Frank
Thank you for joining us.
This is episode 68 of Amateur 3D Podcast, a podcast by amateur printers for amateur
printers where we share our thoughts and experience.
Our panelists this week are me, Franklin Christensen, and my friends, Chris Weber, Andy Cottam,
and Kevin Buckner.
And I know for certain Andy has things that he wants to share.
Andy
I got a lot. It has been a busy week.
Frank
So yeah, let’s jump right into that because fun stuff.
Kevin
right
Andy
Okay, okay. Well, to start off with this last week, work has been slowed down with the weather, which has been really nice. I’ve only been having to work a little bit more than eight hours a day.
So I’ve had tons of time when I get home here. And so I managed to finish my entire office setup in my new living room downstairs.
So I’ve got spots for my electronics. I put some lights underneath the shelf shine on the desk and even started working on a… on a project with with my son, which is kind of cool.
But I now officially have a spot for this kind of stuff, which is great, including the SLA printer, which I’ll get into in a minute.
This week, my, my son came home with a request of me, which is kind of cool.
He’s doing a report and my my 10 year old is in fifth grade. So this is fifth grade level stuff. And in his class, his teachers are having them do reports and they want them to answer a question or do a little speech about 30 seconds long.
And they had them draw out a little fake button that another kid could pretend to push from the other side of the table.
And my son being my son thought that that wasn’t good enough a little paper button. That’s not a button.
And so he made this little device here out of two cups.
And it’s just one cup nested inside of the other cup and he folded a paper clip in the bottom in such a way to act like a spring covered the top cup so it looks like a button so it can push like a button and he was very proud of this.
Frank
That is impressive.
You should be very proud of that.
Andy
Yeah, I was so very proud of this but he said that everybody in his class when he came up with this and was showing it off to his friends and stuff that everybody else wanted one too and everybody else made one, just like his design.
And so he was kind of struck with the whole this was neat. I made something cool. Everybody liked it. Everybody’s copying me.
But then there’s the other side. Everybody’s copying me and now I’m back to not having the cool thing anymore because everything everybody has the cool thing.
Frank
If everybody’s unique, nobody is.
Andy
Yeah, yeah, so, so he came up to me.
This is how the conversation started he showed me his button he says, what upgrade this and talking to a dad like me it’s like who really we could do this.
Frank
Tell me more.
Andy
Yeah, so you know after going through everything I told him, because what he wants to do is he wants to make this light up and make sound.
I would love to help him with this, but there’s a problem and that is some of the things that would go into making this do that is above where you’re currently at on your skill level.
It would be a great thing to sit down and do because you can learn something, but it’s not something you’d be doing on your own.
This, I told him I would be afraid that this would turn into a project that the parent did for the kid and not help the kid do.
Frank
Right.
Andy
I would help him on this but he has to be extremely involved in the stuff that is above his level and understand how and what we’re doing exactly.
In case somebody asked him or something he would be able to iterate the whole thing and not you know with an understanding of what we did.
And I’d be more than happy to help him with with the project and we can do it whatever he wanted to.
So the first thing I told him is okay well let’s start off by simplifying it for itself.
Let’s just 3D print a puck that can go in the bottom cup with a button on top of the puck that the top cup can push and then that will give us a project box that we could then do whatever we want with.
And so for that designing something like that is just a little bit above my son’s skill level.
He still is good at working with primes and manipulating primes to build his stuff but this requires making a shell and things like that and something that I’ll probably prefer to design in SolidWorks than the programs I have him using.
Andy
But in the past he’s been really good at sitting down and making measurements and stuff so and telling me what measurements to do and so we’ll go ahead and go that route.
You can tell me what to do and I will design it in SolidWorks by a side.
And that one I don’t think will be too bad.
Frank
Sure.
Andy
I’m going to make a two sided shell that one you know shell will slip into another and then do a slight turn to lock it into place.
I thought that would be kind of simple that locking mechanism the key in slot to make the lock is a little bit above his skill level but the rest of the case.
The shell and stuff should be right within his skill level to tell me you know what he wants done so the whole box there will work pretty good.
And so I started thinking OK well I’ve got some active Pezos that will run off of you know three volts or so.
And so we could just put a battery on the switch running the Pezo push the button Pezo runs that’ll be pretty simple.
And that’s what I thought.
Frank
Kind of like how you did with the tilt sensor, right?
Andy
I don’t know because that used a micro control or that was the original idea for the tilt sensor for leaning in a chair.
But it is basically that idea.
And so that was kind of the idea we wired it up on the breadboard.
And I was kind of showing him how it worked you know that’s what six wires on the back on a little coin cell battery and nice and simple ready to go.
And then he said he wanted it to light up as well.
And so I told him OK well we can add some LEDs to this that just turn on if you’d like.
And he said that he doesn’t just want it to be he wants it to to like play a song.
And so that kind of started getting more complicated.
So I told him you know well there is one thing that he could benefit from this and that is he’s actually pretty decent at coding at programming.
And he’s just kind of getting into understanding the C language that I use for the micro controllers.
He’s mostly a VB guy.
He’s that VB is the one that he can just go and do on his own.
See he can read but he doesn’t know how to write like he can you can give him C code and he can kind of for the most part tell you what it does.
But.
Frank
Here’s the thing though, he learns see now by the time he’s old enough to start looking
for a job, he’s already going to have 10 years experience.
That’s the bane of my existence, by the way, just side note, continue.
Andy
And you’re right and C is definitely the way I want to push him into this.
I want to get him away from the VB.
It’s just VB was the one I knew best when I started the easiest one for him to start on.
So I figured OK if we make it.
Chris
It still comes in useful in the busines world anyway.
A lot of things I need to do for CMM programming calls back to VB
Andy
Yeah Yeah
VBA or VBS.
I think traditional VB is pretty much dead but VBA and VBS is still used fairly widely
But anyway so I figured OK maybe we can use a small microprocessor I got a eight pin PIC controller that I really like for small projects like this.
That might be something that will work and can involve him in programming so the project is getting more and more complicated.
So now we’ve got the circuit has become overbearing.
I’m using a small tiny boost converter in it.
I’ve got a relay in there so that I can have a have the microprocessor completely shut off.
That way it’s not draining the coin cell battery it runs off of and that’s blown out of proportion unfortunately.
However he does understand how that works everything that we did on that project so still kind of a win.
The code that we wound up setting up is you would hate it Frank because it’s very spaghetti codish but the easiest way for him to understand what it’s doing.
We pretty much made that the buzzer buzz turn on and off based on just the internal timer on when to do it.
And we wrote it all out line by line and code instead of having it you know process a an instruction set or whatever we just wrote it in just hard coded it.
But that’s easy for him to understand so that’s the way we went.
But so we hard coded that and one thing that is kind of nice is the way we did do it is there’s no delays or anything in the code that that we wrote.
We had it always calling back to the main function so that we can do other things with the processing time in between times when the buzzer was supposed to be turning off or turning back on.
And that gave us a chance to be able to do the lights the way he wanted.
I used some individual addressable LEDs six of them and that way we can we can have it light up not just light up but also light up with whatever color and things he wants.
And that was the end of the night of that project is as far as we got and I let him stay up at night.
He usually gets on YouTube and watches all of his educational stuff that we allow him to on YouTube.
And he usually gets it about 10 o’clock I’ve always told him you know you can stay up and watch your your documentaries if you want as long as you’re not hard to wake up in the morning for school that’s where we’re going to draw the line and he’s
been great at waking up for school so we pretty much got open access to how late he stays up he’s been pretty good with it.
And so one of the things that he did that night was he wrote out every like each light has an RBG value and a timer, a time stamp on when to change.
