Kevin
Hey Craig
Andy
Hey, Craig.
Chris
All right, Craig.
Frank
That was in unison.
That’ll be interesting if I can get you synced up that way.
Yeah, everything’s up.
Ready to go.
Should I go big on this one?
Kevin
Go for it.
Andy
I think it’s up to you.
Frank
You found the Amateur 3D podcast.
Thank you for joining us.
This is episode 84 of Amateur 3D Podcast, a podcast by Amateur Printers.
Chris
Printers
Frank
Because I was doing it from memory, I’m going to stop there and restart with this is episode
84 of Amateur 3D Podcast, a podcast by Amateur Printers for Amateur Printers, where we share
thoughts and experience.
And somebody is knocking on something in my condo.
Our panelists this week are me, Franklin Christensen, and my friends, Andy Cottam, Chris Weber,
and Kevin Buckner.
Chris
Hi.
Andy
Hidy ho.
Kevin
Sup.
Frank
What a start for the morning, huh?
Chris
I went to bed at normal people time last night.
Andy
Gah! There’s no such thing for you lies!
Frank
Whoa.
Normal.
I don’t understand the…
I recognize the words.
I just don’t understand them in that configuration.
Kevin
I, I, I went to bed at my normal time last night, which is to say, like one.
Andy
Oh, jeez.
Kevin
And I got up at five.
Frank
huh.
Kevin
Because I, I remembered part way through my day yesterday that it was my turn to go to work this morning. So for, for the microbiology bench. So that was, that’s what I did.
Chris
Awesome when you’re freak… when you forget your plans like that.
Andy
So is that kind of like an on-call schedule for you guys where you got to have somebody go in to rotate stuff or whatever during the weekend?
Kevin
It’s not really on call. It’s, it is a rotating schedule. We just need somebody to go in for an hour and a half or so to read the microbiology plates and send anything with significant growth out.
Andy
Make sense.
Andy
That kind of stuff doesn’t take weekends.
Frank
Sounds to me like weekend duty in the military.
Kevin
Yeah.
Frank
It just rotates through.
Kevin
Yep.
Frank
Sometimes you don’t get a full weekend, but most of the time they’re conscious about it
and try to not make it too often.
Kevin
Oh, and there we go.
Chris
Kevin’s experiencing technical difficulties.
Frank
Of course he is.
Andy
I’d recognize that audio buz anywhere.
that’s funny.
We get quite a bit of video and audio until everything shuts down on him.
Frank
Oh, well, Andy, did you do anything this week?
Andy
Yes, sir.
Not a whole lot, to be honest.
Over this last week, I printed some, I’ve been kind of printing more of my drawer boxes.
I ran out of white PLA, so I got some on order that I should receive today, so the last couple of days I have not.
I spent like an hour last night making a bunch more drawer labels, and I’ll cut those out today.
I’ve been printing them out using the laser printer.
That way I can get nice looking labels, really small text and things like that.
Even add pictures of what’s in the drawer on every single one. It’s kind of fun.
Yeah, and this time I was doing some of my LEDs, and instead of getting a different picture, a different colored LEDs, I just did a hue shift on the red LED I found, and it looks great.
Like, the different colored LEDs look real, even though all I did was just grab the hue shifter and move it across the way, but it was kind of neat.
Anyway, I got a bunch of those done, and instead of cutting them out by hand with scissors, I’ll usually put a bunch on a grid, you know, because they’re on a grid when I print them out.
So running them through the laser cutter real quick is a lot less time grabbing the laser color, throw it on the desk, taking a minute to outline everything, which really is only like two minutes worth of work.
Frank
Mm-hmm.
Andy
And then just running the cut is simpler and easier on my hands than doing it with a pair of scissors, but there’s no reason why a pair of scissors wouldn’t work.
It just saves a little bit of time. I’ll probably do that a little bit later.
Frank
And it’s more fun.
Andy
It’s fun to use the laser. I agree with that.
But that’s all.
Chris
Now you only need a shark.
Kevin
And I’m back.
Frank
Hey.
Kevin
I really need to, I really need to replace the video card in my computer.
I think that’s the problem.
Frank
Hmm.
Andy
But other than that, I haven’t really done a whole lot. I did learn that my soldering iron, I’ve noticed, you know, when I’ve got, I use a butane soldering iron now.
I’ve had a lot, I went to a spot where I had a lot of problem with electric soldering irons, and I had switched to a very nice little handheld butane lighter that’s really small and gots its own built-in stand and all that kind of stuff.
I love it.
Frank
Right.
Andy
But when you turn it on, it lights for a minute.
It heats up and then it goes out and it starts catalyzing the fuel instead of burning it. Well, I guess it’s still burning it, but not by flame, you know.
Frank
Mm-hmm.
Andy
And I noticed it kept on blowing itself out, like the catalyzing process just wasn’t staying going.
And that’s when a little bit of research, I learned that you actually burn through the catalyst on those kind of lighters.
The flameless lighters, not flameless, I guess they’re flameless, but butane heaters like that do burn through the catalyst and you have to buy more.
Frank
Huh.
Andy
And so I found more.
They’re like 5������,�ℎ��ℎ���������������ℎ������5apiece,whichforlikeapackofthreewas15.
Excuse me.
I had a cough there, but so but it lasted me like three or four years so far, just the one and I do a lot of soldering with it.
So not really too big a complaints, but kind of a surprise.
I never really thought I’m going to make sense, but I didn’t really think that you are burning through the catalyst when you’re running one of those.
I played around a little bit today when I was working with some of my electronics that it occurred to me that if I’m running, you know, cooling fans are always going out.
I talked last week about the cooling fan and my printer going out all the time and how annoying that was and stuff.
I thought about, you know, in my projects, as a motor goes out like that, the amount of amperage it pulls gets higher and higher and once the motor is seized, it’s pulling a lot more amps than than not.
