Frank

Thank you for joining us.
This is episode 70 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 Cottom, and
Kevin Buckner.
And we identified before, this is episode 70.

Andy

Yeah, it’s quite a few

Chris

Yeah, yeah, it’s about about like what I’ve got in my cupboard I’ve got
Some lemon tea some cherry tea some blueberry tea, so yeah, it’s about seven different varieties of tea seven teas.

Frank

The only important tea is the white tea, though, the unprocessed tea.

Chris

Green tea

Frank

No, green tea is secondary to white tea, I’m sorry.
Wow, Americans arguing about tea is interesting.

Chris

Well that reminds me of did you see what the American Embassy in England posted I think it was last week

Andy

Yeah,

Chris

that said
It’s like put it in and then we take our tea and put it in the microwave properly

Frank

Yeah, yep.

Frank

The one I saw, I didn’t know it was the embassy, but Americans think it’s as bizarre
that the English use instant coffee as what they think it is bizarre that we put our water
in the microwave for tea.
So, fair is fair.

Kevin

Yep!

Frank

Guilty as charged.

Chris

Well, so yeah, so
What we did though is the other a couple years ago. We found a
Really cheap single pot
Coffee maker or a single cup coffee maker. It’s not one of those k cups
but you know you do have to put and so the life has been using that to make hot cocoa because
Obviously she does not she does not like coffee and so
She will not warm up water using my coffee maker, obviously, but she likes to use
That to make herself a single cup of hot cocoa. So I’ve been using that occasionally to warm up water for tea

Andy

I used to be a big tea drinker back when I moved out.
My mom was really into growing all of our own herbs and things
and we would make tea just raw.
And that was really good, but I kind of stopped doing that
once I moved out.

Frank

I guess it hadn’t occurred to me that Americans would grow their own tea leaves.

Andy

As a housewarming gift, she gave me a drying rack for herbs
that she’d used for a long time.
Sadly, it’s up in my attic right now.
I don’t even use it.

Chris

Mmm, that’s a shame
You know because there’s like

Andy

Yeah, I’ll have to do something about that.

Chris

There’s there’s like a few different kinds of tea that would grow naturally
You don’t even have to do much for them, you know in our yard like I know that my in-laws have mint all over their yard

Andy

That’s one of my favorites too, that I would usually grab
some dried mint and just crumble it up.

Kevin

I used to have a whole bunch of mint in my yard.
But it was in among the ivy that was all over my fence
and when I paid the people to come and tear out the ivy they also tore the mint out.
That was my favorite part of the lawn to mow because the mint was infiltrating the lawn.
So i would just go over to that section and it would just fill the air with that minty smell.

Chris

Plant plant screaming in pain smells delicious

Frank

As opposed to the, yeah, the mint screaming in pain smells much better than grass screaming
in pain.

Kevin

Yeah. Yeah. Definitely. Definitely.

Andy

Cheese.

Kevin

No, not cheese, mint.

Chris

Okay, so nice, so we’ve had it we had a good tea off to the episode. Let’s

Frank

So, who knew that 3D printers were so metal about mowing the lawn?

Andy

I did get a costume for Mo and Alon this next time of the year.
I got one of those blow up inflatable adult size
unicorn costumes to wear.

Frank

Oh, my.

Chris

Nice

Andy

My son challenged me at one point.
Whenever he, my 10 year old, whenever he goes and takes his bath,
he always leaves his underwear.
And my wife was always taking his underwear and putting it down
on our freezer downstairs here for him to get in passing.
And the faster she’d not do that anymore,
so now the underwear started appearing on top of his
laptop on the kitchen table.
And I didn’t really like that.
And a couple weeks ago when I had the week off,
I threatened them.
I told them, if you don’t take your underwear downstairs,
and it’s still on that table by the time you go to school,
I’m coming to your class and I’m pulling you out of the class
in person while holding your underwear.
And he’s like, ah, you can’t embarrass me.
And it was like, oh, this is a challenge now.
And then at random, I saw somebody snow blowing in one of those
costumes and it was just like, ah, I think I’ve got it.
One of those spontaneous purchases I need to make that,
that I could use that for something.
And it was like 25 bucks.
So I grabbed it.

Frank

Oh, I’m sure you would find it embarrassing, but he’ll definitely see you.

Chris

Mean all he has to do is be called out called by the office one time your dad is here

Frank

In a unicorn costume with your underwear.

Andy

Yes, yes.

Chris

You know, but you know the way my mom taught me this lesson to put my laundry in
The laundry room
Was that if it got left anywhere she would put it on my pillow

Andy

That’s good.
I may actually do that one.
I don’t know if that one will really work for my kid.
He’s not that dirty underwear’s dirty, gross kind of attitude.
He doesn’t really have that.
I don’t know how well that would work.

Chris

Mmm, that’s true

Andy

It’s just silly.
Not really a problem.
Just silliness.
Somebody’s going to take offense.

Frank

Now, where would they take it?

Chris

So

Andy

Good point.

Frank

The fence.
Where would they take the fence?

Chris

I don’t know they might put it up well my neighbor might might pay them to put it up my neighbor that can

Andy

Hopefully they’ll, hopefully they’ll drop it off in my yard.

Frank

Well, interesting.

Chris

My neighbor that complained about my yard over Christmas put up another another
Piece of fencing right next to me like

Andy

Really?
What a jerk.

Kevin

kick him

Chris

Yeah, he’s well
and I’m still needing to finish it.

Andy

I got one third of my fence done two years ago,

Chris

Well, he’s just a pretentious jerk because he he has a landscaping business and so he’s got like
The prettiest most immaculate lawn and I can’t do a whole lot with my lawn
Because my dog just tears it up
You know, so I there’s there’s there’s nothing I can do that the dog will not undo almost immediately
until
Until the dog is no longer with us. So

Frank

I would say the dog is more important than the lawn.

Andy

Definitely.

Kevin

I would agree

Frank

Personally, dogs become family and all that.

Chris

Yep

Frank

Well, Andy, did you do anything this week?

Andy

Yes, sir.
Not a whole lot.
You remember those.

Frank

Probably only again and talk for 30 minutes instead of 45.

Andy

Yeah, maybe.
I really actually didn’t do a whole lot.

Chris

I want to hear it

Andy

I did.
Let’s see, where did I put it?
I’m going to have to look for it.
I did wind up those fish tank filters that I’ve been talking about
for a little while to extend the life of my filters in between changing.
I did wind up making some of those.
Let me grab those real quick and I’ll share them with you.
But I wound up going the original way that I was kind of describing where
I would have a normal filter like this one.
I’m showing here our visual listeners just a round baffle,
but it has a bypass on the side that I can put a rubber flat valve into

Chris

Uh-huh

Andy

to give a little bit of resistance.
As the filter fills up and the pressure builds,
eventually it’ll be enough to open up the bypass valve.

Chris

So

Andy

That would go down and bypass that filter onto the next filter
and allow me to have more time in between cleanings.

Frank

Mm hmm.

Andy

I did wind up making some of those.
This next week, I’ll be putting these in and seeing how well they work.
Hopefully they will.
To some degree, it just matters in how well they work.

Chris

So
For our visual listeners, they they look like about about the size
with the same size and shape as
the old
smoke detector fronts

Andy

Yeah, but it’s about how big the canister filters I have are.
They’re about maybe 12, 14 inches tall and about 6 inches around.
It’s got an inlet at the top and an outlet at the bottom.
That’s where you put all your different kinds of media
and things that are supposed to filter things out.
At the very top of this filter, I like to do mechanical filtration using polyfill.
It works really great, but it clogs up after about a week and a half of use,
which is great.
It’s pulling all that gunk out of the tank.
It leaves my substrate.
Every four to six months, I’ll vacuum out the substrate and there’s nothing in it.
It’s very clean most of the time.
It’s really keeping the tank clean of that kind of gunk.
Every week and a half, it doesn’t take very long to do it either to replace the filters
because I just grab the polyfill.
By the time it’s ran through the filter, it actually looks like a store-bought filter,
which is kind of cool.
It’s got the full-around compacted pattern and everything, but it’s full of gunk.
I pull it out, throw it away, and then I just grab another handful of polyfill
and throw it in there and then close it back up.
It takes like 10 minutes to do one, and I’ve got two.
I just want to prolong it a little bit.
If I can get another filter in there and get twice as much surface area around it,
I think it will save me quite a bit in all the time doing that, which would be kind of nice.
That’s why I’m going to try this time and see if this works.
I printed the whole thing out of PETG, which is fish tank safe,
even though I don’t really need it to be out of something that strong
because it’s just a baffle, essentially.
Then the rubber flap, I printed out a TPU, and I’m hoping that’ll work.
I might have to play with that a little bit.
I made the flat part only three layers tall
so that it’s got a little bit of resistance before it lets go and lets water through, but not too much.
I don’t want the pressure to have to really build up in there before it opens.
It just needs to be a little bit more than the pressure it takes to get through the filter.
Once that opens up, the water can flow down into the next filter,
but in between the bottom of the first filter and the second filter,
I’ve got about a six-millimeter gap, just a void,
that should allow the water to spread back out and then penetrate through the filter below it evenly.
That way it’s not just like building gunk up right at the very beginning where the bypass is,
but that’s what I did with that.

Chris

So
Okay, so for our visual listeners Andy
Andy was
Very animated and using his hands a lot to this to describe this
The way you did that Andy made it look like a fish a pinball like you were making a pinball tank
A pinball set up for your fish, you know a little fish going pling

Andy

Oh, that’s good.
In my head, I’m just emulating with my hands what the baffle’s doing when it opens up.
I did play around with the SLA printer a little bit.

Kevin

good
I think I posted this guy’s at the beginning of the week,
but a while back I had made for my dad and my brother have little cheap Chinese 150 off-road bikes, motor bikes.
The blinker covers that came on those bikes were really garbage
and both bikes wound up having them fall off.
You can’t really buy them.
That was one of the first things I wound up printing for my dad and my brother with my FDM printer,
was brand new diffusers for the blinkers.
These are about two inches in diameter and about one inch high, just a little cup that’s a light diffuser.
I printed them in transparent PETG, which isn’t very transparent.
Took a lot of time trying to figure out how to best make that work
to be the most transparent as I could get to make a proper diffuser,
but with the SLA printer, one of the options I do have is to buy clear resin,
and so I’ve been playing around with that.
The pictures I took of the ones that I sent you guys on Discord has a very, very nice diffused look over it.
It’s very smoky kind of.
From everything I read, I could buff that near optical quality.
I know you can’t get optical quality, but it’s pretty close.
You could definitely see through it.
While I was just browsing what other people have done,
I found an even easier way is just to use some clear gloss.
I sprayed some clear gloss on that sucker and that is pretty transparent.
I was very, very happy about this.

Chris

It looks like something you don’t buy at the store that’s crazy

Andy

Yeah, no kidding.

Frank

That’s about as good as Chris’s vision without his glasses.

Chris

Yeah, I think it’s I think it’s better
Frank
No, that’s nice.

Andy

But this week…

Andy

Yeah, so I didn’t actually need this.
This was me just playing around with using the printer to print stuff that I print instead of models,

Frank

Mm hmm.

Andy

that I got off thingiverse or whatever.
This is something I designed a while back,
and just learning how to print this kind of stuff.
One thing that was kind of weird, and Frank,
you might really recognize this,
is if you can imagine printing this cup on the FDM printer,
on the inside of the cup here,
I had chamfered all the way around at 45 degrees.
That way I could print it with the cup,
let’s say upside down on the build plate,
and not have to worry about any kind of supports,

Frank

Right.

Andy

these two little cuts here for the thing that the visual listeners will only be able to see.
And that worked out really well.
But when I went to go print this with the SLA printer,
it was much better to cock it up at an angle,
just like you always see them doing,
printing at 45 degrees, the whole item.
But those chamfers that I put on this to make it easy to print using an FDM printer,
would have made it more difficult to print using the SLA printer.
So I actually removed that chamfer,
so it is just a square cup on the inside,
and that prints perfectly when it’s printed on an angle like that.
That was just kind of a neat learning when you’re designing stuff.
Whenever I’m sitting down in the CAD software and designing something to be printed,
the whole design is based around trying not to print with supports.
The least supports I can use, the better the print will come out,
because there’s no marring to the plastic or anything.

Frank

Because Andy doesn’t need any support.

