Frank
Thank you for joining us.
This is episode 61 of Amateur 3D Podcast, a podcast by amateur printers or amateur printers, where we share our thoughts and experience.
Our panelists this week are me, Franklin Christensen and my friends, Chris Weber, Andy Cottam and Kevin Buckner.
Good morning, guys.
Kevin
Hello.
Andy
Hello.
Frank
Bright-eyed and bushy-tailed.
Chris
Bushy something.
Frank
I guess Andy’s the only animal in the group, so he’s the only one that’s bushy-tailed.
Andy
How y’all doing?
I think I just said that, though.
Frank
You know, the decision fatigue is taking its toll, but you know, that’s life.
Andy
Yeah.
That’s true.
Frank
C’est la vie.
Chris
I got the hickey ups.
So I’m on muddy half the time.
Andy
You’re okay.
Frank
Yeah, I said high cough earlier and got really close to talking about how English does some things because French didn’t take over the UK as a more common, higher level language until some words had already shifted.
So there’s some words that are genuinely middle English or even older that have their original pronunciation with a little bit of a consonant shift.
And some of them that were taken over by French in the beginnings of, as they approached modern English.
So it’s just funny little things with the English language that’s goofy as hell.
Andy
Yeah.
Makes sense.
Chris
Yeah.
Andy
It is a little on the stranger side.
Chris
Like Rendezvous?
Frank
Yeah.
Probably.
I think that’s a French word.
Kevin
Yes, it is.
It’s Rendez-Vauss.
Frank
Ah.
Yes.
Chris
Yeah.
It has lots more letters than are actually pronounced.
Frank
Wouldn’t that make it more Italian?
Kevin
No.
Chris
No.
That would make more French.
Andy
Oh, it was Russian that was really good with the unpronounced letters.
Kevin
Well, Russian Cyrillic.
So I don’t know how to read that because I say one way or the other.
But…
Frank
yeah, they don’t even use Roman numerals or letters at that point.
Kevin
Right.
Andy
Good point.
Kevin
Now, when I was on my mission, there was a missionary that I was on splits with from France and we had a good rapport.
And so I asked him, why is it that, and actually I think he brought up the, how many unpronounced letters exist in French.
And so I said, yeah, why is it that you guys only pronounce half your letters?
And he said, it’s because of the monks.
Because back in the Middle Ages, medieval times, the monks were the only ones who knew how to read and write.
And so they were the ones everybody had to go to for any kind of legal document, birth certificate, death certificate, marriage license, any of that they had to go to the monks.
And the monks were paid by the letter, knowing that nobody else knew how to read or write.
They just decided, you know what, we’re going to add some extra letters to some of these words and nobody’s going to know any different.
Frank
And they’re the ones that defined how those words were spelled, ultimately.
Chris
Yeah.
And on the opposite side of it, on the English channel, the monks were not paid per whatever.
So they took God be with you and shortened it down to goodbye, God be why, E.
So, and now that’s how we got goodbye.
Because they were like, I’m sick of writing all this stuff all the time, over and over and over again.
And they weren’t getting anything extra out of it.
So obviously, they just shortened it to God be ye, which is now goodbye.
Frank
Yeah.
And actually, granted, most of my education on this comes from The History of English podcast.
But he’s talking about how the, where I am right now, he’s talking about how the aristocracy saw it as more appropriate to use French for all the legal stuff and that the monks, once again, since they were the only ones that, and that’s Kevin tuning his FEP.
Kevin
Yep.
Frank
The monks, you know, mostly spoken red French, because they were placed there by French aristocracy.
So there was a time where French was the official language of UK, even though the be less, I guess they were still peasants even then.
The peasants still generally spoke English, but they weren’t French, kind of as a, what’s the word, um, two languages in their household
Kevin
bilingual
Frank
bilingual.
Yeah.
They learned French and English together and kind of like how in the U S, especially in the lower states, um, there’s a lot of Spanish influence.
So people speak a, it’s actually called a pigeon language, where some of the words are Spanish and some of them are English.
Chris
Oh yeah.
You get that in Canada too.
And it’s except with English and French.
Frank
Yeah.
We call it Spanglish in the U S.
Andy
Yeah.
Frank
Um, but yeah, that’s also how we get things like Ebonics and that sort of thing too.
So eventually it becomes more of a dialect than a pigeon language like a Spanglish is though.
Kevin
And that’s how we end up with Papiaments or Papiamentu.
Frank
I don’t know this word.
Kevin
What is the common language in, um, the Dutch Caribbean.
Frank
Ah
Kevin
so those people, uh, the official language is Dutch.
So they have to learn that, but the common language is Papiamento.
So they, they learned that in their household.
And then they also frequently also learn English in school.
Cause there’s no way to get away with.
Chris
What do you mean by those people?
Kevin
Meaning the people who are
Frank
The folks that live there.
Chris
I’m, I’m Joshing ya.
Okay.
Frank
Yeah.
Um, so anyway, I guess I’m the one at fault for, uh, leading us astray this time.
Chris
Yeah.
You let us go astray.
Andy
No biggie.
Frank
We do have a 3D podcast.
Andy
Yeah, we were doing that, weren’t we?
Frank
Yeah, that was kind of the intention anyway.
Chris
Yeah.
Frank
Chris, did you do anything this week?
Chris
Um, actually this week has been a busy week for me away from the printer.
So my, my poor little sister, her, her engine stopped working.
I ordered a new engine for it like two months ago and my engine supplier just barely got the engine in like yesterday and her, her engine died.
Yeah.
Her engine died last weekend.
