Frank

Thank you for joining us.
This is episode 67 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.
Good morning guys, I feel like we’re kind of more on top of it today than we have been for a while.

Chris

More on something.

Kevin

Who you calling a moron?

Chris

Myself.

Frank

There’s a joke that Stephen King tells in the Dark Tower series that goes along those lines.
I don’t want to ruin it for anybody that hasn’t read the book in the last 20 years though.

Andy

Okay, yeah, no spoilers.
Stephen King spoilers.

Frank

Well it’s a book, you know, movies are okay after like the first year if you haven’t seen it that’s your business.
But if you’re reading a book you want to be into it, you don’t want to have a spoiler in the end.
Chris started to talk and wonder of wonders I had the presence of mind to call a stop real quick.
You wanna revist what you were talking about?

Chris

So I’ve been looking lately.
I’m highly interested in recycling plastics at home because obviously we go through so many of them.
I’m throwing so much weight especially because, you know, my city stopped doing recycling plastics a couple years ago.
So I posted a video for you guys earlier.
You guys said that was kind of cool where the guy, you know, spools a spool cuts a bottle and then he puts it on a roll and he made this nice little jig that automatically rolls it into the right size filament for his printer as it goes so that the drive head is what’s driving the feed to automatically roll it into the printer.

Andy

Yeah, it’s the extruder is pulling in the brand new filament as the filaments bing formed.
It’s kind of a neat little setup.

Chris

Yeah.

Frank

Andy used a word that he refused to use last week.

Chris

So I’m thinking.

Frank

Chris was trying to avoid it.

Andy

So yeah, the feeder, the feeder, not extruder, the feeder.

Frank

No, the all the 3D printer diagrams describe it as an extruder.

Andy

Yeah, tell that to a doughnut making machine.

Kevin

Also, when my printer says extruder is heating, it’s talking about the nozzle and not the feeder end.

Andy

And that makes sense too, because that is what’s getting hot is the extruder.

Kevin

Yeah.

Frank

Vocabulary class has ended.

Chris

So I’ve been looking into different ways to be doing this.
And it looks like there’s essentially two ways.
There’s that there’s that way where you, you know, use a cutter set up to string off the better part of the bottle, but it’s not still not using the entire bottle.
Right.
Um, and I saw.

Frank

Because the stringer doesn’t do very well around the should of the bottle. Right?

Chris

Yeah.
So the very bottom of the bottle where the feet are and the shoulder up by the neck, you know, is kind of kind of where you have to stop with this kind of thing.
So, um, I’ve been looking into hopper feeding where you just put pellets of stuff in instead of, you know, you just put pellets of stuff in instead of, you know, you just put pellets into hopper feeding where you just put pellets of stuff in instead of actual filament.
And it seems to be that, uh, with the new printer settings and things, the way things have been going with, uh, slicer software that there’s actually not much a noticeable difference between hopper fed, uh, plastic printing versus filament fed, uh, printing.
So I’m going down this avenue, but there’s this guy who, uh, decided to, to, to use this hopper fil, uh, filament, uh, hopper feeder to see how recyclable, uh, PLA, uh, uh, eating utensils were, how recyclable those really were for printing.
And so what he did is he bought a bunch of cheap PLA, uh, forks on Amazon.

Andy

Okay.

Chris

And just to show that it was usable, he, uh, he, he first tested just a couple of them that were new out of the package to get his settings all figured out for his printer.

Andy

Okay.

Chris

Um, and it was really brittle, not so good.
So he, he, he, he turned the speed and the heat down a little bit and it came out, came out better.
And so he took a bunch of marinara sauce, dumped it on a bunch of these forks and then washed them in his, in his sink, just to show that, okay, they’ve been used, right?
Now you’re going to recycle them, right?
So he puts them in his sink, washes them with dish soap, you know, and then runs them through, uh, he’s using a paper shredder.
I think I’m going to do, maybe make something a little more heavy duty myself because those paper shredders after you keep feeding plastic through them, they’re, they are made to cut up credit cards, but…

Frank

but not at the, uh, not as much, yeah, not as much as a, we would need it to…

Chris

Right.

Frank

And actually technically credit cards are much less durable than the, say, uh, your support would be more, uh, difficult for the manager to manage in the first place.

Chris

So I’m thinking the, yeah, so the simplest way is going to be going hopper feeding and having your own plastic shredder at home so that you can take different types of plastic like a lot of the PETG bottles, right?
And you can just have one, one hopper or one, one bin that just shred PETG bottles and then you can hopper feed all of those for recycling directly through your printer.
So there’s no big, uh, hassle of trying to turn it into filament again.
Just avoid that entirely and just go hopper fed.
Um, and anyway.
So he was able to use these, um, uh, he was, he was able to successfully print this nice little, uh, figure with the recycled, uh, hopper fed, uh, plastic forks, but he, he said for the best quality, he added some fresh, some fresh PLA pellets on top of it because, um, they had already, they had already, the, the PLA from the forks was designed for injection molding versus 3d printing.
So there was a little bit of a disconnect there, but he, he only had to had, had to add like approximately 10% weight.
So that’s not still not bad.
So you do, you do, do you do still buy new plastic, but only it’s only to refresh your recycled stuff and 10% that’s not bad.

Andy

Yeah.

Frank

So when it comes to PET part of the reason we advise not to throw your PETG into the recycling bin is because the G aspect, um, contaminates the PET and anything that is recycled with the PETG in it can’t be used for the purpose that, uh, the recycling plants would want it for.
So the whole batch is bad.
Um, that said, if you’re going the other direction, that contaminant, I guess would work for you, right?

Andy

Yeah, continue to lower the melting temperature of the, of the PET, even if it was part of the recycled plastic, I’d imagine.

Frank

Right.
Um…

Chris

but we’ve seen, we’ve seen print people printing, uh, PETG or sorry, PET bottles without adding new plastic and they’ve been turning out fine.
So it might be that you don’t, for PET, when you hopper feed it, you may not even need to add new plastic and it will be recyclable

Frank

or even the, the, the string fed like the video you shared, which is just the string from the bottle fed through, uh, it looks like a, uh, a pre-roller, like you were saying.

Chris

Yep.

Frank

And from there right into the, the hot end, um, it’s interesting for sure.
I actually haven’t done anything like even looked at recycling for a while now.
And the last I saw anything related to it was this guy who had bought, I guess, uh, a contraption to shred and then process the, uh, the used plastic and he made the point that once it’s been extruded and presumably once it’s been molded, even for injection molded, the heat or the heating aspect has already compromised the plastic in a way that makes it lower quality to reuse.
And that was why he fed, uh, just unused raw PLA into the hopper as he was, um, reusing the other plastic.
So I don’t know how the, the reused aspect would play in with the need to add, um, unused regular, uh, PETG pellets too.

Andy

That does make sense.
Cause PET does go undergo a, like you say, a chemical decomposition when you heat it up.
That’s why we can bake PLA or PETG and that’s why we could kind of only heat it up once.
You can’t really reheat it in your hot end.
Once it’s already been heated, you got to pull it out and, you know, put new stuff in because it doesn’t really melt again.
The second time around, it just kind of crystallized, caramelizes and burns.

Chris

So, okay.

Frank

Things to keep reminded the very least for anyone who tries it.

Andy

Yeah, yeah, that is interesting.

Frank

I like the look at these pellet, um, extruders.

Chris

Yeah

Andy

I tried looking a couple up.
I, I didn’t really see any, but that’s something I think I want to look through too.
That’s, that’s kind of interesting.
Whenever I thought about recycling, I was always thinking about, you know, making a filament to then running the filament through your printer, but skipping that whole step.

Chris

would make recycling a lot easier.
Yeah.

Andy

Yeah.

Frank

And from the perspective of shredding, we talked about how the regular paper shredder isn’t meant for that.
It’s the motors that aren’t meant for that.
It’s just, it’s a carbon steel for the actual shredder part.
So if you put a more powerful motor on it, it should be fine.

Chris

And yeah, that’s where I was, that’s where I was going to get at is I was thinking about just getting, uh, so I’ve got these old drills from like the fifties.

Frank

Okay.

Chris

They, they’re just, they’re just one speed drills, but gosh, they’re powerful, old, old Craftsman drills, the kind that had the metal casing and everything.

Andy

Okay.

Chris

Um, I’m thinking about reusing one of those motors

Frank

The ones that were more likely to take a finger than stop when it was supposed to?

Chris

Yeah.
It takes a minute to stop.
Yeah.
So, um, so.
I was thinking about taking, taking the motor out of that and hooking that up to the shredder instead.

Frank

That would do it.

Andy

Okay

Chris

Yeah.

Frank

That’s some serious torque that it’d be going on there and it’d be slow ish.
I guess.

Chris

Yeah.
You can always, you can always just…

Frank

Is it a variable speed motor too.
Or is it just a…

Chris

no, it’s a single speed motor, but you can still get a lot of torque and just lower the voltage so that it runs slower.

Andy

You know, and a lot of those only run about three or 400 amps, you can just use a bolt, an AC clipper, a dimmer switch or a better idea.
They do make higher amperage ones for like routers, router speed controllers that you could use on the, on those kinds of drills.
That way, if you did want a speed control, you would have one.

Chris

Yeah.
I was basically thinking about that where you take one of those, uh, not, not designed for LED dimmer switches and just hook that straight in.
I just barely got a couple of those, uh, for Christmas this year, um, because I use them on a lot of stuff.
Like my fish tank pumps, my air compressors, I, it’s an oversized air compressor.
So I put one of those on it so that the, uh, uh, diaphragm isn’t shifting quite as far as it normally would be.
You know, when that magnets really pullin’ on it, you’d get a lot of wear on the diaphragm.
But if you’re just jiggling it just as much as you’d need, then you’d, you’d save a lot of wear and little things like that I use all the time.
So those, those do work.
And the last ones I just bought were like 600 Watts, which is a huge amount of voltage or a huge amount of wattage to come out of an AC socket to be able to regulate like that.

Frank

Yeah.

Andy

But I bet the drill wouldn’t have a problem with that at all.

Frank

For perspective, anybody that remembers the old 60 watt light bulbs when they were actually 60 Watts, that’s 10 of those.

Chris

And even the, yeah, and even the really bright ones that were a hundred Watts, that’s still six of those.
So…

Frank

it’s a lot of juice.

Chris

Yeah.
And, but, but, and, and to think, uh, to also put it into perspective, so you’re not supposed to put your microwave and toaster on the same outlet.
That’s because most microwaves, their wattage is, you know, even for bigger microwaves, their wattage is like 1200 amp.
Or to 1200 Watts.
So this, this thing is like halfway of a full, full size microwave.

Andy

Yeah.
But that, that should work just fine for giving you a really cheap, easy speed controller for one of those drills.

Frank

Yeah.

Andy

Unless once you’ve hooked it up, you realize it operates at a good speed and just on and off is all you need.

Chris

Yeah.
I think I, I do want to be able to slow it because you are going to be able to want, want to adjust it for different types of plastics, I think.

Frank

Different thicknesses too.

Chris

Yeah.

Frank

Unless you want to work with Andy and figure out a, like a feedback or something to reduce wattage when, when it gets more difficult to pull.

Andy

That would be fun.
That would be a fun project.
Yeah.
Automatically regulating the power output to maintain a certain RPMs.
Oh, that would be a fun thing to do.

Frank

And making it mechanically regulated instead of electronically regulated.

Andy

That would be a little hard on me.
I wouldn’t know where to start on that.

Frank

Do it mechanically.

Chris

Oh, well, gearing things down.
That’s a different kind of math.

Frank

Oh, come on.
You can, you can print off a transmission that would work just fine.
Chris’s mind is turning.
Do I want to distract you by asking what you worked on this week or should we come back to you?

Chris

Um, no, I didn’t work on anything this week.
This, this last weekend, my, my sister-in-law had a, an issue with her car.
We were chase chasing it down.
Turns out it’s the fuel pump.
So this week I am still going to be working on that.
So I haven’t taken the time to play with my printer.

Frank

Fuel would eat PLA, right?
Does he eat PETG?

Chris

Um, well, what are the, what are the, uh, cans?

Andy

I don’t think so because you can store gasoline in PET bottles without it.
So I bet PETG might be okay.

Frank

And, and I could swear to like fuel cans and that sort of thing when they’re plastic, they’re ABS.

Andy

Yeah.
Have you had much luck printing the ABS stuff?
Or have you kind of given up on that for the meantime, till you get a covered printer, Chris?

Chris

Yeah, pretty much I gave up on it until, because yeah, it’s what happens is it shrinks and because it shrinks, it does, it, it pops off of my print bed.
Um, I even tried printing it on, um, uh, on, on the masking tape and still no dice.
It shrinks too much to stay where it’s… stay put.

Andy

Oh. That’s a bummer.

Chris

I mean, the, the first, the first few layers print really well until it shrinks.
And then you get a lot of curling on the edges and, uh, it just doesn’t stick to the plate when you lose everything from there.
So…

Andy

it’s all about heat soaking on that.

Chris

Yep.
So I’m, um, and my office is horrible for heat soaking, especially because it doesn’t get, uh, it has no air ducts run to it.
And I keep the door, and I keep the door shut and it’s in the basement corner of my house.
So…

Andy

yeah, yeah, totally understand.
Well, hopefully getting in a, uh, a chamber you can build around it, work and will solve a lot of those kind of problems.

Chris

Yeah.
So it turns out the wife had been looking at some of those for, uh, Christmas and my, and my birthday.
And, you know, there’s actually, uh, little tents you can buy for your 3d printer that are like pretty cheap.
You know, they were like less than 60 bucks.

Andy

Yeah.
I’ve seen some of those.

Chris

I got looking at them and I’m, I’m like…

Frank

Like a canvas tent?

Chris

yeah, pretty much.
It’s, it’s like, uh, um, so you guys

Frank

I guess that would work.
As long as there’s no airflow

Chris

Do you guys remember that?
Yeah.
Do you guys remember that, uh, miniature outhouse tent that, uh, I, I, I, I had when I was when we would go camping about 10 years ago or so.

Andy

Yeah.

Chris

Um, it’s pretty much like that, except for your printer probably stinks a lot less.

Frank

So I feel like we’ve covered a lot of really quick subjects.
Number one, the reason I asked about the, uh, um, the material or if gasoline would eat PETG is because then you could, if it doesn’t, then you could print your way out of the, the pump issue, probably.
Number two, this outhouse was actually really cool.

Andy

Yeah.

Frank

It needs to be described.

Chris

Okay.
So it’s basically a, it’s a, it’s a, it’s a, it’s a tent that’s pretty easy to put up.
It’s like, you know, maybe a dozen poles, right?
Then I’ll clip into each other and, um, it’s a, it’s a, it was a tent made out of more, more durable tarpy material and it was about three foot square by about seven foot tall-ish.

Andy

Yeah.
Kind of looked like a little like shower kind of thing.

Chris

Yeah.
And it had a little, it had a little strap in there.
Yeah.
Actually, I had a little strap in there for you to put the shower, put to put a shower head on for one of those, uh, uh, electric, uh, electric shower heater things that some people have too.

Andy

Yeah.

Frank

Talk about glamping.
By the way, this is the epitome of glamping.

Chris

Um, well, it’s the best thing you can get short of actually having a, uh, a shower in an RV, RV of some sort.

Andy

Yeah.
I’d use it.

Frank

Okay.
So Chris didn’t do anything with this printer this week.

Chris

Nope.

Frank

Kevin, did you do anything with your printer this week or have some project you want to talk about?

Kevin

Um, I, I did actually.
So, um, uh, with my, with that wood PLA, I had, uh, the clogging up the point four millimeter nozzle.
Um, Frank was kind enough to drop off some point six millimeter nozzles.
And so I, uh, I switched out the nozzle, um, and then went to print that, uh, the shelf thing that I had designed with this wood PLA, and there was no, uh, bed adhesion.
So, um, then I realized that the bed as I was trying to print it was too high somehow.
Like…

Andy

that makes sense.
You do always have to readjust it after swapping the nozzle.

Chris

Yeah.

Kevin

So the nozzle was dragging through the bed and I was like, okay.

Chris

Oh!

Kevin

yeah.
So I dropped it down, um, cause like nothing was coming out.
So I, I dropped it down, retrammed and got it going again.
And there was still no adhesion.
So I was like, what the crap?
Well, then, uh, I got the, my little paper and was checking the tramming.
And somehow it was like one or one or two millimeters too low.
At this point, I was like, how did that happen?
I just barely adjusted this bed height.
So I got it retrammed again and, and it, it, I could see that it was starting to deposit the plastic on the bed, but it was not sticking.
It’s like, so frustrating.
So then I, I cleaned the bed and got it nice and dry.
So I cleaned it with the glass cleaner, got it nice and dry.
So there shouldn’t be any oils on it at this point.
I was making sure not to, just only to touch the edges as I was putting the bed on the hot, uh, on the, the build, the, the build plate on the, on the bed.
Clamping it down and everything and it still was not sticking.
So I was like, okay, this is, this is frustrating.
So I ended up going and getting a can of hairspray and I sprayed the bed with the hairspray and it still would not stick.

Andy

Oh, that’s weird.

Chris

Oh

Chris

and so then, and I, I kept on trying to do the same print and, and Jess said, well, why, why don’t you do a test print?
So I, I went and I downloaded a Benchy.
I’ve never printed a Benchy before.

Frank

So slow down.
You should have done this long ago.

Kevin

Yeah.

Frank

Benchy is your most valuable tool.

Kevin

Right.
Well, to be fair, it took me a while to print a Benchy too.
So, uh, so I downloaded the Benchy.
I went to print the Benchy, still no bed adhesion.
Um, and then Jess said, well, maybe have you considered that it’s the filament you’re using?
And I was like, but this one, it’s, it’s like the newest filament I have.