Andy

But no, I don’t need no stinking supports.
But SLA printer, I mean, that operates just a totally different way,
and it’s a really kind of a different mindset to be designing something for.

Kevin

yes it is

Andy

So it’s just kind of a neat little project there.
It really kind of opened my eyes a little bit when I was looking at that chamfer thinking,
well, that chamfer that was 45 degrees,
now with the whole thing cocked up at 45 degrees,
that chamfer is a bridge.

Frank

Horizontal, yeah.

Andy

And bridging with SLA is, I guess, something you really want to avoid.
Like on the FDM, it’s fine.
We bridge all day long, but SLA, you want to avoid that.

Frank

I wonder if a fillet would have been any different for you just because it’s a gradual curve instead of the straight edge.

Andy

Yeah, yeah, but you still would have been increasing the angle it was printing at along that fillet.

Andy

So it was kind of weird to remove.
So, because if the chamfer is at, you know, 180, if it’s flat 180 degrees,
then a fillet would eventually reach that same angle too.
But it did need it, as you can see.
It’s just a cup and this was the actual original design
and the chamfer that I put in there was to make the 3D printing easier.
But with the SLA printer, I’m able to print it without it
and use less plastic and making it a little bit more transparent.
And what’s kind of neat is the inside of the cup is flat
and the outside of the cup’s got a little bit of a bevel to it that I put in there.
And when this first came out of the printer, it was optical quality.
It was so pretty before you put them in the curing station to cure.
Yeah, because it was clear.
It was like a magnifying glass the way it was working
because the one is curved and the other one’s flat.
And it was like a magnifying glass and that was pretty cool.
But after curing, this particular resin went yellow at first.
But over the last week, it’s went back clear again, which is really kind of weird.
I read that in the comments when I was getting it,
like people complaining, yeah, it went yellow when you cured it.
But there was one comment in there that said, yeah, it went yellow,
but after a couple of weeks, it went clear again and that’s exactly what mine did.
It’s kind of neat.
I got some, I was playing around with the little, what are they called, the rooks
that I, my first print that I was sharing with you guys.
And I was kind of playing with it,
seeing how much it would deflect when you tweak it a little bit
and wound up breaking it and was kind of a little bit distraught about that
because it broke, it felt like it broke kind of easy.
And one of the other things that I had printed by Sun was playing with it.
So it’s a, this was before they were kind of popular,
but these little maze cylinders that you can put together that you got it,
you got a, you got a twist and push in and pull out to pull them apart.

Chris

Oh, yeah, lots lots of people use them for for gifts

Andy

And this one here, I made myself back in the day.
And this is one of the things I wound up printing.
But my son was playing with it and he just mentioned, well, it’s not that hard.
You just got to pull it apart.
And, you know, the little key on the, the cylinder that’s not the puzzle piece
that makes you follow a track, he just broke right off.
And I’m just starting to learn that that, that plastic, the advanced,
what is it?
What is it called?
It’s like the basic resin for, let me see here, standard polymer resin.

Chris

For like a PLA equivalent, yep

Andy

Yes.
The standard polymer resin from who made this?
Elegoo.
Now, it’s good stuff.
It comes out real pretty, but I could tell that this is,
this is supposed to be just for like models and things.
This isn’t mechanical plastic at all.
It’s very, very brittle.

Kevin

it is not structural

Andy

No, not at all.
And that’s not what I want to be printing.
You know, I’m not printing models and things like that.
I want to be able to print really precise project boxes and things like that
with my resin printer.
So I wound up getting.

Kevin

sorry you can get structural resin it’s just more
expensive

Andy

That’s what I’m finding.
So this week here, I’m going to try something else.
It’s, it’s another Elegoo product.
It’s their ABS 2.0.
It was about 5����.�����5more.Ipaid25 for a kilogram and which the other resin is,
I think when it’s on sale, it’s like 16 or 17 bucks,
but normally it’s like around 20 and this was 25.
So if it’s ABS like, I would love that because ABS plastic is like the target
for 3D printing for me.
That’s the exact kind of quality of plastic I want.
So I’m hoping that this will be exactly what everybody says it is.
And if it is, then I’m hoping this will be the new plastic that I’ll buy for this unit.
The clear resin that I bought does seem to be quite a bit more durable though
than the initial gray resin.
So the clear resin might be good to go.

Kevin

yeah I found that also

Chris

So here’s our same shameless plug Ella goo if anyone from Ella goo is listening

Frank

It does look like your diffuser is quite a bit thicker than the puzzle was to so obviously.

Andy

You are right, but the clips for it are thinner.

Kevin

well there is that

Andy

The clips for this are thinner and I’ve been bending at these
because this is this piece I made was just for fun.
I don’t actually need it.
And it’s also, it’s not dialed in.
I’ve, I need to print a, what’s it called a dimensional cube in it
to see how I need to adjust my parts for that kind of thing.

Chris

Uh-huh

Andy

But, but because I think like parts that I’ve printed, like I’ve got a nozzle
that I use for my parts cooler on my FDM printer.
And the way I have it set up to be as minimalist to keep as much weight off of it as possible.
My nozzle for the parts cleaner is pretty close to the hot end.
And over time it does melt down.
And I’ve used different plastics for it to build that nozzle in.
I think right now I’m, I’m using what’s it called nylon for, for that tip.
But it does kind of melt down a little bit.
And so I thought, well, I’m going to try printing it using the resin printer.
And that way the next time I need to swap it out because, you know,
it starts leaning against the hot end or something like that.
I’m going to try the resin and see how it does as the nozzle for heat.
Because I don’t want to change the design.
That nozzle is very small and it adds no weight to it.
And I really like it works well.
And I’d rather change them every, you know, couple of months
than change the design to something that’s less good and not likely to melt.
But when I had that printed off, I was able to compare it to the replacement
that I already had on hand, waiting to go, that I know works.
And the one from the resin printer seemed to be a little bit larger overall
in all dimensions.
So I’ve got to, I’ve got to get in there and see a little bit to see,
you know, what, if I need to change.
I know, if I remember right, Chitubox does have some,
some like overall scaling options during the slicing, I think it is, doesn’t it?
So you can adjust for stuff like that.
And I might need to make some adjustments.
So this lens cap here, I doubt will even work.
I think it’s out of, out of the wrong size, just because of that.
But it’s been nice playing with it and seeing what the clear resin can do.