I figured on my non battery operated projects that use a cooling fan.
One thing I could add is I could just run the cooling fan through a very small shut resistor and it burns off just a little bit of electricity.
If I’m running a five volt supply, if I throw a shut resistor in there, it’s pulling it down maybe point one to point three volts, not very much at all.
But then I could just run that back to my microcontroller and measure the amperage it’s using just that easy.
One resistor and one extra wire going back and I would be able to monitor the fan to see if it is failing.
Frank
Okay.
Andy
And that was just kind of a fun thing I was doing last night, I was kind of playing around with it.
Well, how well it would work.
The amperage difference on the fan, at least the one I was playing with, went from, what was it like, point 68 amps, milliamps, 68 milliamps to like 80 milliamps when I was holding the fan from turning.
So that’s not that big of a difference, but something I might consider in my future projects, whenever I’m using the meter structure that I designed for my fans for my fish tank or whatnot,
I might throw in a little icon or something like that, that you could set the low amperage and the high amperage when you’re holding the motor from turning in the software.
And then it could show you a little logo showing that if the fan is having problems or not.
I thought that was kind of a neat little thing that didn’t really take any components to make that happen.
Chris
Why do all my homemade electronics keep popping and smoking?
Andy
I’m getting better at making my stuff safer.
I’ve been adding fuses to everything and I even got some, some bimetal thermal fuses I could add to stuff that generates heat.
That way I can.
Chris
Sorry, you said you said fuse and I remembered that duct tape joke.
Andy
What was it?
Chris
They Fused
Andy
But that’s all I’ve really done. It’s been kind of a quiet week for the printer.
Chris
Now I’m thinking of duct tape fuses.
Andy
Haven’t really done anything special or fun.
I’m really enjoying the new power supply I put in there, but you look at my printer and, you know, the box is just open with the controller sitting on top,
because it won’t close anymore.
Chris
Do you want to make a table for that or do you want one in the works instead?
Andy
No, not yet, but that’s a, in fact, that’s right. You did. Oh, I almost forgot about that, Chris. Yeah, because you told me why don’t I just redesign the bottom of the box.
And that way I can compensate for the oversized power supply.
I have not done that. That project for today.
Frank
Mm-hmm.
Chris
Yeah, Just get yourself some TPU and print yourself out some bigger feet or something like that for the bottom of your printer and that that will compensate for the extra space?
Andy
Well, the box, the power supplies goes inside the box, and the box screws together so it’s like an upper shell and a flat bottom that separate.
And so they’re not going together anymore because the power supply that goes into the shell there is just too large.
Chris
Yeah, that’s where you pull out the grinder and cut out a power supply shaped hole.
Frank
Or, I think it was me that suggested you print a new housing for the power supply and put the box so it mounts on top.
Andy
Yeah, the power supplies, the real problem is, is how wide it is.
Frank
Not Chris.
Andy
It’s about maybe a half, maybe like four or five millimeters too wide to actually fit in there.
And so that’s why I kind of like Chris’s idea. If I made a new bottom of the box that was just a little bit bigger, and then, you know, where it mounts up to the lid, the shell,
it would be, you know, it would go back down to the same size and give you screw holes and stuff like that to be able to screw it together.
Frank
Right.
Andy
That that would, that would be a really, if I’m going to print 3D print my way out of wanting to use this slightly larger power supply.
That’s I think the best looking idea and the easiest to do.
Chris
If you’re going to Frankenstein, you’re a printer like you have been really, really Frankenstein it.
Andy
I could, I mean, I could redesign the entire control box. I guess that would be really the something that would fit with all the other crap I’ve done to it, especially being able to put in a spot for my cooling, my Peltor cooling system,
because it’s got two big fans on it and a water reservoir and a pump and those all are floating outside of the control box now inside of the pile of wires that you’ve got behind the printer that all hooked up to the printer.
Chris
So, yeah, you needing to retrofit your printer is how I came across that article I shared with you guys earlier this week about the guy that 3D that that that took
of what is that tubing, the square tubing and welded himself together a steel frame and put his own 3D printer together.
Andy
Yeah, that’s one way to do it. I mean, when you’re when you’ve got a hammer, everything looks like a nail. So I’ve been doing
Chris
Well, the idea of the concept was that you have yourself a super heavy frame to your printer that way you can tighten up and super finely tune all your stuff to be so tight that you can run that thing around like a slingshot.
Andy
Okay.
Chris
And so the idea is to get good quality with super fast speeds by having a heavy frame so it’s not moving or moving and rocking around so much as you’re printing like a maniac.
I never thought.
Andy
Okay.
I didn’t read too much into the article was it successful at that was he able to achieve pretty good speeds.
Chris
Yeah, about 360 millimeters per second is where he ended up.
Andy
You know, it’s always hard listening to these these speed things because, you know, they do so the so much ramping with the speed that it’s hard to say what speed he actually is getting up to.
But if he’s rebuilding a…
Chris
Well, he said he actually, he actually got up to 1200 millimeters per second, but he said his print quality was best, like a normal printer at 360.
Andy
Okay.
Chris
So, but even still that’s like three, that’s, that’s over three times what I print, what I print at I print it like 80 at most. And I just for most home hobbyist printers.
It’s just, I don’t care about the speed I just I care about the quality you just need to be patient.
Frank
Right.
And because it’s not production level, not going to be production level, you don’t care about the timeline in which it gets done.
Chris
Yeah, just
Andy
Yeah.
Frank
You’re not trying to get a thousand parts done by the end of the day or whatever.
Andy
I think I slowed down to some pretty decent speeds I’ve been printing PLA at only about 30 millimeters a second, or about 60 millimeters a second and TPU about 30 and PTG about 60.
And I used to print those at about 100 to 120 regularly, but I do get a little bit better quality if I print them a little slower.