Andy

Yeah.

Kevin

And she said, just humor me and try some regular PLA without the wood in it.
I was like, okay, fine.
So I, I switched it out for some gray PLA and printed a Benchy.
And it worked perfectly fine.

Andy

Oh, beautiful.

Kevin

Yeah.

Frank

And that’s what the point six nozzle, that is pretty.

Kevin

Yeah.
That’s what the point six nozzle.
And so the, uh, the outcome of it and the determination was that it is a problem with the wood PLA and I don’t know why.
Um, but.
After printing the Benchy, I then printed the centerpiece for the shelf in the same gray PLA figuring, I can just, I can just put it all together and spray paint the thing and be done with it and, and then try to figure out why this, uh, wood PLA is not working anymore.

Andy

Yeah, that is a little weird.

Kevin

I’m kind of think, I’m kind of wondering if it’s like an issue with, uh, needing to, uh, recondition it or whatever.
But I wouldn’t think so because it isn’t that old, but I don’t know.

Frank

I would expect maybe some research that would point you in a good direction because something like that seems like it would happen often.

Chris

Yeah.
Do you have to adjust

Frank

Somebody has to have had that experience before.

Chris

Um, a lot of people are saying that they up this, they have to up the flow speed by about 10% for what, for, for the wood PLA.

Kevin

Okay.

Chris

And, um, and then the, the movement speed was, they had to slow it down by about 30 to 40%.

Andy

Wouldn’t that cause over extrusion, um, slowing down the movement of the printer and speeding up the flow rate of the, uh, feeder.
That would mean you’re depositing a lot more filaments than the model would.
I don’t even know if the slicer would allow that without making other adjustments.
You know, if you, if you adjust the flow rate to be faster, yeah, I’m assuming that it would automatically adjust your speed rate to compensate.
So you’re not over extruding.
Yeah.

Chris

Well, this advice came straight from a pressure 3d forum.
So I’m guessing that they know what they’re talking about.

Andy

It could be, could be, and I could be hearing it wrong.
Like, like what I’m hearing is, uh, yeah, just turn your wheels faster and drive slower.

Chris

Yeah.
That’s literally what it says is, is…

Frank

it sounds more like it sounds more like drive in fourth gear at five miles an hour.

Andy

Yeah.

Chris

But that could be it.
Is that you have to extrude more of this stuff, more of this stuff because it’s the wood filament, you know

Kevin

yeah, I mean, it could be.

Chris

So anyway, give that a shot and, you know, let us know.

Kevin

Okay.

Frank

Interesting.

Kevin

Um, and then I haven’t done anything with my SLA printer.
Uh, I’ve still got the, I’ve been pretty bad at that.
I’ve still got the failed, um, Christmas tree star, alien star thing sticking to the build plate and, um, and the, the gold resin settling.
It’s quite settled now in the resin that I’ve, I’ve been really bad about that.

Andy

Oh

Frank

that raises a question that I don’t think I’ve ever thought of before.
If the resin sits in the VAT and cures to some, you know, it’ll cure to some degree.
Um, what is the necessary process after that?
Do you have to replace the FEPP or does it just pull off it like a normal print and then maybe a little cleaning after that or…

Kevin

the big reason you don’t want to let it sit is that all the, the particulates will settle out and then it’s really difficult to resuspend them.
But if you use your handy little silicone scraper, it takes the, the, all those particulates right off when you’re scraping it off into whatever secondary container you’re putting it into.

Frank

Okay.

Chris

Kevin’s special brownies are full of plastic.

Kevin

Resin.

Frank

Yeah.
But, uh, because there’s special brownies, nobody cares.

Andy

It isn’t…

Frank

Andy, you had a question and I overrode you.
Do you remember what it was?

Andy

I do not.

Frank

Okay.

Andy

Must not’ve been important.
Otherwise I would have pressured harder.

Frank

So did you have any other projects that you worked on this week there, Kev?

Kevin

Nope.

Frank

Nope.
Cool.
Andy, did you work on anything this week?

Andy

I, I did.
I’ve been running my printer like mad.
It’s running right now as we speak, printing off, uh, dragons and things like that that the wife’s been selling at her saloon.

Frank

At her Saloon?

Kevin

Saloon or salon?

Andy

Okay.
So

Chris

She’d probably make more money at a saloon.

Andy

If you’ve seen the salon, you would know why the confusion was there.
It’s very Western gun slinging kind of environment that they have set up in there.
So

Frank

all the dressers walk around in corsets and big hair.

Andy

Oh man.
If, if, if, if everybody did that, my wife would absolutely love that.
She’s got like a wall of corsets in our room.
She’s into that kind of stuff.
So…

Frank

sure.

Andy

And to be able to cosplay and dress up every day she goes to work, that would be her line of thing, but it’s just a building that set up that way.
The people that are in there dressed fairly normal.
So…

Frank

honestly, if she could start doing it herself.
And everybody might follow suit just because it’s fun.

Andy

Yeah, I could see that happening.
I really good.
But, uh, but yeah, yeah.
So we’ve been printing off a lot of this kind of stuff.
Um, Jenny, my wife has already bought a booth for, um, another upcoming cosplay event.
I don’t remember which one it is.
One of the more major ones, but I don’t think it’s the, uh, fan X, the, um, Comic Con that’s down here.
I think it’s one that’s slightly smaller than that.
But, uh, she’s got a list of, uh, of a bunch of other things that she wants me to print and make a, make some, um, product for her to be able to sell at her booth.

Frank

Okay.

Andy

So I’ve been running the printer kind of mad, which has been kind of fun to actually get some like work out of it.
Cause it’s always just been the tool for when I just need something, but to actually sit and, and, and run it hard like this has been kind of, kind of fun.

Chris

You’re a toy maker now.

Frank

I, I do feel like you’re approaching that point where her proceeds should probably buy a new printer and just

Andy

you know what, we were talking about that, but we’re, we’re quite not at that level yet.
I could still print a lot faster than what she’s selling, but no, I’m much.
So, uh, I’m running a lot of filament through the machine at the moment.
But, um, and another thing that’s kind of cool is I’ve almost completely stopped cleaning my bed.
Which is, which is kind of neat.
I want to, I want to show you that a little bit.

Chris

Self cleaning bed because you’re printing so dang much.

Andy

Yeah.
Yeah.
Um, but, uh, the, um, the hairspray that I use on the bed, it builds up on it.
And, uh, just looking at it, you know, about every 30 prints or something, I need to clean it off, but it’s gotten to the point where, if it, when it builds up a lot on it, it sticks to the print.
So so much as being printed on it, it’s kind of pulling off the used hairspray itself and keeping, keeping everything kind of level.
And since I add hairspray to it every time, and I scraped the bed every time, it keeps it fairly level.
Um, on the bottom of some prints, you can see slight outlines when it’s in the right light of the previous print that was there until you go and wash off the bottom of the hairspray with water.
As soon as water hits it, it just dissolves.
So you just kind of rinse off the bottom and the marks go away and it’s flat on the top, a flat for the plastic.
So it’s been working out really well, but, uh, my machine is not designed.
You know, we were talking about it last week.
How I use, um, the, uh, the wheels, the, uh…

Chris

the Delrin and rollers.

Andy

Yeah.
The Delrin and rollers on my printer and, and those, those wear down a lot.
So if we do wind up doing something like getting another printer to just run off stuff for her to sell, if it turns into something like that, I think I’m going to go with something that has linear bearings in it and, um, probably just another cheap machine, not kind of like one, a bed slinger like mine is, but that uses linear, um, bearings instead of, uh, the Delrin rollers so that it can last a little bit longer without needing, you know, replacement pieces so often.

Frank

So, so I am, I was trying to think of.
The, uh, uh, D and D alignment, and it’s not coming to my head right now.
Anyway, um, I am the wrong kind of friend, I guess, in this case, because there was that part of me that was like, buy a new printer with her proceeds and then print everything off for her using your old printer and figure out the new one yourself.

Andy

Oh, I see.
Well, I don’t know, man.
This sucker is like water cooled and I’ve got a direct drive setup that’s like eight millimeters from the beginning, where it starts grabbing the feeder to the end of the nozzle, you know, you can’t get, it is almost impossible to have wet noodle problems with that machine right now.
It’s, it’s, it’s good.
And you’ve seen my print quality.
It’s dialed in real nice at the moment and it’s working really good.
So I, that is a good printer in my book and a good reason why I haven’t gotten the new one because that one has been working out really well.
So it’s, it’s doing everything I need to do

Frank

But in my, in my mind, that’s the difference between driving and 85 Mustang, where you know everything and you can fix everything and buying a brand new Mustang that you don’t have to touch.