Chris

So, um, just about calibration cubes real quick Andy
I I just posted something in our discord something I read I read earlier this week about you know calibration cubes
How they’re useful and whatever else but this guy made this nice little model that’s a little more convenient and allows you to measure
more stuff

Andy

Oh, really?

Chris

So may want may have may want to have a look at this, but I think he’s charging like five bucks for the model
So depends on depends on what it’s worth to you

Frank

At least in your XY plane. How well does it work in your Z plane? Did he talk about
that at all?

Andy

Of the me or the calibration cube.

Frank

Chris. Chris, the article you shared.

Chris

I’m not sure just called a califlox

Frank

Okay. It’s interesting. I can see
how it would be very useful in, like I said, in your XY plane, but the Z plane is not even
represented in that print.

Andy

Yeah, yeah, I kind of agree with that.
That’s, that’s interesting.
That’s interesting for calibration.
I don’t know.
I’m just want to make sure essentially the FDM version of steps for millimeter
is accurate for my, my SLA printer.
That’s all I’m looking for.

Chris

Yes, and that’s
And that’s part of the point that’s being made here is that you know, you need to
uh, not only check your
When when when you’re people when people print calibration cubes, they don’t take into consideration the
The they’re they’re only looking at the steps that aren’t they’re not looking at the at the flow rate or anything like that
And so this is this is to take into consideration the the the amount of amount of plastic being extruded
as well as
This as well as the steps. Yeah

Frank

Well, there is a whole another, there is a whole another calibration for the, for the flow rate
with FTM. So it’s not that…

Andy

I guess when I, when I said calibration, I am at like,
like I don’t even want to use someone else’s cube.
I want to just make a cube in my solid works.
And so I can see that from the beginning of my designs to the end of my designs
are calibrated the same, you know, not, not pulling a cube that someone else’s design
that says it to this dimensions and then printing it off.
You know, I want to, I want to know that the dimensions that I’m telling it to print
are what I get in the end.
And that’s more or less the X, Y and Z calibrate, you know, calibration of those things.
Like when it comes to like for FDM, like flow rate and stuff like that,
that will mess with your quality of print.
And I guess if you’re really trying to hit a certain amount of plastic use for one part, you know,
or, or whatever, then that feels kind of like the backwards way to do it
because all of our, all of our filaments have a different, excuse me, a different density.
So I mean from filament to filament, that would even change for the, you know,
the density of the item.
So I don’t know, especially with two, like, I know that the filaments have gotten really good as far as their
diameter overall for the, you know, the whole line is like that.
That used to be a problem where you get like a variation of up to like half a millimeter
on your diameter of your filament.
And that could really affect a print, you know.
But I know for the most part when you buy filament now, that’s a pretty dialed in standard.
But it still does vary a little.
And I think little things like that might mess with those more than, you know,
once you’ve achieved visually a good quality, you wouldn’t want to really calibrate outside of what it is good visually.
I don’t know, unless you’re working with like integrity or something, and that’s your focus.
Sorry, I got lost in the thought.

Frank

Nope, you’re fine.

Chris

You gave me a great idea there Andy.

Andy

What’s that?

Chris

so use your resin printer to print filament for your fdm printer

Andy

Hey, there you go.
I don’t think it’s thermoplastic.
I don’t know if that’ll work well.

Kevin

no

Andy

Oh, it’s going to do so.

Chris

In the history of horrible ideas that is one of the one of the worst

Frank

Well, no, I think drying your socks on your printer bed is still up there.

Andy

There is something I do want to see if I can get under wraps that there have been some prints like printing this here lens cap,
that I might actually want to print directly off of the bed of the printer.
And I was kind of looking as to why, why don’t people do that?
You know, I can understand the bridging part being an issue with the printer and something you’d have to avoid.
But if you want to print it flat, and I see a lot of people still raising it off the bed in order to print it flat.
And so I was kind of looking into that.
And back to my little puzzle thing, you can see there’s a lot of elephants foot on these parts.

Kevin

Yeah.

Andy

Like elephants foot seems to be a terrible thing on these.
But I’ve noticed it’s very consistent, very, very consistent.
I want to try to see if I can find like the profile of the elephants foot itself and to be able to cut that out of the part before you go to print it
and see if the elephants foot will compensate for the profile that you cut out of the part and compensate for the elephants foot altogether.

Chris

Well because it uses light I imagine what’s happening

Chris

Is that you’re uh that first layer on you’re you’re you’re getting some uh
Some light diffusion essentially from the screen pixels on that first layer and

Andy

Yeah, that’s what I’ve heard. Yeah.

Frank

Well, the FEP is not zero thickness, right? So a little bit of light would diffuse through
the FEP even, no matter how dialed in you’ve got your, your screen.

Kevin

Right.
But also, the bigger thing here is that when you print the very bottom layers that are like attached to the build plate, that’s where you’ve got a much longer exposure time.
So, that means that it’s going to be curing more and more light diffusion than you would get with your standard layer. Like, for example, I do a normal exposure of 10 seconds for most of my resins and a bottom exposure of 70 seconds.
So, those bottom layers, because those are what you really need to get to stick to the build plate to make sure it doesn’t get pulled off, because that is disastrous if it gets pulled off of the build plate.

Chris

So I so so I think the only the only way you’d want you’d be able to fix this
Is and is not the exposure time, but you just reduce the amount of pixels on that first layer
So you just kind of shrink it in a little bit so that the elephant’s foot that does get created
Matches the rest of what you’re printing going up

Frank

And that’s what he was talking about doing anyway. So.

Andy

And I already do that with the FDM printer.
I always chamfer the bottom with a 0.2 millimeter chamfer, a 45 degree 0.2 millimeter chamfer on everything that touches the build plate.
And that seems to really compensate for any elephants foot I get from my printer.
But you guys know I go for a lot of squish so I don’t have adhesion problems, which causes a lot of elephants foot.
So I kind of plan ahead with all of my prints that I am doing to expect the over squish and I compensate for it when I’m designing the object.
And if you look at my, mine, it’s you really can’t tell anything.
Sometimes it’s a little bit under, sometimes it’s a little bit over, but we’re talking everything is under like a quarter of a millimeter.
So it’s very not noticeable.
And it’s been working out pretty good.
But I would like to see if I could figure out the best way to do that with the resin printer too, because its elephant foot is much more huge.
But it’s also seems to be more consistent though too.