So we got it.
Don’t do my place.
So I started working on getting the engine out.
So yeah, I’ve been doing that and, um, uh, work has been a little bit busy for me this week too.
So cause yeah.
So I’m, I’m the standalone, uh, night shift guy and the day shift lead has been sick all week.
So I’ve been taking on a lot of the stuff that he’s not been able to do because he’s not there.
Frank
Unfortunately, one of those positions where you have to be there to do the job.
Chris
Yeah.
Like I can do just about anything he can do and vice versa.
But so like when he’s, but it’s just me and him that can do those sorts of things.
So when he’s gone, I’ve got to step up.
Andy
Okay.
Chris
Yeah.
What does make things a little stressful?
Chris
Yeah.
I wouldn’t say it’s stressful.
I mean, like again, I like this job.
The job itself is like never stressful, but it’s been time, time consuming this week.
Yeah.
Andy
Really?
Frank
Lots of iterations.
That’s fair.
So did you get anything done with your printer or has it all been consumed?
Time comsumed by other things?
Chris
Okay.
So amid all of this, I decided to tackle the mountain that I tried before, um, and print these, this, uh, articulated dragon for
Frank
Oh yes, yes.
Chris
So I can have it ready for her birthday in like two weeks.
Andy
That is kind of fun.
Chris
Um, yeah.
And I, I failed twice and then I got about 10% through the print and had issues again.
And I realized this last time I was trying to print it that I did the dumb thing.
Um, so, you know, I, I, I cleaned my, my print bed, you know, really, really well and everything and started my print.
I forgot to use the dang hairspray to make it all stick.
So I got 10% way through the print and some of the stuff started coming off of my bed with this particular plastic I got, I was trying to use.
So I’m going to be, I’m, uh, be using the hairspray and, uh, try it again.
So, so I’ve been trying, but got nowhere this week.
Andy
Yeah.
Chris
It’s been in my way.
Andy
And the busy week, the busy time of the year for chores and stuff that get in the way of hobbies.
Frank
Interesting.
How that works out, huh?
You would think that as things get cooler, you would have less to do outside, but no, that’s not how that works.
Andy
no kidding, right?
Chris
Yeah.
Well, and it’s always without fail that like car problems always happen like in the right when it starts getting cold.
Andy
Yeah.
Chris
Yeah.
Frank
Well, is that it then?
Chris
So I’m over.
Yeah.
Frank
You’re over.
Chris
Yep.
I’m over.
I’m done.
Bye-bye.
I’ll go to sleep now.
Frank
You, you just
Chris
yes
Frank
Andy, did you do anything this week?
Andy
Um, uh, kind of some things.
You’re right.
Yeah.
Frank
Did you get your SLA printer up?
Andy
No, no, I, I’m still got the living room downstairs here that I would like to clean up and put a desk in place, but I, right now there’s a lot going on at the house here too, or we’re getting all of our windows done, redone in the entire house.
And so I’m kind of preparing for that.
A lot of the windows stups in my home are pretty old and the paint’s pretty messed up and since the new windows get mounted to the, you know, the frame around the window there, I want the, the stups to be freshly painted and things so that when they go to caulk the windows in place and stuff that they will still well and not have any problems there.
So I’ve been running around, you know, sanding and repainting all the, all the windows stups in the house, the frame around the window and getting all those done.
So that’s kind of occupied a lot of my time.
And then like you say, it’s getting colder out.
So things like blowing out the sprinklers and the last mow of the year and all that kind of stuff, getting the snow blower up and going and changing oil and stuff has taken up a lot of my, a lot of my project time.
I haven’t done anything with my model that I’m creating from my sandworm skeleton since well, like for two weeks now, I haven’t touched it.
I need to get some of that done, but, you know, there’s more important stuff currently on the table.
I did have a 3D printing adjacent.
I did have my, my son came to me the other day and, and he’s really big into Five Nights at Freddy’s and he wanted to make a card game.
He’s 10.
And so he puts himself together a card game in Word and print, we printed it out on card stock paper and then, you know, cut it out.
Chris bought me for a gift quite a few years ago, a big, like the old school paper cutters that, you know, that we had back when we were in grade school
Frank
the ones that they wouldn’t let us use for fear that we would lose a finger?
Chris
The Cuchunkachunk
Andy
Yeah
The Cuchunkachunk
And so we use that to cut out the cards.
And that was really kind of nice and left, you know, it leaves really good edges and things, but then my son decided he wanted them to look a little bit more like normal cards and wanted the rounded chamfered edges.
And so he went after the cards with a pair of scissors and absolutely destroyed all the work and got upset at himself and frustrated because it just didn’t work out.
So I told him, you know, tomorrow we’ll reprint them and we’ll try again.
And this time, instead of using the big Cuchunkachunk, we got the laser cutter out and cut the cards out with the laser cutter so we could have the real nice rounded corners and stuff like that.
Frank
That sounds like it would work real well.
Chris
Oh, I thought this was going to be a dangerous, bad thing, but apparently it’s not.
Andy
But it, um, you know, after we got all the cards cut out, when you put them in the stack, it’s, it’s pretty impressive on how much that stack looks like it was factory cut.
It’s not the absolute perfect that you see in like a brand new deck of cards.
But it is like an older deck of cards.
Frank
Okay.
Andy
So everything is still nice and flush.
It’s not like freshly cut and perfect, but it’s pretty darn close.
And they look like cards and that worked out really well.
I’m finding a lot of uses for that laser cutter.
It’s been a neat toy to have.
And, um
Frank
The more I think about it.
