I got all the wiring all soldered together.
I did it.
I did it proper, you know, solder and shrink tube.
So
Frank
you know, the last time I did a stereo was in that Focus I had.
And because the frame that I got was too big, I modified it with a rotary tool.
And it was made out of ABS.
So I use the ABS glue from Home Depot.
Chris
Oh yeah. For piping.
Frank
Yeah.
And it worked great and held on nice and strong and was wonderful for the car.
It actually looked like it was done on purpose.
So.
Chris
Yeah.
Mines like that too.
You can’t even see, but because I was able to remove it from the backside where the, so the, the stereo itself didn’t actually fit in because there was too much plastic.
So I just, I removed some along the bottom with my dremel, with my dremel and got it to fit kind of nice and yep.
And it’s all from the back.
So you don’t even see it when it’s in the car.
So.
Frank
Nice.
Chris
Yeah.
Frank
Well done.
Chris
Yeah.
But yeah, I will be, I will be printing ABS and nylon before too long though.
I, I’ve got like three quarters of that enclosure put together.
So.
Frank
You mentioned that you broke the door, right?
Chris
Yeah.
The Plexiglas.
I’m just going to have to redo that entirely.
I’m not happy with the way I decided to go about doing the Plexiglas in the first place.
So.
Frank
Gotcha.
Chris
Yeah.
Oh, hey.
Kevin
So this is what I decided to be the Rook, this big guy here.
It’s a, it’s a large beast thing with a wicked looking castle-like structure on its back.
Chris
Yeah.
It’s like a half mix between a monkey and a wolf and very, very spiky.
Frank
I was thinking it was, it’s probably bigger than the oliphants.
And Lord of the Rings.
Kevin
Oh yeah.
Chris
Given the size of the castle.
Frank
It’s got a little castle on its back.
Chris
Yeah.
But that’s the first thing that came to mind was, you know, the big structure on its back.
And it’s also much scrawnier.
Yeah.
Chris’ monkey.
Kevin
But it’s got all these arms on its underside here on it coming out of its belly stuff.
It’s, it’s a pretty gnarly looking critter.
Chris
Yeah lizard arms and elf arms and that’s cool.
Frank
The uh…
Kevin
Looks like a T-Rex arm here.
Chris
Yeah.
Frank
The supports on that must be.
Chris
Insane.
Frank
Undesirable.
Kevin
Yeah.
They’re.
Frank
Problematic.
Kevin
Very, very problematic.
Chris
Zoom in on me eh.
Kevin
Yeah.
Chris
Oh yeah.
So.
Time for the jewelers, jewelers tools.
Kevin
Yup.
Frank
Huh.
Chris
Do you, do you have, do you have one of those optivisors that helps you magnify it and see it a little bit better?
Kevin
I don’t.
I wish I did, but I don’t.
Chris
Yeah.
They’re worth the investment.
Yeah.
Frank
I really don’t do small work.
A whole lot.
Well, I got a couple of smaller sets of tools, but I really don’t use them as often.
Kevin
It also doesn’t really help that I scaled this way down so that it would fit on the chess board.
Frank
Mm hmm.
Because the original scale is the huge, like.
Chris
Like a moose.
Actually, let me, I can, I don’t have to share my screen for the, for it to go back to original size, but I can, let’s put this back.
So what I showed you guys was at a quarter scale and that was even bigger than what I ended up printing.
But if I take it back to a hundred percent, it is the X.
So the width of it is a hundred ninety one point four millimeters.
The Y is four hundred eighty seven millimeters and it is three hundred sixty three millimeters tall.
Chris
Wow.
So basically FDM printer size.
Frank
That is as tall as my printer will go.
Chris
Yeah.
Kevin
Yeah.
And I think it’s taller than my printer will even go.
Chris
it won’t even, it won’t even fit on my printer at all.
Yeah.
Frank
It’s only a quarter of my build plate
Kevin
right?
It wouldn’t fit on my printer either.
Frank
still that’s a lot of space
Kevin
But that’s so this thing actually comes.
And like that’s the one piece file that I downloaded comes in several pieces so you can print it in smaller chunks and then assemble it later.
But
Frank
yeah
Kevin
that wouldn’t work very well for the, for the chess board.
And so that’s why I opted for the one piece.
Frank
Gotcha.
Yeah.
Um.
That’ll be fun to clean up.
Kevin
Yeah.
Frank
You’ve got a, you’ve got your own Dremel tool, right?
Kevin
Yeah.
Frank
Okay.
Chris
Um, you know what’s great about those is they have these soft plastic brushes that help you smooth off any, any tiny fine surfaces.
So I would.