Frank

Andy, I think you just gave me ammunition for the heat method of doing the, the adhesion
because I don’t ever get elephant’s foot. Never ever.

Andy

That’s good.

Andy

Yeah, you guys don’t do any of that.
But I also don’t have any problems with printing anything and worried about adhesion though, I could print a 300 millimeter funnel that’s got a, you know, a four millimeter attachment to the bed.
And I think I’ll probably be okay.

Frank

Well, I guess we can agree to disagree still. Was there anything else you wanted to talk about?

Andy

Nope, that was actually pretty much it.
I haven’t really done a whole lot.
I still got the whole air vent project on my desk here that I’m trying to figure out how I want to do it and things, but I haven’t invested too much time into it.
At the moment, that’s the current project that’s sitting on the desk.
So that’s me.

Frank

All right, cool.

Chris

Cool

Frank

Kevin, have you done anything this week?

Kevin

I have.
So, I, I think I mentioned last week that the screen on my resin printer had finally bitten the dust and that the unplug and and discharge the capacitors and plug back in trick wasn’t working.
So, I, I already had a replacement screen on hand, so I replaced the screen in that and I just I watched a brief YouTube video on how to do that and it, it talked about needing double sided tape, and I didn’t have any and I didn’t really want to go to the store and I was like,

Kevin

I’ll just see if I can pry the old screen out carefully enough that I don’t need to add any more double sided tape because if it if enough of it stays behind it should be sticky enough, you know.

Andy

Okay.

Kevin

So, I did, I did and I pulled out, then I got my new screen. I didn’t go with an any cubic brand screen. I don’t even think I could get one of those anymore actually. So, I got a Chitu systems screen that is compatible with the photon s or the Mars four
and I found that it actually included double sided tape strips.

Andy

That’s convenient.

Frank

Nice. Somebody thought forward and said, you know, they’re gonna need these. Let’s just

Kevin

Yep. So, I, yeah, so I, I got my, my screen replaced and I retrammed to the bed and all of that stuff and then I printed up the elbow macaroni pasta disk that I had designed last week.
And as it came off of the build plate, I looked at the support structures to make the hollow part of the macaroni and said, Oh, those, those look like they might be too thin to withstand the pressure of the pasta dough being pushed through them.
And sure enough, as I was pulling the supports off, one of them kind of broke. I mean, I only made them half a millimeter thick, so they’re, they’re very thin.
And so I, I have just this morning gone in and redesigned those support structures to be two millimeters thick, and I’m reprinting it right now.
Then the other thing that I did…

Chris

Yeah, speaking of speaking of structural printing

Kevin

right, the other thing I did is that I, I changed out the nozzle again so that I had a four millimeter or point four millimeter nozzle, because that’s, I know that the filament I’m using
and wanted to use for the articulated dragon would work with the point four millimeter nozzle. And so I swapped that out and I’m currently printing that articulated dragon right now it’s a 26 and a half hour print job, and it’s got a few more hours.

Chris

26 that’s actually kind of short for for what that is that’s kind of cool

Andy

The biggest ones that I’ve printed are about 30 hours and that’s the full 300 by 300 millimeter coil of the dragon.
Those ones are pretty big and they’re about 30 but I’m also printing with the with the point six though too and so that really cuts down on the time.
It was originally before what I sliced it for the point six millimeter nozzle, it was supposed to be a, I think 20 hour print.

Andy

Okay.

Chris

Gotcha

Kevin

But that’s all I’ve done with 3D printing this week.

Frank

fun. Chris, you done anything this week?

Andy

I got a quick question for Kev first before we move on.

Frank

Fine.

Andy

The, the part that you were going to your pasta extruder.
Did you try printing that down with the FDM printer, or was that the SLA printer?

Chris

Oh
Yeah, go for it

Andy

Oh, okay. Yeah, that was going to be my next question is if you were SLA printing that wonder or FDM, but yeah, that’s all that’s always curious about.

Kevin

That was the SLA printer.

Andy

Thanks for letting me interrupt.

Chris

Now mine’s mine’s pretty short and sweet this week I am currently printing the headphone racks for the
For the charging headphone charging station. That’s that’s yeah

Andy

Oh, nice.
That’s good.

Chris

But I should be um taping off and and getting primer painting and stuff
Going which means next week. I am going to be sitting down with the child and

Chris

picking out colors for all of the uh
Um
We’re actually she she has picked out the colors, but now she’s gonna pick out which colors go where for all of her
light covers and outlet covers and things

Andy

Oh, that’s cool. That’s awesome that you’re letting her like have that option, a way to customize your own room. Yeah.

Frank

personalization.

Chris

Yeah, well, she’s she already picked out all the paint colors and everything and that too and so
Um, we’re gonna paint the room up in like three three different colors that she’d wanted and

Andy

Okay.
That’s neat.

Frank

Good deal.

Andy

That’s probably awesome.
I think we get her on board with that.
We’d appreciate it that much more since she had such a so many, you know, says and what goes on with.

Frank

Either that or in another 3 or 4 years she’s gonna be like I hate my Room.

Chris

Oh

Andy

Yeah, that you could just blame her for while you’re the one that picked out the colors. You want to paint it, you do it this time.

Chris

Oh, yeah, this

Andy

Well, what about you, Frank? What have you worked on?

Frank

After all the silence I actually have not turned on my printer this
week at all. I was telling everyone before we started that I had a long week at work and the
tenuous few moments that I’ve had not doing that and sleeping I was working on the software to merge
the transcripts.

Andy

Ah, okay.

Chris

Cool, but oh, you know, I did have something else this week though

Andy

What’s that?

Chris

something short
so, um
Our conversations have been really helpful
For helping my boss
I told you my boss has a couple of 3d printers. Well, he was trying to use up some old filament
And it wasn’t working and i’m like, well, have you have you used a dehydrator to to to re um to
Andy
Re-condition.

Frank

Recondition it. It’s early. We’ll forgive you. Probably.

