Frank
Thank you for joining us.
This is episode 63 of Amateur 3D Podcast, a podcast by amateur printers for amateur printers, where we share our thoughts and experience.
Panelists this week are me, Franklin Christensen, and my friends, Chris Weber, Andy Cottam, and Kevin Buckner.
Good morning, guys.
Good afternoon.
Thanks for working with me on my event stuff this morning, starting tonight.
Andy
No problem.
Kevin
You’re welcome.
Chris
I wanted a nice allay from going out into the cold, so, yeah.
Andy
It snowed a lot here.
Did you get any snow up there, you guys?
Frank
We got like two inches here.
Kevin
We got a little bit.
Frank
Maybe.
Andy
That’s about what we got.
These are already outside building an igloo.
Chris
They need to hold their ig together?
Andy
Yep.
It’s all over the place.
Put it all into the loo and call again.
Kevin
Use the ig glue to hold the ig together
Frank
That’s not how you get an egg to gl…
Chris
Yellow snow.
It’s an ig glue.
Kevin
Sure.
Frank
I’m not sure what an ig is anymore
Kevin
right?
See, I always thought you used the igloo to hold the egg together, but now we’re getting into weird definitions.
Frank
My willful suspension of disbelief is falling apart, right?
Chris
Well, it’s kind of like when you need to use the loo, but you got an ig.
Frank
Yeah, that doesn’t explain it any better, Chris.
Well, since you got us on this path, Chris, why don’t you start?
Did you work on anything this week?
Chris
Yes.
So it is the wife’s birthday is coming up, so I pulled this thing off the printer just this morning.
Kevin
Nice.
Andy
Oh.
Kevin
Explain it to the visual listeners.
Chris
So this is a sleeping articulated dragon.
The legs are not articulated there, but very nice.
Frank
The pieces also look a little bigger than the typical dragon, too.
Chris
Yeah.
So it’s pretty good.
So it actually is a really good test piece for the way my printer is working, the way that it is articulating.
So it’s just a single articulation along the spine instead of all the other parts.
So and they’re kind of big.
They’re like pieces.
They’re almost all ball shaped with little spikes on the coming off.
Frank
Yeah, I’d say that those articulated pieces are about twice as big as any of the other dragons I’ve seen.
Chris
So yeah, so we had been talking in the forum about flow rates, right?
And I realized that that’s not something I had ever played with.
And I’d been getting a lot of stringing and a little pimples and things out of my plastic.
And again, was having slight adhesion problems when I tried to print some things.
And so this was a really good test for all of those things.
So no hairspray, no nothing, just my leveled bed.
And yeah, this stuck so well, I actually almost had to get a mallet to get it off my print bed.
Frank
Good deal.
Chris
So what I did was I adjusted my flow rate.
So in Cura under the experimental settings, they have flow rate adjustments so you can do a set flow rate or a percentage flow rate.
And so I just was like, okay, well, my nozzle’s probably over extruding a little bit.
So I’m going to cut it down to 95%.
And I printed this and everything was just so nice, the lines came out so much smoother.
There was still a little bit of stringing, so I’m going to bring it down to maybe 93%.
And go from there.
But yeah, big, big, big quality improvement and bed adhesion, all from just adjusting my flow rate down a little bit.
Andy
That’s good.
To say something about flow rate adjustments, and that is, if everything is working perfectly on your machine, your flow rate should be at 100%.
I think the only time you should ever be using the adjusted flow rate is if you got filament that is either undersized or oversized, otherwise, there’s something else wrong.
Frank
Andy’s using the S word.
Andy
Yeah, yeah.
Exactly.
Well, one of the things that I’ve been preaching from way back in the day is to check your steps.
Always check your steps per millimeter for your feeder, because it has been my experience that a brand new feeder has a break-in period, and it won’t feed as much filament per step once it’s kind of broken in.
Now the other day, I went and tested mine because I was getting boogers, and mine had gone the opposite direction.
It was actually feeding more.
This is the first time it’s ever done more.
It’s always done less before.
And so when it comes to your flow rate, if you got filament that’s out of spec, then I think that’s what it really should be used for.
But if your feeder’s not feeding in how much it should be, then the flow rate’s a great way to compensate for that.
But it’s kind of put a bandaid a little bit over the problem.
And as Frank can probably contest, the flow rate adjusts it in a lot of different places where making sure your feed rate is still correct per step, that, yeah, you might be correcting for the feed rate being wrong, but it’s also over-correcting in the other areas that can mess up the print, too.
Chris
Okay.
So
Andy
Does that make sense?
Chris
Where do you adjust the feed rate?
Andy
Okay.
So it’s really easy to do.
The typical thing to do is, you know how you can make your carriage move around in millimeters just with the control surface or with your controls?
Chris
Yeah.
Andy
How you can move the carriage around?
Well, there’s going to be an option in there to move your feeder, too.
I think mine actually calls it the extruder.
But
Frank
yeah, that’s what we’ve been calling an extruder for the last year there, Andy.
Andy
Yeah.
Well, it doesn’t extrude anything.
That’s the nozzle.
Kevin
Yeah.
Chris
Okay.
Andy
But anyway, that measurement, when you’re feeding a certain amount of filament through, that’s how many millimeters of filament should be going through the unit.
So if you get your calipers out and you measure out from one point, let’s say 100 millimeters, and you mark the filament 100 millimeters out, then you use that control to extrude 100 millimeters of filament.
And then you can see how far your mark is, whether it pulled it further in than it should have or if it’s still sticking out than it should have.
And then you can measure that, you can get real complicated with it.
You can then measure that to see how far it’s off and then divide that into your steps per millimeter that’s set on your machine to figure out how much you need to adjust your steps per millimeter.
So it really only takes one test like that to get it pretty much perfect.
But I think you got to do it every once in a while because the feeder itself, especially when brand new, the teeth do wear down a little bit at the very beginning, and you’re going to get a different feed rate than you did when it was brand new.
Chris
Feed me.
Frank
Now, the method that I came across actually recommended that you measure 120 millimeters.
Andy
Is there a reason for 120?
Frank
Yeah, when you feed the 100, if you are overfeeding, then that gives you a little bit of length to measure off of how far off it is.
So if it’s overextruding, like you just said that you were doing, then you know by how much you just measure 20 millimeters plus or minus where it’s supposed to be to figure out.
And that way you have length to measure once it’s all done with the 100 millimeters of feed.
Andy
I see.
That makes sense.
Okay.
Yeah.
So what I did with mine and since it sucked it in, I actually extruded it or run the feeder in reverse and then took that into consideration how much I had to run it into reverse.
But your method would be better.
Yeah.
You can actually extrude out 120 but measure out 120 and then only extrude 100 and then you should be 20 out and then you can measure from that.
Is that what you’re saying?
Frank
Yeah.
Exactly.
Andy
That’s a much better idea.
I like that.
I’m going to do that.
Frank
And then with that method, you’re not dependent on your controller reading the right distance when you know that it’s off just a little bit.
Andy
Yeah.
Yeah.
That’s very good.
That’s a very good note.
I like that.
Frank
Of course, most of the calipers I’ve seen have got the depth gauge on it too, the little thing that can go inside of the tube.
Yeah.
So if it’s not all the way down to the gears, you could have measured inside with your depth gauge too.
Yeah.
Andy
And I know most calipers on the very bottom of the caliper tends to be kind of sharp, sharp enough to put a mark in plastic.
So I always use the depth gauge, put it on top of a known point.
I’ve got a little piece of a PET tube that sticks out of my feeder just to kind of guide it into the feeder.
It’s like 10 millimeters, 20 millimeters long or something.
But anyway, I did it based off of that.
So I put the depth gauge on that, pulled it out.
Let’s say I did it Frank’s way, pulled it out 120 millimeters, and then used the bottom of the calipers to score the plastic, to score the filament.
Excuse me.
And then that way, when you pull it in, you’ve got that nice flat score mark that I can then judge it with the top of the PET tube.
Chris
Oh yeah.
Yeah.
You talking about the end of the jaws or the
Andy
just anywhere, if you’ve got a spot where your filament goes into, you’re
Frank
No he’s talking about your calipers, Andy, what part of your calipers are you scoring it with?
The jaws or the…
Andy
no, the very bottom of the caliper itself, just the very, the foot of it.
Frank
The end of the ruler?
Andy
Yep.
Exactly.
Yeah.
Chris
Oh, okay.
Andy
At least mine is fairly sharp in that, in that area.
It’s pretty squared off.
So I’m able to score the, what’s it called, the filament with that.
Here I got it here, I’ll show you.
So you know, you got the depth gauge sticking out and you got the very bottom of the caliper right there that’s sharp enough to, to score the filament.
Frank
Yeah.
Chris
Okay.
Nice, nicer calipers are usually not so sharp on the bottom there.
Frank
I don’t use my nice calipers very often.
I just use the plastic ones for most of my stuff.
Yeah.
Andy
I did notice, just during Christmas shopping, that the price of these all metal cheaper calipers has drastically gone down.
You can buy a good set of metal, all metal calipers for about 20 bucks now online, on Amazon.
Chris
Oh.
Andy
They’re, they’re like, they’re like my, my Pittsburgh, you know, um, Harvard freight ones, but this one here has been one of the best calipers I’ve ever had.
But this is, this is back when, this is like 20 years old, this caliper.
And uh, Harbor Freight went into making them all out of plastic from now on.
So they’re all garbage now, but…
Frank
I, I do have a set of metal digital Pittsburgh.
And the reason I don’t like them as much is when I turn them on is zeros.
And I can, like they’ll be closed and I can still push and get it to go zero and re-zero from there.
And then I can still push more zero.
It’s like, it’s not calibrated well or the, the part that reads the distance isn’t so great.
So.
Andy
I think I know what you mean.
Frank
I’m not crazy about them because I don’t trust that they are as accurate as I want them to be.
Andy
Yep.
That is true.
Cause mine will go out about point zero two to point zero three off.
If you push it together really hard and then release it, uh, I think that’s got a little bit to do with the housing is made out of plastic and that can work.
Chris
So there’s a spring on the top of there.
That’s kind of like a, um, it’s kind of like a leaf spring.
And so that has a little bit of flex in it.
So, um, part of using your calipers is to not force them to not put excessive pressure on them.
And so if you don’t, if you don’t use the excessive pressure, you know, um, Pittsburgh calipers are wonderful, but also it only seems to go out by a couple hundred, no, hundredths of a millimeter.
So still all within, you know, the range that we would be using them for…
Frank
But, but my, my brain doesn’t let me do it.
If it doesn’t read zero.
Andy
Ah, okay.
Chris
So
Kevin
Which is fair.
Andy
Well in that case, Frank is a great example of someone who does require a really good set of calipers.
Chris
So…
Frank
even if it is only two or three hundredths of a millimeter.
Andy
Yeah.
Yeah.
Chris
So, so yeah, there’s, there’s a reason there, there’s reasons that at the most of the production places I’ve been and had to deal with, uh, calipers, um, is that they go with the high end stuff like starrette, midatoyo, um, brown and sharp, those kinds, because they’re really well built, but they’re really expensive.
They’re like two hundred, three hundred dollars a piece
Andy
yeah
Chris
but they’re worth it because it, uh, I, I have cal, quote unquote calibrated, um, Pittsburgh calipers that people were using in production and they were inconsistent garbage because they were being used and abused and they didn’t take the use and abuse the same way as the higher end, midatoyo, et cetera, do.
Andy
Okay.
Frank
And to be fair, you know, the, the, especially like, let’s say an airplane, uh, shop or, uh, nuclear reactor shop or something like that, you’re working with very tight tolerances for a reason and we are talking about plastic.
Andy
Yeah.
Frank
You look at it just right and it’s already out of spec.
Chris
Well, even the, even the high end midatoyo and brown and sharp have plastic casings over all of that, but all of the, all of the actual slide material and all that is metal.
Frank
Well, and, and, and I was talking about the medium you’re measuring, not the, uh, medium you’re measuring with.
Chris
Right.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And so in production.
Andy
Yeah The ammount of precision you need.
Chris
And so in production you’re dealing with a lot with metal and, uh, high precision.
And so calipers are really, really only reliable plus or minus a thou, which is plus or minus uh, about 0.01, 0.03 millimeters.
Andy
Okay.
So thanks for the conversion there.
That brought it into a, my brain only works in metric on these small measurements.
So.
Kevin
Yeah.
That’s cause metric is far superior, but we’ve already talked about that.
Andy
Oh God.
I wish we would just move everything.
We would have like a shitty month of people complaining about it, but if we got everything switched over, then that would be the norm and everybody would like to use it and nobody would want to go back.
Frank
Except for it wouldn’t be that quick.
Chris
Yeah.
Frank
All of the streets would have to be re-signed and.
Andy
Oh, I’m saying we should just, somebody should just flip their fingers and it should just all be done.
All at once.
Frank
Om om omnicient.
Chris
Oh, it’s a infinity Stone.
Frank
God Power.
Andy
Yeah.
I don’t see why they don’t just do that work for me.
Chris
If I had the infinity stones clip, we’re all metric.
Kevin
Not only that, but we have been metric for…
Chris
the last 20
Frank
decade or two.
Andy
Yeah.
Frank
Yeah.
The argument that I keep hearing is well, all the mechanics are going to have to have two sets of tools.
If we do that.
My response is…
Kevin
Mechanics already have two sets of tools.
Frank
Yeah.
They already have two sets of tools and metric converts to Imperial much better than Imperial as to metric.
Chris
So what it is is production shops are still using prints from the fifties and sixties.
And there’s a lot of time and work involved in quote unquote converting those into metric and the tooling involved converting those like…
Frank
except for OEMs, probably one of the bigger ones.
OEMs, I’ll do it in metric and then they sell it is Imperial in the US and the UK.
So…
Chris
well, okay.
So I’ve been, I’ve been involved with making aircraft parts, right?
Yeah.
And automotive parts and things like that.
And so all automotive parts that I’ve come across have been put to metric, not a problem.
Aircraft parts is a different story.
Aircraft is this strange mix of standard sometimes and metric other times and it just depends on where it’s going, what is being used.
And so because all of our aircraft were designed in Imperial back when and we’re still using those same aircraft, you know, it’s all still Imperial.
Andy
That makes sense.
So we should still switch and you guys would still have to suffer for the next like 50 years then of dealing with old, old prints and stuff.
Kevin
But that’s the point is that the mechanics already have stuff that’s in metric and stuff that’s in Imperial.
So they already have to have two sets of tools.
So it’s just, it’s an excuse.
It’s kind of like when people complain about the clock switching, the common excuse is, oh, it’s for the farmers and the farmers hear that and say, oh, shut up, stop blaming it on us.
We’re up with the sun and we’re down with the sun regardless of what our clock says.
Frank
We wake up at five o’clock every morning, guess what?
The sun is never up at five o’clock in the morning.
Kevin
The reality is it’s for the tourism industry and but they don’t want to admit that because they say, well, if we, if we tell the truth, then people will say that’s just such a frivolous thing that it doesn’t hold any water.
So let’s blame it on the farmers and it’s not this case.
Frank
Well, and you look at places like Utah, everything shuts down at nine weather
Kevin
right?
So it’s just an excuse.
Chris
and nothing opens till eight anyway.
Yeah.
Andy
I used to be one of those people who hated, who wanted to move to daylight savings time all the time kind of people until the last couple of years where I really considered how it affected my life.
Every time we have daylight savings time change, it always seems to be changing it into favoring my work schedule every single time, like with what time the sun comes up and in keeping my early morning routines fairly normal.
So we should be on board of keeping daylight savings time just the way it is where we change every year.
But I completely understand why that pisses everybody off.
And if we change, I’m still on board because even though it benefits me, it hurts a lot more people.
Kevin
Well, see, my attitude is I don’t care whether we stay on daylight saving time or on standard time.
I just want to stop changing the clock twice a year.
Frank
So on that score, I used to think we should stay on standard time because that’s what time it’s supposed to be.
And then I learned, oh no, in the US, the same law that established daylight savings time also established the time zones in the US.
So there was no “standard time” before we did daylight savings time.
And it’s like, oh, OK, I don’t care where we go either just as long as we stay still.
I like summertime.
Let’s stay on summertime all year.
Andy
There you go.
I like that plan.
Kevin
That’s daylight saving time.
Frank
I do like that schedule better, honestly.
But I’m weird.
Chris
Yeah, let’s just stop changing the clocks, please.
Kevin
That’s all I’m saying.
Frank
If it makes sense, it doesn’t apply.
Chris
It’s not about what time the sun’s coming up or whatever else.
It’s just we’re sick of the clocks changing on us every six months.
Andy
Do you guys have any information on what happened when we stopped doing it before?
Frank
Oh, it was chaos.
It was chaos for like three months and then everybody got used to it.
And then I think it was five years after they tried to go to no daylight savings time and people lost their minds.
So they just stuck with it.
Andy
Oh, OK.
Frank
And that’s how it’s been for 60 or 70 years now.
Andy
I’m curious here.
How many years were we not doing daylight savings time, like after we started and then stopped again?
Frank
Yeah, I think it was just the once.
I am recalling from a position of bad memory, though.
Andy
Yeah, oh, it’s fine.
I don’t remember either.
All I know is I remember hearing that we had stopped doing daylight savings time at one point and decided that daylight savings time was the right way to go.
Frank
While, you look that up, Kevin.
Why don’t you go over what you worked on this week?
Kevin
All right.
So I got some of the wood PLA and started printing part of the shelf that my wife had requested.
And so I got the ends done.
I got the biscuits mostly done.
But the centerpiece, I started printing.
Everything was working great.
Oh, I did.
I am using the older build plate, the one that’s not flexible, because I have that issue with the flexible one that it’s not…
I’m having the adhesion issue.
Frank
It doesn’t tram very well, right?
Kevin
It’s not a tramming issue.
It’s an adhesion issue.
So I did read up on how to solve that, and the recommendation is to get some isopropyl alcohol and wipe it down.
And that should remove any of the finger oils that are keeping the plastic from adhering to it.
I haven’t done that yet, because I’ve been busy.
But I came in after the print was done.
I got it going at night, came upstairs the next morning, and only half of the print job was done.
And the printer was saying, I’m done printing.
Andy
I know what happened.
Kevin
Clogged.
Andy
Oh, never mind.
I don’t know what happened.
Kevin
The nozzle got clogged, and the feeder gear chewed through the filament, and it’s just all kinds of messed up right now.
So I’m going to have to do some stuff to unclog the nozzle.
Now the filament did say, because it’s got wood in it, it did say that they recommend using a larger nozzle than the one I’m using
Frank
because the wood fibers pass through it better.
Kevin
Yeah, so it says to prevent clogging, we recommend using like a 0.6 or larger nozzle.
I’m still using the 0.4, so it clogged.
Andy
I love 0.6.
Every since I moved to 0.6, it’s been great.
I highly recommend 0.6.
Yeah.
If you’re running Cura, the newer Cura version of Cura that uses the Arachne engine.
Chris
Yep.
So they’ve got the new version 6.3.
Andy
Yeah.
Chris
Yeah.
Kevin
So anyway, so there’s that, and I haven’t been able to spend the time to fix that problem yet.
But on the other printer, I painted up that Mimic ornament that I talked about last time, and we put up the tree today.
So the ornament is on the tree, and Jess hasn’t noticed yet.
Andy
Nice.
Frank
Or at least she hasn’t said anything.
Kevin
Oh, I don’t think she’s noticed.
Frank
Okay.
Kevin
She did say that once we put up the tree, she really doesn’t spend much time looking at it after it’s up.
So it could be until Christmas before she notices, or until we’re taking the tree down or whatever.
Frank
Or one of the youngsters sees it and goes and asks her what it is.
Kevin
Oh, no, no, no.
I already told them what the plan is.
Frank
Oh.
So they’re in on it.
Kevin
Yeah.
They’re in on it.
They got excited about.
Frank
Gotcha.
Kevin
So she was off visiting her dad because of his health issues.
And I wasn’t sure when she was going to come home, and neither was she.
And so I said, all right, guys, I don’t know how much time I’ve got to paint this thing.
So I’m going to do it real quick.
And so as soon as it was done, I was like, okay, I need your help getting everything put away because I have no idea when she’s coming back.
She came home 40 minutes later.
So I didn’t have to rush as much as I did.
But they were excited to help me clean up and everything to not get caught with this because they also want to see how long it’ll take her to notice and what she’ll say when she notices.
Frank
Sure.
Kevin
But I’ve actually printed up another one of those in gray.
It’s just kind of sitting in a hiding spot right now.
I haven’t had time to paint it yet.
But then I did also print up a couple of those lattice bell ornaments in white resin.
The plan there is I’m going to let my kids each paint one.
And it was interesting.
And I’ve noticed this any time I’ve printed in white resin.
It looks like I’m printing stuff with milk.
The resin itself is milky in appearance.
And so you’ve got this moving up and down in the milk like this.
And then you’ve got this printed model that comes out of it.
So printing with milk, it’s awesome.
And now I am currently, because I also realized that a bunch of my resin technically expired last month, it’s still working fine, but a lot of it says best by.
So it doesn’t really say it’s ineffective.
Chris
Even with resin, you’ve got a little bit of life after that, but that’s the indication that you need to use it.
Kevin
So that’s what I’m doing.
So I’m printing up another one of the Mimic ornaments because I just think they’re so cool and I think I’m going to give them to people.
But this one, I decided I would just keep the white resin in the vat because the white is one of them that was best by the middle of last month.
But then I also had this bottle of just resin that I’ve colored.
And then when I’ve been done with it, I’ve just put it all in the same bottle.
So I don’t need this color anymore.