And we also wrote in an option to be able to have it transition from the new frame of lights to old old from the old one to the new one.
And so he wrote he probably had 20 or 30 frames written out that next morning, all the individual RBG values the timestamps he wanted to use and whether or not it was to blend into the next.
So I was kind of proud of that one there that he had done all that on his own. And what’s even neater is we had just written it out to turn on the lights.
And then we had written it how to blend from one to another. And at the very end of the night I was telling them, all we have to do is just copy this little section of code for each frame.
And then you can we can just enter in the RBG values you want in the timer frame number and whether or not it’s a it’s a it’s a blend.
And then he took that and gave me a Word document at the end of the day of all these transitions. I was really proud of that he did all that on his own.
And that’s kind of where we’re getting right now. Tonight we’re probably going to go through and design the puck, the 3d printed part of it.
And since there’s so many wires, and I’m going to do this part on my own, I’m just going to make a circuit board for it.
I’m not going to really involve him on that one. But he is going to help me solder it. It’s time to learn how to solder.
I learned how to solder when I was in second and third grade. He’s in fifth grade. I have missed the ball here.
So a little voltage regulator has three pins on it. And to start or the voltage booster to start using it I on the breadboard I needed to solder three pins to it.
And so I thought so I started off when we were initially wiring up to let him do this. And we completely destroyed one voltage boost regulator with the soldering iron.
It was it was a bad thing. But the second one he was able to do for the most part, very big globules of solder on the pins, but it works.
Frank
Got to start somewhere.
Andy
Yeah. And when I go to do the circuit board, I’ll print multiple copies that way we can have one to go through and let him try to get, you know, have a lot of practice soldering pins.
And then the next one, if he’s succeeding, we’ll let him go ahead and do the next one. If it’s kind of still questionable, I’ll just go ahead and finish off the second one that way we can have one that works.
And then put together the project and hopefully this isn’t a project where dad did it all for him. You know, it doesn’t come off that way that dad did it all for him.
But I tell you what, he can go through the entire code we wrote, because I sat him down to make sure to, you know, tell me every line that we wrote what it does because he didn’t write any of it, but he was sitting next to me while I was writing.
Frank
And like you said, he’s learning how to read it, so he could interpret it, right?
Andy
Yes, yes. And he did. He got lost on the library calls for some of the things. Like, I’m using a library to control the addressable LEDs. And so had to kind of explain what, you know, when you’re using someone else’s library, that’s just someone else’s code.
So here’s how they arranged it. And this is how we’re going to call that and utilize this stuff. So it was a little confused on that, but the code that we wrote, he nailed. So kind of happy about that.
And it’s all sticking to his little cup push button thing that he made. So that’s the project I’m working on right now with him to do that’s 3D printing related. So that’s been kind of fun.
I’ve been printing a lot of dragons still with the FDM printer, going through a lot of filament on that with the wife selling those I was talking to her a little bit about what you guys suggested about maybe getting another printer for this.
And we might actually wind up doing that just get like a reality or something like that, because it’s hogging up the printer that I’ve got for my little projects.
Some of these bigger dragons…
Frank
I was admittedly being facetious when I said it, but it does make sense if you can’t do
your own projects while you’re doing her projects.
Chris
Yeah
Andy
But we’ll see.
I’m getting an older reality or something that’s all we would really need that’s what about 200 maybe 300 bucks at this point.
So we’ll see. And that way I’m not putting so much.
Chris
Local classifieds will have cheaper versions of older printers for people who always gotta have the latest and greatest.
Andy
There you go. And that’s the way I would like to go because these kind of printers or stuff that, you know, we could easily repair or upgrade in any ways needed. So just need the basic hardware to start with.
But we’re throwing that idea around. I don’t, we don’t plan on getting another one, but it’s also one of those things that will just happen randomly if it does.
If I get pissed one day that I can’t print anything because like, we’ll start one of these dragons and it’ll take 36 hours to print or something like that, you know, the printer is down for that long, or I can get into it.
Chris
Yep, locked up for three days.
Frank
And you can’t print off the new knob for your snowblower.
Andy
Yeah, exactly. Yeah, those little five minute jobs that I always talk about that I love so much, you know, that is the definition of having a 3D printer and you can’t really do those when it’s running off something else so.
Chris
Literally sucking the joy out of it.
Andy
No kidding.
Frank
Now, let’s talk about what we want you to talk about.
Andy
Uh huh.
Okay, getting into this with the new desk. I’ve got, I’ve got space for the SLA printer and so I set up the SLA printer and the wash station and last night I made an attempt to print my very first thing I just printed the the pre sliced, you know, item that was on the
drive for the printer. I got an Elegoo for Mars Ultra, the 9K one, and a cleaning station. I don’t remember who made it. It’s a Greatech, Geetech, Gleetech! cleaning station is the one that I picked.
It’s got the same size as the build plate for the print the printer itself so I ran off of that piece the one that the item that came with the Elegoo is just like a little Rook chess piece that’s very elegant.
And I showed this off to you guys I was so proud because you know my first resin 3D printer. I made a huge mess of everything. I wound up dumping by accident or losing about half a cup of alcohol on the carpet.
And when it came to the resin when I tried when it was all done and I was trying to clean up the vat and stuff. I made such a mess. It was disaster. I had a gallon zip lock bag full of paper towels and toilet paper and things like that ffrom me trying to clean up the mess that I made.
But I got it cleaned up and it was okay and got the piece washed and cured without any problem that printed perfect the first time I don’t see any problems or errors with it.
I’m excited for this sucker.
Chris
It didn’t have resin stuck inside of it?
Andy
No, no, no, I mean the
Frank
The thing’s basically solid, where it’s printed, right, and then hollow everywhere else.
Andy
Yep, yep, even the base has little little vents that they put in it to allow it to drain.
So,
Kevin
Right.
Andy
This this this Rook is from it was precise pre sliced from Elegoo so it’s going to be a component that should print with no problems because it’s the first thing they expect you to print with it so
Frank
I mean, unless there was some kind of damage to the machine in shipping, I guess.
Andy
Exactly, exactly. It’s a good first test print and it came out beautiful. I’m quite ecstatic. It’s not detailed enough, like some of the stuff Kevin prints. I can’t see the detail the printer can do with this piece, but but for what it did print, it looks great.
In a little while here after the podcast I’m going to try slicing my first piece and printing that. And then after I do that, that’s all the steps I think to be able to claim that the printer is ready to be able to print whatever I want to print with this.
Kevin
Right.
Andy
I did have a couple questions for Kevin if you don’t mind me coming to you with all my dumb newbie stuff.
Kevin
Oh, absolutely ask away, but first I knew I do need to make a point though that with as far as detail, you’re going to be able to get much better detail than I can.
Andy
Uh huh.
Kevin
Yeah, because you said you said your screen is a 4k or a 9k.
Andy
9k.
Kevin
Yeah, mine’s 2k.
Andy
Okay, then you’ve talked about your machine being a cheaper machine so no ones, you know, but we are all so impressed with what you’re doing with a cheaper machine.
Kevin
Right.
Right.
Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And I’d also venture to guess that you’ve got a mono screen whereas mine’s RGB, and that makes a difference also.
Andy
Oh.
And it is yep it is a mono screen so.
Kevin
Yeah. Yeah, I would eventually I think I will get a replacement for this thing, but right now for right now it’s, it’s suiting my needs just fine.
Andy
That’ll be good.
Kevin
Most of my prints are successful. So there’s that. Anyway, you’ve got questions. I’ve got answers.
