Designed a robust Master Spool that is easy to print
  • solarbird solarbird Now 100%

    I've printed a couple of spools at different sizes, it's really kind of nice to have them. Particularly smaller spools for smaller sample lengths, super worth it.

    But another thing you can do is just print a little single-wall cylinder that friction fits inside one of your existing spools, then cut the existing (non-printed) spool in half down the middle and use the cylinder as a friction-fit sleeve to hold the two halves together. That also gives you the same functionality. It's not as cool but it saves on filament? ^_^

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  • Dual Chamber Transverse Ocarina
  • solarbird solarbird Now 100%

    Eyyy, someone else playing with PHA!

    I have a bunch of PHA commentary (and experimentation) over on the kbin 3d-printing group:

    https://kbin.social/m/3DPrinting/t/40862/PHA-filament-heat-resistance-testing

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  • Bed Mesh Unsalvageable?
  • solarbird solarbird Now 100%

    Yeah, under the build plate there are four bolts pointing down. Those bolts.

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  • *Permanently Deleted*
  • solarbird solarbird Now 100%

    Or stash bricks of it in dead salt mines.

    Seriously. All the carbon in it comes from plants which means it came from CO2 in the atmosphere. Stored this way, it's a medium-term (as in hundreds of years) carbon store.

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  • *Permanently Deleted*
  • solarbird solarbird Now 100%

    My next printer will be multifilament ^_^

    I'm already doing like four-colour prints with my 3v2 but obviously there are severe limits in placement.

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  • Bed Mesh Unsalvageable?
  • solarbird solarbird Now 100%

    It has pegs but I was able to see that there are rather typical screw heads in the heating plate to hold it down onto the bed's support frame, and if you look you can see the bolt ends coming down out of the underside of the supporting arms.

    So I think what's here is pretty simple: regular bolts with fixed length spacer tubes around them.

    And that means that OP should be able to sort this out with, say, the right collection of 0.5mm-thick washers. One on the front left screw, three on the right rear screw, uh, six on the back left screw should get close enough for the mesh to handle the remaining difference.

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  • Incredibly Niche: I made a tray and rack for the Ambient Weather wireless outdoor particulate air quality monitor
  • solarbird solarbird Now 100%

    HVAC assist system. It cut our peak electricity bill by 40% year over year under similar conditions, too, with substantially better performance.

    But really it's very simple. All I'm doing is improving the effectiveness of very traditional methods of temperature control by being more accurate and much more aggressive about exchanging air in and out when appropriate. Obviously in the middle of a 90-110F heat wave that's not going to matter, so it's more of a northern thing - but it really does a great deal in a lot of climates. (And in spring and autumn in more southern climates, I suppose.)

    One of the key elements is that outdoor temperature varies a lot from point to point on the property, so we have air exchange measured at five points around the house, keyed to local indoor vs. local outdoor air temperature. (And air quality and a few other things, of course.) The actual air exchange is a combination of the original air-exchange system plus just opening and closing windows. We overcool at night with air exchange so we're always below ambient outdoor temperature during the day.

    It's remarkably effective. We went from... well, it varied a lot, but +7 to +10 F above ambient to -7 to -5 below. (I was doing all this in C internally but F because I was talking about it to Americans.)

    Again, I'm in an environment where this is particularly effective, but it costs so little and saves so much money and energy use I have to think it has some general utility many places.

    Here are some of my posts about it:

    https://solarbird.net/blog/tag/ambient-hvac/

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  • Is there a clone worth getting?
  • solarbird solarbird Now 100%

    People sell them on craigslist fairly often, if you have that. Just be honest about the problems. It'll also help if you kept the original parts and sell them with it.

    (I don't suppose you're in Seattle, are you?)

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  • Incredibly Niche: I made a tray and rack for the Ambient Weather wireless outdoor particulate air quality monitor
  • solarbird solarbird Now 100%

    Yeah, I guess that makes sense. More sense than the Magic Mouse, at least. xD

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  • Incredibly Niche: I made a tray and rack for the Ambient Weather wireless outdoor particulate air quality monitor
  • solarbird solarbird Now 100%

    Thanks! And honestly it's one of the best parts of 3D printing, being able to come up with things like this.

    The really annoying part is that the indoor matching sensor, the companion to this one? That USB port sticks out the side, like it was designed by a sane person. xD

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  • www.thingiverse.com

    I know this is incredibly niche but if you need it, you kinda really need it. xD Anyway, as part of my ongoing air-exchange-based HVAC project, I have an outdoor air quality sensor from Ambient Weather (no sponsorship, I bought with my own money, etc). It's battery/solar powered, and that's fine... except for the part where that doesn't work here in the winter. We just don't get enough sun or close to it. But it plugs in to charge and keeps working when plugged in, so winner winner chicken dinner, right? WRONG! Because to do that you have to take the bottom off the case, and then, the charge plug sticks directly out from the bottom facing down, like a goddamn Apple Magic Mouse. So maybe I can't fix the mouse, but I can fix *this*, and so I have made a printable tray and rack system that lets you use it that way without it being stupid. Enjoy! [https://cdn.thingiverse.com/assets/8c/fc/44/4e/16/fceb8b64-655b-4677-9233-0eb649cab5a9.jpg](https://cdn.thingiverse.com/assets/8c/fc/44/4e/16/fceb8b64-655b-4677-9233-0eb649cab5a9.jpg)