Chris

Recondition, yeah, that’s the word I was looking for recondition your filament and he’s like
and he’s like
And he’s like, no, I didn’t really think that was a thing that needed to be done
And I was like, yeah, if you’ve got if you’re if your filament’s been sitting out
Especially if it’s been sitting out out in the open without any
You know not bagged without silica packets, whatever else it’s it’s gonna collect water
And that you have to read you have to recondition it if you want to use the old stuff. So
you have to
You know get get a filament dehydrator or something like that
And he was like, wow, that is that is not something I know I needed to do and I was like
I was like, well, if you want to reuse your old filament you do

Frank

So did he end up getting a dehydrator and try it and come back and go worked or is he not there yet.

Chris

I don’t know this
I don’t know he’s not there yet

Frank

Gotcha.
This only happened a couple days ago that he was talking about it

Chris

Because he was like
I got noodles

Frank

Well, at least it’s in a good form to recycle right.

Chris

And I was talking to I was talking to the wife about how
in the in the near future, I’m I’m wanting to get a
pellet a pellet hopper and convert my printer into a

Chris

a pellet
or pellet or filament printer so that

Andy

That really interests me.

Chris

Yeah, so that we we can we can take the leftover pet
Bottles and whatever else around them through the dishwasher
Once or twice to get all the gookies out of them and then
We can take them and just put them through the put them through the chopper

Andy

That’s a great idea.

Kevin

That’d be cool.

Chris

Because I’m sick of I’m sick of throwing away so much plastic

Chris

I mean or human beings are bad enough with our trash as it is and plastic is
I got to be
Among the top three things that we are super wasteful one

Andy

You’re talking about using the dehydrator. I had kind of a neat moment to be able to use the one down here.
Yeah, absolutely. Totally dries the soft really well. It’s great.
So, you know, my wife’s a hairstylist and works with cash a lot.
And so we’ve got a safe down here where we’ve got about $100 worth of small bills so you can, you know, break change and things like that.
But in the safe, I’ve even got huge packets of, we use them in our filament containers here, what are they called?
Desiccant. Yeah. Yeah, I’ve got huge packets of desiccant to try to keep the safe dry.
I’ve even got some, like, I’ve tried putting little bowls of dry or a minute rice in there and things like that.
But money is gross. Dollar bills are gross and they mold if they’re set, if they sit there long enough. It’s disgusting.

Chris

Um

Andy

And this last week here, you know, it just kind of occurred to me.
I went out to just make a deposit in our safe, round off the change that we needed to keep in there and drop everything else off at the bank.
And the money was just, it was gross to touch. It was wet, kind of, just the dampish bills were sticking together.
I threw them in the dehydrator. It just occurred to me because, like, before, we would just set the bills out on the floor
and just let them drive overnight and then gather them back up and put them back in the safe whenever that happened.
But I figured, I just got a dehydrator. Let me just throw them in there for a few hours.
So put them in there and that fixed the problem.
So if you keep, like, cash in a safe that you’ve got a problem with on that, the dehydrator for the printer
It’s great for drying everything out and making it, I mean, you know, it’s not as clean,
but it doesn’t feel gross anymore to count it out or whatever.

Frank

That’s interesting.

Chris

And with I thought you were gonna I thought you were going with the uv curing station because uv light kills a lot of bacteria too

Andy

That’s a very good idea. I was just thinking when I put it in there, yeah.

Chris

That’s what I thought you were going with this

Andy

When I put it in there, I was thinking, okay, I should definitely run it hotter than 160 degrees, the dehydrator,
because then I will kill off anything. So if it does get damp in there again,

Andy

at least it won’t grow mold as badly, hopefully.
And so I cranked up the temperature and that, but yeah, if I would have thought about that,
I would have let it sit in there for, like, half an hour. That’s a great idea.

Chris

You know what it’s at the hydrator it’s it wouldn’t it wouldn’t be hard to

Frank

Next time.

Chris

Get some some uv curing lights from amazon and just plug them in on the top of that

Frank

Run your flashlight you were talking about last week over it a little bit.

Andy

yeah.

Frank

So Andy.
It’s a weird thing that you talk abou that.
Maybe it’s because we store our safes different.
But I’ve got a little fire safe.
And my brother gave me this pine pine,
I call it my treasure chest, but it’s just this little box where I keep all my loose change,
and I’ve got some bills in there all folded up
I’ve never experienced this wet moldy thing that you’re talking about

Chris

Well from a salon you’ll you’ll you’ll get boob sweat money from salons

Frank

Boob sweat?

Andy

It could be, could be. Yeah, I don’t know, but I keep, like, our backup hard drives and stuff in that safety.
Ours is just a fire safe as well. And, yeah, moisture is a problem.
And our room with moisture has its own problems, and so I’m very aware of the moisture levels in our room.
And our room, for years now, has been between, has been less than 40% humidity in that room,
even after we installed the fish tanks. That’s where we got our fish tanks in our bedroom.
And, you know, there’s a dehumidifier in there that we got set at 40, and I’ve got a little meter that sits up in the bed
that I’m always checking that is about, you know, between 30 and 40 on average.
And then during the summertime, it really dips because the air conditioner in there pulls out water too.

Frank

Well you live in the desert so.

Andy

But it feels like I’ve got a dry environment in the room that the safe exists in,
but the money is a problem for, you know, just gross.
And I used to get in there and be, like, happy because, you know, playing with money,
you know, counting out all the change, making sure I got enough 1s, 5s and 10s and blah, blah, blah.
And it used to be something I’d enjoy because, you know, I, growing up, I was terrible with money,
and now I’ve got enough money to have, you know, $100 on hand that can just be used for change to make sure there’s enough change.

Frank

Petty cash

Andy

Yeah, but now you go through to count it out. It’s like, I gotta go wash my hands.
Every time I do it, it’s gross. But after dehydrating it, that’s, that’s going to be the new method there,
is just throwing the dehydrator anytime I question it at all.
And hopefully, since it absorbs so much moisture, that it will pull moisture out of the safe because it’s over dry.
So, you know, after it was done in the dehydrator, the money felt like dried leaves.
It was really dry.
So, I didn’t feel like good money at all. It was like crackly and, you know, I had the new bill crispiness, but it was very much old bills.

Frank

I would be worried taking that into the bank honestly.
With the uh…
Becuase they handle cash all day they would be like I’m not sure this is real.

Andy

Yeah, and it might be questioned, but, you know, I’m sure after it gets that set out a little bit, it goes right back to normal.