Andy
Yeah, but I feel the exact same way you do that’s my FDM printer I’ve got a very super cheap FDM printer that’s been Frankenstein to death and I mean, as you can hear with me considering a new printer from the wife, that’s buying her a new printer so she can stop using my old one because I like the old one that works great.
Kevin
Right.
Chris
Frankensteined to life actually, because it’s still…
Kevin
Right.
Frank
Hey, leave me out of it.
Frank
Leave me out of it.
Kevin
I didn’t realize your last name was Stein I thought it was Christensen.
Andy
So.
So calling him Christenstein for now on.
Frank
Yeah, but, well, I’m sure that you can guess what everybody’s favorite tease was as a child.
Andy
What’s that.
Your.
Was that it the Frankenstein thing.
Frank
Yeah, that’s the easy one.
Andy
Oh really.
Frank
And people try to actually console me because I used to take it really personal.
People tried to console me and say, it’s OK, Frankenstein was the scientist, not the monster.
Frank
And then I read the book.
Andy
There you go.
Frank
And I’m like, no, Frankenstein was the freaking monster, dude, not the creation.
Andy
Was Frankenstein the…
Oh Frankenstein was the monster okay I see what you’re talking about
Kevin
Not the creation.
Andy
Yeah yeah yeah not the creation there you go.
Chris
Yeah, he was the doctor and he was the monster.
Frank
Anyway, I have completely derailed this.
Frank
Andy, you were going to ask questions about your resin printer.
Andy
The bad guy yep.
You’re fine yeah and hopefully the users who if they’re starting printing with a resin printer might might have some of these very basic questions that I have.
My first question I asked outside of the podcast I’m going to ask it again here just for the users because I was unsure, and that is I noticed my printer didn’t come with a.
A screen protector, and I’ve heard horror stories about people having getting some resin on the screen and then having it get like under the screen and stuff like that causing a lot of problems.
Do you run a screen protector.
Kevin
I don’t have a screen protector at the moment.
I will, I will probably get one at some point, but not yet. And I have, I’ve had it happen once or twice where I’ve had some resin leak out of the vat and get on to the onto the screen, and I’ve had to scrape it off of there which was, it took a lot of work to get that taken care of
obviously, but at the same time it wasn’t detrimental.
Andy
Okay.
That’s great.
Kevin
And the, I did buy a replacement screen because I thought my screen had died a couple weeks ago, but then it turned out that I just needed to unplug the machine and let the capacitors drain and then I was able to
fix the problem. I was able to do anything but yeah, letting the capacitors drain because that had happened once before but I do have the replacement screen and I think when it comes time to actually use that I will, I will get the screen protectors and then use them when it’s time to replace the screen.
Andy
Okay, sounds good.
Andy
I’m going to order some screen protectors and put them on this one here I mean we were all pretty impressed with the price that you were able to get a brand new screen for.
Kevin
Mm-hmm.
Andy
The 9k one is still a stupid price for replacement so I’ll try to take care of it I’ll get some screen protectors for it then.
The next question is, let’s see here.
When it came to cleaning up, I could not find how to clean up the build plate.
How do you clean like after you pulled it out, and you’ve popped your piece off of the Build plate. How do you clean your Build plate.
Kevin
I get a paper towel, and I wipe it down.
Andy
Do you use alcohol or anything in it to get everything loose or is it just wiping it down.
Kevin
It depends on how messy it is, but sometimes I will get the alcohol on it and then wipe it down with that. Sometimes I just wipe it down with a dry paper towel.
Andy
Okay, sounds good.
Frank
Would the plastic scraper, like we’ve got the plastic paint scraper or mud scraper things that came with some of our printers.
Would that be too aggressive?
Yeah, like that.
Kevin
This came, no this came with my Photon S and it’s, it’s a necessary thing to have to get the models off of the build plate.
Andy
It is a plastic scraper. Now do you use the plastic scraper on to jar them loose from the Build plate because mine came with a metal one as well and I was told to use the metal one on the Build plate and then use the plastic one on the FEP.
Kevin
Mine only came with a plastic one and so that’s what I’ve used for the build plate.
Andy
And I’m not saying anything you say is wrong and for our users you know how 3d printers go this is just how Kevin operates I’m sure there are tons of different ways to do this that are more than proper but I’m curious the way that Kevin’s operating because he does great great work.
Frank
With the resin printer, does that mean that the the build plate is
durable enough that you could use the metal scraper on it without doing any serious damage?
I mean, within reason, obviously.
Kevin
And I have actually a time or two, especially with the metallic gold resin, I have resorted to using the metal scraper that came with my Ender 3 to get stuff off of the build plate, but it’s brushed steel, so it’s pretty hard.
Andy
And I’ve also heard that like if you have an adhesion problems you can go over it with sandpaper to rough it up too so it sounds like a completely smooth surface is actually not.
What you want on the Build plate.
Kevin
Right.
Frank
So in other words, it’s pretty forgiving, though.
Like with the FDM printer, if you gouge it or something, you’re going to have trouble with it until you replace the glass.
Kevin
Right.
Frank
It’s going to stick too much.
Kevin
Right.
Frank
OK, OK.
Andy
Okay, so that that’s good. Yeah, I wound up dipping my Build plate in the vat getting some alcohol on it to try to get all this stuff off of it so it’s very clean now that’s nice to know I could probably just wipe it down.
What are the how to videos that I seen said you know if you’re planning on using your printer the same resin using your printer again with the same resin in like the next week or two to not even bother taking it out of the vat is that something you’ve experienced that you can get away with.
Kevin
Um, so the, the instructional pamphlet I got with my resin printer said… it discouraged letting the resin sit in the vat for more than two days because the, the components of the resin settle out.
Andy
Okay.
Kevin
That’s why you have to shake the bottle a lot before you before you pour the resin into the vat so that you can resuspend all of those components and make it work.
That being said, I’ve been lazy and what I, what I will do is if it’s been sitting in the vat for more than a couple days, I will stir it with my silicone scraper, and then, and that’ll resuspend it.
Andy
Okay. Okay, that’s good.
Kevin
So with that all being said, you’ve got a much higher quality printer than I do so you might be safe leaving it in your, in your vat for that length of time.
Kevin
Anyway, sorry, you were going to say.
Andy
Okay.
No, you’re fine. So from what I hear it or at least what seems like a lot of other people recommend it’s good to keep your two levels of your alcohol, one that you can do like a pre wash in that’s just your old alcohol that that’s kind of getting nasty that you can pre wash stuff in that way you can keep your new alcohol that you keep in the wash machine, a lot cleaner.
Is there something you do or do you just use the one vat?
Kevin
Um, I just used the one vat.
Andy
Okay, that’s fine.
Frank
There is the bit where isopropyl alcohol is not preventatively expensive.
You can get a quart for like two bucks.
Andy
Okay That’s true, the funnel might.
Frank
So I mean, compared to other expenses.
Andy
Mine came with paint funnels, and they made messes, such messes, trying to use those paint funnels that came with it.
And I wound up trying to use a normal funnel with a, this is to clean the resin out after the print.
A normal funnel with a coffee filter. That doesn’t work at all. It doesn’t go through the coffee filter.
Chris
No.
Andy
I made some errors, I promise that’s going to be I made a lot of errors.
Andy
So yeah, it didn’t work with the coffee funnel and or the coffee filter so my question to you is, how do you filter your resin and what should I do there.
Kevin
Um, so I have this, this metal funnel that I got on Amazon, and it’s got, it’s got a removable screen filter in it this was made with resin printing in mind.
Andy
Okay.
Kevin
So, um, my wife kind of wondered what the purpose of getting that was in addition to what I, the paper funnels that were supplied with it but that was the purpose is that it’s a reusable thing.