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    9
    Sticky residue buildup in PTFE Tube
  • solarbird solarbird Now 100%

    Y'know just in general I really strongly recommend going all-metal or better bimetallic on your hot end? It cleared up so many problems for me. The Ender 3-series hotends really aren't bad if you just back that PTFE up a bit.

    I like this one (no affiliation other than I bought one) quite a lot, and I got it on sale so it was cheaper than the current price. But even at the current price I'd definitely say it's still worth it.

    1
  • 3d printing bug
  • solarbird solarbird Now 100%

    ...wow. okay. wow. xD

    1
  • I call him Jim Carey Kirk. Am I wrong?
  • solarbird solarbird Now 100%

    Absolutely not. I have nothing against the actor but yeah. Jim Carey every time.

    3
  • Mini PC case
  • solarbird solarbird Now 100%

    If you're willing to get into annealing, I've had good service from annealed HTPLA in high temperature/humidity and even overpressure environments. I'm three years into a build that gets multiple hours of use in such conditions a week and it's held up fine. There have been other problems, but nothing related to bad behaviour out of the HTPLA.

    1
  • New address sign, uses WLED.
  • solarbird solarbird Now 100%

    oh that's pretty great :D

    When my house got electricity in 1924, they got a backlit front light for over the doorway. It wasn't in good shape when we found it, but it was there, and I got it back together - except for the lighting. Which this really, really makes me want to fix now. :D

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  • Do people actually tune their printer for each new roll of filament?
  • solarbird solarbird Now 100%

    Nah, but I will print a temperature tower if it's a new filament - even if it's very similar to a filament I've had before. (As long as it's not an identical replacement. If it's an identical replacement and the previous isn't ancient, I won't even do that.)

    1
  • https://solarbird.net/blog/2023/06/30/toho-the-stamp-of-quality/

    Over on Mastodon - though obviously anyone anywhere can participate - there's a weekly monster-film watching event called [#Monsterdon](https://kbin.social/tag/Monsterdon) where we all watch a movie together and comment as it's running. One of the regulars made a bingo card for last Sunday's movie, and being a Godzilla movie, I of course had to make 3D-printable TOHO stamps to go with it. I used 20% wood-infill PHA, since it's got that little bit of softness that helps with things like stamps, and 20% wood infill variant to help take up ink. Even with an FDM printer and a 0.6mm nozzle I was able to get a very usable/functional result! The positive is only 20mm across (and the negative/invert only a couple of millimetres more) and yet detail is reasonably preserved. First layer is extremely important, though I guess that goes without saying. But I think you can make some decent - not amazing, not as good as real rubber stamp material, but decent - stamps this way if you wanted. [image of stamps and bingo card](https://solarbird.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/a0ea6812d5533573-1.jpeg)

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    0
    Is an instant glue good enough for PLA?
  • solarbird solarbird Now 100%

    Having done this, you can also get a "3D pen" that will work with your filament and that'll work decently well for small areas, and you can also use it to fill in gaps. Overheat the PLA a bit and work fast.

    3
  • Is this new? Latest roll of filament came on a cardboard spool
  • solarbird solarbird Now 100%

    Like you, I've got a little assortment of spools I either printed or modified for this purpose - and in different sizes - and they work great. I'm at the point of getting spoolless filament when I can and I haven't seen a downside yet.

    But if I'm going to get a new spool with my filaments, I'd prefer it be cardboard.

    1
  • Is this new? Latest roll of filament came on a cardboard spool
  • solarbird solarbird Now 100%

    Yep, and that was like... the second thing I did for my printer. Since then I've gone to printing out of a warming box, but I still use the roller occasionally and I'm still glad I did it, it solved problems.

    1
  • 150x150x400mm Ender 2
  • solarbird solarbird Now 85%

    Oh wow, that looks hilarious, but in a fuck yeah you mad lad way. Is it the tower resonating or the part you're printing? If it's the tower I'd bet money you could solve the last of the problems with some kind of wall attachment for the tower. (Clip if you actually do haul it around, bracket if you don't.)

    I had similarly good luck with a height mod on my 3V2 but that thing has a lot more mass to it, I expected it to work. I would not have expected this to work.

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  • solarbird Now
    2 32

    solarbird

    solarbird@ kbin.social

    Member of multiple generations of migration waves. Also @moira and formerly solarbird on reddit. If federation starts working, I'll probably mostly interact from mastodon, or may even set up my own kbin. (Which is what I did with Mastodon.) We'll see. ^_^