Chris

Right

Andy

Let me go look real quick.
Now you got me, now you got me curious.

Chris

I was like well, you know you you
Now you just put it put it under your armpit for a little bit before you take it into the bank and it’ll be normal in no time

Frank

Just don’t tell them.

Andy

Oh, gross.
So I put these out of the dehydrator.
What was it, like three days ago?
Let me see.
Nope.
OK, now it’s back to feeling like normal money.
Still stinks, but it’s not gross to touch.
It feels like just normal dry money you get from the store.
It’s a little bit drier, but only a little bit.
It’s not that crinkley anymore.

Frank

So it reconditioned itself.

Chris

You know, it’s just I don’t know how many of you have had to suffer
uh working retail
but
Dealing with customers money, uh, you know, just is a gross job in and of itself

Andy

But yeah

Frank

If you think about it too much yet, you don’t want to do the job anyway. There’s enough reasons to not want to do the job.

Andy

And for those people who are thinking about getting a dehydrator
too, I really want to recommend, let’s see.
I’ve got one called Ultra, what is it, Ultrene.
It was about $30, a little bit more expensive.
And it’s square, which was very convenient.
And it’s just got the trays that you dehydrate food on.
And all but the lowest tray, I wound up
taking and cutting out the grid pattern on the back.
So it’s still stacked.

Chris

Oh ouch

Andy

What’s that?

Chris

Sorry that grinds my gears purposely destroying something on
Even though it was constructive for your purposes. That’s one of those things that’s like, ah, I broke it on purpose

Andy

Oh, really?
Oh, no, that’s not.
But that allows me to have a cavity that’s big enough
to hold a reel of printer filament.

Chris

Right, yeah

Andy

And it’s digital, and you can set the temperature to it.
And that’s like the most important part,
because I dry my filament at 158 degrees.
I don’t know where I came up with that number,
but that’s the number I decided on after some research.
But just being able to have that completely automatic
and just sits right here by my printer,
and any time I question any kind of filament,
it just goes right into the dehydrator.
And it’s ready to go.

Chris

So what kind of money did you sink a sink in on that thing?

Andy

That was like $35, if I remember right?

Chris

Oh man

Andy

It wasn’t very expensive at all.
It was pretty cheap.
But it’s been really worth it, having the digital one
and an air-driven one on top of it.
The dehydrator, what’s that?
Okay.

Chris

Which which I was like it sounds like a really good option because
Um, when I was looking at a filament specific
Dehydrators you’re looking at 80 to 200 bucks anywhere and some of them were actually upwards of 600 bucks and I’m like, why do you need?

Andy

Yeah, and a lot of them only do like one.

Frank

Because they bought it for 30 and then they modified it in the same way that Andy and I did.
because I did the same thing.
And they are reselling it.

Andy

Yeah, no kidding.

Frank

No.
No that’s probably not what they’re doing.

Andy

Yeah, $34.99 is what I bought this ultrene one for.
But I got a dehydrator that we use for food upstairs.
And next time I’m going to use it,
I’m going to get rid of it because the one I bought
for my printer works so much better.
The one I bought upstairs was a cheaper one.
It’s got no forced air, no fan.
It just uses convection currents to operate.
And it’s so slow.

Chris

Oh like the old one. Yeah, it’s like the old school one that the wife uses

Andy

Yeah, so slow.
So if you’re buying one to use for filament,
definitely make sure it’s got a fan on the inside.
And if you want to splurge a little bit extra
to get one that’s got digital heat controls on it
so you can control the temperature it’s dehydrating at,
that’s even better.
And you’re only talking 30, 40 bucks.
So.
And that…

Kevin

and how do you how do you spell I’ll train for our listeners

Andy

Ultra EAN, U-L-T-R-A-E-A-N.
And it’s been a good little unit for me.
I definitely swear by it.
And I think I’m using four trays, one for the bottom
because you need a tray on the very bottom.
And then the three trays that I stacked on top of that,
I cut out the reel four out of each tray.
That way it’s only one tray,
but it’s tall enough to accommodate.
To accommodate one full reel of plastic.
Because I usually don’t dehydrate more than one.

Frank

1kg reel.
It’s not a…
Because they’ve got the 10K reels and that sort of thing
so it’d be a 1K reel

Andy

Yeah, yeah.
And if I remember right, when I bought that,
it was tall enough to be able to do two if I did it,
if I cut out all the trays, except the bottom one.
And you could do two reels at the same time.
But just in my normal use, anytime I question a reel,
like if I put it in and I start printing with it,
and I hear it sizzling just a little bit,
usually after the print is when I’ll put it
in the dehydrator for next time.
But if it sizzling a lot when you first start,
when you’re just, you know, getting filament started
and stuff, then usually that’s when I’ll either pick
a different reel to use and then put the one
that sizzling in the dehydrator.
And I know you don’t have to do it.
I think most people say you only have to,
but dehydrate them for like four to six hours or something.
But I put them in for about eight to 10 hours for me
personally, that seems to work really good at 158 degrees.
They come out and then when I use them,
when I use a roll that’s spitting and sizzling
at the very beginning, running it through that process
and starting to print again, there’s no sizzling
or, you know, spitting at all.
And it’s back to printing as if it’s a brand new reel.
Or when you pull one out and it breaks

Chris

I’m thinking about experience
I’m thinking about experimenting with the microwave
Or oh, yeah, when you wait, yeah, that’s something my boss described is that he was like, yeah
the the first the he’s like the first foot or two that I was trying to feed into my
uh
feed into my
uh head
Was was was breaking. He’s like so I just kept breaking it until it stopped being breakable like that
And that’s what I started my filament with and I’m like, oh, yeah, that is a sign that your filament is
Old and needs to be reconditioned there boss

Andy

Yeah, from what I understand, that’s from UV exposure.
Yeah, and from what I understand, that’s
from UV exposure that causes the breaking, isn’t it?

Frank

That’s what I would expect. Yeah. But reconditioning is still valuable there.

Chris

But it’s an indication it’s still an indication of how old the plastic is and that it’s been out too long. Yeah

Andy

Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And I still do.

Frank

Y’all remember a little more than a year ago when my dad gave me a spool.
One of the things that I was dealing with filament was breaking.

Andy

Oh, really?

