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Posted
  On 10/31/2024 at 11:37 AM, TwiceHorn said:

Mine was Charles Perkins.  Wood was head of engineering graphics back then, which assumed a larger role as CAD came into play.

In our pre-project class, we had to use NASTRAN on a VAX and you had to enter the material data in a "comma matrix" form for each element of the structure.  It was horribad just from a data entry/error standpoint.  You'd submit your model to the processor in a batch-processing mode and then watch it complete or error out.  Lotsa "fuuuuuuucks" and "yessss" while watching that.

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It's funny how the same patterns of computing can emerge across different disciplines. There's a lot of processes like model training or large deployments that are still "submit and sit" where there's not much for you to do, but it can be helpful to be on hand to terminate early or catch a late error due to some deep buried parameters 

Posted
  On 10/31/2024 at 11:13 AM, Captainant said:

$600 to be able to print CF nylon with a heated chamber is pretty hard to beat. One thing to consider is that Nylon, ABS, and a few other materials off gas VOC's when heated for printing, so be sure to have excellent ventilation or not set it up where people tend to be. 

I found a pretty thorough review of that printer, and it looks like it'll be a solid prototyping machine. 

https://www.3dsourced.com/3d-printer-reviews/qidi-tech-x-plus-3-review/

Do you have much experience with FDM 3D printing?

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None. Probably going to try starting out with some Christmas ornaments and hot wheels ramps and stuff. 

  On 10/31/2024 at 11:13 AM, Captainant said:

$600 to be able to print CF nylon with a heated chamber is pretty hard to beat. One thing to consider is that Nylon, ABS, and a few other materials off gas VOC's when heated for printing, so be sure to have excellent ventilation or not set it up where people tend to be. 

I found a pretty thorough review of that printer, and it looks like it'll be a solid prototyping machine. 

https://www.3dsourced.com/3d-printer-reviews/qidi-tech-x-plus-3-review/

Do you have much experience with FDM 3D printing?

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None. Probably going to try starting out with some Christmas ornaments and hot wheels ramps and stuff. 

Posted
  On 10/30/2024 at 8:26 AM, 52-80 said:

thats dope shit.  where are you getting the models from?  ive got orange filament right now, and been printing a ton of halloween related decorations and accessories

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Most of these were kind of generic ones off of thingiverse or printables, but I made a lot of modifications.  Mostly adding the colors. Painting the stadium was a bitch.  Putting in the "1" in the tower was also pretty time consuming.  I think I remember paying for the DKR original file on some website that sold STLs, think it was like 3 bucks. I can see if I still have the files of the finished models if you want.

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Posted
  On 10/31/2024 at 8:45 PM, Zone Read said:

Most of these were kind of generic ones off of thingiverse or printables, but I made a lot of modifications.  Mostly adding the colors. Painting the stadium was a bitch.  Putting in the "1" in the tower was also pretty time consuming.  I think I remember paying for the DKR original file on some website that sold STLs, think it was like 3 bucks. I can see if I still have the files of the finished models if you want.

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I'll be damned, I should check out Cults3D more often! Added to cart

https://cults3d.com/en/3d-model/architecture/darrell-k-royal-texas-stadium

If you have the filament painted version handy that would be allsome to have

Posted

Did my first print of something that wasn't preloaded on the printer last night. Took me a bit because the flash drive that came with it was corrupted and wouldn't even format. Anyhow,  I eventually found another one and was able to download the firmware updates and stuff and figure out how to use the slicer to print this guy. The first time I tried to print it without supports because I didn't think about the hands or back of the helmet hanging down. Stopped it and resliced it and got a pretty decent print. Gonna have to figure out how to fine tube the settings, but so far it has been pretty much plug and play. 

Posted (edited)
  On 11/9/2024 at 1:47 AM, Da Fino said:

So what’s the melting point of the finished product? Could you use this for lost wax casting?

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Oh man, there's a BUNCH of YouTube videos on this. Everything from PLA to some tailor-blended filaments for burn-out. But yeah aluminum, copper, and bronze all play really nicely with the process

 

The really crazy stuff is the SLA (stereolithography) printers that get micron layer heights. 

  On 11/9/2024 at 1:38 AM, NotActuallyALonghorn said:

Gonna have to figure out how to fine tube the settings, but so far it has been pretty much plug and play. 

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I really recommend OrcaSlicer for its built in tuning prints that are really helpful for building a filament profile. Covers everything from temperature towers, to pressure advance, to max flow rate calibrations. That's definitely more nitty gritty, but it's nice for tuning 

Edited by Captainant
Posted
  On 11/9/2024 at 4:45 AM, Captainant said:

Oh man, there's a BUNCH of YouTube videos on this. Everything from PLA to some tailor-blended filaments for burn-out. But yeah aluminum, copper, and bronze all play really nicely with the process

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This could be a huge opportunity for someone. I’m involved in a niche hobby that relies on castings. And the suppliers and people that know how to do it are all retiring or passing on.  

Posted
  On 11/9/2024 at 5:03 AM, Da Fino said:

This could be a huge opportunity for someone. I’m involved in a niche hobby that relies on castings. And the suppliers and people that know how to do it are all retiring or passing on.  

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If you're in the Houston area I'd be happy to run some prints for you, or chat with you on how to get it set up yourself. Bambu's A1 is awesome at $250, and has a filament switcher bundle option for $400 if you need multicolor or multi filament

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Posted
  On 11/9/2024 at 4:45 AM, Captainant said:

Oh man, there's a BUNCH of YouTube videos on this. Everything from PLA to some tailor-blended filaments for burn-out. But yeah aluminum, copper, and bronze all play really nicely with the process

 

The really crazy stuff is the SLA (stereolithography) printers that get micron layer heights. 

I really recommend OrcaSlicer for its built in tuning prints that are really helpful for building a filament profile. Covers everything from temperature towers, to pressure advance, to max flow rate calibrations. That's definitely more nitty gritty, but it's nice for tuning 

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I figure I'll mess around with the native software enough to kinda get a feel for things and then venture out to the other stuff once I've got an idea of what I'm doing. 

Posted (edited)
  On 11/9/2024 at 5:43 AM, NotActuallyALonghorn said:

I figure I'll mess around with the native software enough to kinda get a feel for things and then venture out to the other stuff once I've got an idea of what I'm doing. 

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Check out some of the advanced settings in your slicer - one that Orca and Bambu slicer have that I LOVE is variable layer heights. So for each model, it will dynamically adjust layer height to best suit the geometry. If it's a curve, it gets really thin layers - straight walls get thicker layers. It's shaved nearly an hour off of prints in some cases for me, without negatively impacting quality or strength 

Edited by Captainant
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Posted (edited)

Nice little home repair project - while visiting my in laws for Christmas I noticed a bracket broke in their fridge that held a drawer's front onto the glass shelf, and they had it bodged with some binder clips. Luckily they still had the broken piece so I took a reference picture and some critical measurements and CAD'ed up a new one in Fusion.92eebe9d-2070-485a-a208-d70fd532e1c3.thumb.jpg.02ebc96e210e21112c5945b6e8cc4d2f.jpgb95f9d1a-1e6f-47ad-9cbe-c083689f0843.thumb.jpg.2c21a3329eb31affdb559a91f71e8028.jpg

I did have to cut the part in half to fit it in my printer, but that won't affect function one bit

EDIT: lmao had bed ahesion issues with the 1/2 length part. So instead I chopped it up into 1/8th length peices and giving it another rip. Faster print time too, so that's nice

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Edited by Captainant
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Posted (edited)

Cool thread. I too remember Dr Wood. When I went through, his was a SolidWorks course with a bit of hand drawing/drafting. We had access to an SLS printer that made damn decent parts. 

I’ve got an ender3 pro and a 5 plus. The 3 is upgraded to do CF nylon but I’m a bit demotivated by the time & temperature required to dehydrate the shit. It feels pretty dangerous to leave unattended. Even once it’s dry, you gotta keep drying it while printing. And your ventilation setup needs to be good. Meanwhile PLA+ just steady fucks with basic drying and ventilation. 

Anyway, these are foam blasters made from PLA+... I think the pistol is a zinc v1 that shoots about 150 fps. The rifle is a Skewer that shoots about 200 fps. The build kits for these were both around $30-$50. 

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Edited by B00M
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Posted

Next printer will almost certainly be a multi filament Bambu. For better or worse, China is completely dominating the FDM consumer market. 

Posted
  On 12/26/2024 at 11:26 PM, B00M said:

Next printer will almost certainly be a multi filament Bambu. For better or worse, China is completely dominating the FDM consumer market. 

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The A1 mini with AMS is $310 through Jan 4. I just picked up a super tack build plate and they have some good sales rn

Posted
  On 12/27/2024 at 1:06 AM, Hamttx said:

I don’t know anything about this tech. Is there a commercial possibility for these machines? Or are they only intended for the hobbyist?

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They're in fairly massive use in industry for prototyping parts and have been for a decade or more.  A few companies make small runs of production parts using them, as well.

Posted
  On 12/27/2024 at 2:30 AM, TwiceHorn said:

They're in fairly massive use in industry for prototyping parts and have been for a decade or more.  A few companies make small runs of production parts using them, as well.