And so, like, now, whenever I adjust my speeds to be higher, it’s more or less like, oh man, I, I get off work in 14 hours and this is a 16 hour print.
I did it up just a hair so that it’s done, you know, right as I get home from work kind of stuff so not actually trying to move faster but you know trying to better sync with my schedule.
Frank
and on the other hand I pumped my speed up to 150 and didn’t see any difference, really.
Not any major difference between the 100 and 150
Andy
Oh nice.
Frank
But I didn’t adjust my acceleration at all either, so with the acceleration configuration where’s it’s kind of always been.
At least since I started deploying my own Marlin.
100 seems just fine, and then the acceleration manages the corners and that sort of thing that it comes out nice.
Chris
So I did play with this a little bit.
I was able to get about 100 and 150 millimeters per second without noticeable drop in quality with new filaments. Right.
Andy
Oh, okay.
Chris
But the older filaments that I have not dehydrated.
I need to slow them down. Otherwise, the print does go to pits.
Frank
Well, and I’d also be worried about the filament breaking over the carriage, too, if it’s going too fast.
Chris
Yeah. So, um, so I just as a general, general rule, I’m just going to leave it at 60, you know, for, for, for most of my PLA. Anyway,
Andy
That’s good. There’s no I mean we all got bed slingers theyre, known as being one of these lowest types of printers you can have so it’s, that’s why we never really talked too much about speed but work.
Chris
Yeah. You know what though.
Um…
my boss was talking about how, you know, it was kind of nice how I’d printed up those little probe probe carried, you know, probe probe holders for our CMM machines and, you know, how he had printed a thing up for our height gauge.
You know, to hold all the probes for that. And he had printed up the things for the thread gauges. You know, he was like, he’s like, if at this rate, we really ought to buy a 3D printer for them for the for the shop just to have over in there and then we can just…
anytime we need a specialty thing, especially even the guys out in the shop if they need like a maybe a special specialty wrench or something, we can just print it.
And I’m like, yeah, I’m like, we don’t need a commercial grade 3D printer here we don’t need an 8,0003�������������������,�������,�8,0003Dprinterwejustneeda,youknow,a500 one.
Frank
An odds and ends one, yeah.
Chris
I mean, like that’s less than you guys spend on new computers.
But, um, yeah, so it’s going to be fun.
Andy
That would be.
And where both of you are pretty good at using the 3D printer and actually enjoy using it the extra time it would take to maintain the printer wouldn’t always be wasted on the clock you know that
Chris
Well, that’s the thing though is like I end up doing so a lot of times the runtime on a part is in excess of 15 minutes. Right. So, like with the with the with the two machines I have to be there to switch probes every so often but if the program is done right.
It’ll do everything with hopefully one probe if you can, if if it’s not too, too complex to complex the program.
So anyway, a lot of times I’ll have a part in that runs in excess of 15 minutes. So I can’t do jack until it’s done running. So I will often I’ve got three machines. So some if there’s like more than one job waiting for us, I will get, you know, two or three go on at the same time.
And that’ll keep me busy but if there’s only just the one or just the two, I can get one or two running and then I get to read a book or something while they’re running or whatever.
Andy
Okay.
Chris
So I will have time to do other other things you know I’ve been working on training stuff and
you know programming other other programs for stuff that’s going to be coming in and you know stuff like that so I have plenty of extra time between a lot of times I have extra time while things are running to go and take care of the if we get a 3D printer I’ll be able to take care of that or monitor it or just start a printer, you know, finish up a print post process whatever.
Andy
Okay.
Frank
Well…
and it woulnd’t be a commercial application necessarily, os you wouldn’t be seeling those parts probably.
Chris
No, they would, they would be for shop use.
Frank
So, you know, you start a job, and make sure starts good and then…
Maybe don’t even come back to it for a good days depending on how busy you get.
Chris
yeah
Andy
yeah.
Frank
My dad talked about being the machine shop doing the same idea as what you were just talking abou there Chris.
Where he would have three machines doing their automated process at the same time and he would monitor them, but he would really just need to make a round every five minutes or so and make sure they were all stil running.
When one stopped, change out the parts and start it over again.
And you get in a rythem.
It’s the same rythem that he writes his poetry in actually.
Where he just, ya get in a rythem and a routine where everything just runs.
and it seems like a good way to go about manufacturing to me.
Andy
Yeah.
I agree.
Chris
Mm hmm.
Frank
Well Chris.
You talked about your boss’ projects, and some other stuff at work.
Did you do anything on your printer this week?
Or last weeks since you didn’t get the chance to.
Chris
Well sort of yeah.
Um, yeah, since sort of, yeah so like, okay, first things first, like, um…
I didn’t sleep all that great last weekend and I ended up ended up crashing out on you but my headset died right before. So…
Andy
Okay.
Chris
apparently so I’ve been leaving. It’s the same. It’s the same one I use on my Xbox but for some reason, my Xbox has not has decided to not charge my headsets anymore so
now I have to plug it into my PC.
Frank
Mm-hmm.
Chris
I think it’s a Microsoft change their power settings again.
Frank
Could be.
Andy
That’s weird.
Chris
Jerks. Anyway.
Frank
I know that at least with computers there’s only the one powered USB port before Windows loads…
and they do that so that you can do the… the drive reload for windows and that sort of thing.
But normally they’re only on when you are actively doing something.
Chris
Yeah, well, so I’ve got my, my, my gaming PC I’ve got it set to leave the hard drive on all the time and power the USB ports all the time, whenever it goes to sleep, but, and my Xbox used to be like that too is it would leave power on the USB ports when it went to sleep.
But for whatever reason, it stopped doing that in the last couple weeks. So.
Frank
I also started doing wall plugs that do USB charging, so I don’t have to worry about USB charging.
Chris
Yeah, I’m putting a charging setup up by my gaming things for, for me to just plug stuff into wireless ports and all that.