I think that normal game cards are usually cut with a die, aren’t they?
Andy
Yeah, I think so.
I would be surprised if it’s something else just because the die would be so much quicker.
Frank
And, you know, the technology has been around for a while.
Andy
Yeah.
And with my laser cutter there, it took a, let’s see, he had six cards per piece of paper and they’re just letter size card stock.
And to cut out those six cards took a minute and like 35 seconds.
It was something like that with the settings I got.
Frank
Yeah.
When you have a die, you can run a whole sheet like that through in half a second
Andy
but for the, the at home project, you know, it was, it was nice to be able to use that.
Um, now the, the laser cutter I got is what you’ve got etching lasers that are around like usually under one and a half Watts and then you got the start of your cutting lasers that are like five almost six Watts.
And then you got 10 Watts, 20 Watts and 40 Watts.
And you don’t really get bigger than 40 Watts on diode lasers.
Frank
Okay.
Andy
And, uh, before you start moving into fiber and CO2 lasers and the ones that are capable of like
Frank
commercial scale.
Andy
yeah, but, uh, so we got a 10 and, uh, uh, it’s capable up to be able to run a 20 watt and Creality does make a 40 watt their Falcon 40 watt one.
And, uh, that’s got me kind of interested.
The only trouble is, is it’s $1,000 and that’s more than I want to pay.
Frank
Just for the head or is that for the whole apparatus?
Andy
It’s for the whole apparatus, okay, which there’s not a whole lot to the gantry system in these things.
So, I mean, the whole gantry is 50 to $100 maybe without the laser.
All the money is in the laser itself.
So…
Frank
And that’s the, uh, that’s the same extruded aluminum that we have in our printers, right?
Andy
Exactly.
Yeah.
It’s, it’s designed the exact same way, same kind of belt, same kind of steppers, everything’s identical to our printers.
At least that’s the way Creality made the, uh, the one that I have.
Um, but, uh, you know, I did put it on my list of, uh, things to look through whenever I check eBay to see if I can find a used one.
I don’t have a reason for a more high powered laser.
This 10 Watts been doing everything I’ve needed it to do, but I can get a 40 watt, I, um, I can start cutting like sheet metal and stuff with it.
That’s powerful enough to do like thin sheet metal.
Chris
So, well, maybe not even the laser, maybe not even the whole, uh, assembly itself, just keep an eye out just for the laser head.
Andy
Uh, yeah, I would have to make sure that it works the same way that, that this one’s designed to work.
Um, because like I said, most of the price is in the laser itself.
So if I were just to buy the laser, I’m pretty close to just buying a whole machine by, you know, a hundred bucks or so.
So it’s not that big of a difference, but, um, I know the laser on this machine here is very simple.
You put power to it and a PWM signal controls the strength and that’s all there is to it.
So if most of the lasers are like that, I should be able to put any kind of laser on that gantry, but again, the gantry itself isn’t really a cost part of it.
So I might be luckier buying a used complete unit that someone bought and then doesn’t know how to use and then sells kind of like what I think happened to mine.
Cause when I bought this one, it was 200 bucks on eBay and it was like brand new.
There was like no signs of any, any use on it at all.
So I’m kind of looking to see if, uh, any of the bigger ones could come around that if I could score one for, you know, 400 bucks or something, I might jump at that.
Frank
There is a curiosity of the whole thing where I can see someone buying it thinking they would do more with it.
Andy
Yeah.
Frank
And then end up not using it as much as they thought they would.
I know I do some tools.
So…
Andy
yeah.
And it’s, you know, with the skill that we have with our, um, 3d printers, we know that how like the gantry system works and kind of how to use something like that and it’s, it’s easy, but if you remember back before you got your 3d printer, if you were just walking into it off the street with no experience, that’s kind of a big step to get something like that up and running and to know what it’s capable of and to be able to utilize the software properly.
That’s another thing.
I haven’t found too many, um, software.
I got Light Burn for this one and it does pretty decent, but getting like a cut down to the right measurements and things is kind of a little bit more difficult and I’ve gone to just jumping into, um, solid works and creating a sketch there because, you know, you can do dimensions and however you want to make a sketch and then I could just export that sketch into Light Burn and burn that, you know, with, with the dimensions as is perfectly and that’s been working great.
So, you know, my, my system has been draw it out and solid works, move it over to Light Burn and then just run it and, uh, and it’s, it’s, it’s been quite a nice tool.
Um, I think I would recommend if you guys get the option, a cheap option to get a machine like that, that it is worth having.
It’s kind of, it’s 3d printer adjacent.
Definitely it covers a lot of those kind of same, you know, reasons you would use a laser cutter.
Frank
Well, and you know, you say it’s, we’ve got experience with it.
And Kevin is a self-professed, non-mechanically minded person, but he picked up his, uh, FDM printer fairly quickly.
Obviously we’ve been doing the podcast for a while.
So I suspect that you learned, gleaned some ideas for how to approach it, but there’s no accounting for actually putting your hands on it and figuring it out and Kevin figured it out fairly quickly.
So.
Andy
Yeah.
Frank
And of course we were here to help with the pointer, but most of that was you doing all the work there, Kev.
Kevin
Yup.
Chris
So it’s just a bubble jet times three.
Andy
No Kidding.
Frank
Fair.
Andy
It’s good to have.
It’s become a tool that is, is useful for even doing simple things.
Like I wanted to three hole punch something.
I could do it with that or, you know, anything like I mean, stupid stuff.
Frank
I didn’t realize that we were going to get into the realm of things, not to do with your printer, but, uh
Chris
we’re going to go with things not to do with your laser cutter now.