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What’s the initial investment to purchase everything needed to print something in the 4”x5” size? Not looking for specifics, just a general idea what type of financial commitment it takes to produce small items. Over/inder $5k

Posted
  On 12/27/2024 at 2:38 AM, Hamttx said:

What’s the initial investment to purchase everything needed to print something in the 4”x5” size? Not looking for specifics, just a general idea what type of financial commitment it takes to produce small items. Over/inder $5k

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Significantly under.  The guys above can fill you in on the latest and greatest for home use.

Posted

Qidi X-plus3 runs about $500 and is pretty much plug and play with the capability to print carbon fiber reenforced nylon. 1kg of PLA runs about $20-30. The more engineering grade materials will run twice that or more, and many of them will need to be dried in a dehydrator before and possibly during printing. But you can print out all the parts you need to roll your own stuff for things like that if you can force heating elements and other electronic bits. 

Posted (edited)
  On 12/27/2024 at 1:06 AM, Hamttx said:

I don’t know anything about this tech. Is there a commercial possibility for these machines? Or are they only intended for the hobbyist?

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10 years ago it was really just hobbyists, but there's all sorts of businesses popping up as 3D print farms for hire. They get a bunch of business for creating custom tooling jigs, short run products, and all sorts of etsy shit. And there's a ton of real practical engineering-grade peices that are built using FDM 3D printing, not to mention that basically every tooth implant is SLA 3D printed now because of the speed, low cost, and minimal post processing required.

  On 12/27/2024 at 2:38 AM, Hamttx said:

What’s the initial investment to purchase everything needed to print something in the 4”x5” size? Not looking for specifics, just a general idea what type of financial commitment it takes to produce small items. Over/inder $5k

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Literally Bambu's A1 mini is the sweet spot for this with a 180mm^3 (7 in^3) build volume. You can get just the printer for $200, or the combo with the 4 filament switcher for multi material printing for $350. I've got a high end Bambu printer for almost a couple years now, and it's been more of an appliance than a tool. I made model or get file, and printer makes it. Simple as. The A1 printers are every bit as fast as the high end printers, they just don't have an enclosure so they aren't really suited to printing engineering materials. But it'll print PLA, PETG, TPU, and probably even ASA with a $20 tent enclosure.

Edited by Captainant
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Posted (edited)
  On 12/27/2024 at 3:49 PM, Captainant said:

10 years ago it was really just hobbyists, but there's all sorts of businesses popping up as 3D print farms for hire. They get a bunch of business for creating custom tooling jigs, short run products, and all sorts of etsy shit. And there's a ton of real practical engineering-grade peices that are built using FDM 3D printing, not to mention that basically every tooth implant is SLA 3D printed now because of the speed, low cost, and minimal post processing required.

Literally Bambu's A1 mini is the sweet spot for this with a 180mm^3 (7 in^3) build volume. You can get just the printer for $200, or the combo with the 4 filament switcher for multi material printing for $350. I've got a high end Bambu printer for almost a couple years now, and it's been more of an appliance than a tool. I made model or get file, and printer makes it. Simple as. The A1 printers are every bit as fast as the high end printers, they just don't have an enclosure so they aren't really suited to printing engineering materials. But it'll print PLA, PETG, TPU, and probably even ASA with a $20 tent enclosure.

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What's the issue with "engineering materials"? Outgassing?

It seems that using filaments is the enabling basic technology.  That's a pretty good idea.  As I have mentioned, I did some patent work in this area probably 25 years ago and the state of the art was attempting to form planar layers.  I wonder who came up with the filament thing?

Edited by TwiceHorn
Posted (edited)
  On 12/27/2024 at 3:57 PM, TwiceHorn said:

What's the issue with "engineering materials"? Outgassing?

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The A1 mini's heat bed doesn't get hot enough so ABS and Nylon just warp right off the build plate, plus that material usually needs a heated enclosure AND a HOT heated bed, like 85 or 90C. The A1 mini's max build plate temp is 80C, and in practice it's not consistent past 70C.

The engineering materials also tend to be a little rougher on internal parts, so something like the X1 with its hardened steel gears and filament advance system are preferred. Carbon fiber or glass reinforced materials are incredibly tough - like production strength swing arms on cars tough - but they're hell on not hardened parts. Not to say you couldn't just upgrade your own printer to handle it, but honestly I'd rather just get the warranty on the equipment out of the box. 

Edited by Captainant
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Posted
  On 12/27/2024 at 3:57 PM, TwiceHorn said:

It seems that using filaments is the enabling basic technology.  That's a pretty good idea.  As I have mentioned, I did some patent work in this area probably 25 years ago and the state of the art was attempting to form planar layers.  I wonder who came up with the filament thing?