Andy
Okay.
Kevin
It’s so it’s not a one and done. And, and it’s, it’s got a better spout on the end of it because, like I said to you on the discord last night, the, the paper funnels that I got with it.
Andy
Okay.
Kevin
Let me see if I can grab an example here.
Chris
Our visual listensers…
Kevin
Right.
Chris
are getting an eye full today.
Kevin
Yes, they are. So the paper funnels that came with it have this, um, the, the wire mesh filter at the bottom, but it’s so high that it’s practically useless like it’s hard to use that without spilling.
Frank
Yeah, it looks like it would leave leave stuff in there.
Kevin
Yeah, it does and it’s so it’s not the greatest.
Andy
Okay
Kevin
In that regard.
Andy
I like that. I like that metal funnel with the insert that you showed there after talking to you I went on eBay and I collect our Amazon and I put a lot of these kind of things in my cart here and the one you just showed off is the one I grabbed so that that’s that’s great and it did the add for that particular funnel was for 3D printing too so…
Kevin
Yeah, it’s.
Andy
that did seem to do you just wipe it down when you’re done or do you throw it in the washing station with everything else or.
Kevin
I, I will pour alcohol over the filter and, and then wipe it down with that. And… so I’ve also got the, the beaker set that I will use with with it to pour the resin into the.
Andy
Okay.
Kevin
so I’ve also got the, the beaker set that I will use with with it to pour the resin into the.
Beaker and then when I’ll empty the beaker, then I’ll pour the alcohol through the funnel into the beaker and wipe it all down at that point.
Andy
Okay, and I did grab a beaker set like you suggested there to kind of place where you can intermittently put resin while working with it right.
It makes good sense that makes great sense.
Um, gosh, I think that’s probably all the questions I have right now I’m still learning a lot about it like I’ve only printed this so far at my little Rook here so I haven’t even tried slicing anything yet.
Um… slicing! One of the things I noticed is okay so once you hollow something out I grabbed the the knob that I had sliced for my.
What’s it called the choke on my snowblower the other day that we were talking about I just grabbed that STL to experiment with Chitubox you recommended Chitubox for me.
And so I was I sliced that and then was kind of playing around with it there and obviously it needs to be hollowed out for something like that so I hollowed it out.
And then you’re supposed to like punch a hole in it so that it can drain right or how does that work once I’ve hollowed because I mean it’s a solid piece.
So once I’ve hollowed it out as it’s printing do I have to have a drain hole on it.
Kevin
Um, I’ve always had a drain hole on it for, for bigger things for the, for the smaller things.
Andy
Okay.
Kevin
It doesn’t matter as much because you’re going to get, you’ll get a little bit of, of, of resin trapped in it. Yeah.
Andy
Like uncured resin inside.
Kevin
Yeah. That’s what I was trying to think of. You’ll get a little bit of uncured resin stuck in it, but I’m not concerned about it at that point, but with the bigger things that adds up over time and it’s just better to not have to worry about it.
Andy
Okay, I noticed.
Kevin
You know, so that’s why I’ll put a hole in it as a lot of the time I’ll try to put two just to make sure like it’s got some airflow one on the bottom one on the top, but some sometimes it’s just not feasible.
Andy
Okay.
What size of hole do you usually.
Kevin
I had whatever the standard size is.
Andy
Okay, that works. I was looking up and found warnings not to make them smaller than 0.8 millimeters because then the resin won’t drain at all through it and so when I was just playing around I did two millimeters.
But I noticed when you pop a hole in the model it Chitubox puts a small model of like a plug or something you could use.
Do you know anything about so how do you went when you put that back in or how do you deal with that part of it.
Or is that something you glue in post everything.
Kevin
That’s something you, you, you glue in after you’ve finished cleaning it up and all that.
Andy
Okay, okay, that makes sense. Hey you’re saving me a lot of time learning this stuff of my own I appreciate it.
Kevin
Yeah, you’re welcome.
Chris
So when you’re doing stuff closer to six milimeters it’s easier to glue a plug in.
Andy
That might be the case yeah.
Frank
Six millimeters is big.
Kevin
That would be a huge hole. I think, I think the standard, I think the size of hole I punch in it is two millimeters.
Frank
Andy, your rook is only like just guessing 15 to 20 millimeters across, right at the base.
Andy
Yeah, yeah, I think it’s maybe closer to 25 but yeah.
Frank
So six millimeters would be a full quarter of that base as a hole.
Chris
I’m litterally talking about over half a centimeter. Yeah. Ok.
Andy
Yeah, oh it’s fine that’s fine.
Curing times on the printer I just used the recommendations for the resin I got
Kevin
Uh huh.
Andy
for the start curing time and then the layer curing time, and that seemed that produced this and came out pretty good.
So looking at the before the podcast here on the the curing time card things that you can print to help you determine the curing time for a good resin.
How do you use those and where could I find them you know it all because I couldn’t like I found some, but it felt like finding a model for an FDM printer like a heat tower model, where, yeah, you got the model, but you have to go in and individually edit your gcode to change your temperatures for things like that. Is there stuff like I have to do for that for.
Kevin
Well, that just broke. It was an older one. So I found this little card style exposure time finder that I found this on Thingiverse.
At least with mine, if you put in a file, a sliced file called RERF with the underscores and everything in there, the printer will recognize that as an exposure finder file.
Andy
Okay.
Kevin
And so it will, it, it will divide the plate up into several sections and it will automatically do varying exposure times on each section.
Andy
Okay, so I should look for a card that’s in an RERF an RF or.
Kevin
That is for that. That’s for the Photon S. I don’t know if that’s, that would be the same for your printer because it’s a different company.
Frank
I was going to say double check and make sure your printer does that before you
Kevin
I’m, I’m sure there is something that his printer would do like that. I just don’t know if it would be called the same name. So I would
Frank
We talked about tutorials last week. Find a tutorial on your printer from Elegu there, Andy.
Andy
Okay.
Oh, I’ve been going through those left and right and I haven’t come across anything like that yet so.
Kevin
Or I was going to say, I would contact customer service and ask them about it and they would be able to answer your question.
Andy
It’s a good idea.
That’s a good idea, and I like it will do as a company so I’m hopefully their customer service won’t try me get me a stray from enjoying their, their stuff that they make.
Okay, I think that’s Oh, time for the cleaning cycle and then curing in the curing wash machine there. How long do you typically washers for and how long do you typically carry your stuff for?
Kevin
10 minutes.
Andy
10 minutes.
Kevin
10 minute wash then. So what I’ll do is I do a 10 minute wash and then I let the printed models dry for at least a half hour, and then I will cure them for 10 minutes.
Andy
Okay, both.
Kevin
If it’s, if it’s a bigger thing, like when I printed that big old dice tower.
Andy
Okay. Okay, that sounds good.
Kevin
I, I did a 10 minute cure and then I kind of changed the models position like laid it down or whatever. And then I did another 10 minutes.
Andy
Yeah, I think that that’s all the problems I’ve ran into so far I’m sure there’ll be a lot more next week.
I did notice when I was using this and this was a topic that we talked a lot about is the smell of the resin.
Stunk up my whole house for an entire day. It was pretty awful. I definitely need to do something about the smell of the resin. And so that might be this.
Kevin
Uh huh.
Frank
You’re by an open window now you can
Not have to worry about the the dryer
Andy
Exactly. Exactly. And that’s what I’m thinking about doing is basically kind of the same idea that but not interfacing with the dryer vent, just having a, excuse me, a separate vent out the window.
So my original idea was to build a box I could just put over the printers that was vented in such a way. And that seemed like to be a good deal but the last couple days when I was looking around to see what other people have done.