Frank
And I was.
I was just going to say the wire wheel was much better than the abrasive disc or anything like that.
For me, with the dragon.
So, and it even smoothed out like the layer lines for the most part and all that.
It was a good tool for, um, PETG.
I don’t know how it would do with the resin.
Now that I think about it.
I don’t imagine it would be too tough on the pieces though.
Um, my only concern would be with these really tiny, delicate pieces.
Frank
Yeah.
Chris
And that’s why I suggested using a, using a low speed, low speed and then the plastic brush attachment.
Kevin
Yeah.
Frank
Yeah.
I can see that.
I mean, it’s really good for, you know, just smoothing stuff off, but like, um, if you’re trying to remove like you got a little glib or something on it and trying to remove that.
Yeah.
You’re still, you’re just going to want to get some fine, fine tools and.
Yeah.
Scrape that off or something.
Kevin
Yeah.
Cause I mean with it being as at the scale I printed it, uh, some of the supports are or this, the supports are thicker than some of the actual parts of this model.
Frank
Kevin, I just had a, what I feel like is an in-character image of you go through my head which was, uh, rather than getting the magnifiers that Chris was talking about, get yourself a jeweler’s lens.
So it’s more like a monocle that you hold in with your eyebrow or you’re trying to.
Kevin
Right.
Chris
That’s called a Loop.
Kevin
Yeah the Jewler’s Loop.
Frank
Okay.
Get yourself a Jeweler’s Loop and do that instead of the magnifiers.
And make sure that you {laughs maniacally} while you’re cleaning stuff.
Chris
It’s got the three little lenses that clip down in front of it.
Nope.
Nope.
Too far.
Kevin
There you go.
Chris
I’m going to look into this box with my special robot eyes.
Frank
I know his name.
Chris
Bender.
Bender.
Frank
Bender.
That’s it.
That’s it.
Bender.
Chris
That was, that was one of the best jokes.
One of the, one of the quickest best jokes that they ever did in that series.
I’m going to look with my special robot eyes.
Kevin
Yeah.
Chris
So.
Kevin
Anyway.
Chris
Yeah.
So, um, oh, I didn’t tell, tell the listeners my adventure with the pony cake topper though.
I told, told, told you guys, you know how I had to adjust some settings and things and I had the butt print.
Kevin
Yeah.
Chris
But, um, I had tried a different pony, you know, what Pegasus, you know, rearing up on its back legs and it did great, you know, about the first half and then about halfway, a little over halfway through, um, some of the support that was printed over extruded, caught my nozzle and shifted everything a little bit.
And then right after that, spaghetti, because everything got shifted.
Frank
Right.
Chris
And so, um, and so I go, okay, well, rather than trying to, uh, adjust my settings, whatever else, you know, fix this issue.
I’m just, I’ll print the same one, but standing, standing on all fours.
Right.
And that one printed great.
It was beautiful.
Until, until I pulled it off the build plate and started cleaning it up and it D layered like way that all four legs gone and one of the wings, as soon as I tried to clean up any of the stringing, you know, that could work as a Pegasus wading through the frosting though.
Kevin
There you go.
Chris
Oh, yes, but I was trying to make something that, you know, the, they, they’d put up in the kid’s baby’s decoration room.
Right.
Frank
Oh, so yeah, I can see that.
Chris
Yeah.
I’m like, it’s a, it’s supposed to be like a little toy.
Frank
You don’t want the quadriplegic Pegasus in the kids room.
Kevin
Wouldn’t that be the quadruple amputee?
Frank
Same difference.
Kevin
Well, I mean, you hear quadriplegic and you think they’ve still got the limbs, they just can’t use them.
Frank
I guess that would, the polygic part is more paralysis than it is amputee, huh?
Kevin
Yeah.
Frank
That’s what I get for thinking about the Latin part of words.
Anyway, continue.
Chris
Okay.
So I go, okay, obviously this is too hard.
This is too hard for me and I’m approaching the deadline because I had to have it printed last night so I could make sure I had all cleaned up and ready to go to put on the cake.
My wife was decorating them this morning.
And so I found one where the pony was sitting down and it actually looked a lot more babyish, which was even better.
I was like, oh, I wish I’d found this one in the first place because it’s just, it’s so much more for a baby.
And so I decided to start printing the first couple of layers to make sure that I got my settings right.
And it turns out that with this particular plastic that has been overextruding a little bit, the solution was to print slightly hotter than I have been, which was like 205 so I moved it to 210 and print faster.
So I went from 50 millimeters a second all the way to 90 millimeters a second before I got something that adhered together really well with this particular plastic.