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Eh, the filament is just a convenient way to get a consistent stream of material to deposit. The real juice is in the print head and axis that you're printing on

 

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Posted (edited)
  On 12/27/2024 at 3:57 PM, TwiceHorn said:

What's the issue with "engineering materials"? Outgassing?

It seems that using filaments is the enabling basic technology.  That's a pretty good idea.  As I have mentioned, I did some patent work in this area probably 25 years ago and the state of the art was attempting to form planar layers.  I wonder who came up with the filament thing?

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dude these things aren’t a huge investment. Buy a good one that’s popular so all your questions will already be answered. Then use it to build functional shit. There are tons of amazing, free designs out there.

Edited by B00M
Posted (edited)

Ok, so I'm really enjoying the supertack print plate. I CAD'd and printed a big 250x225mm pantry organizer in PETG for baby snacks and there was very little warping over the whole print, which is tough to do with PETG and a surface area that big. And then to top it off, I printed the two 2x215x50mm drop in dividers and those super narrow objects stuck perfectly! Really impressed with the plate

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All together it was about $7 in plastic and my wife is happy to have EXACTLY what she wanted

 

Edited by Captainant
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Posted (edited)

If you wanna nerd out on filaments, this is a pretty interesting video on a new Tullomer filament that gives carbon fiber like stiffness and strength but is transparent to RF. It's nearly as strong as kevlar and it can be printed on a consumer printer 

$275 for 500 grams honestly isn't bad for something that tough and suitable for finished parts. Really interesting properties where the strength is proportional to properties in the print - layer height, pressure, nozzle temp - and if it's annealed. But there's whole new potential fields of advancement in variable stiffness in single peice parts to enable flexures and other novel mechanisms

Edited by Captainant
Posted
  On 12/27/2024 at 5:25 PM, Captainant said:

Eh, the filament is just a convenient way to get a consistent stream of material to deposit. The real juice is in the print head and axis that you're printing on

 

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Well, I think the print head follows the use of the filament to make up planar layers.  Some of the early solutions/attempt were pretty fubar.  One put down a layer of photoreactive polymer with a paper backing, then cut away the paper backing, exposed the photopolymer, and rinsed away the unexposed polymer, rinse, repeat.

The UT/Carl Deckard model of using particles seemed promising, as did a bath of photopolymer hardened by a laser.  But fairly clearly, neither really went anywhere.

Posted

HAL 9000 replica I made, going to put an Alexa Echo Flex inside it to use as a home automation device.  Because Alexa controls my gas fueled furnace, I figure the HAL-Alexa combo might turn off the pilot light and kill us in our sleep.  Miniature UT Towers I give out to little kids at home games.  Made 9 to give out for the Ohio State game, hopefully good karma from that.  UT tie I printed up, I may embarrass my son by wearing it at some point during the reception at his wedding next weekend.  Donut organizer case for my wife to hold paper clips/rubber bands.

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Posted
  On 1/21/2025 at 10:59 AM, 52-80 said:

is that from multi-material printer or did you combine separate pieces? im itching for MMU upgrade

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How much are you looking to spend and what do you have already? Creality looks to be releasing an MMU soon if you're already in that ecosystem

Posted

Loving my a1 combo I just received. Blows my older printers out of the water.

Which color/supplier have we found for reasonably close burnt orange filaments?

Posted

I must admit I'm pretty behind on my color pallete, but I'm really been appreciating the print quality improvement a simple filament dryer has been realizing for me. 

Consider grabbing one of those $30-40 heated ones on Amazon (I picked this one up for $30 on black Friday), it's really upped my print quality and made every spool behave very consistently. My TPU and PETG prints are under control with significantly less stringing and random oozing

Posted

Yeah I use those at work. Those quad reel sunlu ones are slick.

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I’m running that one next to the s5 because of the 2.85 filament. I inherited a stash that’s gone too long exposed and I’m trying nurse it back. I also condition tpu and pva in there.


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F those dremels. Those new ender 3 v3 se models down low are legit workhorses for beginners. Sub $200 and it’s just works.


And here’s my old v2 that’s been modded to hell and back but relegated to being in the way of other stuff


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Not pictured are my Neptune 4 pro and new a1 combo at the house. I think I just bricked the Neptune lol.

  • 2 weeks later...
Posted (edited)

I finally jumped on the 3D printing bandwagon over the holidays. I pondered getting a printer for a while and finally pulled the trigger. Within minutes I  considered cancelling the order because I couldn’t figure out what I’d print after I knocked out the handful of things that originally convinced me I MUST have a 3D printer. 
 

Turns out I figured it out. I’m knee deep into Gridfinity and starting to dip my toe into Multiboard. 

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Edited by Ramblyn
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