dbclunie - My Electronics & Career Blog © David Clunie

Resin and Mica Equals Pumpkin Madness!!! - Elegoo Mars Resin Prints!

dbclunie@dbclunie.com (David Clunie) — Fri, 18 Oct 2019 14:58:00 -0700

About a month ago I picked up this, A Elegoo Mars Resin Printer for a mere $279 bucks. I've been pretty happy with my purchase so far. I tried a few of their resins, translucent, translucent red, translucent green, and their matte grey resin. All great resins. And the printer produces some great detail results!!! (affiliate link helps support the blog/website/youtube/me!)

Scary, Derpy, Normal

Then I wanted something a bit more on the robust side to make some functional non brittle parts. I came across Siraya Tech's Blu - Strong Resin https://amzn.to/32pgYge . Then I saw on the facebook group for the Elegoo Mars Printer that Bastian Stevens did something that I had been thinking about, he used mica's to color his clear resin! I was thinking of using alcohol inks as I had seen other youtubers use those in other resin projects, and thought why not do this with some clear resin to make some custom color resins. I like the addition of the mica as you can get a really cool shimmer effect that the photos don't do it justice. So I created these from a file on thingiverse by user fabricke. He has three different models. So I downloaded then sliced them in chitubox and printed them out using 100 ml of the clear tough resin and about 1/4 of a teaspoon of orange mica https://amzn.to/2MXgaJb

As you can see in the pictures it worked out very well. I plan on selling these at a Oct 26 pop up arts/crafts faire near Vallejo, CA. I also take custom orders and commissions, so feel free to contact me.

After a print the mica settles a bit in the vat of goo!

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The Joy of Practical 3d Printing AND Lasercutting!!!

dbclunie@dbclunie.com (David Clunie) — Wed, 17 Apr 2019 09:57:00 -0700

So last night I decided to quickly create a under the shelf hanging spool holder for my prusa's. I found a "L" bracket on thingiverse, by user Chuanyee223, printed 4 of these out which took about an hour and a half. While the bracket was 3d printing, did a quick'y design in Adobe Illustrator for the lasercut wooden portion. Threw on some cool pattern for some "flair" but just scored the pattern, should have engraved it, but then it would have taken longer than just the 10 min it took to cut out 4 of em. Its jkust a thin piece with a hole for a 3/4in dowel to sit in that will span my entire shelf. Here is one half of the print all assembled.

I only had some really long screws so i used them and then just hacksawed the ends off to fit nicely and then filed the burs off the edges. I'm just using a regular dowel. Unsure if the friction of wood on wood of the bracket, or friction of wood on plastic of the spools, will be too much for the printers to pull the filament without causing issues. If so I could use some ptfe tubing as liner for the spool holder hole by cutting the tubing down the middle and placing into the hole, or I could just use some paste wax at the very minimum. Of course I could 3d print a 2 part collar if needed as well. :) That is the beauty of 3d printing and laser cutting combined, you just make what you need when you need it!

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Laser Cutting : Materials Settings Journal!!! Glowforge.

dbclunie@dbclunie.com (David Clunie) — Sun, 4 Mar 2018 16:23:00 -0800

Just a quick post.Organizing my glowforge laser cut materials settings in a makee journal so i can keep track of all the various settings. Later today will make a box to fit all the little material cards, kind of like a recipie box! :)

3D Printing : I remixed CHEP's Brackets for Harbor Freight Storage Boxes

dbclunie@dbclunie.com (David Clunie) — Mon, 6 Nov 2017 09:30:00 -0800

Hey everyone! So I watched one of CHEP's (Chuck Hellebuyck) older videos on how he 3D printed some wall brackets to mount and hold Harbor Freight's Portable Storage Case which go for around $5.00. Here is the original thingiverse like to his files... https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2399991

I decide to "lighten" them up a bit and to save on a bit of plastic by adding some holes that would not comprise the structure or holding power of the original mounting brackets as well as preserve the mounting holes of the original. You can find my files, remixed from Chucks above, or here is the direct link... https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2628654