Andy
We’ve got we’ve got one of those for the family whole little area with with two six port chargers that give a nice display. I was thinking about that’d be a fun project to do just this yesterday while I was at work.
It’d be fun to redesign one of those because I like being able to see like how many amps and what voltage things are charging at and there ain’t too many chargers that really give you a good detailed display that have all ports be fast chargers you know.
Chris
Oh, yeah. Yeah.
Frank
Do you still have them mounted on the front of your couch there Andy?
Andy
I used to have those a set of plugs a set of like COM ports like there was what ethernet USB for the TV that was also charging and that was like 10 ports, as well as power at our strip right there.
Frank
A power strip. You had a power strip there.
Chris
Yeah, that was pretty cool.
Andy
But no, I’ve, I’ve, I’ve gotten new couches since then on on both sides of the room. And…
Frank
And you didn’t want to put screw holes in them.
Andy
yeah, not really that because I mean the board, the board wasn’t very nice but I could have made it nice that everything was attached to but now it was okay screwing them down but it’s just they were never really
used the plug, the power was used mostly and whenever my little brother would come over to download stuff off my server he would use the ethernet jacks right there but that was the only time they were ever used so it was kind of a waste to be honest.
Chris
But I am doing a similar kind of thing. I printed up the headphone mounts to go right above the family…
because we’ve got that right next to our TV upstairs as we’ve got the family charging station that’s got, I think like six ports, but you know, the child uses…
Frank
Five of them.
Chris
most of them for headphones and things.
Andy
Okay.
Chris
But, but my gaming setup is in a different room. So I just have been using the various ports off of my gaming PC and Xbox and that to charge things. So,
Andy
That works.
Chris
but I’m getting a, I am getting an actual charging station with like, I think it’s going to go going to have like a dozen ports.
Andy
Okay.
Frank
Build a carging tower.
Chris
So, so yeah, it is actually a charging tower. I was thinking about printing a tree to put on top of it to hold some some of the controllers so that as they’re charging their monitored right on the charging station.
Andy
Okay.
Frank
That’s fun.
So yeah, what did you work on?
Chris
Yeah. Anyway, that that’s a future project.
Chris
But so I was taping off the child’s bedroom for the paint because we’re painting it in like four different colors. So it’s going to take a little bit to get it all painted.
But I went ahead and got started getting the plates ready. So this is just like a regular, you know, regular rocker plate.
But she really liked the two color filament. So it’s one end is all purple and the other other side ends up being green, depending on which way you look at it.
Chris
So, yep, started printing those up. Double gang.
Andy
Nice.
Chris
So, um, and I printed up a my daughter’s attending a birthday party this week and actually in a couple hours here, and she got her friend a whole bunch of Pokemon cards.
It’s the thing the kids are going through right now.
Andy
Okay.
Chris
So I found the I found the thing posted on Thingiverse was kind of cool. It was exactly sized for one playable deck of Pokemon cards.
So it’s a Pokemon card case. So as as is, you know, the kids favorite color is purple. So we printed it up in purple and glow in the dark.
Andy
Yeah, I saw that it turned out looking really nice.
Chris
Well, pretty good. Again, a little bit of quality issue with the with the purple because it’s, it’s, it needs to go through a hydrator.
Andy
It was though it didn’t turn out too bad.
Chris
Yeah, it was actually, it was all right. You know, wasn’t great, but it was all right. So
Andy
‘sAlright.
Chris
And I know there was something else I’d printed in the mean between here and there too and I can’t remember.
It is nice to have my my my printer working like it should again.
Andy
That’s good.
Frank
No doubt.
Andy
It does make things easier.
Kevin
Yeah
Frank
So Kevin
Kevin
Yes.
Frank
have you done anything the last couple of weeks since you were out last week?
Kevin
Yes. Yes I have.
um
So I printed up Yusuf, which is, uh Kyle’s character for Household.
Including his, uh, little coctail spear that I talked about a couple weeks ago.
Andy Kyle looked at it and said that this was perfect for his character.
so I’m glad it got his approval.
Andy
Well, that’s a nice one.
Kevin
Yes. and while I’m thinkingg about it.
I don’t remembered to mention on the podcast,
I know I talked about it in the chat but…
I reprinted that one sorceress’ minifigure out of the TUFF resin and then I didn’t cure it and I took it to her.
And I said here you go, and I made the mistake of saying
This is a tougher material so it won’t be so easy to break.
This time it took her a whole hour to break it.
Frank
Conscious effort, right?
Kevin
Yeah. I mean because she was there playing with it to see how tough it was until she pushed it past the breaking point.
Then she glued it back together and everything.
So she’s like Okay, that’s better than it was… I’m not going to play with it any more.
Chris
Well, when you tell someone when you tell someone’s the some of the paint is wet.
Frank
I appreciate that.
Kevin
So, anyway, there was that but I was supposed to go on last Friday to the community choir directors house to play some magic the
gathering in celebration of his birthday.
Andy
Okay.
Kevin
So he likes to do the commander battles, he doesn’t want to do anything else.
So I found on Thingiverse some files for command zone trays with dials and dice holders and
stuff like that.
Andy
neat.
Kevin
So I printed up four of the trays and I started printing up dials on my resin printer and I
printed up a dial and a couple of dice holders on the FDM printer and one of the trays that
I printed, which is the one that I was going to give to the director, it is with the gold
and red bicolored silk PLA.
Andy
Okay.
Kevin
Well Kyle saw that and he was really, he really liked it and so he’s like, it’s been decided
that this is the one I get.
So I printed up a fifth tray so that Kyle could have the one he wants.
Andy
Okay.
Kevin
But then, right, yeah, so I printed up another one of those and the odd thing is the first
Andy
I love how he took ownership over that.
