Category 3D Printing

I have a good chunk of vacation time to use up before my annual rollover in mid-August.  I also have a bunch of small projects on my mental to do list that would benefit from taking a few long weekends.  I actually had hoped to either take today or Monday off to facilitate just that but can’t because of various work commitments both days.  Don’t get me wrong, having to find ways to jam in vacation time is a good problem to have but it is a problem nonetheless.

Last night in addition to cranking out more 3D prints I recorded a video about a recent safety issue with newly produced Gotway wheels.  Well actually I recorded the video twice.  The first time I neglected to remember that I had the camcorder set to time lapse mode so my 10 minute video got compressed into 10 seconds of footage.  The video talks about the very dangerous problem where going over a very minor bump can cause a Gotway wheel to oscillate violently back and forth, throwing the rider to the ground.

Marty, one of my online EUC buddies had just received a brand new Gotway Msuper and was filming as he took it out for it’s first real test ride.  As he crossed a small bump between the road and sidewalk ramp his wheel shook rapidly and tossed him hard onto the sidewalk.  He screwed up his wrist pretty bad as well as his shoulder.  Anyway my video outlines my thoughts about the whole ordeal and why I plan to get a Kingsong 16S for my next wheel instead of dipping back into the Gotway world.  I have plenty of ways to hurt myself already, I don’t need a wheel failure to do it for me.

This weekend has a lot of 3D printing and a lot of sweaty work ahead of it. Yay.

So Cindy and I have been 3D printing day and night, printing parts for her Widowmaker gun.  Yesterday a flaw in our set up was revealed when one of our frequent summer power blips killed a print that was over halfway done.  I immediately ordered a small UPS that should prevent this scenario from repeating.  I also ordered another Night Owl camera to add to the house security DVR that will be focused on the 3D printer so jobs can be monitored remotely. Otherwise we seem to have a good system in place.

We are pumping out parts pretty regularly, at least two per day.  My main job is getting the 3D models configured and printing.  Cindy has been doing the post print work which includes cleaning up the pieces after removing the support material and eventually assembling it all together. The printed parts look really sharp, I’m hoping for an equally sharp outcome.  At this point I have almost entirely consumed my one kilogram reel of silver PLA filament.  It’s a good thing I have another one on the way.

So once again there were some downpours yesterday at the house, retarding my battle against standing water in the coop yard.  The pump I have back there seems to be very good quality.  It has been running around the clock for close to a week without issue.  The forecast calls for roughly a three day break from precipitation which would be fantastic.  The combo of bright hot/sun combined with pumping water elsewhere should be able to empty out the water in that period of time. hopefully.

Of course the long term solution to this problem is to raise the ground level in that area.  Trying to do it one 40 pound bag of topsoil at a time would be rather brutal but might be the eventual route I have to take.

So due to a mechanical issue my buddy’s flight was postponed till today instead of yesterday so we had Lucky in the house for an extra night which Elsa definitely was happy about.  The contrast between how Elsa was when Lucky first came in the house till now is hilarious.  She now wrestles and plays with Lucky constantly and he has clearly been accepted into Elsa’s elite inner circle of trust.

Don will be coming to pick up Lucky around mid-day while Cindy is home so I said my goodbye’s to him before I left for work.  He is such a good and loving dog, it breaks my heart that he has to be associated with such a painful event like what happened Friday.  However I didn’t blame him then and I don’t blame him now.

So there again was a lot of 3d printing work last night.  Cindy and I are learning as we go.  With the gun I am trying to make for Cindy’s costume I came against a piece that was far too big to print at 100% size.  It was even too big to print at 80% scale like I did with the other parts I have made so far.  I found if I shrunk it to 67% it would just fit.

I started the print job but then realized it was sort of dumb for two reasons.  All of the pieces need to be printed at the same scale so if I print this piece at 67% it would mean I would need to reprint the other pieces I already completed as well to the same scale which would be a pain. Plus reducing the model size that much would make the gun look too tiny I think.

So I instead did my first slicing job.  I reset the big part to 80% scale which put a good portion of the model outside the printable range.  I then did a slice on the Z axis, lopping off about 25% of the top.  I then broke the bottom and top sections into their own print file.

I printed the larger section over night.  It took close to nine hours to complete but turned out well.  I am now printing the chopped off section which Cindy will clean up and glue to the first part to make it whole again.

I also figured out a way to finally print some parts that I failed at a half dozen times before.  I was able to separate the four parts and print them on their ends instead of flat.  Sure it used extra support material but the end product was pretty good.  I am happy that I am slowly understanding some of the basics so I can come up with ways to get around obstacles as they pop up. Since we have never done this before we are hoping it all turns out half decent.  The quality of the printed parts so far has been really good for a $500 device.