Thanks to Chuck for creating these files, and dont forget to subscribe to his You Tube channel, and mine too!!! :)

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3D Printing : Trinus3d Printer from Kickstarter Odd behaviors? - Part 2

dbclunie@dbclunie.com (David Clunie) — Mon, 6 Feb 2017 20:38:00 -0800

So after a few more experiments with turning on/off smart infill, going from 300 microns back to 150 microns, and even speeding up/slowing down the print speed, I can only get that ribbed pattern to appear on the one print where I'm printing nine pillars all at once! Weird! The last pic above is when i printed two pillars at the same time. I was printing all of my other experiments one pillar at a time.

So I imagine the cause is the movement from pillar to pillar when printing is just causing some weird pattern to emerge. I've also seen people mention those wavy patterns in thin walled print with the fan at 100% and the force of the air causing the pattern.

However at this time I'm done with the experiment as I have a ton of pillars, and done currently anymore! Hehe.

I've also started using them to actually organize my cables and pens around my desk with some magnets!

Here you can see I was trying out a different design buy using two different pla's, which i kind of like. Truth be know I was running out of polymakrs translucent yellow pla and just switched to their white polymax!

I used the following adhesive and magnets to "glue" the pillars together and then to add the magnets to the tops! These are my affiliate links which helps out the blog/youtube channel, etc. You could also use my shop link!

3D Printing : Trinus3d Printer from Kickstarter Odd behaviors For Certain Prints?

dbclunie@dbclunie.com (David Clunie) — Thu, 2 Feb 2017 14:32:00 -0800

UPDATE: Additional findings and possible conclusions!

All sliced in their software Pango - So I have a couple of prints that I was doing I derived from http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:961176 . I printed the initial hive file (or a remix actually that just added windows to the back to snake your cable through) and with the initial print I kept getting this terrible banding along the z-axis which I thought might be z-wobble but it seems a bit too "wide" to be so, so I'm not sure exactly what this is or how to fix it or what causes it.

If you run your finger along the walls you can feel the bumps so its not just within the print. could this be a result of some kind of weird infill (which i think i had set to 20% but as you can tell the walls are thin enough where it doesn't do any infil.

I think created a completely separate file and model (just a single hex pillar and then was going just glue them together in any config I wanted) but was still seeing the banding despite not using any bit of the other file as you can see here...

then just to check to see if there is an issue with the printer I did a benchy after printing out the single hex pillar and the benchy came out practically perfect. So again i'm not sure what those bands are...

I think the only diff in settings is that the banding hive/pillar is 300 microns vs 150 microns of the benchy or whatever pangos initial slicing is...

any ideas, suggestions, or if others have seen this behavior, any info would be helpful. The hive cable storage is still very much useable and the banding doesn't really effect the projects i'm currently doing just don't want it effect the quality of project later that might rely on perfect finishes and or accuracy...

thanks in advance!

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Disappointed : Shaper Origin - The Handheld CNC That Could Have...

dbclunie@dbclunie.com (David Clunie) — Tue, 23 Aug 2016 12:12:00 -0700

Just released today for PRE-ORDER: https://shapertools.com/ Is the Shaper "Origin". Its essentially a handheld CNC machine that you can use almost anywhere on almost any surface and the computer compensates for less than accurate cuts to give you perfect/near perfect cut.

Here are a few videos of it in use:

Link 1 Make Magazine's Coverage of the release.

Link 2 Applied Science's Coverage of a beta prototype in use.

This is a very exciting technology, and was giddy until the release announcement. I hate to say it, but with the "release", I'm disappointed overall.

The announcement today was/is essentially nothing more than a self run kickstarter where you can "pre-order a unit". A unit NOT in production. So there are all the caveats of dealing with a kickstarter project, and more so that its NOT actually ON kickstarter.

When speaking to most of the people around the maker booth at the last two bay area maker faires, these individuals seemed to indicate, along with other marketing emails recently sent, that they were close to production.

When I hear that kind of talk, to me that indicates they have everything set up and will start producing units in a few months, and depending on when you preorder you should be seeing production units out in the wild. So with their emails of an exciting announcement, I was expecting a Oct-Dec delivery. What we got was a we're thinking of Sept 2017 time frame. A Sept 2017 "expected" delivery! Thats a YEAR away! Of course which they charge your credit card as soon as you preorder. So you've given them a interest free (for them) infusion of cash, while you pay that credit card off.

Which, just like kickstarter if something were to go wrong, oh like someone buying a house with the starter monies, and then they try to "fix" whatever goes wrong, but ultimately can't deliver anything except for an apology email about all of their good intentions, you'll be left holding your empty money bag. This is because most credit cards have limits on the length of time you can apply for a dispute/refund and a year is usually MONTHS too long to dispute anything. Sure the company can say they offer a refund up until it ships, but if it never ships, and they don't have the money to refund anyone, you'll end up with ZERO monies, and ZERO product.

Another issue I was disappointed on was with the price. Shaper indicated over and over, in person and in emails that the target price would be around $1500. Then they said well for early birds/pre-orders, etc. Then the actual announcement and they list them for $1499. That's kind of a douchey move if you ask me $1 "under" so they can be "technically right about the $1500 statement" for early birds.

But wait if you're one of the early early EARLY birds you can get it for $1299! With that said there are only a "select few", which screams "you're part of the open beta test!", that can get this price. Retail is going to be $2099. WTF? I talk about that more below.

In addition another disappointment, is they're also using a "custom" spindle but all of their "demo's" have been with dewalt routers, which appear to be the $199 (or maybe the cheaper versions), and if they've switched out the spindles with a "mass produced silent and cheaper version", like most of those cnc kits out there, most of those users end up switching out to the said dewalt router, or similar, because of speed, accuracy, and durability. This last bit is just speculation, but from the video it appears the new spindle might be smaller, and possibly you wouldn't be able to do a swap out??? If so that means you have to rely on them for swap out / repairs. Which isn't good. Isn't good at all!

Lastly, there is that price again $2099 for retail? WTF. This appears to be nothing more than a compact computer, hopefully not just a raspberry pi, or similar, which might justify the price a bit more, and a inexpensive router. So why is thing even over $1000 bucks?

The items that make up the unit are likely not more than $500 bucks. I would expect a price of $799, $899, with a option to go with a more powerful router for $1000 even or better still a $699 version where you bring your own router. Also $10-15 for a roll of the tape is also pricey, which they say you can only get through them, though Applied Science's video of an early prototype where he's cutting metal i think he indicated you could print out the registration marks. Which Shaper should allow, the printing of the registration marks rather than rely on the stupid tape route.

I was whole heartily giddy for this product, and was up at 5 am PST to put my order in when they announced it and made the site official. Once I got the email for the early bird "your special" price of $1299 with the stipulation of "you'll get you're unit in Sept of 2017", a year! and to be honest,likely LONGER because no one hits their dates, ever, and its far more likely a early 2018 time frame delivery, I was so, so, so Disappointed. :(

I'm skipping this entirely now, unless Shaper wants to send a unit along for a REAL HONEST review and going back to pricing out and looking into getting a desktop/workbench cnc machine. (unless glowforge gets off their asses and sends me out my laser cutter! yes i've been burned before on these types of things which is why i'm advocating against others doing so AGAIN!)

Who knows maybe the maker community, like the 3d printer, can come up with a cheaper/better solution for the masses.

#shaper #origin #3d #maker #kickstarter #preorder #cnc #handheldcnc #diy

Hope you enjoyed this post! If you did, don't forget to give it a like, thumbs up, or +1, leave a comment or two, and SUBSCRIBE so you don't miss any articles and Videos!

You can also follow me on the various social media sites, where I typically post tidbits, previews, and other items that might not encompass a full blog post or full length video. I also sometimes put up info on upcoming activities, live streaming events, Q & A's, or just the day to day musings!