Frank
Catch all.
Kevin
Yeah.
Chris
Printing with expired milk.
Kevin
Yeah.
Well, it’s kind of like printing with chocolate milk because it has turned brown.
But I’ve looked in the resin vat while it’s printing and it’s going to come out with kind of a flesh tone.
So I think that’ll work great for a Mimic ornament.
Andy
Oh, there you go.
Frank
That is interesting.
Andy
It’s good having to catch all like that.
Frank
Do the colors separated all or do they homogenize over time?
Kevin
Yeah.
Well, one of the things you have to do when you’re going to use resin is shake up the bottle real well because the various components of the resin do settle out over time.
So you have to shake them up again to homogenize everything.
And so if there is any color separation, which I doubt, shaking it up would re-homogenize everything.
Frank
Not on account of the colors themselves anyway.
Kevin
Right.
Chris
Okay.
So would you shake two different colors and then pour one and then the other and get kind of a swirl pattern out of it or?
Kevin
I’ve tried that and sometimes it works.
Other times they just combine, but I have gotten some, a little bit of marbling when I’ve done that.
Chris
Okay.
So you can do that sort of.
Okay.
Kevin
Yeah.
Frank
I swear you even talked about that a couple of months ago, trying some stuff.
Kevin
Yeah.
Frank
No!
It was last year.
Well, you were doing the bells.
I was trying to get the different layers as you went down, different colors.
And we’re not happy with how some of the colors were coming together, I think.
Kevin
That was with the Easter eggs earlier this year.
Frank
That’s right.
Okay.
Chris
Yeah.
Frank
Easter eggs.
I was close.
Andy
Yeah.
Kevin
Holiday related prints.
Frank
Yes.
Absolutely.
Andy
So…
Frank
Is that it?
Kevin
Oh, go ahead.
Frank
Is that all you got there, Kev?
Kevin
That’s one more thing that is 3D printing adjacent.
I have been accepted into a play testing group for a game that is up and coming that the play test will be entirely done on tabletop simulator.
But when the game goes to market, my understanding of it is because it’s in partnership with Loot Studios that it will be a print and play game where you buy the STLs and probably the PDFs and print up your own cards and minifigures and game pieces and go from there.
Frank
That’s cool.
Andy
Yeah.
Frank
I like that idea.
Andy
It is neat.
I’ll have to keep an eye on that.
I know my wife was interested in joining you for the test.
Kevin
Yeah.
Frank
One of these next weekends.
Chris
Yeah, I’m going to jump in on this test too.
As long as I can print stuff with an FDM.
Kevin
Well, like I said, the game test is all on tabletop simulator.
There won’t be any printing involved with that.
Andy
Yeah.
Frank
Unless you want to, right?
Kevin
Well, part of the agreement is I’m not allowed to share the files with anybody.
The files I have are all for tabletop simulator.
They’re not STLs and PDFs and all that.
It’s code files for that so that it will work within the tabletop simulator environment.
Frank
What are the Qubit files, I think they’re called?
Kevin
I don’t know.
Frank
I can’t remember.
Anyway, like a bit swarm or something, there’s another game I play that uses 3D objects that I tried to get STLs for.
Still sounds fun.
Kevin
Yeah.
Frank
We’ll have to keep an eye on it.
Kevin
Yeah, so this game, it’s called Relics Untold and it is like a hybrid between a war game and a trading card game.
Andy
Okay.
Frank
Cool.
Kevin
Yeah.
Frank
You heard about it first here on Amateur 3D Podcast.
No, you’ve lamented not being more vocal about your projects after they come out.
So let’s get this one out now and then we can talk about it as it continues.
Kevin
Yeah.
Andy
There you go.
Frank
All right, Andy.
What do you got?
Andy
Okay, so I got a little bit of information from when we did switch daylight savings time.
It was back in 1974 and they switched everybody over to permanent daylight savings time.
It was an energy conservation issue and it lasted for only eight months.
There were many deaths of children walking to school in the dark and that was the problem.
That looks like the primary problem was kids being out in the dark like that as a whole.
And so eight months later, they reverted back to their original daylight savings time plan.
That was in the fall of 1974.
So we did stop it for eight months and decided it was such a terrible idea that it only took eight months to go back, so there’s that.
Frank
Now, I feel like time zones have been around for longer than that though.
Maybe I now feel like I was definitely misremembering that they were enacted together.
Kevin
Well, so that is that.
Andy
No, sorry.
Kevin
Daylight saving time was first proposed back in the 1700s.
Frank
Yeah.
What’s his name?
The $5 bill guy.
Kevin
Benjamin Franklin.
Frank
Yeah.
No, that’s a hundred dollar bill, not five.
You know what I mean.
Kevin
But what Andy’s talking about here is that in the 70s, they did say we’re sick of this, let’s get rid of it, and they did for a while and then it had problems that they blamed on the clocks not changing.
And so, I remember walking to school in the dark anyway and I never got any cars.
And it’s like with, so I just, I struggle to see that that’s a viable, like that’s the actual problem.
Frank
There’s a mixture of when you want an excuse, you can find one and people in large groups don’t make good decisions, period.
So when there’s more and add that they were children walking in the dark, a large number of them versus a handful walking to school for band or whatever in the morning, you know, all of those things coming together, I can see being an issue.
Andy
Yeah.
Frank
I don’t know.
Chris
I would like to think that we have better infrastructure nowadays, you know, and we’ve got the school zones with the flashing lights and all of that.
Frank
Chris, I know that you were avoiding the S word, but I still heard it anyway.