Andy

Yeah.
That is true.
And that old Mustang, the old one has been highly modified and, and you know, it’s running hot for you too.
So…

Chris

so, well, you know, it’s, it’s, it’s, um, it’s kind of, kind of compared, it’s comparative.
Yeah.
Cause like a new Mustang will still have all of the new bells and whistles and, you know, timing adjustments and what, what, you know, automatic timing adjustments versus the old one.
So, you know, like it doesn’t have as many bells and whistles for the way it runs, but still runs great.
That’s kind of what I was getting at.
It’s like a new printer will probably have easy network capability and a lot of stuff that yours doesn’t have cause it’s, cause it’s old.
Like, like, you know, mine is newer and I can plug, I’ve got a port straight to my PC.
So it comes off as a COM port, you know, I pretty sure you don’t have a comport capability on yours.

Andy

Oh, no, very much do.
You can plug right into the interpreter on my printer.
That’s how I do PID tuning and stuff like that, connecting it right to the, the computer.
And, and I think it’s very much the opposite.
The cheaper you go, you, is where you get the interconnectivity with the computer, um, because the computer is doing all the heavy lifting and all you got is the G code interpreter on the other side, you know, with just a comport, like you say there, but, uh, the minute you start getting into better machines, you start getting more options live on the machine itself.
It’s like the people who are running, um, the Wi-Fi duo boards where you actually set the computer up to connect to your Wi-Fi and you operate the computer through a web interface that you are attached to locally on the computer, on the printer itself, you know, stuff like that is where you get some of the neat stuff.
But I mean, I gotta admit, I don’t have like a filament run out sensor.
I’ve got manually manual leveling and stuff like that, but I swear by all those kinds of things and I don’t actually want those, those new things.
I only time I ever have to level my bed is when I do something with the nozzle.
It’s really rare for me to touch and to, to tram the bed at all, you know.
Um, and everything else on that, when it comes to like running out of filament, I mean, my machine’s dumb enough.
It will just air print the rest of the way when it runs out of filament.
But there are things that I do.
Like I weigh every single one of my spools, if I question it, if it’s got enough on it at all, so I know if I will run out and I’ve been known to splice filament together if I need to, you know, I re-roll my filament from time to time when it gets to the end on to another role.
Um, so I can like spool a couple of filaments together.
So I, I’ve got longer filament and well, I use a lot of the same kind of colors.
I use a lot of black and white for all the stuff for me.
So if I’m running low on a black, I will splice it into the new roll of black, you know, with what was left on the old roll of black and then just roll it up in there and then, you know, I never have to really worry about running out of filament that way.
So all the little bells and whistles, I don’t think I honestly need.
And seeing some of the stuff I like, the water cooling on here, it’s not just water cooled, it cools under ambient if I need it to.
Because it’s Peltier cooled and you ain’t seeing anything like that on new machines until you start getting into like commercial lines of machines.
You know, the heat difference between the cold end and the hot end on that machine is right inside of the, um, the heat break tube.
And I use like the bimetal heat break tubes as well.
So like you go from, from cold enough that your problems with moisture are, uh, you know, an issue to right into the, the nozzle for, you know, right into the melt zone.
So heat creep hasn’t been a thing for years either for me.
I don’t think I’m going to be getting a new machine any time soon, unless something really kind of starts going wrong with that one.

Frank

I do want to clarify, Andy, I wasn’t trying to attack you and all the wonderful work you’ve done on that beautiful printer.

Andy

You know what, I think, I think it sounded like that too, but it really, it was just turning into bragging about how good that one is, not offense that it was not good enough or something.
I apologize if it came off that way.
But, uh, but no, and I don’t have the room for another printer anyway.
So actually that’s probably the real reason I’m just coming up with an excuse to not buy it, have to buy a new one.

Frank

Acknowledging that is the first step, Andy.
And once you get your space in there worked out so you can move everything out of the washroom, you’ll have space for another printer.

Andy

Yes, I’m hoping to do some of that this weekend too.
In fact, I am close to being done in here.
I wish I could show you the room.
I’ve gotten a lot of stuff moved around down here and, and things are almost ready to open up.
I’ve got some stuff I need to run up to the attic today.
And I got one more corner I need to clean out before I can officially move all the couch and stuff over.
And then I’ve already like went down to Lowe’s and picked out the bench table to, you know, purchase for this area and things.
And I am running into a problem where I would like to have shelving above the desk, like a good 24, maybe 36 inches above the get desk.
I would like shelving all the way across.
But the only trouble is, is this wall that I have here that I’m going to be putting it against is the concrete foundation of the house that’s been…

Frank

you don’t want to hold it or anything like that.

Andy

Yeah, exactly.
So I might get some pegboard or something to line the back of the wall with so I can do stuff like that.
But pegboard’s not the strongest either at having a weight from a shelf on it.
So I don’t know what I’m going to do yet.

Chris

You know, Andy, you know those rails that have the poppable shelf rails on them.

Andy

I know exactly what you’re talking about.
Like old end caps from stores, right?

Chris

Yeah, kind of like those.
Yeah, I got an extra set of those if you want them.

Andy

Hey, how long is it?

Chris

Well, no, it’s just two rails.

Andy

Oh, just the for shelvs.
Oh, OK.
OK, yeah, that’s cool.

Chris

Yeah, I took them out of the out of my out of my pool billiard germ when because when I first moved in, because we kept hitting them with the pool with the pool sticks, you might be you might be onto something.

Andy

That might not be a bad idea, because I do have up into the ceiling where I’ve got wood that I can mount stuff to.
So I wonder if I could put the poles mounted on the floor and then anchored against the wall at the top and then be able to put shelves wherever I want.
I think you just solved my problem.
That’s a great idea.
I like that.

Chris

Yeah, anyway, if you if you want the rails and some of those it’s and like, I think it’s got like maybe six, six or eight.
So for like three or four shelves, I’ve got those if you want them.

Andy

Cool.
OK, yeah, I might I might take you up on that.
Take some measurements and see how well that idea would work.
But that might be something.

Chris

Yeah, I’ll send you some pictures.

Andy

OK.
But yeah, yeah.
So running the printer off for the wife on a lot of those dragon kind of stuff.
A lot of color PLA.
God, I’ve always had black and white PLA.
And over the last couple of weeks here, we purchased all this colored stuff, color shifting stuff that’s occupying my shelf of PLA now.
So it’s kind of neat to have all the extra neat colors and whatnot.
But this weekend, I did have one of those again, wonderful moments of having a 3D printer.
I was out snow blowing and I’ve got an older snow blower and the choke dial has always been loose.
And I have not been smart with my loose dial and fixed it properly.
I’ve just hunted down to find where it fell off that and put it back on.
And this this last time I went snow blowing, I think the blower picked it up and threw it into the yard somewhere.
And I blow a lot of my block.
I’ve got a lot of elderly neighbors.
So whenever I out snow blowing, I usually blow the whole block.
And so I don’t know where I don’t know where it is.
But it was kind of a nice moment.
It’s for the choke, and I do need to use the choke to shut down the blower and to be able to fire it up, because it does need to be choked to start cold.
And my key for it has seized a long time ago, where pulling out the key doesn’t actually turn it off.
So I always just hold the choke a little because, you know, you could you could choke it off all the way.
It’s got three notches for the choke level.
But on the very last choke level, you can hold it against the spring a little further, and it’s really choking it off and just kills it.
So that’s just the way it.
Yeah.
So that’s just how I’ve been shutting it down.
It’s just how I’ve been shutting it off for a second.

Chris

I had to put a flip switch on that long ago.

Andy

I would just the right thing to do would just be to fix the dark key thing.
So it worked.
I’m sure it’s just the metal is the part that because the keys plastic and it pushes against a metal tooth that breaks a connection.
And stops shorting out the thing that generates the spark.
And I think the metal piece is just seized.
So when you pull the key out, it actually doesn’t make connection anymore.
It just is.

Chris

Yeah, it doesn’t break the connection with the magneto.
Yeah.

Andy

But I mean, just sitting there idling it down to idle and then just pulling the choke all the way over.
It instantly kills it.
So I never bothered to fix it because it was just that quick of a thing.
But, you know, it took a moment to come inside and spend, you know, five minutes designing a knob for it to then running it off on the printer for half an hour.
I think it was like half an hour, because I did some ironing on it and stuff to make it look pretty.
And then threw it on there.
And now I’ve got my knob back again and it stuck in there really nice and tight.
So I don’t see it, you know, losing it anytime soon.
And I printed it off on PETG.
So hopefully it will deal with the cold and being baked on by the sun during summertime.
So, but it was nice to have a printer for little things like that.
And you lose your knobs.

Chris

You lost your knob a long time ago.

Andy

But that was that was pretty much all that I did this week.
It hasn’t been really too big of a week for the 3D printer.
I’ve been mostly cleaning up my area here that I’m trying to turn into an office for myself.
There’s not a lot of time in the day, except for the weekends here that I get to be able to really do anything with it.
So it’ll be nice.
Hopefully by the end of the end of this weekend, I’ll have at least a desk in here and I’m excited to get the resin printer out.
It’s still in the shipping box in the laundry room.
I haven’t even opened it up yet.
Everything with it, I believe that I need.
I’ve got the alcohol with it, the, you know, a little bottle of resin to build play with, the station to cure it and stuff.
So it should be ready to go, but I haven’t opened it yet.
Kind of excited about that.

Frank

Fun, fun.
I expect a detailed update next week, Andy.

Andy

As soon as I get that printer going, I’m sure I’ll have a sessions between me and Kevin of what the heck am I doing wrong, Kevin, fix this moment.
So.

Kevin

Yeah, I’ll be glad to help.

Andy

How the hell did all the resin cure in the vat?
I don’t even understand this.

Frank

You need to change it out regularly, Andy.

Andy

I can’t just leave it in there.

Frank

I don’t.
Kevin was just talking about his resin has been in there for what a week.

Kevin

More than that.
It’s, it’s, been a while.

Andy

That makes me feel good.
It sounds like there’s room for error.
So I like hearing that.

Kevin

There is room for error.

Frank

And the coloration of the lid.
It was designed specifically to prevent UV rays from curing the resin anyway.
So.

Kevin

Right.

Andy

Yeah.
I do have something for this next week that we’re doing.
And I think I may have spoken a little bit about it last week is the wife wants to reupholster the chairs upstairs, our dining room chairs, and which is good.
She’s good at reupholstering stuff, but the foam in the chairs is toast.
So she bought another big pad of two inch foam that she’s going to cut out for the chairs.
And I thought this would be a fun thing to be able to use the laser for.
I don’t know if it can cut two inches of foam.
I don’t know.
I the thickest I’ve ever cut was almost a full inch and it worked fine for that.
I don’t know if I can get two inches out of it, though.
That, too.
And I would just be sitting the entire machine on to the on top of the pad of foam and then just dropping the nozzle right down on the surface and cutting it like that.
So I don’t know how well that will work.
But if it doesn’t cut all the way through, at least it will be good for marking the pattern of the seat because the seats aren’t they’re kind of like a funky kind of pattern for the bottom of the chair that needs to be cut out.
So if it doesn’t cut all the way through, at least it will be a nice line to be able to finish it with a razor blade.
So they’re all the same, but that was you…

Chris

couldn’t you just mirror the cutting pattern and then flip the foam over?

Andy

Yeah, but then you got alignment.
The alignment issues would be bad.
And I think at that point it would just be easier to just go through the partially cut area and just finish it off with a razor blade.
But I’m not trying to over complicate it, but then I did.
So I guess that’s a good question.
Why not continue to over complicate it?
My laser is a little short of being able to have the entire seat cushion inside of the the laser’s cutting area.
Like the short side, I’ve got about three quarters of an inch larger of a laser cutter than the pattern I need to cut.
But the length of it is drastically not long enough.
So I went down and I bought some aluminum extrusion to make my laser cutter longer.
So I’m going to mutilate my laser cutter.
I think I’m going to be able to it’s kind of cool here.
I think I can be able to take the long rails off of the cutter itself.
The only thing that they’ve got on it are the belts that drive the the carriage back and forth.
It’s the only thing really special that that these two long side of the the printers actually do.
I can’t really make it wider.
You guys can see that it’s got a drive pole in there and stuff like that that would have to get longer as well if I were to lengthen it or make it wider.
But I think I can lengthen this without any real repercussions.
And I’ve got more of the three millimeter belt to be able to do.
You’ll put a new belt in down the extrusion.
But this will be the first

Frank

It’s just a recalibration of the driver, right?

Chris

I’m starting to wonder if maybe it’s possible for you to buy a a longer ball screw rod from a different model.

Andy

Oh, I’m sure I could.
And this isn’t even a ball screw rod.
This is just a straight rod.
In fact, I would.
Yeah, I think it’s just a three millimeter rod, maybe four.
I’d have to measure it.
But yeah, and it just sits in the bearings on both sides and it’s held in place by the adapter on the stepper motor.
So I probably could, but I only need a longer one.
So at this moment, I’m just going to make the whole carriage longer instead of wider and then not do it permanently either.
I want to make the longest rails… I bought 36 inch long rails.
And I think the ones that are on this are 21 inches long.
So I’m making it pretty substantially longer.
But I’m hoping to be able to just have it so I could just take them off and replace them.
I need it’s only four screws to completely remove both of these sides.
Rails each rail only has two screws holding everything together.
So it should be able to pull apart fine and I’ll be able to replace the rails on it for big projects and then be able to just throw the old ones back in so that as you could see, I could just move it around like, you know, as easy as this is.

Chris

Make sure you get that back to Andy.
How do you know it’s Andy’s?
Oh, it’s been heavily modified.

Andy

I was interested in seeing about maybe I went to Chris gave me a pair of calipers a while ago, a pair of nice calipers that he got from work that were the screen had been broken on the front glass had been shattered.
And it’s the only thing that’s wrong with them.
And they’re nice and smooth and, you know, it’s a good set of calipers.
Got a real nice LCD screen on it, too, compared to the Harbor Freight one I use all the time.
And I thought, OK, I got some when I have my windows redone, there were a couple of windows in the house that the kids have blown out.
And I had replaced with plexiglass because I’m a homeowner that doesn’t know how to do things.
Right.
And I want to keep in the plexiglass because that perhaps expensive.
And I thought, I could probably get the laser cutter out and cut out the glass for the calipers because it’s kind of got the caliper glass has kind of a funny shape to it.
And, you know, I took a picture of the calipers, brought that into SolidWorks, measured the scale, the picture, so it was right.
And then just traced around the glass image and then saved that as a file that I could use to on the laser printer to cut with.
And so I brought that down, put the plexiglass down and started experimenting to try to cut plexiglass.
And turns out I learned something.
My laser is a visible light laser and plexiglass is apparently transparent.

Frank

Well, if you leave the protector on it, then it’s not as transparent.

Andy

Yeah, that is true.
And I’ve tried experimenting with some stuff, like putting coatings on it and stuff like that to cut.
And it does kind of work, but it shocks the plastic, the plexiglass and cracks it with the heat instead of actually cutting it.
And, you know, after a little bit of research, I just I got the wrong kind of laser to do stuff like that.
And so I need to fix that problem now because I finally found something my laser can’t do and that I really want to do.
I want to be able to cut plexi.
And I can cut plexi if it’s not clear plexiglass.
If it’s got a color in it, then it will cut just fine.
But if there’s no color.

Chris

So you can cut translucent, but you can’t cut transparent.

Andy

Exactly.
So my next step is a CO2 laser.
And those ones are kind of expensive and I don’t want to spend the money on something like that.
So I think the the entry level CO2 lasers, like around three to four grand, I think there might be like really cheap ones close to like two grand.

Frank

That’s still a lot of money to buy for a hobby… tool

Chris

Ooh, just keep an eye out on eBay for people upgrading.

Andy

Exactly.
But I was considering maybe building my own because I mean these you were Frank, you just mentioned about changing the firmware on my printer to be able to compensate for a larger, but there is no firmware on it.
The interpreter for my printer is the same as the one that saw my printer.
It sounds like Chris’s too.
It just registers as a COM port.
And then you talk to it through just straight G code.
And there’s a standard for that.
I forget what it’s called.
It’s like GWMC or something weird like that.
But I can get one of those interpreters and stepper motors and why couldn’t I just build my own laser?
I was looking at CO2 laser tubes, which is the part that creates the laser.
And, you know, with laser cutters, like I’ve described, it’s all about the price of the laser itself justifies the price of the printer.
And CO2 lasers seems to be a little bit of a skew there, which is nice.
The laser tube itself for a decent one, you’re looking somewhere between three to six hundred bucks.
And it’s a high voltage.
It’s got high voltage requirements.
So you would have to get a special power supply for it, which would be another couple hundred bucks.
But other than those two components, it’s a normal CNC gantry system that you’d be using, you know, building around it.
So…

Frank

You’ve already got one of those.

Andy

Yeah, yeah.
And they do things a little bit differently with the CO2.
They bounce the laser from outside the gantry into the head through mirrors.
And so it’s a little bit more precision kind of stuff.
So I’ve been thinking that I should want to sit down and see if I can find some kits that people have made for building a CO2 laser, an external framed CO2 laser, because then I could cut stuff like clear transparent plexiglass because it’s an inferred, I think it’s inferred.
It’s a light, it’s not a visible light laser.
And so the plexiglass is not transparent to those kinds of lasers.
So it cuts beautifully on those and you can cut like glass and stuff with them too.
And and they’re strong enough to be able to cut metals and things like that.
So that’s that’s got my interest up to those.
But it’s just a thought and just an idea over the past couple of days.
I have to see what actually happens, which would probably be nothing.
It’s just a fun thing to think about.

Frank

Huh, interesting.
Sounds like fun.

Andy

That’s all I got.
How about you, Frank?
You do anything?

Frank

I have mostly just little toys, like I found this geometric, there it is, doesn’t can’t see it very well, geometric fidget.
It’s just like, I don’t know, 15 or 20 concentric geometric shapes that are interlocked with each other.

Andy

It’s like a frame instead of a frame instead of a frame instead of a frame.

Frank

Yeah, and they’re loose enough that you can move the center wherever you want it within the frame and that sort of thing.
So it’s just a little fidget found online.
Also, I found that Ghost Benchy Chris shared it.
I think you shared it a little while ago.

Chris

Yeah

Frank

And it came up on Thingiverse while I was exploring.
I was like, I’ll give it a shot.
So I printed it off and it looks great.

Chris

Yar

Frank

Yeah, I made it a little bigger than your typical Benchy or my typical Benchy just because it’s a statue instead of a test.
Yeah, yeah, the benchmark that is named for.

Andy

Yeah.

Frank

And then I designed a quick and dirty little drawer organizer.
I don’t know if you guys have actually noticed, but I have rearranged my office a little bit, and…

Andy

Oh! you’re right.

Chris

The tops of your desks are slightly less messy.

Frank

Yes.
So I while I was rearranging, I decided that I needed one of those little plastic drawer things that you can get at Walmart.
So we got one of those and the drawer is great, but I needed compartments.
So I just designed the little box and printed it off.
And it’s now I’m thinking about designing more, which is how projects go, I guess.

Andy

Yeah

Frank

yeah, that was a fun thing to do.
And I did that Thursday.
So it’s been a lot of longer prints.

Andy

Yeah.

Frank

I didn’t say it last week.
There’s a lot I didn’t say last week.
For one, my wife and I have got a neighborhood friend that we hang out with periodically, he and his wife were actually invited to my birthday that you guys came to and they had other family stuff going on.
Anyway, he got a new printer for Christmas.
And he hasn’t reached out to me yet, but I expect him to.

Andy

Yeah.

Frank

And my little brother decided that he wanted to.
Well, no, it’s not that he decided, his wife decided that he needed a hobby and got him a 3D printer for Christmas.
So…

Andy

that’s good when the significant others on board or even to blame for you having one, right?
That makes the purchases a lot easier.

Frank

It was all her idea, as far as I know.
It was funny because they have a joint Amazon account.
So he got all of the notifications and he’s like, no, I don’t want to know about this coming.

Andy

Yeah.

Frank

Unfortunately, that means he did know what he was getting for Christmas before it came in.
But it was a fun thing for him to play with a little bit.
And he’s actually already shared a little bit on the Facebook page with some of the files that came with the printer and that sort of thing.

Andy

So OK, that’s a good start.

Frank

Yeah.
So he that was one thing.
The other thing is I went looking for less expensive filament because my my disposable income is not what it used to be.

Andy

Yeah.

Frank

And I came across Elegoo.
I want to do stuff is doing some PLA.
And so their spools are about five dollars less expensive than my other spools.
OK, so I bought I bought one, decided to give a shot.
And that’s what I’ve been printing with for the last week and a half.
And it’s been great.
So, you know, pinching like he’s here and there.

Andy

You feel like you still get the same kind of quality with your Elegoo that you did the original stuff.

Frank

I do

Andy

That’s good.
That’s that’s nice.
I I’ve seen Elegoos starting to I mean, I use Elegoo for a lot of my electronic stuff, but I haven’t really delved into any of their 3D printing stuff until I got the SLA printer that we talked about that I haven’t touched yet.
So it’d be interesting to see how well their their filament is.

Chris

I had a roll of Elegoo and yet it it it performed markedly better than some of the other stuff I’ve gotten.
So

Frank

well

Andy

That’s a good sign.

Frank

Yeah, to be fair, there, Chris, you’ve been working at the other end of the spectrum than I have.

Chris

I’ve been paying more for better.
Yeah, I’ve been I’ve been getting as little as possible.
So I’ve been paying as little as possible to get my stuff.
And it’s it’s it’s it’s especially hard when you switch to colors when you need, you know, you need colors, but you got to do it on the cheap because the color is more expensive than the black or white.

Frank

Yeah, yeah, I did notice it seems like Elegoo was kind of flat across the board, depending on colors.
When they do some of the more complex stuff like the marble filament and that sort of thing, I think that was a little more expensive, but otherwise it was the same price across the board.
So I didn’t see any like super complex, like the the the bicolor or the color changing.
It doesn’t mean they don’t do it.

Chris

So here’s our shameless shameless plug.
If anybody from a Elegoo is listening.

Frank

Yeah, yeah, you reach out Andy’s using your printer and I’m using your filament right now.

Andy

Yes, and obsessed about your electronics.
Reach out.
That would be fun.

Kevin

And this was done.
This this gray that I printed the centerpiece for the shelf in is also a Elegoo.

Frank

Hey, there we go.
All four of us have used it and we like it.

Andy

Yeah

Kevin

Elegoo is good.
Where are you buying the Elegoo stuff from?
Is it from their their website or…

Frank

I got it off of Amazon?

Chris

I had a vendor on Amazon.
Yeah.

Frank

I think it’s the Elegoo vendor on Amazon, honestly.
But I actually don’t remember for sure.
I’ll look.

Andy

it is so hard not to purchase off of Amazon.

Chris

It’s it really is.
It’s it’s it’s almost as hard as not not not not buying household necessities at the at the Mall of Warts.

Andy

Yeah, no kidding.
No kidding.
That’s that’s where we shop all the time, too, for our groceries, because it’s the most convenient.
But yeah, with Amazon, I would love to get into purchasing more directly through the companies or whatever, but it’s always more expensive.
And in this market, the pocketbook is what gets to the side where we shop.
So…

Frank

well, and here’s the thing about Amazon that I think a lot of people forget.
They do have their own products, yes.
But for the most part, they’re a storefront.
So like when you’re buying from the Elegoo vendor on Amazon, you’re buying from Elegoo when you’re buying from the Creality vendor on Amazon, you’re buying from Creality.

Andy

But Amazon rules that Amazon’s got rules of you not being able to sell your product for cheaper elsewhere than Amazon.
If you’re using their storefront and stuff like that, though.
So well, and they’re kind of forcing you into that market.

Frank

Most vendors wouldn’t have to anyway, you know, that they say if I don’t even know for certain that they don’t.
But if Walmart had a was a vendor on Amazon, they could sell it for the same price on Amazon and have Amazon manage the shipping process instead of Walmart having their own shipping process through their website if they wanted to do it that way.
You know

Andy

But they so.
But see, here’s the thing is they would have to pay Amazon a little bit for each cell.
I mean, just like you do when you sell something on eBay and stuff, Amazon does the same thing.

Frank

Because they’re a storefront.
Yeah.

Andy

But then they’ve got the rules that you can’t sell anything cheaper on anywhere else.
So you are having to sell your item cheaper on Amazon than the listed price.
But the listed price would be the same as your own storefront because your own storefront doesn’t get Amazon’s cut.
So in order to sell through Amazon, you actually have to take a cut in how much you are selling your item for compared to your own storefront.

Frank

From here, we’re getting into the weeds a little bit.
But when you’re selling like the whole business model for Walmart, let’s keep using them as an example.
They mark it up, say, two hundred percent above their own cost so they can sell it for that same price and give Amazon their cut.
And if they move a thousand units of whatever, it’s beneficial to them.
There’s profit in it.
And so they can sell it for the same price on the shelves.

Chris

The real number is somewhere between.
Yeah, the real number is somewhere between 25 and 45 percent markup from.
But yeah

Andy

and when you’re as big as Walmart, you got to be careful that it selling like if you if they decided to sell from Amazon, they would be it’s not like a new market to them.
They’d be taking away from their the market from their own storefront, too.
So in order to pick up a little bit that they might get extra on the Amazon, they would have to be selling it cheaper on the Amazon.
But then people would move from their storefront to Amazon, at least some degree, in which they would be receiving less profit from the Amazon storefront versus their own.

Frank

OK, so they shut down brick and mortars and everything that they move is profit after the the creation.
And that’s not paying rent on the property.
They’re not paying for electricity.
They’re not paying for the five employees to run the self-checkout.
You know, so there’s a calculus here.
There’s a lot of variables that would change.

Chris

Yeah, that that they have data for and we don’t.

Frank

That too.
Yes.

Andy

I think if it was working really well, we wouldn’t be hearing so many complaints from sellers about having to work with Amazon, too.
If it was just a math thing, we had to figure out.

Frank

I don’t imagine that there are any better for the single proprietorships.
You know, say, if you were to take your dragons and sell them on Amazon.
Yeah, I don’t imagine they’re much better for the single proprietorships than a brick and mortar in Hometown USA would be.
Yeah, you know?

Chris

they are.

Frank

It’s the demon you know at that point, right?

Chris

Yeah, the reason they’re so successful is because they’re so convenient for everybody on both ends.

Frank

So in a general way, yeah.
So…

Chris

yeah

Andy

I don’t think they’re necessarily.
I mean, they’re convenient, but it’s the price is why I ship it Amazon.
But things like not being able to search, using Amazon’s search is freaking garbage at searching for a product.
You know

Frank

yeah, I do often use Google if what I’m looking for doesn’t come up on the Amazon.

Chris

Yeah, that’s kind of funny because, yeah, I’ll use Google to search for products on Amazon.