Right?
Frank
Yeah.
We’re going to have, don’t not
Chris
don’t mount it to a shark head and put it in your fish tank.
Frank
Oddly, I did have an interesting thought because technically what we have is the two and a half D it’s not really 3D printing.
It’s two and a half D.
Andy
Yeah.
Frank
Cause it’s all layers.
You have your, your laser cutter and you can iterate through the thickness of whatever you’re cutting and build something that way.
Andy
Yeah.
Do subtractive manufacturing.
You are very correct.
It would take a little while.
Frank
It would take a lot of iterations and you’d have to change the medium it’s cutting for each layer, but you could do it.
Andy
Yeah.
Kevin
Yeah.
Andy
You probably could.
Chris
I’d rather buy it.
I’d rather buy a CNC mill.
Andy
That’s true.
For the amount of effort involved, it’d be worth the money.
Frank
Yeah.
Nobody ever accused us of being especially, uh, efficient.
We’re doing here though.
Kevin
That is a good point.
Chris
Yeah.
Frank
Was that it there, Andy?
Andy
Nah, I am intrigued though to be able to cut sheet metal with something like that.
Right now I use a
Frank
The 40 watt.
Andy
Yeah.
Right now I use a piece of sheet metal for the, the base that I cut on to make sure I don’t hurt anything I’m cutting, you know, don’t want to accidentally cut through something or burn down a house or.
Yeah.
That would be nice to have something that could cut sheet metal like that.
Back to the whole CNC thing.
Maybe it would be better to move to a, a CNC machine for stuff like that.
But I don’t know, I got to get enough use out of the new toy here before I move on to the next one, the next things.
Chris
He’s too good for tin snips.
Frank
Can you imagine taking a laser etcher on the job site just so that you could cut the, the, the ducting just right before you install it.
Andy
Oh yeah that would, that would be so slow.
Frank
That would be so time intensive
Chris
You’d be so fired.
Andy
No kidding.
No kidding.
Yeah.
I think that’s all I got.
I, I haven’t really done much more than that.
Um, yeah, the cards I did with my son is the only like 3d thing I’ve done this whole week and as far as plans, there ain’t none, you know, we’re coming up on Thanksgiving next week and, um, so we’re focusing mostly on that.
So I doubt I’m really going to get any 3d printing stuff really done this week.
So that’s, uh, that’s fine.
And we’ll probably be next week’s too, uh, when we go to record of, you know, yeah, I didn’t, I didn’t do anything with my 3d printer this last week either.
Frank
That’s fair.
All right.
Well, Kevin
Kevin
yes
Frank
did you do anything this week?
Kevin
I did.
I did.
I did.
So I finished the, um, the prototype of the, uh, shelf for the spices that my wife had requested.
Um, and I, I put a picture up on the discord and also on the, uh, on the Facebook page there to show off what I did.
And it’s just, I think it’s great that I did the whole thing in blender.
Andy
Yeah.
Kevin
Like kind of had to muddle my way through figuring stuff out for blender, but I’m pleased with how it worked out.
And I…
Frank
that’s how you learn.
Really learn stuff anyway.
Kevin
Right.
Chris
Yeah.
The more, the more you muddle through, the more you learn.
Kevin
And, uh, thanks.
And, uh, the, uh, um, I ended up changing what I was doing partway through because, um, the, when I was trying to do the whole long tongue and groove, um, in to go the entire width of the shelf, it, um, was sagging because the printer was trying to just bridge the entire thing laterally instead of going diagonally, um, and just kind of hanging over.
So what I ended up doing was making a series of, um, recessed, um, slots that were spaced one centimeter apart.
And then there was like a centimeter between them.
And then I printed up little tab things that I could glue into those slots.
And they were twice the depth of the slot so that I had them going parallel on each piece of it and finished it out that way.
Andy
Okay.
Frank
Um, there’s a, uh, in the, the carpentry world, those are called biscuits.
Kevin
Yes.
Frank
And you just route out both pieces and then put the biscuit in and put them together.
It works real well.
So, um, good, uh, good, uh, planning on that one.
Looks like it worked out real well.
Andy
Yeah.
Chris
Yeah.
It looks like a, it looks like a cemetery fence.
It’s really cool.
Frank
I do have a question.
How are, are you accounting for the weight on the shelf?
Like, are you going to have supports that go underneath it?
Kevin
Uh, so we’re, we’re going to try it with what I’ve done with the, uh, the mounting bracket being above first.
And if that fails, then we’ll cross that bridge when we get there.
Frank
Okay.
Um, and honestly, a lot of that question comes from, I tend to overengineer everything because I don’t want, I want it to survive an earthquake in 10,000 years.
You know
Chris
yeah, I tend to burn those bridges after I cross them and, you know…
Frank
at least you do that before you cross them, Chris.
Chris
Um, yeah, before.
So cross the bridge and burn it behind you.
Andy
Uh, it’s like the same way Chris tries to get out of the garage.
You hit the garage door button and then try to slide under the garage as it’s closing.
So there’s Chris walking across the bridge with gasoline, pouring it down.
But once he gets to the other side, he goes back to the starting location, lights on fire, then tries to run across while it’s going down around him.
Frank
Hmm.
Yeah, that does explain a little bit.
Andy
There’s part of me that would love to do that right now.
I don’t know where that thought came from, but…
Frank
the part of your character that’s terrifying Andy.
Chris
You know?
nobody knows where thoughts come from, they’re just there.