Half the people just drilled a hole in the back of the screen itself for the printer and was backing that out with great success.
Now, I didn’t have any problems with the smell of the alcohol station. I think that one might be fine. It’s the resin that’s the problem. But I might look into a little bit more to see what might entail because if I can, if I can bring a two inch like vacuum hose like a very
light, flexible vacuum hose from the window, put a fan in it, a ducted fan. So I got like a two inch little vacuum hose that I can then like magnetically attach to the back of the printer. And then just having just a low draw of air, you know, through it out
the window, enough just to keep it clean that kind of solves two problems because I was telling the wife, you know, that it does, it seems to be doing.
Once I got it poured and while it was printing it didn’t really smell it on we’re doing all right. The problem came is when I opened it up when it was done. That’s when the smell came out.
And so my little idea of building a box that can go over the printer solves doesn’t really solve but it will get rid of the smell during printing, but not really do anything for that moment you got to lift the lid and you’ll take the stuff out of it, but
Kevin
Right. And, and that’s what I was saying before when you were talking about doing it that way. And, and I was thinking you were talking about like making a fume hood.
Because having a, making a fume hood would accomplish the goal, I think.
Andy
Yeah
Chris
Hey Andy. I have a fume hood fan, actually, that goes out to a 4 inch duct that is just kickin’ out in my garage.
I was actually going to take it for scrap metal.
But it works. Runs on 120.
Andy
Oh, that’s cool. I, I appreciate the thought I would want control over stuff like that and fans are easy to do but thanks for that.
A fume hood does seem like it would be more.
I don’t have a lot of room.
I got two feet for my resin printer, and that’s pretty much it on this little table so…
Frank
You just quadrupled your space and you don’t have room?
Andy
Well, I don’t want the entire room to be centered around the resin printer the resin printer supposed to be just an afterthought on this.
Chris
I think the importat part here is simply that there’s a decent airlow next to the printer taking it away.
if that makes sense.
You know. It doesn’t necessarily need to be a hood or anything.
But a negative pressure will suck up the air near by and so if it’s next to the printer you have a negative pressure flow…
Frank
Something you pull on when you pull the the cover off
Chris
Yeah
Andy
So I’m going to do a little bit more research on attaching to the printer directly and see if there’s any downsides to that that affect print quality or whatnot.
I’m sure if sobebody’s like pulling a lot of air through it you might disturb things.
The pressure just has to be in the negatives, not a big negative pressure so just enough to keep it kind of drawn out and I don’t really see a problem with that but one thing that I did hear is people talking about if you do do this temperature is a problem.
Chris
You said do do.
Andy
Yeah.
However, I’m in the living space here and it’s just our room temperature which we keep warm so I don’t think temperature will be much of a problem room temperature in here that it would be the new air drawing through the printer would be so I might look into that I could maybe even experiment a little bit without hurting I’ll have to see how much replacement hood for my printer is, they might be I mean if it’s only like 20 or 30 bucks for replacement hood.
I might go to town and just try and see how it does, because if it doesn’t work the replacement wouldn’t be expensive, or making a plug for the hole that I drill in the back wouldn’t necessarily be a problem either so.
Frank
I have an idea Andy. Let me write it up for you real quick and I’ll send it to you
Andy
That’s it.
Frank
But what I’m thinking is because we have 3d printers you you could 3d print your way out of this
Andy
Okay.
Frank
kind of like with a
Frank
A vacuum surface like when you’re doing carpentry or something like that in the shop, right?
Andy
Uh huh.
Frank
Except for it just raises up your hood say
a centimeter
and then
Andy
And allows it to vent.
Frank
You have it hollow
So that it’s got ducting all the way around the the edge
And you put your hood on top of it
But it’s got an attachment for your vacuum to pull all the air out and then you’re not putting a hole in your hood
Andy
I like it.
I love that and that there’s no problem with the hood setting higher up than it currently is there is a magnetic switch on the back of the hood. No no. I think that’s actually the cleaning station up to see if there’s anything special switches or anything like that that it has sensors for
but that is a great idea just have like a ring that sits where the hood sits that is the vent got bent holes in it hollow or whatever, or even just a plastic ring in the back has open for a vent or anything like that.
And then the top bits on top of that that that. Yes, I like that because then I’m not affecting the hood at all.
Frank
And it’s elegant I feel is an elegant solution
Andy
I would be able to pull the hood off without having to pull the ring off as the ring, I mean, you don’t need a lot of airflow, I could you could probably make that ring six millimeters tall or something like that.
And I don’t think that would affect you messing with the vat and stuff leaving it in place.
Frank
Now
The one thing that does come to mind is you would want to have
Andy
That’s a great idea I love that.
Frank
The one thing that does come to mind is you would want to have
Something that goes inside of the hood
That conducts the positive air to the top so that when you’re pulling it out of the bottom
There’s replacement air so you don’t get the vacuum pressure inside
Andy
That’s a good point.
Frank
But that is that is the hardest thing that I can think of that would make that complex
Andy
So, looking at the printer, you’ve got the Z mast in the very back that drives the head, and there’s nothing really behind that. What if the ring itself wasn’t hollow the ring was just a support to hold the lid up a little bit so that you have access to it.
And at the back, it actually, that’s where the suction came up and it got a tube going all the way up to the top of the Z mast, and it’s opened up there. So it’s actually sucking from the top of the container, and pulling in through the machine.
Frank
The main reason I was thinking have it another reason I was thinking have it at the bottom is
Andy
That’s a great idea.
Frank
Then you get it all the particulate mass
It’s gonna want to settle anyway. So you’re just pulling it down
and then letting the the
Uh refreshed air come from the top
Andy
Okay.
Frank
As opposed to going the other way because then you’re fighting the mass of all the particulates that are making the uh the smell
Andy
That’s a great point. And all that I can do without, without damaging the printer cutting into it or anything. That’s a great idea. I’m going to give that a shot. Yeah, that’s that’s the new plan. Thank you.
That’s a great idea.
Frank
I have the occasional good idea
Andy
Yes, yes. And that actually, and then if it turns out not to work or anything like that, I haven’t invested a lot of material in it. I would still have the hose setup which I would use I want that anyway for soldering and stuff it would be nice to have something that’s just mag the hose magnetically coupled to whatever I want to currently use and so you know I was even thinking about underneath the shelf putting.
I’m hoping to make the whole thing only like two inches. I don’t want a big like three or four inch air duct. You don’t need that much air draw, but I was going to use a larger fan so I can have that kind of air draw if I wanted to where it was more like a vacuum kind of thing
or, you know, but still using a fan motor instead of a blower motor. No, got a lot of ideas, haven’t done anything yet. But, but that would be nice to have that ring around it that had a magnetically attached coupler for the hose.
And yes, I’m going to get that’s that’s going to be today’s project actually my son’s stuff is today’s project I got to get that done but I think that will be next on the docket.
And I could also control the end of the hose. This would be fun. The end of the hose the adapter part that’s magnetic. I can have a little LCD screen and microcontroller that I used to control the fan.
Have I got a fan speed selector right at the end of the hose. That’d be cool.
That’d be way cool. Got to make it complicated.
Chris
Ring around the venting, hooking up the hoses.
Andy
I just got to find a hose that’s easy to move around that isn’t like a vacuum hose, something that’s really light and easily flexible kind of thing. I’m just going to go to the local hardware store and see what kind of hoses they got before trying to experiment and ordering something online, but that’s, that’s going to work. Yeah, you got me excited man. That’s great.
Chris
Well, Andy, have you seen those flexible, they’re 3D printable.