Thanks for stopping by!

Maker Faire 2016 - Floating Artworks - Dark Hall!!!

dbclunie@dbclunie.com (David Clunie) — Tue, 31 May 2016 10:30:00 -0700

The dark hall always contains interesting pieces of art and light, this year there was a few pieces involving magnetic levitation as well! Check out the video below!

Maker Faire 2016 - Tapigami !!!

dbclunie@dbclunie.com (David Clunie) — Wed, 25 May 2016 10:30:00 -0700

There is a whole exhibit made entirely out of masking tape! It started at one section of the entry hall of the main building at the San Mateo Convention Center then expanded now to the entire entryway, and even has seeped into the "Dark Hall" area! Some awesome stuff going on, so much to look at and DISCOVER!

Hope you enjoyed this post and thanks for stopping by!

Maker Faire 2016 - There Is Always Plenty Of FOOD!!!

dbclunie@dbclunie.com (David Clunie) — Tue, 24 May 2016 10:30:00 -0700

Hope you enjoyed this post and thanks for stopping by!

Maker Faire 2016 - MAKEY - He's REAL!!!

dbclunie@dbclunie.com (David Clunie) — Mon, 23 May 2016 17:36:00 -0700

This year Shawn Thorsson was commissioned by Make Magazine to bring to life their mascot, and boy he did not disappoint! Performed by Gordon! Makey also gets to ride around on his own personal transport!

Hope you enjoyed this post and thanks for stopping by!

Maker Faire 2016 - Robots, Mechs, Dinos, And Hex-a-bots, Oh My!!!

dbclunie@dbclunie.com (David Clunie) — Mon, 23 May 2016 10:30:00 -0700

Hope you enjoyed this post and thanks for stopping by!

Maker Faire 2016 - Walk-a-bout Band!!!

dbclunie@dbclunie.com (David Clunie) — Sun, 22 May 2016 15:00:00 -0700

I had some connectivity issues while in San Mateo, thanks #verizon #sarcasam , so the all the posts from here on out of the #MakerFaire2016 are posting now that i'm back home and the publishing app is working again. So sorry for the plethora of posts in such a small time frame! Don't forget you can click on the pics to make them BIGGER! Thanks!

Always enjoy the band who performs around the #makerfaire area, and you should really catch them when they are performing and sit through the entire performance, very entertaining and toe tapping fun!

Hope you enjoyed this post and thanks for stopping by!

R2-D2 Where Are You? Oh Next To BB-8!

dbclunie@dbclunie.com (David Clunie) — Sun, 22 May 2016 14:49:00 -0700

The R2-D2 units are always a draw, now with BB-8! #makerfaire2016, #makerfaire, #maker, #makershed, #electronics, #3dprinting, #3d, #diy, #make, #starwars, #theforceawakens

LIVE! Blogging From Maker Faire 2016

dbclunie@dbclunie.com (David Clunie) — Sun, 22 May 2016 12:56:00 -0700

Live blogging today from Maker Faire 2016 with pics and comments!

3D Printed - Ant Farm aka Formicarium For Raising Ant Queens !!!

dbclunie@dbclunie.com (David Clunie) — Fri, 20 May 2016 10:30:00 -0700

by caswal http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:476168

So the Queens Ants are flying! I believe the ones I found, were again to be the "pavement ant" types, aka Tetramorium caespitum, of the Myrmica family.

I collected 9 queens along with two males. I suspected the two were male, but didn't know for sure, but they died shortly after capture and were lethargic when I caught them. Also they still had their wings plus they looked a little bit skinnier than the fatty queens. ;)

I had previously 3d printed out a few of the http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:990785 from user caswal and will eventually use this, http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1388709 if the queens grow to 20+ workers.