Kevin
So other things, um, I’ve started printing yet another tube rack because they’re just so wonderful.
And I’ve had some downtime at work because of a, uh, an exploded outlet that, um, has taken part of an essential piece of equipment out of commission.
Um, so yeah, I, uh, I’m going to have some back build up of specimens.
I mean, I already do.
So I’m printing yet another tube rack there.
And then you guys heard earlier that I was tuning my FEP because I just changed my FEP today, thinking that that’s probably why I’ve been having failures recently.
Um, so I’m now attempting to reprint the, um, horseless headsman.
And, uh, after changing the FEP, now it’s been quite a while since I have changed the FEP, uh, to give you an idea of how long it has been, um, there was glitter in the corners of the FEP when I was changing it.
So…
Frank
from when you were trying to mix it in before.
Kevin
Yeah.
Andy
Okay.
Frank
Was that almost last Christmas.
Kevin
Yeah.
So it was, it was actually prior to last Christmas.
So it’s been over a year, like well over a year since I’ve changed the FEP.
So I’m, I’m thinking it’s probably time.
And then when I took it out, I realized that there was some cured resin sticking to the screen of my thing.
So, um, obviously, um…
Frank
like there was a leak or something.
Kevin
And yeah, there was a leak somewhere.
So I had to scrape that off of the screen.
Andy
And did it come off okay without any damage to the screen?
Kevin
Yeah.
Andy
I’ve just heard nightmare stories of people, you know, rupturing their FEP and then it’s just going all over the machine.
Kevin
And, oh, it is, it is pretty awful when it happens, but still, it’s not too hard to clean up, right?
Frank
So… having the rubber spatulas saved you a year’s worth of printing.
Plus, so good deal.
Andy
That is good.
Well, what about you, Frank?
Have you done anything new with your printer?
Frank
Uh, I did get a couple of test prints with my new, uh, hardware and it wasn’t giving me any different readings with that, with those test prints.
And I was getting before, so it was kind of hard to judge.
Andy
Okay.
Frank
I did end up printing, um, reprinting rather a, uh, a thing that I did for Halloween, which was that skull with the octopus tentacles all over it.
Andy
Okay.
I do.
Frank
And the, the reprinting it with the new hardware, it was factors better than the previous time.
Um, still the odd, you know, a little under extrusion line here and there, but not nearly as bad as it was before.
Andy
Okay.
Frank
Um, and, something, you remember me talking about printing the lizard for my nephew, the sink.
Yeah, skink, sink, whatever.
I can’t remember how to say it even
Chris
Skink
Kevin
Skink
Chris
With a K
Frank
the first K or the second K
Kevin
Chris
both.
Chris
Jinx.
Frank
Anyway, um, and so I offered to print him off a dragon and ran that off for him this week.
Um, I, I like this game, but the, uh, the loops that hold it together are really super thin and the kid tends to be kind of tough on his toys.
So I figured, uh, print him off something that’s a little more, um, durable.
Yeah.
Let’s see if it’ll last a little longer.
Um, well, I love this kid.
He’s great, but, uh, he tried to talk me into printing him off stuff for his friends too.
And I’m like, no, what, and my wife was like, well, they, they need to have an uncle Frank to do it for them.
He’s not going to be their uncle Frank.
It’s like, I guess I did have become that uncle.
Um
Andy
that’s good.
That’s a good place to be in a family.
Frank
Yeah.
I, I like being there.
Um, the last thing that I printed is a, uh, you know, the see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil.
Andy
Yeah.
Frank
Um, I found some frogs.
Andy
Oh, okay.
Cool.
Chris
Oh yeah.
Yeah.
Okay.
Yeah.
I’ve seen those, uh, on various, um, uh, in flower gardens.
Yes.
In various flower gardens.
Andy
Yes.
Frank
So my brother is a big fan of the C no evil, speaking of evil here in a week of stuff and I’ve been, I tried printing it off for him once.
Yeah.
And I wasn’t happy with that.
It was like three, four months ago.
I tried printing it off.
So I printed a new rendition or a new print with all my new hardware and they came out looking great.
Um, still got a little bit of post.
I think I’m going to paint them, which I’m, I’m not accustomed to with my prints yet.
Andy
Yeah.
Frank
Um, but I think it’ll be a fun thing to give my brother for Christmas and so I’ll get that project done.
And that’s all I’ve done with my printer.
I say all, but, uh, I think this week I did more than everybody else collected.
Well, no, not more than Kevin.
Kevin did a lot, but more than Andy and Chris for sure.
Andy
Yeah.
Yeah.
I that you definitely did.
Frank
So yeah, me and Kevin are the printers and you guys are just here for emotional support this week.
Andy
I like to talk.
Chris
I just made failures.
Frank
I hadn’t noticed that you like to talk there, Andy.
Andy
I like to talk.
I never learned to keep my mouth shut and just listen.
Frank
I mean, I can pretend to be, I can pretend to be surprised, Andy.
Andy
There’s still that little kid up here who whenever he’s with his friends, wants to show them all of his toys show and tell every single time.
So that never left me either.
Frank
That’s part of why we love you, honestly.
Andy
Look what I got.
Look what I can do.
Frank
I will admit to being envious of you more often than not and trying to cover for it, but, uh
Andy
you shouldn’t be.
You haven’t seen the negatives from this side.
Frank
Well, and that’s the problem with all kinds of broadcasting, right?
Social media, you get to look at everybody else’s highlight reel and compare it to your blooper reel.
Andy
Yeah, no kidding.
Isn’t that the truth!
Chris
Nope.
Gave up on that in the end.