Chris
Well, you should, you should let me sometimes.
Andy
Yeah, so it was after eight children in Florida were involved in a pre draw a pre dawn car accident.
Frank
You could have told me it was Florida without saying how many children it was and I would have understood…
Andy
Florida man was probably behind the wheel.
Bu yeah, so it looks like…
Frank
Well it did happen in Florida.
There’s a very good chance of that Andy.
Andy
Yeah, I think maybe.
Frank
So did you work on anything with your printer engraver this week?
Andy
Yeah, so not really.
I did print off a couple of things.
Oh, sorry about that.
I got a I got a cough here, but anyway, I printed a bunch of these articulated dragons.
This is the first time I’ve ever printed these guys and they are just they are so awesome.
Chris
Oh, ok, so that looks like a.
OK, so that’s that’s like a longer, slinkier version of the thing I just printed.
I get it.
Andy
Yeah, yeah, it is.
But there I am surprised at how like mobile and ropey they are for being, you know, printed out of PLA.
This is some three color changing PLA…
Frank
Print in place to wasn’t assembled, right?
It was print in place.
Andy
So yeah, completely printed place.
But the wife had me do some of these guys and I thought they were just really, really cool.
And so I did print those and got to use some of my my fancy PLA that I got thanks to Chris.
But…
Chris
Color is cool.
Andy
Yeah.
And one thing I didn’t realize is the the multicolored PLA I’ve got is silk PLA.
And
Chris
yeah
Andy
I didn’t even notice.
Yeah, I didn’t even notice it didn’t print any different than normal PLA.
I was pretty impressed.
I thought silk PLA was more difficult to print.
But this print’s just like normal PLA.
So I was really impressed with all that.
Frank
My issue with silk has never been that it is a different material or it looks different.
That it’s harder to print with.
It’s always been that I just don’t like the look of silk.
Andy
Oh, really?
Frank
Yeah.
And so it’s a personal aesthetic thing for me.
It’s not a quality of the material thing.
Andy
OK, I like how like shiny it is.
It glistens.
Chris
Shiny
Andy
verywhere.
Yeah
Chris
pretty shiny, shiny.
Andy
You guys are awesome.
But that’s that’s all I really did.
I, like I said, last podcast here, I got a lot going on with the holidays coming around.
I did finally get a date on when my windows will be done.
That’ll be two weeks from now that are going to come in.
In the middle of winter here and install all my windows.
Frank
Pull all your windows off your house and then put new ones on.
I’m hoping they do it one at a time and not all at once like that.
Andy
But yeah, they, you know, when I originally bought them, he was like, yep, it’ll be one day they’ll come in and they’ll do all 15 of the windows here.
I’m having done and then and then it grew to two days.
And then when they made the appointment to actually do it, for some reason, it’s three days.
Frank
And they’re going to start somewhere between nine a.m.
and four p.m.
Andy
Yeah, yeah, no kidding.
But that’s OK.
It’s a big project.
However, I got to clear out areas around the windows so that they can work on them.
And that’s going to make the house a disaster here.
And and so I kind of put the idea of cleaning up the basement here and making myself an office to be able to do my printing and electronic stuff on hold until probably after Christmas at some time.
I don’t know.
We’ll have to see.
But it’ll be after we do the windows.
And then hopefully I’ll get back on a little bit board, a little bit more on board of 3D printing and stuff.
I did today want to, you know, we are recording a little bit later.
I did sit down for a little while and I had just refreshed my entire main working laptop’s operating system.
I reformatted and started from scratch again to kind of clear up some problems.
But I did sit down to work on it until I realized I don’t have Solid Works installed yet.
So that was a fight, getting that installed on the machine.
And I kind of blew off a half hour of time that I had set aside to work on my my snake, my Beetle Juice sandworm.
But I spent it working on the computer, getting it able to do that instead.
So I’m hoping that’ll mean that later today I might sit down and get a little bit of work done on that project, too.
But we’ll see.
Frank
Sounds like a plan.
Andy
Yeah, I haven’t really used the laser cutter for anything new since last week, although that that thing has been a very nice tool to have.
Again, you get an opportunity to grab one for pretty cheap.
I would definitely recommend it.
It fits right alongside 3D printing.
And I seen somebody even use the laser cutter to etch like labeling and stuff into their 3D prints and how well that worked.
Frank
So I can see that once you get it dialed in, you know, how far to turn it up to just, you know, I guess it would vaporize the plastic, right?
Andy
Kind of.
Yeah.
Yeah, it kind of does.
So it’s it would be almost like if you left a void, but or, you know, if you deboss debossed letters into a 3D print.
But the only thing is, is the laser is far more precise, more smooth angles and stuff because, you know, the plastic doesn’t, you know, cover up the holes and when it’s making round quarters on letters and stuff, you know, it stays that nice and extremely precise cuts.
And it looks really good.
So on things that I might have like a dial on or something like that, where I might want to etch something into it, I think I’m going to wind up using the laser cutter instead of embossing text with the 3D printer.
So as you always seem to have, I haven’t tried since I sat down and I figured I need to do six millimeter high letters in order for cura to slice everything so it’s visible enough to be able to see it.
That was with the four millimeter nozzle.
And anytime I’ve used it since I’ve switched over to the six millimeter nozzle, I haven’t noticed any difference, but it’s still that’s six millimeter high letters.
Those are pretty big when the laser cutter at this point would be able to cut really small, small letters.
So that’s another reason why I think I’m interested in it.
But but yeah, I think that’s been my week.
What about you, Frank?
Have you done anything?