In the pics above you'll see that I packed one with cotton, which is meant for water but in the below pics, the one from my previous attempt (she's got two workers) got moldy really fast, so i just filled in the sides with hot glue to seal em off and then sealed the chambers with hot glue. If needed, to clean, i'll just coax the colony out with light and heat, then remove hot glue with alcohol clean and then re-attach. In the tubes i have cotton balls soaked with water. I tried the "tube" setup before but had a few queens drown themselves pulling at the cotton balls and those plastic tubes are just not narrow enough to keep a cotton ball snug.

Drone Fishing? You Betcha!!!

dbclunie@dbclunie.com (David Clunie) — Wed, 2 Sep 2015 09:00:00 -0700

Over on his youtube channel, HERE, you can check out Farmer Derek on how he's catching fish these days, yup you guessed it via DRONE! (a dji phantom) Technology, ain't it something! :) (Farmer Derek isn't your typical youtuber or farmer for that matter, he's got vids of him cerenading his herd of cows with the likes of songs from Maroon5, Lorde, and others, not to mention he created the parody video of "What Does The Farmer Say" most of those videos have about 6 million views!!!

I'm sure his latest one on how he's "gone fish'n" will reach similar view totals!

Hope you enjoyed this post and thanks for stopping by!

Video : 3d Printing - What Can Taulman T-Glase And A E3d Volcano 1.2mm Nozzle Do?

dbclunie@dbclunie.com (David Clunie) — Thu, 27 Aug 2015 17:49:00 -0700

So you might have seen the whole hoopla about printing with glass, as was talked about here, and even then I mention that the large ribbons of glass and the beautiful flow reminded me of printing with the E3d's Volcano and using the larger nozzles. Well seems that I wasn't singular in my thoughts.

Tom Martz has up over on his youtube channel, which you should head over to and subscribe/follow, has a similar mesmerizing video of Taulmans T-Glase clear printing a similar object as the one printed in glass by MIT. Only difference here is that the T-Glase clear is molten its significantly "cooler" than the glass so doesn't have that honey warmth glow that molten glass does.

The results are very similar and being that T-Glase is a bit more durable and practical in its uses for various applications that glass wouldn't be even thought of, e.g., areas where breakage could occur, or the weight of the glass impractical, etc. T-Glase shines, quite literally!

You can read the full write up over at Taluman's site Here for the speeds, nozzle type, and various other tidbits. I'll leave you with some of their awesome photos of some of their creations using the various colors of T-Glase as well!

Hope you enjoyed this post and thanks for stopping by!

Video - 3D Printing In Glass Is Now A Reality!!!

dbclunie@dbclunie.com (David Clunie) — Thu, 20 Aug 2015 15:04:00 -0700

The possibility of printing in glass is now a reality, mesmerizing, and beautiful. This very much reminds me of using the E3D's hot end, the Volcano creating large structure layers which adds to the aesthetics of the item as well as the overall structure.

Hope you enjoyed this post and thanks for stopping by!

Video : Formlabs Releases New Resin TOUGH!

dbclunie@dbclunie.com (David Clunie) — Tue, 23 Jun 2015 14:32:00 -0700

So i received a email today telling me about Formlabs new resin TOUGH! It looks like it currently only comes in one color, a cornflower blue semi-translucent resin. It is supposed to be tough, durable, and used in a variety of ways where ABS is normally used. From the video and the gif below, the results are pretty impressive!

However the sticker price for 1L is the shocker, $175.00!! More expensive than any of their other resins! I'm not sure this is a good thing as other companies are producing similar (normal) resins at a fraction of the cost, and its only a matter of time before a similar (tough) resin can be had for cheap.
I guess this is similar to Makerbot vs other fdm manufacturers, the highly visible company has to charge a premium for their "brand" even though its the same chemicals in the end.

But if people pay for it, who am I to judge? For me personally I'll shop around for a better price, or dare I say attempt to create my own! :)

Hope you enjoyed this post and thanks for stopping by!

Hot Glue Can Save Your Failing Print, Maybe...

dbclunie@dbclunie.com (David Clunie) — Fri, 12 Jun 2015 17:52:00 -0700

Over at Make Andrew Terranova shows how using a little hot glue on a failing print might be all you need to save it!

Essentially the print was skipping a few layers so he added some hot glue and the print was saved. Head over to make and read his article about how he came up with the process and how he uses it to save some of this failing prints on his 3d printer.

I like the idea and for one I plan on using the technique myself if my print starts to fail... great work!

Hope you enjoyed this post and thanks for stopping by!

3D Printing : Cold Vapor Smoothing

dbclunie@dbclunie.com (David Clunie) — Thu, 5 Feb 2015 12:02:00 -0800

you can click on all the pics for larger views!

So I've been working on this Nexus 7 w/Battery Charger Holder/Stand (Prototype) which originated with this model on thingiverse http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:355918 .

Its an ok design, but the cable goes out the side instead of straight back, the stand itself slides around unless affixed to a surface even with the battery in the mount providing a bit a weight, and the magnet is so strong between the charger and the nexus7 that more than often the charger puck gets pulled out of the stand. Not to mention that as presented its almost impossible to print on some printers.

So I took the design and tweaked it, I separated it into two sections so any printer can print it, I also placed in a small divot in the back of the charger area for some velcro or adhesive strips, as well as divots on the bottom to hold the stand in place on a surface, and included a "spinner" device so you can orient the viewing angle.

However this post is really about the "finish" of the stand. Being that I'm using ABS plastic which "melts/dissolves" in acetone you can use a process called vapor polishing to give your products a injected molded look. (You can't use acetone with PLA or other similar plastics, each plastic usually has its own chemical that similar effects can be achieved however some of those are really nasty compounds and I'd avoid using them in a process like this.)

There are typically two methods to do this and both are similar, one method uses added heat to hurry the vapor process and "melting" of the plastic along with a breif stint in the freeze of the object you want to smooth before you put it in to the hot vapor path.

The other method is using the same process minus the added heat and stint in the freezer. This is the cold process

The cold process is essentially when you take a air tight or near air tight container, fill the bottom portion with acetone place your object on a non porous "stand" above the acetone and then wait for a period of time for the acetone to "melt" the outer layer of plastic of your object.

Unlike most setups which involve paper towel lined paint cans, I've opted for a glass jar some metal mesh for the stand and the inclusion of a computer fan run off of a 12v lantern battery. I've never seen sparks from this setup, and while acetone vapor is highly flammable, I feel this is perfectly safe. There hasn't been any issue with using the computer fan either, but as always you're responsible for your own setup and actions.

I placed in the nexus 7 stand for about 2hrs in total, (started at 10 min checking, then waited 1 hr and it was shinny at that point and an additional hour made it glass smooth)

Now these were just prototypes while i was working out the issues with the design and printing, as you can see the non shiny one was an earlier prototype and the one section didn't print well.

Even the shiny one all I did was remove the support material and glue the two halves together, very sloppily I might add, because I was checking clearences of the two ports and the spinner port more than worrying about fit and finish at this point.

My final model is printed in glow in the dark ABS, so I'll be smoothing it after sanding the bad spots, along with including a light sensor and battery for a small LED that will shine in the middle of the stand when the lights go out to make it be "ultra glow'y" :)

Hope you enjoyed this post and thanks for stopping by!

3D Printing : IKEA Hack - Lustifik Shelf Extension - Filament Holder

dbclunie@dbclunie.com (David Clunie) — Tue, 6 Jan 2015 14:31:00 -0800

Filament! I've got plenty, but I'm always looking for more, especially if there are new blends, new materials, etc! I really like testing out new filament and thinking on the possibilities that these materials could end up becoming or how to use them. Its one of the reasons I got the replicator 2x "experimental", which I regret, since that is so far from the truth. But that's for another show ;) Thankfully I have a delta printer as well! :D

With so much filament, 64 or so spools at last count, I was just stacking it on my shelves as wide as the shelf, two spools deep and two or three spools high. But this was a bit unwieldy and the spools had a tendency to slide, especially if I stacked them three high.

initial prototype no channel, testing
out the strength with filament
support added in (the white)

I started using peg board to hang my spools of filament from and had everything arranged via ROYGBIV designation, but I noticed that even a few of my ABS spools were taking on moisture, so I'm was sure my PLA that was sitting out in the open too would be troublesome in the future. You can read about a solution I constructed to help "dry" out spools. While its a good solution when needed, I didn't want to have to do this every time so I needed to make sure they remained bagged with desiccant. When I rearranged the peg board I could only fit 2 spools on top of two peg board pegs. I needed a better solution.