Frank
Chris is the smartest one of all of us.
He doesn’t do social media.
Andy
Yeah, I’ve kind of given up on the social media too.
I mean, our discord is like the only real place.
I kind of share stuff with anybody.
Frank
So I did recently get really frustrated with Facebook.
Andy
Yeah.
I saw some of your posts on that.
What was happening?
Frank
I got after I blocked and removed, um, advertisements, I had basically three full pages, four full pages without anybody in my feed, just advertisement.
Andy
No kidding.
Chris
Wow.
Frank
And that’s after they were blocked.
So they were the shorter notices saying that this has been blocked.
Andy
Yeah.
Wow.
Chris
Yeah.
Frank
And it’s like, this is not why I’m on Facebook guys.
Kevin
Right.
Chris
Yeah.
I, I, I put a piehole on my network just because advertisements are so sucking nightmares.
Frank
Yeah.
Kevin
They really are.
Frank
And, and, you know, the odd intrusion is not like the end of the world to me.
But when I spend more time going past the advertisements that don’t have any relevance to me than I do looking at the posts that I care about.
That’s when I started getting irritated.
Andy
Yeah.
Chris
Like, like we grew up with a five, with a five minute advert interruption every 15 minutes worth of TV that we, you know, had.
Frank
And that was kind of the standard, right?
Chris
That was the standard.
We learned to accept that, you know, there’s, there’s ads that we’re going to have to deal with them or whatever else.
But, um, I’ve noticed that…
Frank
Sometimes you need to go to the bathroom in the middle of a show.
So it was nice.
Kevin
Yeah.
Chris
So we’re both ways, but, um, I’ve noticed that as I’ve gotten older, it’s the ads have just become more and more and more intrusive.
Kevin
Yeah.
Kevin
Like they’ve been becoming, um, in every aspect of my life, every time I turn around, there’s more, there’s more ads than there used to be.
And it’s, it’s, it’s infuriating almost, you know, and that’s why every chance I get, I put ad blockers on as much of my stuff as possible.
I use, uh, browsers that have built-in ad blockers and so on and so forth.
It’s just, just so that I can get some relief, you know, it’s not that I don’t like, I mean, it’s not that I don’t mind ads.
I, I’ll put up with a certain amount of ads, but there’s just so many of them that.
Andy
Yeah.
It’s bad.
Frank
Yeah.
I’m reminded of the minority report after he gets the new eyes and he’s going through the mall and he just gets bombarded by the, the advertisements for everything.
It’s like
Chris
oh yeah.
Frank
You know, that’s where we are.
Andy
Yeah.
You guys see the black mirror where, uh, he’s, he’s, the guy’s just living his life and ads, like he has to watch the ad, the TV knows, even when he’s looking at the TV and will pause the ad if you look away and things where you’ve got to have your attention on the ad to get past the ad.
Frank
Probably it, it’s been a while since I’ve watched black mirror.
That’s not the new season though.
Is it?
Andy
That’s a no, no, it’s an old one.
Frank
Okay.
Andy
It did occur to me is the black mirror, get their name from what our phones look like when they’re off.
I heard that somewhere and it’s like, that makes a lot of sense.
Cause it is kind of more like technological turmoil that they do, but, but I kind of liked that because then I got thinking like that is definitely a black mirror, you know, kind of cool.
Frank
Yeah.
I, it’s feasible.
How about that?
Yeah.
I accept that as a description of how they got the name.
Um, I did sit down and try to rewatch from the beginning and I struggled to get past episode one.
Andy
Yeah.
Every, anybody who won, who’s never seen black mirror, skip episode one, save that for the last.
Frank
It is not a good example of what it is.
Heavy.
It’s a good episode, but it is heavy.
Andy
I don’t know if you thought that was like, I can understand them doing it at some point to be edgy, but that is so edgy.
Well, that’s how you, that’s how you stop people who you don’t want to watch your show from watching the show.
Chris
And that’s how you grab the diehards.
Yeah.
Andy
It’s a good point.
Oh, uh, 3d printing thing.
I, I did come across, um, this last, what was it?
Thursday or Friday?
Um, I was at work and I came across somebody who, uh, had a mailbox in their front yard where the weed eater was kind of destroying the bottom of their woodpost, their mailbox, and they had 3d printed, like two, uh, C shape.
Uh, I don’t know what you’d call it, shells that could go around the post.
And, uh, it was kind of neat to see 3d printing in the wild.
I, I think it was made out of, uh, um, PETG, it looks like, it looks like they were using something even bigger than a 0.6 nozzle.
It looks like it might’ve been a full millimeter.
It was huge.
And, um…
Frank
and I, I, when I was looking at larger nozzles there for a minute, um, they get huge, they get big nozzles for…
Andy
yeah, yeah, no kidding.
I bet it printed fast, but yeah, at that point, you’re not like trying to hide the fact it’s 3d printed.
You’re kind of embracing it when you use nozzles that big.
Frank
Well, the print you’re talking about looked like it was easily a centimeter thick too.
Andy
Yeah.
Yeah.
It was, it was pretty thick.
One impressive thing though, the screws that he used to mount it were very rusted out.
That means it’s been there for a little while and it’s, it’s been lasted.
So, I mean, it’s, it’s his own thing.
It was definitely probably not something he found on Thingiverse.
I’m saying he, it could be a she, um, they found on Thingiverse.
I, it looks like they may have designed it themselves for this purpose.
So that’s kind of neat to see in the wild too.
I looked around their house a little bit to see if there was, yeah, yeah, it was simple, but, you know
Frank
no, and, you know, I, I, I didn’t mean to be derogatory there.
