I 3d printed a moon

So I found this on-line and printed it. It was not too difficult to get it to print. The first run I tried with no supports. It was in the very beginning and I could see it was trying to print in mid air off the build plate. Not good but not much wasted. So then I sliced it with a brim and supports. I removed a good chunk of supports before slicing and probably could have taken more away but it was printing fine so I let it go. After 30 hours it was done. Here is the video of the time-lapse of the print job.

Today I decided to check out how it looks illuminated. I did not yet drill a hole to insert any LEDs. I tried just placing what I want to use against the print but it was way too dim to see anything then I thought try your bicycle light that is 1200 lumen's. So that is what I did. It looks pretty good this way. But I still want to try the RGB LEDs. So I guess I will be drilling a hole in this and putting the LEDs inside. I don[t think it will be bright enough but till I do it I won't know for sure.

Depending on how all my experiments work out I will then decided how to make the base.

More experimenting to see how best to display this. The problem will be in a well lit room. I think I will have to use a LED flash light. I really did not want something like that but if that is what I'll have to do. Then that is how it is done. But I am still experimenting with different things.

Thanks for looking
Jim

3D Printing Airflow Part 2

Well what I was printing was not for my printer! As the file contains many different parts for different printers with different upgrades and parts. Also what I read about the airflow was outdated and the part had been updated so that did not help. What I ended up doing was actually reading the info with the files to figure out what was needed rather then looking at the 3d objects and saying that looks like that part.

Maybe it is in my head but I do believe that with the nozzle airflow now coming in from both sides rather then one side it prints cleaner and nicer. The PLA coming out is now being cooled more uniformly and as such I don't get the strings anymore. They were where the PLA was pulled away as the head retracted and you would get little hairy strings at times attached. I have not seen them on the prints since I installed all the airflow parts. That is a plus. Less cleanup.

I have also discovered tree supports which is in the experimental section of cura 3.6.0 that I use to slice the models. While that almost hides the print it makes getting the supports off to be a cleaner experience.

The airflow is two parts. The base for the extruder fan and the duct for the nozzle.

The base video

The duct video

The hot end before with the standard parts. The extruder fan in front and to the right the tip fan which you can't really see.

The old parts removed and the new part in place with the fans.

The two pieces printed. The tip fan is now in front and the duct goes to both left and right so the air flow comes from both sides.

Thanks for looking
Jim

3D Printing air flow for Ender 3 Extruder

First piece done. I have decided since I updated the firmware on the ender 3 to TH3D to provide thermal runaway protection. The stock Ender 3 does not have this in the firmware. Why? That is a good question. But it does not matter now. I had to first take my arduino and connect it to the 3d printer internally since the Ender printer did not have a boot-loader. So I had to program the arduino to program the boot loader to the board. Once I did that I was able to disconnect the arduino and hook directly to the Ender with the laptop and then load up the TH3D firmware which provides the thermal runaway protection. So lets see if printing the new airflow extruder pieces improves the print.

SO this is time-lapse comes from octoprint which runs on a Raspberry PI that I have connected to the printer. It takes this cheap 3D printer and puts it on the web in my house. I can now use an SSH tunnel into my home to monitor/stop/start print jobs. Octoprint also streams my prints to youtube so I can watch them from anywhere since I don't want to put my 3d printer on the web for the whole world to hack.

This is the first piece which is for the fan that cools the actual hot end. I am now printing the air duct for where the filament comes out the nozzle.

Groot AIR Plant pot

I found this in thingiverse  I had blue already loaded up and pretty new so I printed it in blue. I used cura to slice it.  This took about 12 hours to print. Video is a timelapse from octoprint I run on a Raspberry PI connected to the printer to give my 3d printer a web front end to print from and monitor.




Here is a picture with an air plant in it.

Another set

I've never actually ever have gone back and did a pattern more than once. I promised to make one of these for my wife since I was stack cutting thse at Christmas and I had too many in the pile and I lost a bunch of them when I pushed too hard against the blade. When you do that the blade will curve and when that happens you end up cutting at an angle. For my stack it ment the lower layers where ruined from the flex. So I have done a couple more of these. I was able to stack these as just two and was able to complete the cuts in a signle day. Had a nice warm day here today so it was a good day to cut.

My usual Watco Natural Danish Oil.

I need to figure out what I am doing for the 2019 NC State Fair and get that done earlier then in previous years. Still deciding. I have a bunch of patterns just have to decide.

Tahnks for looking
Jim