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3D Printer Chronicles (1 Viewer)
- Thread starter Tick
- Start date
msommer
Footballguy
The hobby ones doPIK95 said:
Professional ones not so much
See also the links above in my post re steel 3D printing of spareparts and a functioning bridge in Amsterdam
Tick
Footballguy
We had our first failure over last night. The z-axis brace print didn’t adhere to the build surface properly, peeling up at the corners and messing up the shapes. We cancelled it. Looking at this troubleshooting site, I think it’s probably the new cooling fan setup. We’ll have to turn the fan off at first and see if that fixes it.
the moops
Footballguy
msommer
Footballguy
the moops
Footballguy
It is. Or rather it was. I am completely over the fun part for I have run out of uses and things to print at this point
Galileo
Footballguy
Hardly “random”. Design and make whatever you want/need. These are very popular in robotics circles. Our kids created a battery holder, housing for a power switch, several custom pieces to connect robot parts. It’s pretty cool when the kids say “we need something that can do ____”. And then they design and make what they need.PIK95 said:
shuke
Black Ice Skeptic
the moops
Footballguy
Too many?
I have had free access to printers going back 10 yeas (work in a fabrication lab at a University). I have designed and built too many damn things for my kids, myself, my family. Blah. I wish i had the same enthusiasm as some fo you folks - I'm jealous
PIK95
Footballguy
Galileo
Footballguy
The Z Machine
Footballguy
If he's into mechanical engineering, get him into a metal shop class somewhere. Knowing how to use (and the limits of) a lathe and a mill is very helpful.
SWC
Bromigo
if you did this with car parts like someone else mentioned you would be a modern day johnny cash gettin it one piece at a time and that would rule take that to the bank bromigo
SWC
Bromigo
nowadays honest to god running an end mill is like a lost art or ancient latin if he can get good at that it would rule take that to the bank brochacho
ren hoek
Footballguy
I met an engineering research guy who specializes in 3D printing for the local university yesterday. I've always been fascinated by this stuff. They do industrial grade printing etc.
I asked him what's the best consumer 3D printer to buy. He said don't. That they're really not there yet and they have about a 33% success rate. And unless you know how to design in CAD, you'll just be printing other people's stuff off thingiverse or whatever. I was pretty shocked by that.
But, if I insisted, he recommended the LulzBot as a good consumer-grade printer for now. He also said filament-based is better than resin-based because you can become sensitized to the chemicals with resin printers. Interesting guy. I would have asked him a lot more questions but didn't really have the time.
I asked him what's the best consumer 3D printer to buy. He said don't. That they're really not there yet and they have about a 33% success rate. And unless you know how to design in CAD, you'll just be printing other people's stuff off thingiverse or whatever. I was pretty shocked by that.
But, if I insisted, he recommended the LulzBot as a good consumer-grade printer for now. He also said filament-based is better than resin-based because you can become sensitized to the chemicals with resin printers. Interesting guy. I would have asked him a lot more questions but didn't really have the time.
shuke
Black Ice Skeptic
The only reason I would buy one of these for my kids is if they were interested in learning about modeling. I don't see much usefulness if you aren't designing your own stuff.
Tick
Footballguy
Tick
Footballguy
Yeah, next year he's in high school and is excited about joining the robotics team, which has a metal shop available.
the moops
Footballguy
Agree. We have gone through several cheap printers and they inevitably all get moth balled at some point. We get overwhelmed with print requests, so faculty think it is a good idea to buy a bunch of desktop printers for studio. Student don't take care of them, but even if they did, they are far too finicky and highly unreliable. I have heard that the LulzBot are pretty good, regardless of the stupid name.
We have several mid grade Stratasys machines. They are beasts in that we can print for thousands of hours until we get a faulty print. And there are times where these things are running for weeks at a time, non stop.
Galileo
Footballguy
msommer
Footballguy
Tick
Footballguy
Well, we've got a problem with our X axis right side - it bonks the frame over there. I still haven't done the troubleshooting on it yet. We're still muddling through modification prints, rotating things in the slicer program so they don't print near the right side. We put painter's tape on the bed, altered the fan settings, and everything is sticking well.
Tick
Footballguy
Boy ran into the house to get to the PC, I figured to play his tank game... instead, he was eager to get on Inventor to solve a problem. In the car, my wife had been frustrated when she wanted to plug in her iPhone, but the charging cord tip was somewhere on the floor in the winter sludge. So, my boy spent about 10 minutes on Inventor to create a shape that clamps on to her air vent and holds 5 cord tips up in front of the vent. The print took 9 hours (and got him down to about 10 inches of filament remaining - didn't think it was going to have enough) and put it in my wife's car for the next day.
He's a badass.
He's a badass.
msommer
Footballguy
Tick
Footballguy
Yes, I checked that. I think the zero is off, but haven't sorted it out yet. For now, we're just rotating things so they don't get close to the right edge. I'm trying not to dive in immediately to let him troubleshoot.
We started a sort of resume yesterday, listing some of the projects he's done over the years and what he learned with each project. I don't know what the goal really is there, but it seems to me that having that information organized would be useful when applying for college admission or an internship... I know that we hired our co-op student based on his interests out of school as much as anything - he obviously had the knack.
mquinnjr
Footballguy
JerseyToughGuys
Tough Guy
.
Tick
Footballguy
The printer had a problem - it was failing to feed the filament to the head. It wasn't constant, but occasional, and would stop 70% through an 8-hour print, which really sucks. Boy took it apart and tried to clean the printer head, even convinced us to buy a heat gun to help, but nothing worked. We were ready to buy a new head, but they were out of stock... then he looked at it when it was cold and found a plug of filament in the head, removed it, and everything's good again.
It's one of those things where after the plug is removed, the difference is obvious - you can see through the head now, but it was blocked before... but unless you looked at a clean one, there was nothing to compare to, and it might have been normal to not be able to see through it.
He just finished a 28-hour print with no problems. He printed a Nerf stock that holds 3 magazines of darts (yawn).
It's one of those things where after the plug is removed, the difference is obvious - you can see through the head now, but it was blocked before... but unless you looked at a clean one, there was nothing to compare to, and it might have been normal to not be able to see through it.
He just finished a 28-hour print with no problems. He printed a Nerf stock that holds 3 magazines of darts (yawn).
nightmare
Footballguy
I know the mini has a small build surface but for $220ish I don't mind the trade off it is a decent printer.
I'm good with mechanical stuff but just O.K. with technical. Youtube is supposed to be very good with
helping on the research. Thanks.