Some of the best prints I’ve ever done were just rudimentary little things.
So
Andy
yeah.
And when it, when it, when it comes to doing, um, CAD software, there’s like, as you’re learning CAD, prints like this or, or designs like this are like your 80% level, you know, it’s like you get nothing, but unable to do anything at all until you get up to like 80% of understanding it to where you can produce that.
And then it’s only from that 80% to 100% you get to go, it just explodes with capability
Frank
More advanced and you realize how much you still have to learn.
And yeah, yeah, don’t utilize the software any more than maybe 10% of what it’s capable of doing.
Andy
Yeah, yeah, but that’s like the biggest part of, of learning it.
If he’s capable of doing that, then he’s not too far away of being fully capable of, you know, taking whatever’s in your head and putting it in a model.
So
Frank
yeah
Andy
it was kind of neat to see.
I haven’t seen anything like that in the wild that was, um, that looked like it was a DIY 3D print, you know, there’s a lot of people selling stuff and stuff like that.
My, my kids even had one of their trick or treating treats was a cute little 3D printed spider that somebody made.
It was printed pretty decent quality.
Yeah, it wasn’t bad.
It was probably about the same quality I could produce, but I don’t know if I could produce it in mass quantities, that quality.
So I think they got a slightly better machine to me, but it looked good.
It was dual color too, which at first I was looking at that because it was a spider and the eyes were a different color than the body.
And I was thinking God, that’s really cool.
They got a dual color printer to be able to do that.
And that’s not anything I’ve even really looked into.
But then when I was kind of looking at the eyes, they’re facing straight, but the layer lines are perfectly, you know, pointing the same direction of the eyes and then it occurred to me.
Oh, those are separate and were glued on.
That’s a good way to do.
I mean, that’s a completely doable thing to do with 3D print multiple colors.
I don’t know what I thought about it.
Chris
If you do want to do multiple colors, there was a link I sent you guys on the chat where there is a company that’s making a, basically it’s a carriage replacement for just about any 3D printer and it’ll do four colors in at the same time.
They’ve got a couple of different ways to do the multi colors that I’ve seen pass through.
I only have black and white filament anyway.
I, there’s a couple, couple times I’ve gotten colors, but it’s kind of rare for my printing needs.
Frank
Um, you remember me talking about Adam Savage’s set up, right?
Andy
Yeah.
I think he’s got like a tool changer or something, doesn’t he?
Frank
I think the, his machines are like what Chris was talking about where they’ve got the four extruders in the top.
And the way it works for him is when it’s going to change colors, it’ll go back to a behind the build plate and run the new filament through long enough to get the old color out and then drop it off.
And part of the video that I saw of him working on it was he, cause they just have little, you know, itty bitty little bins in the back of the printer.
Andy
Yeah.
Frank
He wanted to, because he had two of them, he wanted to catch all of the waste and put it into a big bin that he had to change maybe once a print instead of, you know, for the print volume instead of every five minutes.
Andy
That makes sense.
Frank
Um, but yeah, they, they, they’re interesting.
And I like the, the whole idea of why don’t we just use one nozzle and have gears on the extruder.
It’s still one motor it looks like, but the, depending on which in, or you can choose which extruder is engaged.
So that’s the only one pushing filament through instead of, um, yeah.
So…
Andy
but those are only Bowden systems too, right?
Frank
Um, I think it would have to be a Bowden system.
Yeah.
Because well, no, the, the, that extruder is right on top of the nozzle.
So it’s a direct drive, but they’re, it’s still drawing through a Bowden too on the backside because you can’t store all of the filament necessarily right next to each other.
I guess some of them do on the top of the rack, the way he had it was, um, he’s got the, he’s got a case that he had designed or built himself or whatever underneath it, that the printers sit on and he just throws the spools on there and then feeds them up through the tube to get to his printers.
Andy
Oh, okay.
Frank
So in that respect, it’s still kind of a Bowden system, but it’s pulling on the filament instead of pushing it through the Bowden too.
Andy
Yeah.
Yeah.
I don’t think that would be really called a Bowden system.
That’s just like controlling your feet or, you know, a guide tube, but, uh, but yeah, I see.
Have you guys ever seen the, um, Oh my gosh.
I had the name just a second ago.
It’s one that splices the color filaments before it goes into the extruder itself.
And, uh, so it can splice multiple colors.
Uh, it starts with an M.
I think, oh my gosh, I don’t remember what this called.
Mosaic.
That’s what it is.
Yeah.
The Mosaic.
That one’s kind of a neat one because it does all, it just splices different colors together and feeds it through so it can opt, you can connect it up to just about any kind of printer.
And then when you slice it, you slice two separate files.
One goes to the Mosaic, one goes to your printer.
And then the Mosaic just, you know, sets up the filament properly so that it changes color when it needs to.
Frank
I guess at that point you could do the, um, like with a regular printer, do the, the opposite colors on the color wheel.
Yeah.
And then when it prints out, depending on how much of each of those colors is coming through, you can choose your color within reason, um, for what’s going down.
That wouldn’t be interesting.
Andy
Well, I don’t think you could do more than one, it’s one at a time.
It’s just fusing color or fusing different filaments together as they go down the tube to the extruder or the…
Frank
Oh, so it’s not mixing the colors.
Andy
Just, uh, yeah, it’s not mixing them.
It’s just fusing different filaments together.
Frank
Gotcha.
Still…
Andy
I haven’t seen many that mix.
