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:

Chessbot Hero - White

I finally got around to doing the white version of the Chessbot Hero.

I am really disliking this white ABS filament. It's not sticking well (at all!) to the build plate, and I had to up the extrusion rate by 12% relative to the black ABS filament to get things looking half-way decent. Additionally, it seems relatively brittle. I spent several hours this weekend working on adjusting the printer to get a successful print.

I printed this one at its original scale, and it actually snapped together pretty well (one of the knights cracked in the process, unfortunately). This one can actually stand, unlike the black version, which I printed with a 1.5 scaling factor:

Original file here.
Nozzle: 220C
Bed: 100C
Chamber: 50C
Layer height: 0.2mm
Speed: 40mm/s
Time: 6 hours
Material: Hatchbox ABS

Unfortunately, the next print I attempted resulted in a jammed nozzle. 

LED Accent Lamp

I have had this project in the back of my mind for a couple months, ever since seeing something similar pop up for $200. I picked up the electronics from China a while ago, but my ideas for the lamp body kept getting more and more complex. I finally decided to just knock this out over the weekend as a proof-of-concept.

I picked up a seven-foot length of trim with the cross-section I needed, and painted it white:

I then added three five-foot strips of RGB+WW (Red Green Blue + Warm White) LED strips and wired each strip to its own controller:

I shoved all the electronics in a section of vinyl drain pipe:

And then put the lamp in the corner.

Total cost was around $60.

There are a couple things I would do differently for a second version: the adhesive on the LED strips is pretty bad. I tacked the top and bottom of each strip in place with superglue, which is probably the only reason the LED strips have not fallen down already. Also, if I did this again, I would buy proper connectors for the LED strips rather than relying on my suspect soldering skills. Finally, using three controllers rather than one added $25 to the bill of materials, without adding a whole lot of functionality.

One interesting point: by setting one strip each to Red, Blue and Green, the light looks white, except at the edges.

But overall, I am very pleased without this project turned out!

Printer is Running Again!

Unfortunately, I needed the kick-in-the-butt of my Dad coming out for a visit to prompt me to tear down and fix my printer.

I pulled off the heated-enclosure brackets and lifted the bed in order to access the stepper motors, then put locktite on all the motor pulleys.

I also worked on the heat source for the heated chamber. Having two 150 watt bulbs right next to each other and inside a metal box concentrated the heat onto the top plate worse than I had realized. Here's the damage, viewed from below with the bulbs and fixtures removed:

To prevent this from happening again, I covered the bottom of the top plate with aluminum tape:

Later on, I'll clean it up and add some ceramic insulation around the bulb fixtures (I have to find it again - it got lost in my sea of stuff).

After a quick re-assembly (and some really quick calibration), I ran the file for "knurled bolt and nut", this time with white filament. All things considered, it turned out pretty well, though not as nice as the previous two I made.

All in all, it was some good male bonding, and Dad took the bolt and nut home as a souvenir!