Chris
You can print it with your FDM printer.
Those flexible air puffers.
They like, they pup air on workstations.
You know, a lot of, yeah.
Frank
Yeah, they’re fully articulated you put them on like a drill
Chris
Yeah.
Frank
Uh drill press or something like that to blow off
Chris
Yeah.
Andy
Yeah, I’ve seen them for like, like liquids and even air. Yeah, I’ve seen those that’s a little bit more heavier duty. I’m hoping to find a hose that is more like a wire.
Chris
I like a dryer event, but smaller.
Andy
Yeah, like a spring on the interior that’s coated with a very light material. That way it’s physically light to move around and easy to move around and doesn’t fight you for weird angles or anything, kind of like a dryer vent but smaller and not as get all over the placey.
Frank
Or not aluminum
Andy
Yeah, exactly. We’re not really working with heat here for the most part. So I just, I just need to be able to have a little bit of free suction there and then, and making the adapter for the window, the window I have to work with is I think 14 inches.
It’s kind of a smaller window. So it’ll be easy to 3d print with the FDM printer an insert that I can, you know, open the window, put the insert in and close the window on that’s perfect.
Andy
I’ve got the fan right inside that component that particular part, and then just have a hose that that comes off that is easy to attach to stuff.
That’s some great ideas.
Frank
Sounds like fun
Andy
Great ideas. Thank you. But that’s, that’s my week. That’s that’s all I’ve done. I’ve been all I’ve done. I’ve done a lot.
I’ve got the entire desk now and all that. So now I’ve got an office, kind of, I’m just calling it a desk when we’re talking about it in the house because it’s in the living room in my basement, and I am occupying just one wall. So it’s my desk.
Frank
Do me a favor when you get a chance sometime and share us a picture of your new workstation like the whole the whole wall
Andy
Absolutely. I sent a, I sent a couple on discord when I was installing the lights and stuff like that.
Frank
Did I miss them?
Andy
I’ve got two shelves.
Frank
Okay
Andy
I’ve got two. I’ve got it’s eight foot wide. I’ve got 10 feet of space that I’ve got an eight foot wide folding table that I bought that’s 30 inches out that is the desk.
And then I’ve got two shelves that are eight foot shelves by 16 inches deep that I’ve got directly above that.
Frank
Okay, I do see them that’s pretty I like that workstation
Andy
Thank you. And I got light the bottom shelf that sits over the desk. I’ve got LED lights that go all the way across the light up the desk. I’m hoping to keep it to where I’m not, unless I’m doing a project I’ve only got certain items on the desk itself like my battery welder
my soldering gun and things like that are going to be on the shelf and things and not occupying the desk.
Things like my power supply, my variable power supply that is always in use. Right now that’s the only thing I want on the desk otherwise I want to try to keep it clean. I did order four power strips.
Some of you have seen my tool shed out in the back, my little shop out in the back that I got. I wound up putting outlets all over the ceiling and there’s what two, four, six, eight, ten, twelve outlets on the ceiling above my work desk.
And it’s been awesome to just whenever I’m working a tool, I plug it into the ceiling cord dangles down completely out of the way of everything else and then you work whatever you’re doing.
Frank
I’ve done
I’ve also done work out there myself and it is wonderful when you have something that you need to plug in
Andy
And that is, yes, I love that outlet setup. So I’m going to do something similar with my desk here. I’ve got four power strips that I’ve purchased, just cheap, I think six plug power strips and an extension cord.
And I’m just going to not daisy chain them together, but I’m going to wire the extension cord in and out of each one and then screw them to the bottom of the shelf so you can plug stuff right up to the bottom of the shelf.
And for those freaking out about power strips, you don’t use all the outlets at once. That’s not the point. It’s having an outlet wherever you are that’s the requirement.
So there might be only two or three things plugged in at one time, even though it’s four separate outlets, you know, on that. So I remember.
Chris
Yes.
Yeah, you’re not the, you’re not the kind of guy to plug in, plug in an extension cord to an extension cord to an extension cord and then use, use a high, a high powered device on top of that.
Andy
No, not me. I don’t do stuff like that.
Nope.
That’s not my way. That’s a dangerous thing and a fire hazard, Chris things light on fire when you do that. Trust me.
Kevin
Yep.
Andy
But but yeah, so that that’s that’s the project. I’m still waiting on those to come. I think they’re supposed to come today or tomorrow. And so I’ll sit down and cut up the the cord and splice them into each one and then mount them underneath.
Right now I’ve just got a couple of power strips that are I got two power strips that are daisy chained right now, just temporarily until I get the power done around the desk.
But this whole system, I don’t have anything that’s high amperage, even my battery welder, which is a spot welder is capacitor based. So it only pulls like 20 or 30 watts when it’s in use. So it’s I don’t have anything high wattage that I got to worry about that I would ever run from here.
But having a plug where you need it is the important parts.
Yeah, that’s all I got sorry for rambling so much there was a lot that happened this week and a lot to talk about so
Chris
Well, the, well, yeah, the plug wherever you want it, I kind of assumed that was just like a basic workshop thing because I have a, I have an old strip from the 50s that I had to rework and clean.
Chris
But, and it goes like, it’s like a six, almost six foot long strip that goes my, you know, 10 foot long workbench.
Andy
I completely agree and even in my shop outside I have one of those.
And it is it’s it’s one of the older ones it’s got like what 1520 outlets on it it’s like six feet long.
I’ve got one of those two and I use it for this then that’s at the table level at the back of the table and that’s for plugging stuff that’s.
Chris
Yeah, I back in my workbench.
Andy
Yeah, that’s for plugging stuff in that stays plugged in all the time. And that works great because then the cord gets bunched up against the, you know, the back of the desk there and it’s plugged in right there and that works out good but you’re using like a hand tool or something
like that. That’s where those overhead plugs come in handy.
Chris
Okay, and I have a dangling extension cord that just is easy to move from one end of my work bench to the other. So I only use one at a time because there’s literally only one plug but it’s not hard to get it and move it from one end to the other.
Okay, yeah.
Andy
So it sounds like you got the same setup I do I just chose hard outlets in mine or in this case for power strips along the back end here and you’ve just got a hanging outlet that they same usage that you would do with it so
Frank
You’re typical hobbyist supply store like uh harbor freight and that sort of thing has
Longer power strips for this exact purpose too.
Andy
Oh, I agree, but there.
Frank
I’ve got three of them that I’ve purchased
No, and yeah, I understand the whole
Frank
Uh preventively expensive whether it’s time or actual money
Um going your route, but uh, yeah, I’ve bought one probably every three or four years because I find a new
New use for them. So…
Andy
They’re nice. They are nice. Yes, I agree. The old one that you’ve got Chris does it have a plug at the end or was it one that was supposed to be wired in.
Chris
Oh, no, it’s got a, it’s got a plug on it’s got a, a length of cord and a plug on the end. Yeah.
Andy
Mine never had a plug it was it was it kind of remind me of the ones they put in schools that they had that was wired into the wall. So the one that’s out there is.
Frank
Like on the kickboard or whatever
Andy
Yeah, you got to pull it apart to add the the Romex to it or whatnot.
Frank
And now and now because they’re giving everybody laptops in schools they have to have power at every desk
Andy
That’s an interesting thought. How do they do that. I haven’t seen the inside of a school with that in mind yet.
Frank
I don’t know I only just thought of it myself
Kevin
I’d have to ask my kid.
Chris
I know that the one I’ve, when I’ve seen it in my daughter’s classroom is they actually have a, there’s like a cabinet that all the computers go in.
And it looks like it looks like there’s chargers there, but the charger, the plugs are not at the desk.