Chris
That’s
But that’s that’s that’s what’s awesome about a 3D printer is the kids say, Hey, Dad, I kind of want this, which is what happened with the Pokemon card case.
Kevin
so. um. So I printed up another one of those.
And the odd thing is the first time I printed up the dials and the dice holders on the FDM printer, it worked perfectly.
Then I tried to do it a couple more times and both times the probe or the nozzle crashed
into something partway along and de-indexed and ruined the print.
So I don’t know what went wrong.
Chris
Did you, did you use the same sliced file or did you re slice it?
Kevin
I used the same sliced file.
Frank
I would try reslicing it.
Kevin
Yeah.
Frank
So, Cura is nice, 99 percent of the time.
but it does occasionally make mistakes so…
Kevin
Yeah, so I will be re-slicing it for future use and I was going gangbusters with all of
these things and I got the little post that holds the dial wheel in place in its housing
to the right size because the person who designed it decided that the diameter of that post
needed to be the same diameter as the same inner diameter as the wheel that it was supposed
to go into.
Kevin
Chris
Oh, an interference fit.
Frank
I wanted to make sure it was tight.
Kevin
Yeah, so and I had read the comments so I knew this was going to be an issue and so
I printed the post incrementally smaller.
The magic number was 94%.
So yeah, I was going gangbusters trying to get that all squared away before last Friday
and I wanted to do other colors of the counter dials and then I started having issues where
somehow I had mixed up some purple and somehow it had gotten contaminated with the sparkly
bits from the metallic gold resin that doesn’t work
Andy
Okay.
Kevin
and so that started causing problems.
So I’ve had to, as it was printing, I had to adjust some exposure settings to make it work.
Andy
Okay.
Chris
Who’d have thought that using using glitter and a light based printer would be would cause problems.
Kevin
Right?
Yeah, and like the company that I bought this from showed successful prints with it but
I don’t know what kind of printer they were using because I tried their recommended settings
first and it was not good.
Frank
It must be the kind of printer where they pipe the light from the noon day sun at the equator into the printer.
Kevin
It must be, I don’t know.
It was bad though and so somehow there were traces of that and it got into the purple.
It was mostly successful eventually.
I thought I had two wheels done between the two projects but one of the wheels was so
deformed when I actually looked at it that I have to reprint one for that to get that
color and then I’m going to have to like really clean the thing and make sure it doesn’t have
any more of that super fine glitter dust in there anymore but yeah, so I’ve printed a
whole bunch, a whole bunch of those counter wheels and assembled them and that was, that’s
what I’ve been doing the last couple weeks.
Oh and then the magic night got canceled anyway because the director had food poisoning.
Andy
Oh, no.
Kevin
So it was actually fine that I didn’t have his birthday present ready to go on Friday.
Frank
Are you sure it wasn’t planned?
Did you get him sick so that you didn’t have to give him his present unfinished?
Kevin
No, I was, I was looking forward to going and playing.
Frank
That’s fair.
Chris
Poisoning somebody is a federal crime.
Frank
Unless you’re president apparently.
Or at least that’s the effort to decide on.
Although politics is something that we have consciously avoided, so I’m going to stop there.
Chris
Yeah. Oh, hey, that other thing I printed it was a little basket that hangs on the inside of your.
Your medicine cabinet in the bathroom.
Andy
Oh, okay.
Well, that could be useful.
Chris
So to like, yeah, yeah, it was actually for a coworker. She was complaining about how she she uses scrunchies and hair ties and whatever else and that they just kind of end up all over the bathroom.
And I was like, you know, there’s, there’s this thing it’ll take me 30 seconds I’ll to print I’ll have it for you at work tomorrow and she was like, that would be awesome.
Frank
I have a solution for that if you want it.
Damn millennials ruining the economy by printing stuff off instead of buying it in the store.
Get a bunch of 3D printers in a bar, hey baby.
You want me to print something off for you?
Chris
What’s it take what’s it take for a girl to get a print around here.
Frank
Now that’s messed up, dude.
Andy
I love that.
Frank
I’m sure it would get abused.
Chris
Oh, good gravy.
So, yeah, I don’t know what to do with myself by the cars are all working.
Andy
That’s an unusual situation for you, at least the driveway empty is unusual.
Chris
Sort of yeah I do I do have a couple of the in-laws cars that we’re waiting for some work but it’s not like emergency their cars going to explode, or they can’t get to work, they can’t get to work kind of issues it’s this one’s got a leak and that one’s.
Frank
So what you’re saying is you were misleading when you said that everything was working.
Because what I envisioned was no cars broken down in Chris’s driveway for the first time since I met him.
Chris
That is that that is the case that there is no broken down cars in my driveway.
Andy
That’s impressive.
Chris
the in-laws are all currently driving their cars, and I have a couple of things, a couple of leaks to take care of in the queue but that’s it.
Frank
Okay.
I’m happy for you, Chris.
Andy
That’s impressive.
Frank
It only took you the 15 years that I’ve known you.
That means it’s longer.
Well, 15 years since I got back from the Navy.
Not 15 years that I’ve known you.
It’s only taken you 15 years to do that in my awareness of your driveway.
Chris
It has happened occasionally, but you know I think this this is a longer stretch.
Frank
This is my first awareness of the happening. How about that?
Andy
That is good.
Do we, do we talk about what you did, Frank?
Frank
Well, not yet.
Kevin
We did not.
Frank
Ryan mentioned Mother’s Day and it occurred to me that me and Kevin are the only ones that have mom in our lives.
Frank
Doing stuff for your mom is noble, Andy, but she’s not going to appreciate it directly.
Chris refers to himself as an SOB, so it hadn’t really been on the radar until it was brought up.
But I decided that for my mother, I was going to print her a rose.
And I got some silk a little while ago, some of the silk filament.
Chris
Nice, you did have enough.
Frank
This is green and blue.