Frank

And honestly, do you guys know how to use the Boolean search for your search engine, right?

Andy

Doesn’t work on Amazon search.

Frank

No, it doesn’t work on Amazon search, but you can.
But it works on Google Amazon website from Google.

Andy

Oh, I see what you’re saying.
I haven’t really tried that.
Is it doesn’t seem to list everything OK when you guys have done that way?

Frank

I haven’t had any serious issues.
You just have to start it with the words.
They’re the keyword site with the colon and identify Amazon and then the regular Boolean search after that.
And all your results are going to be on Amazon.

Chris

The wife is always amazed how I can find what she’s looking for.

Andy

I might have to try that when it comes to working with Amazon because Amazon site search is just garbage.

Frank

They have sponsors that they need to put first.

Andy

Not even that.
I mean, it’s just…

Frank

no.
Actually, honestly, the the.
The funny thing about Amazon to me is their retail industry that they do is their least.
That’s what I’m looking for.
Their least profitable venture.

Andy

I know, isn’t it their web based backbone that they do?

Frank

Yeah, the Amazon Web Services

Andy

AWS.

Frank

Yeah, it is where I can’t even remember the percentage, but it’s a very large percentage of their revenue.

Chris

Yes, all of their clouds have silver linings.

Frank

And businesses pay for that silver lining because they’re everywhere.
Yeah.

Chris

Oh, speaking of.
So you guys know how Andy and I both have home network servers, right?

Frank

Yes.

Chris

Well, I was seeing that now they’re they’re sure soon to be available to us is your own cloud computer at home.
So like if you’re away and you save something, quote, to the cloud, it’s going to the server at your house and being saved on hard drive there.

Frank

So, Chris, the all you have to do is get yourself a static IP and you can.

Andy

You don’t need a static IP.
You can get a dynamic DNS service to do it.
That’s how I did mine all the time.

Frank

That’s fair.

Chris

Yes, but I’m just saying that if you buy this little box, I don’t have to deal with the issues of possibly being hacked like Andy was.
Or I mean, you do, but it’s it’s its own separate little box, I guess.

Frank

My security podcast was just talking about how satellites can be hacked fairly easily because they live out of the black box security ideal of we don’t talk about our security so that you can’t hack us.

Andy

I never thought about satellites being hacked.

Frank

Anonimity is not a security plan.

Andy

Yeah

Chris

Oh, man.
OK, well, never mind.

Frank

So so I would say Linux has a couple of good kernels.
If you were to set them up on your machine that you could access easily enough from outside of your network that would give you access to whatever you wanted to on your personal server.

Andy

That was something that I was kind of thinking about that would be good because I was using my main server to do all the web stuff.
And if I had a dedicated machine that I could control a little bit better, then, you know, like you say, it could give me some of those accesses.
It would be nice for just file transferring.
That was the major reason why I ever used it was transferring files.

Chris

It doesn’t even have to be powerful or expensive, either a little raspberry pie’ll, you know, take all that stuff from your server and translate it out.
So yeah.

Andy

But then, too, I would I don’t think I would want something like that inside of my network, because then I have to allow that traffic inside the network itself.
And that kind of leads to problems, too.

Frank

Subnet.

Chris

Yeah, use your mask, man.

Andy

I don’t know.
I think I’ll just stick to trying it, because gosh, the most frequent thing I do is once a year, we share a file.
You know, and do all that.
That’s the most use that I usually ever get out of it.
So I think we should discuss that.

Frank

That’s easy enough to put up on a put up in like your Google Drive or something and share that link.

Andy

I think that’s what I did last year, too, is I used the one from our podcast to share it with you guys.
So that’s probably what we’ll do again this year.
But but yeah, that’s that’s the only thing I’ve used it for.
So probably having another machine in here to get access to the the network is probably not a good idea.
I got a team viewer for stuff like that.
Team Viewers still works great.

Chris

That’s a good point.
I still use Team Viewer to remotely access my office computer.
And or like I said, I can remotely run my 3D print printer from it.
So…

Andy

yeah.
So you were talking about using your 3D printer on your computer.
Do you use your 3D printer at all for it to print its own files?
Or do you just do the do it off through the interpreter through the COM port?

Chris

I do it all through the COM port.
Yeah, it’s just hooked up live to my office computer.
And…

Frank

interestingly, I tried that for a little while.
I’ve got the little Windows machines got 50 bucks each.
Second hand from a corporate office.

Andy

That works.

Frank

They make good little media servers.
And I used one for remote access to my printer to run from there.

Andy

OK.

Frank

And ultimately, I decided that the sneaker net was just less of a hassle at some point.

Andy

So that’s what I came up with, too.
I do run my my laser cutter through just the COM port.
But I think it’s because it’s it’s a short term thing.
You know, the longest cuts I’ve done were like an hour long.
And that was unusual.
You know, most of the time it’s like five or ten minutes to cut something.
I think I would be afraid to set up a print that’s like 36 hours long and completely rely on, you know, a COM port.
But Chris has done it without any problems.

Chris

So I’ve had prints that took over a day and they came out just dandy.

Andy

I’ve considered taking and getting one of those USB over Wi-Fi adapters that, you know, could take any USB and put it on Wi-Fi and then back to the machine.
And that way I could have it on my laptop.
And the laptop thinks it’s local when really it’s over that little kind of a network to at least be able to monitor the printer’s printing.
But there’s not enough information there that I’m really interested in.
I don’t even wait for it to really start anymore.
I usually just get it set up, tell it to start the print while it’s heating up because it’s such a low possibility of it not starting up.
Correctly and starting the print right, you know, if I come down an hour later and I’ve been air printing for the last hour, that’s a really rare event.
So.

Frank

So here’s an interesting one for you, Andy.
My brother-in-law first introduced me to this idea and I played with it for extending my own network, OK, where it’s a networking adapter that you runs off of your power line.

Andy

OK.

Frank

So you plug your coax into the power adapter in wherever your Internet comes in, then you plug the other adapter into whatever room you want the Internet in.
And as long as they’re on the same breaker, the network can be shared across to the other adapter.
And I think that some of them even work across adapters, too.
Or across breakers.

Chris

Yeah, yeah, it’s a Wi-Fi mesh device.

Frank

Yeah, it’s just one of those fascinating ideas that I thought would be fun to get the Internet down to my workshop.
Oh, OK.
Yeah, that because you do have that that problem.
That would be a way to do it.

Chris

Yeah, I’ve been considering that, too, because at the other end of my condo.
Because, like, I lose Internet on the back half of my garage.
Front half of it, I get it OK, but I lose it on the back half.
And I was thinking about doing that myself.

Andy

Well, if you got it on the front end, maybe just a traditional mesh network adapter doesn’t even have to be the power outlet version that, you know

Chris

that’s true.
I might I might can repurpose the mild, mild router, but it doesn’t have the five gigahertz on it.
So I’d I’d be stepping down to the two point five if I did that.

Andy

Yeah, yeah.
But then again, yeah, you could always run a CAT five out to the shop.
That’s what I did.
I got a CAT five from my main box that runs out there.

Chris

You know, I did do that, but I never actually hooked it up.

Frank

That sounds like a personal problem there, Chris, because…

Kevin

that sounds super helpful and effective, dude.

Frank

Just plug an AP into it and leave it.

Chris

Yeah.
Well, so I’ve run the 112 or the 120 out there, but I haven’t switched it to the two 20 yet.
And I ran the I ran the CAT five along with the two 20.
So it’s it’s that part of it, that part of it I haven’t got to.
That’s why.

Andy

Fine.
That’s fine.
Yeah.
And I’m sure someday…

Frank

take five minutes and put a RJ 45 on it and use the damn thing.

Andy

I like to think I am so prolific with the network in my house, because you guys see, I was able to do the there’s cat six freaking everywhere through this house, even got it running up my box elder tree on the side yard.

Frank

Had it?
Oh, no, the box elder.
That’s got a camera up there, right?

Andy

Yeah, yeah, it’s just got a security camera up there.
But it’s some it’s a power.
It’s PoE CAT five that I ran out there.
So it’s got the 10 100 connectivity, which is slower, but it’s also got the power over ethernet, too.
So I got access like 15 volts, I think it is or something weird like that.
Alternating current, it’s a weird voltage for PoE.
But but yeah, so it runs out there, too.
And that one actually goes from the tree down to the shop, plugs into the router to the shop, which I’ve got a gigabit router out there, a gigabit switch.
And then that runs into the house, into the main gigabit switch that’s in my main junction box that goes to the house.

Frank

You’re a nerd.

Andy

We really set this just looking around.
There is because I’m downstairs in the basement.
I don’t have a finished ceiling downstairs.
And so you can just see the bundles of wires just everywhere.
There are so many code violations in this house.
It’s not even funny.

Frank

kind of like when you look in the plenum without the the ceiling tiles in an office building.

Andy

Yeah, that’s organized.
This is just drilled holes through two by fours with wire shoved through it.

Frank

I hate to break it to you, Andy.

Andy

Is that the kind of networks you see when you pull the ceiling tiles down?
I guess I don’t feel so bad.