Kevin
Right.
Chris
But again, this is a really really old school that they’re about to tear down this coming year.
Andy
Okay.
Chris
I don’t know.
Frank
Well and my thought was… Um…
Especially for the schools that issue the laptop to the student
If they’re going to use it all day, they need to have
juice so they can use it all day. The battery’s not going to last for
Six hours in class
Chris
Um, yeah, actually, no on these Chromebooks they do.
Frank
Really! That’s I’m impressed
Andy
Yeah, Chromebooks have great battery life they have great great batteries.
Chris
That’s incredible.
Frank
I guess technically all they’re doing is reading documents and maybe surfing the internet a little bit
unlike
You know a full PC where
You know, we’re running half a dozen different programs that we’re not paying attention to plus a game plus
You know streaming video and all that other fun stuff. So
Chris
Yeah, well, during the COVID, I blew a couple hundred bucks to get a decent Chromebook for my daughter to have at home.
And, yeah, you charge it once and it lasts for, gosh, at least 12 hour’s constant use.
So,
Frank
Maybe if they wired plugs into the locker so it can charge during lunch
And then all the students would use the the locker. I never used mine
Chris
but yeah, and my daughter,
Frank
That would still take a lot of work though
That that would take like all summer to wire those up too
Chris
yeah, so in my daughter’s classroom, it’s not that each kid is, is assigned one, there’s just like 30 there in, in, in the classroom, and each, each kid just grabs one and logs in and their individual login is saved by the, by the admin.
So all the settings or whatever else they had on their previous Chromebook just hop on when they log in.
Frank
It’s like any other organization logging at that point then
Chris
Yep. And it’s
Frank
Like what corporate organizations do that so
Chris
Same concept.
It’s
Kevin
But then when they get to highschool that’s when they’re issued their own chromebook to use at every class.
Frank
Gotcha that does kind of make sense too
Kevin
And I was surprized they didn’t do that in middle schoold because they have to go from class to class.
Chris
you know, as my daughter gets in the middle school just so that she doesn’t have to use this use the same laptops other
booger hooks have been touching, maybe I’ll get her her own so she can just keep it with her all time all day.
Frank
I thought you said you just said that you did get her own anyway
Chris
I mean, I did but you know it’s three
Andy
That one’s for home.
Chris
it’s for you for this this one’s four years old at this point. So,
Frank
That’s still newer than my gaming laptop
Chris
but yes, also, it is, it is for home so she can log in and do her homework and things at home.
Frank
All right
So, uh
I know that kevin has got a
End of podcast requirement kevin. Have you done anything this week?
Kevin
I have I have so I was working on cleaning up the the figure that I had printed the previous week with the hammer, but then the head of the hammer snapped off because I gently touched it.
Chris
Oh,
Kevin
So, so I went in and I made the hammer thicker and I reprinted it and it worked out. It still looks excellent. In fact, I think it was worked a little better because I was able to actually go in and clip off all of the attachment things from the supports.
And so I think this one’s going to be a lot more sturdy. I did try to glue the hammerhead back on it was kind of bent and stuff, but then Kyle’s friend came over and I, I showed her the mini and she was like, Oh man, that looks great.
Kevin
That looks even better. She said it looks even better than I thought it would.
Andy
Oh, that’s great.
Frank
That’s a great thing to hear
Chris
cool.
Kevin
But then she also accidentally broke off the hammerhead so I was like, Okay, it is obviously needing to be redone so I redid that.
Chris
Yeah.
Kevin
And I think it’ll last longer and I tried to print up a little peacock spider for a friend of mine. It failed so I’m trying that again. But then, Kyle’s other friend, who is also playing this is on beside campaign came over yesterday and made his character.
So I finished designing that on Titancraft today and I’m printing it right now. I haven’t done anything with my FDM printer though, and I did start.
I also made another guy on Titan craft to be like holding a chainsaw but chainsaws are not an asset option on Titan craft right now so I’ve started trying to design my own chainsaw and blender.
And that is much more complicated than a hammer.
Andy
Yeah, I I’ve been trying to learn blender over this last little while and I did the donut and it turned out great. And then I went in and tried to just randomly just make something.
Frank
Yeah
Andy
I need to go do the donut again. I didn’t learn enough. I couldn’t get it to do anything that I wanted it to do. So I’m impressed at the hammer that you made that was pretty cool.
Kevin
I had to do a couple of donuts before I was able to to start doing stuff on my own in blender.
Chris
Yeah.
Kevin
Like, like I’ve said before, it is absolutely not intuitive.
Frank
You described something that I had never heard of before so I went and found a peacock spider
And these things are cool
Andy
Oh, they are.
Frank
They they look like your regular jumping spider except for the the
The back part that I can’t remember my
Chris
The display for the ladies. Yes, the, the, the abdomen display for the ladies folds out and goes flop flop flop flop.
Frank
The uh
Kevin
I mean, that’s what I got, but the two of the legs came out flat so very similar to what printed up the image you found Frank.
Frank
I think I have a new favorite spider
Kevin
But what I’m trying now is I’ve turned the spider upside down so that I don’t have all of this massive tangle of supports on the underside that I’ll just get in the way of everything and and the legs will be more free to just print up on their own.
Andy
Yeah.
Kevin
But all these supports off I can show you that it’s only got six legs right now because of the failure in printing.
Andy
That’s cool.
Do you do you have a tub clean options on your 3D printer, where it exposes the entire bed for a single layer that you can peel the entire FEP clean.
Chris
Oh,
Andy
It’s an option this this new one has. I don’t know anything about it. It’s just one of yours talking about a failed print and I was thinking from what I the videos I seen about my printer is if I have a failed print where anything is attached to the FEP that I should run the tub clean and it will
Andy
without bringing the build plate down it will expose the bed for a minute and then you can do appeal on the entire bed to get everything off of it.
Frank
Sounds to me like kevin has a project to find a
Chris
I’m pretty sure now that he knows it’s it knows as it knows it exists. There’s probably a little file he can run on.
Frank
A way to do this with his
That isn’t automated
Andy
It seemed kind of neat.
Chris
He can find on Google somewhere.
Kevin
Maybe.
I might be able to we’ll see.
Andy
Well that does something like that.
Yeah, anyway, it looked pretty neat. The thing that that I saw in the videos people were saying is to to hold on to a couple of what are they called supports.
And before you get ready to do it stick a support in it touch in the FEP and then run it and that way you’ve got something you can grab on to to pull to do the pull off and and every single one that I see when they pulled it off.
Andy
It was satisfying like pulling off the display plastic.
Chris
Oh, the protect protective cover. Yeah.
Andy
Yeah, the protective code it kind of had that same kind of gratification watching them pull that off and you see you see pieces of the felt print all over the FEP and then just they just peeled the whole thing and the FEP’s nice and pretty underneath.
Kevin
Nice.
Frank
Sounds like it might almost be better than the silicon scraper
Andy
It’s kind of cool.
Andy
I did order a silicon scraper is specified though I think I’ll work a lot better.
Kevin
So, you also use the silicone scraper to scrape the liquid resin off of it when you’re when you’re emptying the vat.
Chris
No, the silicon scraper for the vat.
Frank
On the sides
Chris
Yeah, you really need now for the vat that the, the metal scraper is the one usually clean for cleaning the build plate and the plastic one for the FEP right.
Kevin
Or your fingernail for the fat.
Andy
And one of the things when it comes to re tightening the FEP down. Is it true that you’re supposed to use a guitar tuner to test the frequency when you tap it to see if it’s tight enough is that really a thing.