And I’m going to gradually finer sanding heads to really shine it up on the petals.
There’s some odd little layer lines at the top and that sort of thing where the shape was a little more organic than my printer was capable of doing well.
I’m going to shine it up and it’s going to be my…
Chris
So, do you have a buffing wheel for your dremel.
Frank
I do. I have tried to use it once or twice and never been impressed in the past, so I don’t see myself using it on this.
There is one note kind of related there.
If you go too fast when you’re working with the plastic, then it will get the head hot and it will melt more than it sands.
Chris
Melt your plastic.
Frank
So I quickly learned, because I haven’t done anything this fine, that you need to go almost as slow as your dremel will go with those sanding discs.
Chris
Yeah, so I’ve got like the 1200 model or whatever else so it’s got like six settings, and I only ever use one or two for plastic, even cutting plastic or any of that you only use one or two otherwise.
Yeah, the head gets hot and you end up melting instead of actually cutting or polishing or
Frank
I probably learned that when I redesigned my housing for my stereo in my car, whatever that was five, six years ago.
No, maybe that was closer to ten years ago. It’s been a while.
I just haven’t used a dremel on plastic a whole lot since then, not trying to get the kind of fine detail that I am now anyway.
So, yeah.
Chris
Andy’s got something for show and tell.
Frank
Wire wheels and sanding wheels.
Andy
Okay.
Since we’re talking about Dremels.
The Dremel was the first power tool that I have ever owned.
I bought this Craftsman for about $60 when I was 17 years old.
And it’s just two speed, low and high, but it won’t die for me to get a new one.
It’s just… it’s nice when you’ve got one of those tools that you bought new and it’s just been going on and on, and it’s been used regularly.
Chris
I don’t know I think you’re I think your child’s old enough to inherit a tool and you can buy a new one.
Andy
I appreciate that thought, but there’s something about starting with a new one. So all the where on it is yours as time goes on, you know, that, that I think is appreciated.
I do got a plug in my shop when I used to use tools like this though that were like this one is older and doesn’t have the variable speed control I like.
But I’ve got it on a, what are they called a, oh my gosh, a triac dimmer system. I’ve got a plug in there that’s connected to a triac so I can raise and lower the current that goes to the device.
Frank
just dropped it and broke it for all the people that are listening.
Andy
No kidding. Well, right now I’ve got one of those really super fragile petting discs on it that you break left and right so I wasn’t really worried about the tool it was.
Frank
When you look at it…
Chris
I’ve had this tool forever. It’s bullet proof.
Frank
or install it on your post too long, hard?
It was.
Kevin
it, it will not break, it will not break. It broke.
Andy
I had to share that just because that tools, you know, talk about dremels and that one’s a freak gives me a hard time for pack bonding with everything that that’s definitely one of those tools that I will never replace because it’s worked so hard for me this whole time.
Chris
Yeah, I had that special relationship with a with my first impact wrench.
Like, it was a, it was an ancient impact wrench. I, you know, I think it, you know.
Frank
I used it. That thing was awesome.
Chris
An Ingersoll Rand, and I think I was working on some wheel bearings or something and I’d finally got there finally gotten enough stress in the socket end of it that it actually broke right there.
The gun still, still rotates and everything, but the, the little square socket is gone is, is gone. And it’s so old,
Andy
Have you ever thought about.
Chris
you can’t get replacement tools, but I just realized that I’ve got a 3D printer, I can, if, if, well, I could cast one in aluminum, but I still won’t be able to cast one in steel.
Frank
I’m not sure that I would trust aluminum to the job myself.
Chris
Yeah, that’s the problem. Not with the kind of power that thing has.
Andy
You’d probably be better off trying to find another one that’s broken online that you can purchase that you could use it as a part tool.
Chris
That’s true.
Andy
Since you can’t buy parts anymore.
Frank
I would even go so far as to, because you work in a machine shop, talk to your boss and see if they, if you can work out some kind of machine me something out of part steel to replace it.
Andy
Oh, that would be cool. Talk about raising the, how you feel about the tool by designing a part for it on your own.
Frank
Well, and just.
Chris
True. But, you know, so I haven’t, this thing broke like about a decade ago, so I haven’t used it since then, but it’s been
Andy
Oh, okay.
Chris
sitting there, waiting for me to fix it right on the edge of my workbench because I’m like, I really love that it was, it was the tool that, you know, yeah.
Frank
I haven’t had any need for it, but I did kind of, I think that it was inspired because a friend was asking about machining parts.
Andy
Okay.
Frank
And I ended up just randomly looking and there’s a lot of machine shops, just kind of all over the place that will take small lot contracts.
Andy
Yeah
Chris
Yeah, that’s my shop.
Frank
It’ll be a little more expensive because it is a small lot, but like one or two pieces instead of 10,000 or whatever.
But if all you need is this one little part, it shouldn’t be too difficult.
And because you work in a shop, you might even get like an employee one off reference or something, you know.
So I think it’s worth looking into for a tool that is so beloved as that wrench.
Andy
That would be there’s a there’s a lot of places out there that will do even just one off runs but you’re going to be paying through the but for it but if it’s something important to you it might be worth it.
Frank
And once again, you know, going back to the value of a 3D printer, you can iterate and test and figure out exactly what you need.
And then when you do go to the one off, you’re just doing one part instead of iteratively testing everything that you get.
Chris
Yeah, losing all your stock material to. Oh, I missed that. Oh, that’s too small.
Frank
Right.
Andy
So that that was one thing that I considered last year and I might wind up doing this year is I got to replace a sprinkler line that runs through the edge of the root system of one of my pine trees.
And so the ground is not like thick roots, but it is a lot of the thinner strained roots, and it’s very difficult to dig through. And I’ve got a backhoe a little tow behind.
One of the really small ones yeah,
Frank
Open air.