Chris

And you guys remember, uh, I was having problems with the end of my first spool breaking and stuff
And same same thing as it’s by the time I got to the end of the spool
You know, it was it had been that long. Yeah

Frank

That’s fine.

Andy

Now, do you got that?

Chris

But I’ve been thinking about experimenting with the microwave

Andy

That would be interesting.
That would be, I mean, it works for,
I mean, that’s how I recondition those.

Chris

To dry it out

Andy

Oh my gosh, what’s it called again?

Chris

The silica packets, yeah, and that’s where I got the idea

Andy

So I don’t see why it wouldn’t work.
I’m sure there are people who have tried and shared
their stories and whatnot.
That might be worth doing a little bit of research on
before messing up, potentially messing up for reel.
Ah, yeah, that would make sense.

Kevin

My only concern is that the way microwaves work is by vibrating the water molecules to heat them up until they boil away
and that might cause heating issues in the plastic.

Chris

And gonna explode

Kevin

On the other hand, you know,
we print at like 200 degrees celsius and the boiling point of water is only 100 degrees celsius

Andy

Yeah, well, I’m sure that that’s what causes the spitting
and the little holes.

Chris

I’m pretty sure deep deep rust mode would have something to do with making sure it doesn’t get too hot too quickly

Frank

I also think that because the microwave would work so much faster, the water wouldn’t evaporate before it created voids in your filament.
It would evaporate and work its way out instead of working with the other dehydrated moisture that’s in there and creating those voids.

Chris

It’s like the difference between making raisins and squishing a grape instead. Yeah

Andy

I don’t know.
Microwaving grapes are kind of fun.

Frank

More like trying to print with Swiss cheese or American cheese.

Andy

Printing with Swiss cheese.

Chris

No, I’m hungry

Kevin

I think printing with mozzarella would be the best cheese to print with.

Frank

Well, mozzarella is a low temperature melting point, doesn’t it?

Kevin

Yeah, and it gets stringy when it melts, so it doesn’t liquefy.

Chris

I was like like literally printing with string cheese, that’s funny

Frank

String filament cheese.
I think that the string cheese companies should come up with other forms to do than the chub.

Chris

Yeah, well people have already made chocolate printers. It’s not much of a stretch to go to mozzarella from there

Frank

No, not really. Especially if you’ve got the hopper just by the grated mozzarella.

Andy

I’m really interested in the hopper one.
Does it is so does the how does that work?
The hopper extruder that you’re talking about with that one

Frank

Seems to me like it’d be gravity-fed.

Chris

That is that is a good question. I was just gonna buy buy it and then figure it out from there, you know

Frank

And figure it out.
That sounds like your Chris thing to do. Or an Andy. Or a Frank. Or a Kevin thing to do. Yeah. We’re all good at that.
I don’t know how this works, so I’m just gonna do it and figure it out.

Andy

There’s some.
Just looking right off the bat at some videos, awesome DIY
pellet extruder for a 3D printer.
And it’s got video of a direct feed extruder with a big hopper
on top of it.
I mean, you’d have to refill it pretty regularly.
And that’s moving a lot of mass around.
That’s almost like as bad as a syringe hopper.
But as far as what’s it called, the amount of weight
that it’s moving around.

Frank

Well, in the ones that I saw, I’ve got containers so you can increase the volume over the hopper.
You know, put however much volume in there within reason and then just let it go.

Andy

That’s neat.
Just looking through some of the videos here
people doing it.
The print quality seems to be just the same as printing
with like PET just by itself.
That’s neat.

Frank

Well.

Andy

Yes, I’m interested in your system there, Chrissy.
I’ll be curious to what that what comes of that.

Chris

Yeah, I uh, I am super interested in
Reusing all of the various plastic that we throw out like
It’s crazy how
How much plastic we throw out every I mean heck it even just every day

Andy

Like it is.

Frank

Yeah. Definitely something worth being mindful of.

Andy

Yeah, there’s some there’s some entire heads that you can just
buy that’s ready to go for pellet extruding.
For pellet extruding.
I don’t know how well those systems, if they are designed
to use a specific size pellet, or if you can just grind up
enough PET or just use a specific size pellet.
If you can just grind up enough PET or.

Chris

Well
From the couple of blogs that I’ve I’ve I’ve seen
Uh, especially the guy that did the plastic fork experiment
Um, that you can they can’t can be just generally any size. He used an old
Uh office paper shredder to shred up all of his stuff to put it in his hopper and he still got really nice print quality

Andy

Really.
That’s cool.
That’s really cool.

Chris

The benchy he came off
You know, yeah, the benchy he printed off and the figurines he printed off from it, you know, you couldn’t even tell

Andy

Yeah, that would be fun.
That would be very fun.

Frank

Well, we, I think we’ve got our research project for the next week.
What do you say we burn this house down?

Andy

Sounds good.
With lemons.

Kevin

Okay.

Frank

Maybe not burn it. Yeah. Well, okay. Well, I’ll get you some lemons.

Andy

That sounds good.

Andy

With lemons.

Andy

Combustable lemons.

Frank

To burn the house down. We’re not geeks. There’s no way. We’re only nerds.

Frank

We’d like to thank everyone for listening to the very end.

Chris

The very very end

Frank

If you like what you hear, please give us all the stars and subscribe.
We are available through a wide variety of podcast vendors and so we’re easy to share.
If you have feedback, you can find us in our Facebook group, amateur3dpod.
And you can email us at Franklin Kevin Andy or Chris @amateur3dpod.com.
If you want to send us an email, you can send it to panelists @amateur3dpod.com.
Kevin Buckner is the one that wrote the music for this episode.
Open eyes whisper completed the heavy lifting for the transcripts, which you can find linked in the description.
Our panelists this week are me, Franklin Christensen and my friends Kevin Buckner, Chris Weber and Andy Codham.
And until next time, we’re going offline.

Kevin

Keep your FEP tight.

Andy

Always, no matter what anybody says, use hairspray.

Chris

So, um, there is a big there’s a big difference between
A 3d curing station and a meat curing station. Don’t ask me how I know

Andy

Is that why your prints always have all those holes?

Frank

I want to know how you know.

Chris

UV doesn’t cure salami the way you think it would

Andy

That’s better than like a brine stamping solution machine
punching holes through your prints.
Probably get a lot less sick from that than trying to cure it.
Salami with it.
God, I love it.