There’s the diamond hot end that can mix filaments, but, um, I think you end, wind up ending up with something more similar to multicolored filaments than you do, like actually mixing colors together.
Yeah.
Frank
As I was saying it, I was thinking, we’ve talked about the bicolored filament as it goes through.
And if that was how it worked, then it would blend in the extruder, which it doesn’t.
So…
Andy
yeah.
And that’s true.
That is true.
I mean, some kind of mixing mechanism.
I don’t know how well that would work.
A lot of neat ideas.
I think we just need to get some kind of, uh, ability to, uh, print.
Like I have seen or heard of ones that do color the filament as it comes out.
Kevin
Really?
Andy
Um, just the outside of the filament.
Yeah.
Like as it’s being put down, it is coloring kind of like an inkjet kind of system where it’s, it’s spraying it as it comes out.
I haven’t actually seen anything.
I think I’ve heard it about it on a different 3d printing podcast.
There’s somebody talking about that.
So I don’t know if it actually exists or it’s just a concept or what, but I don’t know how well that would work either.
Frank
I mean, I guess it would work.
Maybe not super well.
I don’t know.
If you lay it down and then color the plastic that way, maybe.
No, that would only do half of the layer though.
I guess that means that we should wrap this up, huh?
Kevin
Um, before we do though, I, there was one thing I wanted to mention was that, um, my, my one son, Kyle, uh, got it into his head to make some kind of attachment for the, the cornet he plays that would allow him to connect it to a guitar somehow.
I’m not sure how he thinks it’s going to work, but he sat down and Tinker CAD and got the whole thing working, uh, put together anyway.
And…
Frank
so he can one man band it?
Kevin
something like that.
Frank
play the cornet and the guitar at the same time?
That’s cool.
Kevin
I mean, I’ve, yeah, I’ve, I’ve looked at his designs and I can’t really make heads or tails of them, but.
Andy
Oh, you’re going to print it for him.
Let’s see if we’ll let him have the experience of designing or whatever.
Kevin
Yeah.
Frank
That’s good.
That should be fun.
Andy
Yeah.
Frank
We learned more from our failures than we do our successes anyway.
So
Andy
It is true.
That’s why I try to fell as frequently as possible.
Frank
Um, I don’t try to fail, but if I am going to fail, I try to fail quickly.
Frequently is disheartening, but quickly means that, uh, you’ll learn quickly too.
So
Kevin
yeah
Andy
yeah, very true.
Chris
Yes.
Frank
All right.
Now that, now that, uh, Chris is awake again, why don’t we wrap this up?
And, uh, it was mostly funny because we alluded to it earlier in the episode.
I think.
Andy
it’s not like he wasn’t up all night long doing chores.
So I mean, geez, come on.
Frank
Unfortunately, this time is just more convenient for three of us.
So…
Andy
sorry, Chris.
Chris
Yeah.
Andy
Thanks for taking one for the team.
Frank
Yeah.
We, we really appreciate it, Chris.
Don’t ever uh…
Andy
It’s not going to stop us mocking you when you pop off though.
Frank
No, no, no.
No doesn’t matter what anybody else says though, uh, you’re a great guy.
Chris
Oh, yes.
Frank
All right.
You can’t blame a bat for, uh, yeah.
Kevin
Right.
Frank
We’d like to thank everyone for listening to the very end.
If you like what you hear, please give us all the stars and subscribe.
We are available through a wide variety of podcast vendors and so are easy to share.
If you have feedback or if you have content requests, please let us know.
Even though we don’t really do topics any, maybe I should update the script.
Kevin
Well, I mean, if we got a content request, we could do a topic on whatever content request we got.
Frank
Do like and ask us anything.
If someone decides to send us an email.
Kevin
Yeah.
Andy
And if someone sends us a topic, since it’ll be the very first one, you know, we will go all out and address as many angles as we can and yada, yada, yada.
Frank
It will be in the last five minutes of the podcast and we’re going to avoid it for the rest of the time.
Uh, yeah, you can find us in our Facebook group, amateur3Dpod.
And 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 is the one that wrote the music for this episode and open AI’s whisper completed the heavy lifting for the transcripts, which you can find linked in the description.
Our panelists are me, Franklin Christensen and my friends, Kevin Buckner, Chris Weber and Andy Cottam.
And until next time, we’re going offline.
Kevin
Keep your FEP tight.
Andy
Always use hairspray.
Chris
I tried to print on the fly this week, but I couldn’t keep the little bugger down to my print bed.
Andy
That’s a good one.
Frank
Sometimes you see the freight train coming.
That doesn’t mean you can get out of the way.
He started with print on the fly and I thought was, oh geeze…
Chris
the other thing I was going to go with was I, uh, I, I flipped, I, I flipped my contact onto the ceiling when I was putting it in this morning.
Got a contact high.
Frank
That joke made it into the conversation.
In our general chat.
Kevin
Yeah.
Chris
Yeah.
I did.
And then I deleted it.
Frank
Hoping that we wouldn’t remember.
Andy
Yeah.
Kevin
I saw it, Chris.
I did.
I remember.
Andy
It was a good one.
It was a good one.
Do you write these down or something or do you come up with them on the fly?
Chris
Uh, yeah.
Just, um, I, I, I’ll, I’ll, I’ll put them in my notes on my phone.
If they hop up during the week or I’ll, um, if, if I have my computer in front of me, I’ll stick him in on my, uh, notepad.
Andy
I love what that’s become as far as the end of the podcast goes with your, your little joke at the end.
That’s perfect.
Frank
I think it works real well.
Kevin
It does indeed.