Andy
but the bucket is still an 18 inch or 14 inch I don’t remember which one of those it will call it a 16 inch bucket.
And it’s just a little bit big to do what I wanted to do with it and, and the couple of times I’ve used it around the property I’ve wanted a smaller bucket.
And it just occurred to me like last year like I could just go to one of those metal shops and ask them if they could cut out a DFX design for me, you know, just out of the plate steel, and then just welded all up here at the house and then make my own bucket.
So there’d be nothing really stopping.
Frank
I mean, the hardest parts would be aligning the mount in the… hydraulic mount.
Andy
Yeah, it’s I mean it’s it would be two steel tubes that need to be, you know, they don’t even need to be correct for it to work just the way the arms connect to the bucket.
Frank
Mm hmm.
Andy
There’s, I mean, if I make it too wide, it’s going to swing the bucket a little bit different if I make it too narrow it’s going to swing the bucket faster, and you know a more wide range.
Frank
Right.
Andy
And so like that’s the only real variable you have to play with everything else can be wrong as long as I get the diameter of those tubes right.
Frank
Right.
Andy
And I could weld anything I want to those tubes and stick it on the end of my backhoe.
And so, and then the way it greases and stuff like that would still function I just would need to drill a hole in the tube and put a zerk on it and then you’ll tap it and put a zerk on it and then that’s that’s it I got a bucket.
That was something other last year that occurred to me like that would be fun to do is it probably wouldn’t cost me any more than you know 30��30or40 to have a plasma cut, you know some three quarter inch steel for me down at the metal shop down here in Ogden.
And I haven’t tried it.
Frank
Three quarter inch for your little backhoe you need three quarter inch steel for that.
Chris
Mm-hmm.
Andy
Yeah, it’s small but it’s still strong it’s still you’re still digging with it so when you’re using like the real power of one of those things.
It’s usually for lifting, not the actual pounding the bucket through the dirt.
Frank
Digging part. Yeah.
Andy
Yeah, so the way that those take like even the bucket I got on it’s made out of three quarter inch
Frank
Okay.
Andy
which is why I would choose that because it’s the same same size.
I mean they do get bigger, but that’s usually for commercial equipment and you know, I don’t use mine very often so three, four even though it’s on the smaller side for bucket.
Frank
Maybe I’m just not remembering well, but it seems to me like the big industrial well… big… the industrial sized ones would are the buckets a whole lot thicker than one inch for the the steel on it.
Andy
So if you think of a normal backhoe that you see driving down the road, typical one that you would find the bucket on that you’re looking at probably an inch to an inch and a quarter.
Frank
Okay. Yeah.
Andy
If it’s a mini X, if it’s a mini X something you know the smaller ones on track, then you’re looking at buckets like what mine uses the three quarter inch.
Frank
Okay.
Andy
If you get those really small cute ones that are able to go through like fences, you know, doors and fences and stuff to do sprinkler systems. That’s when you get to like the half inch.
Frank
You can put in the bed of your truck and
Andy
Yeah, those ones where you get the smaller like half inch and below but but yeah so the three quarter inch that I was thinking of is right along the size range that you would expect to find a bucket that I would use like that.
Frank
Okay.
Andy
The only downfall would be that if I have them welded up for me, that’s where it would get expensive. But if I weld it myself, it wouldn’t have to be.
Frank
Mm hmm.
Andy
And if it’s just for me, even though I’m a crappy welder, I think it would be just fine.
It would be fine. It wouldn’t be a pretty well because I’m not a good welder but whatever I hokey together.
Frank
In maintaining your buckets is how you get better at welding anyway. That’s how my little brother has gotten so good.
Andy
Oh really doing a lot of like hard facing on equipment and stuff.
Frank
Yeah. Well, he works in a scrap yard and anything that can be recovered and fixed up a little bit, they will sell whole rather than shredding it. So
Andy
That’s one of my funnest things to be able to do whenever I need a heat sink material or radiator like material like an old evaporate evaporative cooler tank or yeah radiator that’s the best place to get them at.Andy
I love going through those yards it’s neat seeing all the kind of stuff that you see there.
Frank
Indeed, he just doesn’t like working in the sun.
Andy
I bet I bet it’s a dirty place. It’s a dirty.
Kevin
I can’t say I blame him there.
Frank
Well, and he’s like me so he’s allergic to the sun.
He’s not a ginger, which is weird. I didn’t know that normal people were so sensitive to the sun as gingers are, but…
Chris
They can be.
Kevin
They can be yeah.
Frank
it well, and you know, we’ve obviously, like I said, my brother has got the same genes as I do.
It makes sense. I just hadn’t thought of it until he started having issues.-
Chris
Speaking of scrap, scrap yard. Yeah. So I went to the scrap yard just to grab a connector for my car. I found my electrical gremlin week before last.
So I’ll, I’ll lead you straight from the point. So when I first bought this car, right, like the first week I got it, I kept getting the ABS and traction light popping on and my brake lights weren’t working.
It turns out I’d had a bulb that broke and the two fuses on the bulb kind of touched so that when I, I ended up close closing the circuit to my brake lights every time I turned my headlights on.
Andy
Okay, that is weird.
That would be a weird electric one.
Chris
Right. Well, so, so this, this, this, this, this all back fed through the system and ended up shorting out my brake light switch. Right.
Chris
And so the short on my brake light switch, even though I fixed the bulb and all that finally fed back to this connector that had had a little bit of corrosion on it and kind of all melted.
Andy
Okay.
Chris
So because the rest of, because half of the electronics in my car run through this connector, or, you know, on the inside of my car run through this connector, they all stopped working.
Andy
Oh, wow. Yeah.
Chris
But this all happened right after I’d replaced the engine.
Frank
So you thought it was related to the engine.
Chris
So I had assumed that like I’d screwed up a ground somewhere that, you know, was related to all of this.