Kevin
I don’t use a guitar tuner because the guitar tuners I have will give a note, and I don’t know how the note clarif… erm… correlates to a Hertz reading.
Andy
I got I got that up to I use it for stuff. Yeah.
Kevin
So I do have, I have an app on my phone called spectrum analyze, and it will tell me how many Hertz the sound that is detecting is. So, yeah, so I will put that next to my FEP when I’m tuning it, and you want it to be ideal is around 330.
You want it between 300 and 350.
Andy
I never knew that about SLA printers you you tone the FEP by the sound it makes that’s so cool.
Chris
Wow.
Kevin
Yep.
Chris
That’s crazy.
Frank
Well, it’s a good thing you’re both already musical people too
No, hey, um, I’ve already determined that the title of this episode is the ballad of andy’s Elegoo so
Andy
Sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt.
Chris
It wasn’t, it wasn’t going to be SLA Leiah wakes up.
Andy
Yeah, sorry, it was such a big thing.
Frank
No
Frank
I wouldn’t have thought of that title
So kevin
Kevin
Yes.
um, you got the spider and you got the statue. Was there anything else that you wanted to chat about real quick?
No, I talked about trying to make the chainsaw.
Frank
That’s right, you did mention that. see my memory sucks, but
Kevin
Yeah, no.
Right. No, that’s that’s all I’ve done this week.
I do.
Frank
It’s still pretty busy
Kevin
I’ve done a lot, but I’ve been really busy in life in general, not not involving the 3D printing. So, there’s that too.
Frank
Okay, that’s fair. Well chris. Have you done anything this week?
Chris
This week. No, all I did was sleep and work and clean.
Frank
Wow. Speaking of busy
Chris
So yes, I today this week is one of those weeks where I just I survived.
Andy
Did you
Frank
Uh, that’s not so bad
Andy
work being pretty busy for you and whatnot.
Chris
Yeah, I mean, it’s not been stressful, but yeah, it’s been busy.
Chris
So there’s that.
Andy
What about you Frank have you done anything.
Frank
All right
Um, I did print off a couple of Fibonacci hooks
Um, our dog
Is small enough that he requires a coat when we go out in our
Eight inches deep snow because his legs are only three inches long
He drags his whole underside through.
Which is mildly amusing um
And the the one that we were using was printed at 20 infill
So I printed off a couple of them
At 50 to see if they were heavy enough that we don’t pull it off every time we pull off his harness and his coat
And they’re working fine. Um
Otherwise the only
project I’ve really been working on is my program to
Merge the transcripts so that I don’t spend
Lately I’ve been spending at about
150 to 200 podcast time
syncing up the
The transcripts
Andy
Okay.
Frank
And if I can get that pre-work done then all I have to do is spell check while the podcast
Is going and that should reduce that evolution quite a bit
Andy
That would be nice. Yeah, for those people who haven’t gone in and use the transcripts for anything a lot of work’s gone into those figure them out.
Chris
Yeah.
Frank
Oh, um, I did finally I did finally get on
Andy
And use them.
Frank
the chat with another tech with my
service provider for the website
and they managed a
proximity fix
Andy
Okay.
Frank
As in I went in tried to reproduce it
Frank
And I was still having the problem got on the chat and as soon as I authenticated the page loaded
Frank
And it’s like I’ve been fighting this thing for two months now
Andy
Never fails right. Oh my God.
Frank
And this particular tech so that was my feedback. This tech is freaking awesome. He has the POWER
and um they need to get more people like this tech so that uh
People like me can update our website at the frequency that we want to
Andy
Nice.
Chris
Yeah.
Frank
But yeah, so the transcripts are up. I uh am still working on that project. Hopefully I’ll have it done this week
and Fibonacci hooks, that’s everything
Andy
Nice.
Frank
Um, I feel like we went from
High speed to we’re done. So why don’t we just wrap this up and call it a day and everyone can go do their thing
Andy
I got tired and I’m ready for a nap now.
Frank
You did talk for almost an hour there, Andy
Andy
I was excited. Now I’m tired.
Chris
I had a lot to say and that’s totally cool.
Frank
No under understandably
We we wanted this
Chris
We need like a little book that’s the adventures of Andy.
Andy
Oh dear.
Frank
We do have the transcripts
Andy
I love that you do the transcripts by the way that’s I have a lot of podcasts where I went back to look for when something was said I have no idea what podcast it is or anything like that. So nice just to be able to search and then see.
Chris
Control + F.
Andy
Not not only like what was searched for what was said but to be able to identify what podcast it came from and when it happened.
Frank
Now I haven’t quite
worked out the search for the whole page, but you know, you could do a
Boolean search on google or something and it would search the whole page for you
Andy
Yeah, yeah.
Frank
um That might be something worth
Looking into and we’re small enough right now. I don’t even imagine like google would require payment for the service
I’ll have to look into that
Another coding project. Thanks, Andy. I appreciate that
Andy
Oh, I’m sorry. I just mean just use Google to do it but that because that works to that works just fine.
Sounds good.
Frank
All right, well speaking of wrapping it up, let’s uh blow this popsicle stand
um we’d like to thank everyone for listening to the very end
Chris
The very, very end.
Frank
Um, we hope you enjoyed Andy’s, uh
New printer smell
Chris
For our, what should we call them listeners. Oh my gosh.
Frank
Yeah, the the visual listeners
Chris
No there’s the visual listeners and now there’s the sense scental listeners.
Frank
Olfactory listeners
Kevin
Olfactory. Yes.
Chris
Olfactory.
There it is.
That’s the word I was looking for.
Frank
If you like what you hear smell or see in this podcast
Chris
Excuse me.
Frank
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 if you have… Or… You know and or uh, you can email us at panelists at amateur 3d pod.com
Frank
And individually with our name at and amateur 3d pod.com. That’s andy franklin
Kevin or chris
Uh, kevin buckner wrote the music for this episode. Have I improvised on this closing enough yet?
um
Open ai’s whisper completed the heavy lifting for the transcripts which you can find linked in the description and they work again. Yay
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
I put my PC to sleep, but the printer took a little coaxing and assurances that there were no doctors hiding under the desk.
Frank
Doctors printer doctors
Kevin
Putting it to sleep.
Andy
Putting it to sleep.
Frank
Yes
There’s a lot of connotations with…
This is why ai should not be applied to 3d printers, I guess… don’t want a sentient printer
Andy
Okay, that’s a way you can come up with some more jokes there Chris if you run dry just ask AI to come up with some 3D printer jokes.
Chris
Well, you know, I wasn’t sure if I should do that one or…
Frank
With chris’s brain, uh, with chris’s brain, I’d be surprised if that would ever happen
Besides I I I have a suspicion that he gets most of his responses from the podcast itself
Chris
Yeah, I tried to make it. I try to make it podcast relevant. I wasn’t sure if I should do that or power strips. Oh baby that’s juicy.
Kevin
I’d also I’d also venture to guess that
Anything that you get that’s funny from AI, it would most likely be unintentional.
Andy
Yeah, some pretty good stuff pretty good jokes from Chat GPT.
Kevin
Right.
Frank
If you do chris you do have to cite your reference for one and for two you have to deliver it in a completely monotone voice
Kevin
Yeah, preferably robotic.
Chris
Yeah, if I, if I use AI for that.
Frank
I might be able to find a filter for that actually
Chris
But, and I’m, if when people start referring to AI as artificial intelligence, I’m going to say no, it’s algorithmic integration.
Kevin
There you go.
Chris
Yep.
Frank
Both are true
Chris
Yeah.
Frank
Our our bio computers in our head do the same thing though. So…
Where is that line?
This conversation is weird. I’m gonna stop now