I had an extra IKEA Lustifik shelf and when put side by side i could fit about 6-8 spools per shelf (depending on the thickness of the spools) which was a much better solution. You can also flip another Lustifik shelf on top of the initial shelf and attach via bolts however you're left with a "middle shelf" that's about an one inch high. Here is a pic of the starting of the "shelf tower". As you might guess the"plugs" that attach two units will create a small shelf, which I plan to use for sample filaments I receive from manufacturers or unspooled filament, like laywood, or laybrick.

you can click on any of these pics to make them full size!

I designed the following files to fit between the two units and free up that space.

Rods

Plugs

The rods extend between the two units when you flip the shelving units, the plugs are for the upside unit, where you remove the no scuff feet and insert those plugs so that you can join another unit together.

As you can see I print out 8 "halves" and then use the adhesive below, but you can straight acetone to "weld" the two halves together as well. The larger holes are there to save on material, the smaller holes are there, if you want, to use as an additional method to strengthen the object by using 1.75mm filament which you put adhesive on and then slide into the holes which then are welded/bonded to the plug (as can be seen in the pic on the right) or strut. After gluing I decided the extra filament welds weren't needed, those struts and plugs are plenty strong!

The final feature is a channel going down the center to allow you to insert a 2in bolt/machine screw along with a nylon hex nut that fits in the 2nd hole from each side that goes through the tubing on the shelf unit. With a bit of screwing the hexnut should retract and come to rest between the two circular holes with in the strut and provide extra added strength. Oh and I got my adhesive at Tap Plastics here in San Jose, CA.

As you can see in the last photo the print on the delta, this is with ABS, even though it has a heated bed with no "enclosure" the plastic really wants to "warp" and it pulling up the blue tape!

Hope you enjoyed this post and thanks for stopping by!

3D Printing Video : Printing With Ninjaflex and Rubber TPE

dbclunie@dbclunie.com (David Clunie) — Fri, 21 Nov 2014 14:20:00 -0800

So with the holidays arriving soon, I again wanted to make some gifts this year for various relatives and friends who I'll be spending the holidays with. While searching thingiverse i found this pretty cool Bear model in the Voronoi style.

So after printing it in a transparently blue PLA filament from polymakr, I decided to try out some of the flexible filaments I've had on hand for awhile but have done nothing more than print a sample chip out .

(if you're a filament manufacturer and want me to test a sample of a filament you're developing feel free to contact me)
I tried printing out with this type of filament before, and failed, mostly because either the extruder that I was using caused the filament to buckle and just wrap itself around the stepper motor, or after extruding a bit for the first few layers would just stop extruding as the gripper gear would just lose its grip and not push the filament along ending up in "air prints".

Being that I have about 15 rolls of various flex materials I figured I better start using these filament and decided to try various methods of getting these filament to print correctly. (read and see more after the jump!)

So one of the things I saw that people were doing to solve the buckling issue, where the filament because its so springy and bends in the wrong place and gets wrapped around the stepper motor gear, is by using a bit of PTFE tubing and sticking it through their extruder arm all the way to the hot end entrance. In some instances for example when using a e3dv6 hotend they take the tube right to the hot zone inside the hot end itself!.