And I’m like, okay. And I, I checked and I checked and I checked and I had grounds everywhere. They were my grounds were fine. And I’m going.
Frank
You added some that you didn’t think you needed but they were there so
Chris
Yeah, I did that.
Frank
Not quite as bad as BMW with what was it 12 or 13 we counted on that one engine.
Chris
Yeah.
Andy
That’s a lot.
Chris
So just a half dozen. I’ve got a half dozen, you know, anyway, so I got, I got there and I’m shooting the electronics and I’m looking at the circuit boards and I’m like, okay, so I’ve determined, I’m looking at the pinouts and I’ve determined I’m not getting, I’m actually not getting
power to these to this to this control unit. I’m not getting power to that. And, oh, hey, now I’m not getting power to my, to my brake switch. That’s weird, because my brakes are working my brake lights were working just yesterday.
Right.
Frank
Sounds like a virus.
Chris
Yeah, and
Frank
Your, your, your fuse board had a virus.
Chris
So, so then I go back and I look at my brake light fuse and it is popped. And I’m like, okay, now I know. And I follow that back. And that’s where I found the connector that was like half melted.
Frank
That’s unfortunate.
Chris
So, but, yeah, it is. But I found it. It’s fixed. It’s so nice.
Frank
It’s a double sword, right? It hurts, but you also made it work.
Chris
So anyway, they charged me like, I ended up getting so there’s two sides to each of this connector right. Well there’s two connectors in this little box. They charged me 5���ℎ,���ℎ�������������������������5each,eachconnectorendedupcostingme20 to get these two connectors out of the scrapyard.
Andy
Damn.
Chris
Right.
Andy
That seems. Yeah, that’s a lot.
Chris
I stole, I stole a couple extra fuses because I felt like that was
uncalled for.
Andy
I remember when I was younger sneaking out with automotive relays.
Frank
They don’t really care about the fuses though, right? Seems to me. Oh, they do now.
Chris
No, they do now. They, yeah, they charge you like $5 for every 10 fuses or whatever.
Frank
Because I remember, I remember when you and I went crawling through the junkyard, when I lived out there, you would get into a car and be like, oh yeah, these fuses, I need these fuses and you pull a handful of them and we go look at another car.
Oh, yeah, there’s more of them. Pull those.
Chris
And you get out the door and they don’t care. But yeah, they, they, they, they, they’re charging for the fuses and all of that now too.
Andy
Geeze.
Frank
Shows where the economy is. Why do I keep bringing you back to politics? Maybe we should end the show.
Andy
I remember when I used to pull stuff from the yard up there by Smith and Edwards, and when I was back working at the burger joint, I would just grab a couple of burgers and bring them down and them to the guy and he would pretty much let me walk out with anything for that.
Frank
Those were really good burgers.
Andy
There were.
Chris
But they, they did close that yard down. So,
Andy
Did they finally, like, I know that they were bought by Pick and Pull, wasn’t it, for a while, and then Pick and Pull ran it and then closed it down.
Chris
yeah, yep, they did. And they ran it for about five years and they, that was really just long enough to clear out the yard, crush everything up and clean up after themselves.
Andy
I miss it when it was the old family yard. I remember going down there to pull a crankshaft for my car. This was back when my old Excel I had was going through crankshafts left and right because I had it, what would you call it?
I boosted it with compressed air. Yeah. But yeah, so I was going through crankshafts. I was breaking crankshafts, but I remember going there once and I didn’t have the, you know, you can get the jacks and stuff to jack up a car because it was just sitting directly on the ground.
And across the way, the guy with the forklift was moving some cars around. And so I just walked over and asked him, hey, is there a chance you can lift that up for me so that I don’t have to steal jacks out of other cars to get this up?
I need the crankshaft out of it. And he told me, yeah, sure, no problem. And instead of lifting up the car, he just rolled the car over. It was nice.
Frank
Yeah, no need to crawl underneath it.
Andy
It was just up against another car. Yeah, so it was like on a 45 degree angle on the upside down side. And pulling the crank in that position was unusually easy.
Chris
Yeah, I love that.
Frank
I’ll pick up a couple of you joints and take it home, right?
Chris
I got the, I got the guy to grab the forklift on the, on the engine chain and grab a whole engine and try any out for me. You know, that was, that was awesome.
Andy
That is days in the past.
Sorry, I know you were trying to.
I was trying to kill it and I kept it going. I’m sorry.
Frank
That’s okay. I’m used to it, Andy.
Andy
Words.
I’ve got a couple.
Frank
Just a few.
That said, we’d like to thank everyone for listening to the very end.
Chris
The very, 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, Amateur 3D Pod.
You can email us at Franklin, Kevin, Andy or Chris at amateur3dpod.com or you can email us collectively at panelists at amateur3dpod.com.
Kevin Buckner wrote the music for this episode.
OpenAI’s Whisper completed the heavy lifting for the transcripts, which are linked in the description.
Our panelists are me, Franklin Christensen and my friends, Kevin Buckner, Chris Weber and Andy Cottam.
Until next time, we’re going offline.
Kevin
keep your feb tight
Andy
Always use hairspray.
Chris
I tried to use all purpose flour in my printer. It’s not really all purpose.
Frank
I would expect delaminations.
Lots and lots of delaminations.
Andy
It gives a whole nother view to powder bed.
Kevin
that’s certainly true, yeah
Andy
That’s a good one. That’s a good one. It’s been a while since it’s been funny.
Chris
Oh, ouch.
Kevin
Burn.
Chris
Oh, heartburn.
Andy
Oh I was just joking
Frank
I miss it. I’m going to have to go back and listen to the recording. I froze this time. It looks like you guys froze.
Andy
Oh, did you?
Chris
Oh, I’ll tell you when Frank, we’ll tell you when Craig’s gone.
Frank
I’m saying Craig probably got it. I just didn’t.