Frank
Six millimeters is kind of big for letters.
Andy
It is.
Frank
Um, well, I I felt like I was in a good place with my printer.
But Andy, you kept pushing for me to recalibrate my extruder.
So I did that.
Andy
Yeah.
Frank
And I was with my first measurement, I was only extruding 90 millimeters when my controller thought I was doing 100.
So it was a little bit less.
And that had me thinking, well, that probably contributed to my under extrusion with my parts as much as anything.
Andy
That would be flow rate at 90 percent for a print that works great at 100.
So that would have quite a bit.
I was hoping…
Frank
that would explain the setting the flow rate at 110 to 115.
Why that seemed to fix some of the issues.
Andy
OK
Frank
obviously, you know, with the the cable coming off, it needed to be all changed out anyway.
So I’m not like lamenting that I rebuilt my nozzle or anything.
But it was an interesting learning experience for me.
Um, once I finished that, I decided to go all in on the Dachshund fan, uh, the Cult and…
Chris
Dachshund, like the dog.
Frank
Because we got a Dachshund and I’ve been doing the research on it.
You know, they’re a badger dog.
You used to hunt badgers, these little wiener dogs used to actually fight one of the most vicious animals I’ve ever heard of, which is interesting.
Kevin
And that’s why Dachshunds are so vicious themselves.
Frank
I don’t know.
This one, granted, he’s 12 years old, but he’s about the least vicious animal you could ever encounter.
Kevin
But Dachs is the the German word for badger.
Frank
Yeah, that’s what I was finding.
Um, anyway, I printed a slinky Dachshund as one of my first prints.
Um, in, in, uh, uh, the practice of Dachshund, um, uh, belief structures.
Um, and my wife has asked for a few other different prints because this one isn’t very stable, like the legs come in too far or they don’t hold it up so it, it always falls flat on its face and stuff like that.
Andy
Okay.
Frank
Um, I did find, because I, the first version of this, uh, slinky dog that I printed, um, that the, the plastic didn’t like to come loose because the tolerances were so tight.
And I had played with what we had talked about in Cura with the, uh, slicing tolerance, um
Andy
Horizontal expansion.
Frank
Uh, on horizontal expansion, not
I rember I was talking about that yet.
It was like an experimental thing that was like horizontal expansion, but worked in all three dimensions.
Frank
And what it is, is, uh, the video I saw that described it is when you’re printing, if you go in the middle of the, uh, slicing tolerance, um, whenever there’s a curve, it stays right in the middle of, um, like it’s straight up and down or straight corners, right?
90 degree corners.
Yeah.
And if you go in the middle of that, when it, whenever there’s a gap, um, the plastic will push into the other plastic for like a hinge or something that you’re printing, and if you play with it and go with exclusive or inclusive, it will shift to either the outside of that, um, I’m thinking in terms of Calculus.
Andy
Like a circle or the arc?
Frank
Yeah, it’s because the middle is basically the middle of where the nozzle is supposed to be for those, uh, think like, uh, like the Egyptian pyramids, how it steps all the way up, even though it looks like a, you know, a perfect 45 degree angle.
Um…
Andy
yeah.
Okay.
Frank
So when it’s sliced, if you go, I can’t remember now if it’s inclusive or exclusive, but it’ll shift either to the center of the nozzle being on the corner at the edge or the center of the nozzle being on the inside corner of that steps.
Okay.
Frank
And it’s supposed to make it so that when you have something print in place, like a hinge, that it’ll relax that tolerance a little bit and let the hinge not be so tight.
Andy
Yeah, that’s cool.
Frank
Well, it didn’t have the effect I wanted it to.
So I just kind of put it down.
This was two weeks ago or so when I was trying to print some boxes.
And, um, so with this wiener dog, I didn’t even bother trying to play with any of that.
And what I ended up doing was I made it bigger so that the, uh, the tall or the gap between grew as well and got much better tolerances that way than I did by changing the, the slicing tolerance.
Um
Andy
Ok that’s one way to do it.
Frank
I imagine I could hone it in a little better because it still took a little work to get the legs to move.
Um, but that’s also got me thinking that maybe what I should do is because I’ve got a bunch of different sizes of this box, I should try printing a smaller version of it and then just enlarging it in Cura and see if that helps with the tolerances for the hinges.
Andy
That’s a good idea.
Um, have you played with the horizontal expansion on those at all?
Frank
I have not.
Andy
That might be another thing that might want to look into doing for the hinges too.
It kind of, it kind of seems to, it keeps the, the overall dimensions of the model, but it squeezes the model down.
So where you’ve got like a, like a loop that would go around a hinge, it would make the loop bigger on the inside and, um, the outside would also shrink, making the plastic in the middle thinner, but, uh, that, that’s, that’s worked for me on a couple of, of interference prints like that that I’ve done that were a, uh, like solid or a, um, being a verse model, but horizontal expansion has been the one I played with on that one.
And that does seem to fix most of my problems that I’ve had on those.
Might be something just worth looking into a little bit.
Frank
Yeah, I’ll, I’ll definitely play with that one.
Um, otherwise I really haven’t done anything this week.
I’ve been, uh, voluntold that I have lots of plans this month.
And, uh, so, so those have been taking precedence because this is my wife’s favorite month of the year.
Andy
Yeah.
Frank
So the activities are taking precedence over my, uh, my hobbies.
Kevin
I’m, I’m reminded of, uh, a song that is, it’s in Dutch, but it’s all about a guy breaking up with his girlfriend and going to the bar to celebrate.