Typically you cut a notch in the tubing so that the stepper gear can latch on and pull the filament in. Another item to use as well is a spiked or pointy gripper gear on the end of the stepper motor to get the full "bite" of the stepper motor. I ended up cutting completely through the tubing I had instead of just a notch but decided to try it anyways, and just pushed the top portion down to where the stepper gear was and then used the smaller piece to push up from the bottom to where the stepper gear was. (hopefully you can see this in the pics, you can click on any of them to make them full size for better viewing)

The tube I'm using are both PTFE tubes (they can withstand moderate heat), and I have a larger diameter that I'm using for a "guide tube" from the spool to the 3d printer, and now i'm using a smaller diameter that goes to the hot end entrance, and subsequently fits within the guide tube.

So after a bit of fiddling to get the filament hole lined up I was able to successfully print out two bear models. I used BLUE Ninja Flex and 3d2prints TPE Rubber Filament which I printed in RED. The initial print I used the following settings when slicing the model using makerware:

Infill 100%
Shells 1
Resolution 200 microns
Extruder 225°c
Bed 75°c
Nozzle Speed While extruding 15 mm
Nozzle Speed While traveling 25 mm

These settings resulted in a lot of stringing but the models printed out very nice, just needed a lot of clean up:

Ninja Flex, Really Spongy

3d2Print's TPE Rubber, Still Squishy,
however MORE rigid when compared
to NinjaFlex.

This was the Transparent PLA
Very Rigid, No FLEX

So then I tweaked the settings a bit and printed another in Ninjaflex:

Extruder 215°c
Nozzle Speed While extruding 10mm
Nozzle Speed While traveling 150 mm

This model came out much better with less thick stringing than previously, however there is still some but its pretty fine and can be cleaned up fairly easy:

Hope you enjoyed this post and thanks for stopping by!

3D Printing : Burning Man 2014 Edition!

dbclunie@dbclunie.com (David Clunie) — Fri, 22 Aug 2014 12:50:00 -0700

Design by Larry Harvey and Don Clarke, illustration by Andrew Johnstone and Jim Pire

So last year a friend of mine / co-worker, who is a die hard Burning Man attendee, decided he wanted to give out something at burning man to individuals whom he either wanted to "barter with" or just thought that they were some cool people.

click to embiggen

My friend knew of my purchase of a 3d printer and he inquired about the ability to possibly develop some pendants to wear with minimal cost to mass produce. So I indicated we could use the 3d printer to produce a small run of objects then he could go about casting them in silicone and then in resin. So we did exactly just that. With the help of Taps Plastics (a local store where you can pic up the silcone casting materials and casting resin) Well I printed out about 20 or so "master copies" of a necklace or pendant. We then used some platinum silicone, mainly for its speed in curing, and then he spent the weeks leading up to burning man casting copies of the masters in a white resin. After my friend then went about painting them in various colors and placing them on lanyards of various colors and materials. From what was told to me was that He had cast about 100 or so, and ended up handing out about 60 or so.

click to embiggen

So this year with burning man approaching, he then again asked me if we could develop a new pendant. However this time around he didn't want to spend the time casting and painting and asked if we could do everything on the 3d printer, which I replied sure we can do that if you'd like, but the cost would likely be more for less product. He was ok with this, since he didn't have to do any real work except for final assembly. (prototypes to the left)

So over the last week I've spent my free time printing out the new pendant, its fairly simple and I only used one print head and use the z-axis stop on the makerbot to change out colors. the initial design was just a flat .jpg/.png and I used my 3d application, cinema4d( version 7 that I had purchased years ago) to add some depth for each "layer" then extruded those layers to match 1mm increments to make color changing easier because that is what the makerbot uses, mm instead of actual layers to pause at the z-axis.

final result and color scheme
(click to embiggen)

So The base layer was 2mm, the flames were 1mm, the burning man was 2 mm, and the final black was 1 mm for a total of 6mm in height or depth however you want to look at it.

So if you're at burning man and see a guy giving out these pendants/necklaces say "HI" or if you see someone wearing them tell them you know of the pendants origin story, of a lazy friend with a 3d printer! ;)

Hope you enjoyed this post and thanks for stopping by!