Strange, it’s a little counterintuitive, right?
You would think that printing faster would mean that it would not stick together as well, but…
Frank
Well, we’ve been talking about my under extrusion issue where it only resolves when I print slower.
So…
Chris
over extrusion faster would make more sense.
Frank
Yeah.
Kevin
Yeah.
Frank
Well, in an ideal world, speeding it up will speed up the way the stepper motor pushes the plastic in and overextrusion or under extrusion will remain constant.
In an ideal world.
Chris
In theory.
Obviously, theory doesn’t, isn’t always applicable, right?
That just magically fixed my plastic issue.
Frank
So Helmuth von Melkier.
No plan survives contact with opposing forces.
Moltke, not Melkier, Moltke.
Anyway, yeah.
Chris
That guy.
Frank
Yes.
No plan survives contact with opposing forces.
Kevin
Right.
Chris
Yes.
Oh.
So, did we have anything else for the listeners this week?
Because it’s about closing time.
Frank
Nothing I can think of.
Kevin
It’s closing time…
Chris
Yep.
Kevin has things and I have family things.
Frank
You don’t have to go home.
You just can’t stay home.
Kevin
Right.
I actually, yeah, I’ve got a company party to go get to at the aquarium.
Chris
Yep.
Which means you need to be leaving here at about five minutes.
So.
Kevin
Actually, though, I was talking to Jess about it and she was like, I don’t want to be there for six hours.
She’s like, go ahead, take your time.
Chris
Oh, okay.
Great.
I’m good on that then.
Because, like, my family thing starts at five.
So.
Kevin
Yeah.
So.
Frank
Well, I showed up earlier than I expected, and I wasn’t going to make a big deal out of it because I thought Kevin was going to go.
But I have something going on later this afternoon.
Kevin
Okay.
Well, I mean, we can finish.
I don’t know what else to talk about.
Frank
Well, we have spent the last five minutes talking about what we don’t know what to talk about anymore.
So.
Kevin
Right.
So.
We can end this.
Let’s end this.
Frank
End it.
Kevin
Ladies first.
Chris
TOY!
Okay.
Let’s kill the cod.
Kill the cod on the podcast.
Yes.
All right.
Frank
Cod passed?
Cod passed.
Chris
Cod passed.
Yes.
This is now our cod pass.
Frank
Because I’m lisdexic
Kevin
Somebody took a potion of confusion.
Chris
Oh.
All right.
Well, we’d like to thank everybody for listening to the end, the very end.
Frank
The very, very end.
Chris
So if you like what you hear, please give us all the stars and subscribe.
We’re available on a wide variety of vendors.
And my thing is not working.
Kevin
So are easy to share.
Chris
And so easy to share.
Frank
That just shows how much he pays attention when I’m talking.
So.
Chris
If you have.
Like I do.
And it just kind of, it’s happened so much that it just kind of.
It’s a normal thing.
So if you have feedback or if you have content requests, please let us know.
You can find us in our Facebook group Amateur3dpod.
You can also email us at panelists@amateur3dpod.com.
Or you can email us individually at Franklin, Kevin, Andy or Chris @amateur3dpod.com.
Kevin Buckner wrote the music for this episode.
Open ai’s whisper completed the heavy lifting for the transcripts, which you can find linked in the description.
Our panelists are me, Chris Webber and my friends, Kevin Buckner, Franklin Christensen and Andy was Andy cotton was off this time, but he’ll be back.
Frank
He still counts as a friend though, right?
Kevin
Yep.
Chris
Only when he’s here.
I’m just kidding.
Frank
Oh, that’s why I don’t feel left out when I miss.
Chris
All right.
Well, until next time, we’re going offline.
Kevin
Keep your FEP tight.
Frank
I can’t think of anything funny to say here.
Kevin
Chris, you took Frank’s line.
Chris
Well, if at first your prints doesn’t succeed, print and print and print and print and print again.
Frank
You already used that one.
I thought you were going to do new stuff and I was expecting myself to come up with something and then you thought blocked me.
Chris
Got to recycle them.
Frank
Whatever.
Kevin
I thought the 3d printing materials weren’t recyclable.
Chris
Oh, good one.
Okay.
Well, how about this one?
You can love your printer.
Just don’t love your printer.
Frank
No, that’s going to get cut out.
Chris
Okay.
Cool.
Oh, take, love your printer.
Take care of it.
Yeah.
Frank
Yes.
Kevin
There you go.
Frank
That one.
We got there eventually.
I guess we always do, right?
Kevin
Yep.
Chris
Yeah.
All right.
Von Craig, we shall turn you off.
Kevin
Die, Craig.