Um, and there’s a couple of lines in there that it says, uh, translated into English is, um, from now on, his salary is only going to be used up by one person.
Um, or it said the word would translate to decayed, but anyway, uh, and then it’s the very next thing is, um, and obligatory, obligatory parties are in, in… all at once cut in half.
So, uh, he’s like, Hey, there’s like, so the benefits here are his salary is now only going to be used up by one person.
And, um, mandatory parties are suddenly just cut in half.
Andy
Okay.
Frank
Mandatory events.
Kevin
Yeah.
You’ve got the parties that you have to go to because you’re you, but then you’ve got the things that you have to go to because your significant other has to go to them and you’re expected to go along.
And so it’s very, it’s, it’s a very apropos statement in at Christmas time when we got all sorts of company parties and, and friend group parties and just all these parties and, uh, it’s December is not a very good month to be an introvert.
Frank
No, it’s not
Andy
Ain’t that the truth.
Kevin
I struggle with this after a lot of years.
Frank
Indeed me too.
Andy
Yeah.
Frank
Well, uh, why don’t we go ahead and shut this down and we’ll, uh, let Kevin get ready for his thing and go on with our other things too.
He pushed for us to start just so everybody knows.
But I agreed with him entirely.
So I don’t want to put him in front of the bus on his own on that one.
Andy
Yeah.
Kevin
Right.
Frank
I mean
Chris
if Kevin jumps in front of a bus, we’re all jumping in front of a bus.
Frank
No
Andy
If he jumps in front of a bus.
There’s probably a good reason for it.
We all should probably be following suit.
Frank
No, if Kevin jumps in the bus, I’m going to look where he was looking before he ran.
Andy
There you go.
Probably the best.
Frank
Anyway, Kevin’s, we weren’t talking about Kevin jumping in front of the bus.
Anyway, we were talking about me throwing him in front of the bus.
Kevin
Right.
Frank
There is a subtle difference.
Kevin
Although, in my ninth grade yearbook, one of my friends did write, Hey, Kevin, you’re so cool.
You’re my hero.
I hope you get hit by a bus.
Andy
What?
Kevin
Take care you walking deathtrap.
Andy
I like that.
Frank
Huh.
Apropos of nothing.
Chris
Teenagers are weird.
Kevin
Yeah.
But I mean, you knew him, Chris.
I’ll tell you after the show.
Chris
Well, we were all weird as teenagers and I don’t think we got much better as adults.
Frank
I know I didn’t.
Actually, I was having this conversation.
It’s not that I can’t do the crazy stuff anymore.
The crazy stuff doesn’t interest me anymore.
Andy
Oh, really?
Kevin
Right.
Frank
Yeah.
Whatever.
And so instead, you know, I do the podcast with friends from high school.
Kevin
Well, friends from high school and me.
Frank
Oh, I count you as a friend from high school, even though I’ve known you nown your wife longer than I’ve known you.
Kevin
Well, I mean, we were in our 20s when we met.
So there’s that.
Frank
Yeah.
And she’s best friends with the girl that baby sat me when I was a child.
Yeah.
Andy
I didn’t know you guys went that far back.
Frank
When I first met Kevin, I was like, oh, why do I know this girl?
Chris
Anyway, it’s a small world after… censored.
Frank
Especially now.
All right.
I didn’t mean to get us to be real.
I didn’t help at all.
Let’s do this.
Wrap it up.
We’d like to thank everyone listening to the very end
Chris
the very, very end.
Frank
If you like what you hear, please give us all the stars and subscribe.
We are available through a wide variety of podcast vendors.
And so we’re easy to share.
If you have feedback, you can find us in our Facebook group, Amateur3DPod.
And you can email us at Franklin, Kevin, Andy, or Chris @amateur3dpod.com.
Or you can email us a panelist@amateur3dpod.com.
Kevin Buckner wrote the music for this episode.
Open A.I.’s Whisper completed the heavy lifting for the transcripts, which you can find linked into the description.
Our panelists are me, Franklin Christensen, and my friends, Kevin Buckner, Chris Weber and Andy Cottam.
Until next time, we’re going offline.
Kevin
Keep your FEP tight.
Andy
Always use hairspray.
Chris
Support your local farmer.
Print with milk.
Andy
That’s great.
Oh, jeez.
Frank
Isn’t that how you get cheese?
I’ve been misunderstanding how you get cheese all these years.
Kevin
Cheese is just a loaf of expired milk.
Chris
Apparently you might be able to print with that, too.
Frank
I mean, cheese melts at a lower temperature than plastic, especially American cheese.
Andy
I could probably take a brick of cheddar and cut some holes with a laser cutter and turn it into swiss.
Frank
Not quite how that works, Andy, but we’ll go with it.
Andy
I’ll prove you wrong.
I’ll prove you all wrong.
Frank
Good luck with that.
I’m never wrong.
Andy
Nope.
Frank
Are you disagreeing with me?
Not at all.
I would never do no such thing.
I really like the correct arrangement to my face.
Chris
Wait, Andy doesn’t have to take his printer apart to make Jesus toast now.
Andy
Hey, You’ve got a good point.
I should do that.
Next time I have it out, I’m totally making Jesus toast.
There’s no reason why that wouldn’t work.
Chris
Right?
Andy
I’m going to toast bread with my laser cutter.
It’s awesome.
Chris
It’s Christmas.
Let’s do it.
Andy
Yeah.
I like that idea a lot.
Frank
I think Kevin is struggling to process even more than I am at this point.
It’s too bad I didn’t make it into the episode.
I don’t think I’ve ever done a title based off of the post-conversation.