Frank

Frustratingly so.
All right.
Well

Andy

at least I was smart enough not to run it with any power.

Frank

So I made the point earlier that when we try to reach a deadline, we observe it and then.
Right.
Casually overrun it.
And

Andy

oh, wow.

Frank

We’re approaching your deadline there, Kev.
So yeah, we’re not quite there yet.

Kevin

But I don’t know if you guys noticed, but I put in the chat on this discord here that I’m dumb and had said, no, I don’t have any projects I’m working on while I am actively working on a project in Blender.

Andy

So what are you doing?

Frank

Because Chris isn’t here for his part of the closing.
Why don’t you talk about it?

Kevin

Yeah, so.
My son, Kyle, the younger one, had earlier, like last summer, started up a D&D game with his friends and I was the DM.
And they kind of got to like they finished their mission and I had no idea where to take the campaign from there.
So I said, well, how about we switch from D&D to Zombicide Chronicles?
And they were all OK with that.
So yesterday we did session zero with Kyle and one of his friends.
The other one wasn’t able to make it yesterday.
But I said, well, the plan is that we’re going to or part of the plan is that I’m going I’m going to have I’m going to make these characters in Titancraft and print them.

Frank

OK

Kevin

well, Kyle’s friend decided that her background was going to be that she was a construction worker and that her iconic item is a claw hammer.
Titancraft does not have a claw hammer.

Frank

What?

Kevin

Yeah.
So I have been in Blender this whole time working on making a claw hammer.

Frank

That’s the kind of rudimentary build that I think you learn a lot of stuff.

Kevin

Oh, yeah, definitely.
And so I will show my progress.

Andy

Yeah, I would love to see that.
All right, that looks like a claw hammer.
Got the shape there.

Kevin

Yeah.

Andy

This is Blender eh.

Kevin

Yep.

Andy

I need to learn how to use this stupid software.
One of these days.

Kevin

Oh, it is.

Andy

That’s awesome.
That’s a skill I just don’t have.
Look how easy that is.
You just grab surfaces and drag them.
Yeah, that’s that’s the extrude tool right there.

Frank

It’s super complex.

Andy

Push here, pull there.

Kevin

Right.

Andy

Yeah.

Frank

But they actually like the statue behind the hammer was probably built in a program if not like Blender or if not Blender, very much like it.

Kevin

So yeah, so that statue there is the character that I’m going to be putting the hammer.
You see, she’s got her closed fist there.
The hammer is going to be in that fist.
This is the character that Kyle’s friend made in Titan craft.

Andy

OK.

Kevin

And then I obviously downloaded it.
So I’m just my plan is I’m going to get the hammer.
I’m going to put it in the fist and print it off.
And then I’m also planning on taking the STL of just the hammer and emailing it to or sending it to Titan craft and saying, here, put this in your site.

Frank

I’ve already done the work.
You can do your thing with it now.

Kevin

Yeah.

Andy

Now is Blender standalone software?

Kevin

Yes.

Frank

And it is open source.

Kevin

Yes.

Andy

Oh, really?

Frank

Yeah.

Chris

Yep.
So not only is it free, it’s actually there’s lots of tutorials you can find to figure out how to use it to.

Kevin

Yeah, because a thing about Blender, though, is it is not intuitive.

Frank

No

Andy

OK

Frank

it’s, well, kind of the down side of being open sources, it’s been hacked together in a lot of ways.

Kevin

Right.

Andy

Oh, really?

Chris

It does.
It does have lots of bells and whistles, too.
So…

Frank

yeah, it’s super complex.
But it also does a lot of really cool stuff.
So…

Andy

that would be a nice tool to have.
You know, I’ve always struggled with doing anything organic looking for a model.
So…

Chris

yeah, Blender’s good at that.

Frank

One of these days, I’ll sit down and work through tutorials myself.
It’s just.

Chris

Yeah, I have no idea how to use Blender.
But when I was looking into modeling softwares and things, I saw that Blender was incredibly good for model making.

Frank

And it comes very highly recommended, even, you know, in the professional space.
So

Andy

the wife was just talking about, you know, because we’re doing the cells for her stuff and finding she’s got.
We found one person who designs models who does like a subscription for a commercial license that we’ve been using.
And that’s the stuff we’re selling and it’s been working out really well.
But we’re looking at some of these things and be like, nice just to be able to design some of these things on our own.
But I don’t have the skill to do it.
I’m a CAD software guy and the wife did do stuff like that.
But she learned with Maya and I sat down to try to get Maya for her.
And, you know, I don’t pirate software anymore.
Period.
I don’t have any pirated software anymore on my machine.
I’ve grown away from that.

Chris

Maya is expensive, though.

Andy

It is stupid expensive.
Oh, my gosh, like I got lucky with SolidWorks because SolidWorks is one of those programs that’s stupid expensive, too.
But they’ve got a very I pay seventy nine dollars a year for a subscription to their service and get to use everything.
So as as many complaints as I have about them, that’s reasonable.
Maya doesn’t have anything like that.
So I’m going to I’m downloading Blender right now.

Chris

You know, you know, I have our YouTube tutorials and stuff like that.
Kevin can probably point you in the right direction.

Andy

Yeah, some of those would be really great.
And, you know, she knows how to work Maya from back in the day.
So it should be a pretty easy transition for her.
And she’s done clay models and stuff like that.
So she’s got this she her brain works that way, but just doesn’t have a tool for it.
So seeing that this is like standalone software and stuff and seeing how Kevin was using it.
Oh, that’s interesting.
I would dig that up play with it.

Frank

Yeah.

Chris

Yeah, I downloaded it.
I haven’t used it.
I think I played with it for like a week and I was like, this is not quite what I’m trying to trying to do.

Andy

Makes sense.

Kevin

Yeah.
And I sat down and it will leave your brain squiggled if you’re trying to figure it out on your own.
Yeah.

Andy

I learned SolidWorks on my own and because it just never occurred to me to look up a tutorial and it was so hard.
And I’m never not using a tutorial again.
I had a conversation with my son about tutorials of a couple of weeks ago saying, just trust me on this, just sit down, follow the tutorial, not just follow it, but actually do what they’re doing, no matter how dumb it is, no matter just do one.
And you’re going to be amazed at how easy it becomes after that.

Chris

It teaches you where stuff is and how to use it.

Andy

Yeah, he was doing DaVinci.
He got his new computer from Santa this year and he really wants to do video editing and he likes making movies and stuff like that.
And I’ve always done his editing for him.
So when he had a computer that could finally do editing, sat him down and he did one tutorial and that’s all it took.
And he just is doing his own stuff now and knows how to use it better than I did because I didn’t use a tutorial for DaVinci.
I was going off of my knowledge from Premiere and just trying to figure it out.
It’s not the same.

Frank

I looked up a ton of tutorials when I started using Audacity for this podcast and anytime I come up with a tool that’s like, I wonder what that does.
I look it up and find a tutorial on it.

Andy

Yeah, yeah, so much worth it compared to trying to just figure it out.
Indeed, which is a weird thing for a Gen X to say is follow the instructions.
But my God, it’s so much easier.

Frank

Let’s not start down that path either.
So now that Chris is back, we can let Kevin go do and we can close up.

Kevin

Yep

Andy

sounds good.

Frank

Or Chris is being silent.
Is there an acknowledgment in there?

Andy

I thought he was frozen there for a second.

Frank

He was just not video frozen.

Chris

I just wasn’t moving.
I mean…

Frank

good to go?
All right.
We’d like to thank everyone for listening to the very end.

Chris

Holy crap, the end.

Frank

And that’s after cutting out some inappropriate conversations.
Andy

Andy

sorry

Frank

if you like what you hear.
I’ll keep the rashes to myself next time.

Chris

The best security you can have is not talk about it.

Frank

No, that was not the point we came to.
It’s a good security practice, but.
Anonymity is not a security plan, Chris.

Chris

No.

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 are 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.
You can email us together at panelists@amateur3dpod.com.
That’s panelists with the S at the end.
Because I know how to pronunciate.
Kevin Buckner wrote the music for this episode.
Open A.I.’s Whisper.
Yes, every episode, because he’s the composer.
He’s the composer.
But I say this episode.
Yes, because it’s

Kevin

anyway

Frank

this episode too.

Kevin

Proceed, proceed

Frank

derailed, Frank got derailed.
Shocker, open A.I.’s Whisper completed the heavy listing for the transcripts, which you can find linked in the description.
As soon as I get the my website provider figured out, they’ll be updated, too.
I promise.

Andy

You’ve never gone over what is actually happening there.
You’ll have to share that sometime.

Frank

OK.
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 changed the bearings on my printer.
Now it’s growling and asking for little fish.

Kevin

OK.

Frank

Bearings, growling, bearings.

Andy

Oh, bear.

Frank

You see, sometimes I am a little slow on the uptake.
Sometimes.

Chris

By Craig.

Frank

Yes, go away.
Where is he?
There it is.
Hey, speaking of bears.