Charizard - More PETG

Man, I'm liking this PETG. There's a fair amount of stringing, but you can actually bend and flex those wings!

Source: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1716369

Nintendo Switch Stand - First Print in PETG!

Now that Kid's Day was successfully complete, I was ready to experiment. I broke out my first roll of PETG - bright orange. I printed out a little Charmander to make sure things looked ok:

Source: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:323038

Then I knocked out the Nintendo Switch Stand:

Source: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2164088

The customer (a dude at my office) was pleased!

Bring Your Child to Work Day

The engineering firm I work for participates in "Bring Your Child to Work Day" each year, and this year I was "volunteered" to bring in my 3D printer.

So I packed up my Rostock and all the random 3D printed crap I had laying around, and set it up at the office:

The kids loved it! A lot of parents told me the next day that their kids' christmas lists got a lot more expensive over night :-)

I managed to print out four pokemon (in color!) before I packed up the printer to take home:

If I had been thinking ahead, I would have made a bunch more before hand. As it was, I printed off a tray of pikachus the next night, and gave them to the kids' parents the next day. I got a lot of "Thank you!"s.

Source files here: https://www.thingiverse.com/FLOWALISTIK/designs

A Few Gifts

Source: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1510605

Source: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2238443

New Faceplate on Printer

Ever since I built my heated build chamber, I've had the switch and temperature controller just hanging loose:

I finally got around to modeling a new faceplate in AutoDesk Fusion 360. I printed it out, and it worked perfectly the first time!

Eggbot for Easter

I made an Eggbot to decorate Easter Eggs!

The first eggbot I saw was the one made by the fine folks at EvilMadScientist.com. It shares a lot of design principles with 3D printers, and I wanted to make one ever since I saw it. This year, I finally remembered to get started in time.

I found a design I liked on Thingiverse, and ordered the control board from EvilMadScientist.com for $50. I had all the other parts already, although I later got some better springs and bearings.

Overall, it worked great, and was quite a hit!

Oh Yeah: We're having another boy later this year!

OctoPrint Up and Running!

I've been a Patreon sponsor of OctoPrint for months now, but I finally got it up and running on my printer. It's running on a raspberry pi 3 that is now attached to the Rostock's frame.

I also set up a client Android app, called Printoid.

I can now monitor a print remotely, from any computer or phone on my network!

Here's my temporary camera setup:

A little later, I have a much nicer setup:

The camera is on a gooseneck lamp from IKEA. I put black electrical tape on the camera ribbon cable to keep it from reflecting in timelapses.

All-Metal Hotend (with Accelerometer!) and Berd-Air Layer Cooling

I upgraded my printer with an all-metal hotend and a new cooling system!

The new Hotend is the HE280, from the people that designed my printer. It wasn't immediately obvious to me what the new max temp was (my old hot end maxed out at 235, and some all metal hotends go up to 300). It turns out the recommended max temp is right there in the name: Hot End 280 - 280°C is the max temp. This will allow me to print in PETG and High Impact PolyStyrene (HIPS) and even nylons!

Probably the most important part of this upgrade is the accelerometer that's built into the new hot end. This accelerometer allows super easy calibration of the Z-height (and easier bed leveling). The accelerometer can detect when the nozzle "taps" against the glass bed:

I have never had the bed level calibrated this well before:

Source file: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:50505

The new cooling system is much more compact than the old fan system. It's the Berd Air from The Maker Hive. It uses a vacuum pump running in reverse to pipe cool air down to the nozzle. Ideally, all the cool air hits the deposited plastic, and none of it hits the hot nozzle. Here's a picture of the air pump, nestled nicely in rat's nest of wires:

I also added some bungie cords to keep the wire harnesses from interferring with the endstops: