Ender 3 Plotter Attachment For Printing Onto Cassettes

March 9, 2024 by Maya Posch 15 Comments

One way to look at FDM 3D printers is as machines that turn filament into three-dimensional objects, but at their core they are much more versatile than that. Since they can move just about any tool around in 3D space, you can also use them for plotter tasks, a fact that [Geoffrey Gao] made use of when he had to write labels for a stack of music tapes. The resulting FS-Plotter project is based around a Creality Ender 3 FDM printer. Standard g-code from PrusaSlicer is used to move a pen around, after the latter has been fitted into a (3D-printed) spring-loaded fixture.

The cassette tape is fitted into its own fixture that is attached to the printer bed to hold it in place, while the writing utensil can move in its spring-loaded fixture to account for some unevenness on the surface it’s writing on. In the linked GitHub project a PrusaSlicer profile is provided that can generate 2D plotter Gcode. Where [Geoffrey] says that this project is very useful to him as a musician is that it enables him to make small runs of tapes with professional printing, without running into extra expenses.

Beyond putting a writing utensil into the holder, it could also be used for light engraving and similar tasks, while still making it possible to switch between the FDM hotend and this plotter attachment as needed. For about $30 in parts, it doesn’t seem like a bad deal to get a small-ish plotter and maybe give that old Ender 3 a second life.

Micro Jeep Model Kit Is Both Business Card And Portfolio

March 7, 2024 by Donald Papp 12 Comments

When finding work in product design and prototyping, two things are important to have at hand: a business card, and a sample of one’s work. If one can combine those, even better. Make it unique and eye-catching, and you’re really onto something. That seems to have been the idea behind [agepbiz]’s 1:64 scale micro Jeep model kit that serves as an “overcomplicated” business card.

Complete with box and labels in a shrink-wrapped package.

At its heart, the kit is a little print-in-place model kit that looks a lot like larger injection-molded model kits. Completing it is a custom-made box with custom labels, and it’s even shrink-wrapped. The whole thing fits easily in the palm of a hand.

There’s a lot of different tools effectively used to make the whole thing. The model card itself is 3D printed in multiple filament colors, and the box is constructed from carefully glued cardstock. The labels are custom printed, and a craft cutter (which has multiple uses for a hobbyist) takes care of all the precise cutting. It’s an awfully slick presentation, and the contents do not disappoint.

Get a closer look in the video, embedded just below. And if you like what you see, you’re in luck because we’ve seen [agepbiz]’s work before in this mini jet fighter, complete with blister pack.

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Design Tips To Hide Layer Lines In 3D Printed Parts

March 4, 2024 by Donald Papp 31 Comments

[Slant 3D] knows a lot about optimizing 3D prints so that they can be cranked out reliably with minimal need for post-processing, and in this short video he uses a cube as a simple example of how a few design changes can not only optimize for production, but can even hide layer lines pretty effectively.

Just to be perfectly clear, layer lines cannot be eliminated entirely without some kind of post-processing. But [Slant 3D]’s tips sure goes a long way toward making a part lose that obvious 3D-printed “look”. They also dovetail nicely with advice on how to optimize cranking out high numbers of parts in a print farm.

Adding texture to the outer layer is especially effective when combined with non-traditional part orientations.

One simple way to avoid visible layer lines is to put some kind of texture onto the part. This can be modeled into the part’s surface, or the slicer software can be used to modify the exterior of the print to add a texture such as a geometric pattern or by applying a fuzzy skin modifier.

Printing a texture onto the exterior is great, but the outcome can be even further improved by also printing the object in a non-traditional orientation.

Using a cube as an example, printing the cube on a corner has the advantage of putting the layer lines in a different orientation as well as minimizing the contact area on the print bed. This applies the texture across more of the part, and looks less obviously 3D printed in the process. Minimizing bed adhesion also makes parts much easier to remove, which has obvious benefits for production. [Slant 3D] points out that performing these operations on a 3D-printed part is essentially free.

A few other optimizations for production involve rounding sharp corners to optimize tool travel paths, and putting a slight chamfer on the bottom of parts to avoid any elephant foot distortion (Elephant’s foot can be compensated for, but simply putting a slight chamfer on a part is a design change that helps avoid accounting for machine-to-machine variance.)

Even if one has no need to optimize for high production volume, the tips on hiding layer lines with design changes is great advice. Watch it all in action in the short video, embedded below.

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On The Merits Of A Solid-State Dehumidifier Filament Dry Box

March 2, 2024 by Maya Posch 38 Comments

How good are ion membrane dehumidifiers for keeping FDM filament dry and ready for printing? This is the question which [Stefan] at CNC Kitchen sought to answer in a recent video. Like many of us, he was inspired by a video which [Big Clive] made a while ago in which said dehumidifiers were demonstrated for keeping an enclosure free from moisture. Yet would they be able to tackle the much bigger drying job of one or more spools of filament? Thanks to some free samples sent by Rosahl, [Stefan] was able to start answering this question.

Performance of desiccants and dehumidifier element. (Credit CNC Kitchen)

In the experiments, he used the smaller RS1 (€36.25 a piece) for a single spool container, and the larger MDL-3 (€169) with a Bambu Lab AMS multi-spool unit. Normally such an AMS has three big containers with silica desiccant in it that have to be regularly swapped out, but he modified one AMS to only have the big MDL-3 membrane to dehumidify. A second AMS was left with older silica in its containers, and a third got fresh silica, allowing for some benchmarking between the three units.

The results say a lot, with the initial empty AMS test showing the older silica desiccants topping out quickly and leaving the fresh silica and the membrane dehumidifier to go neck to neck. This is not the usual scenario in which you’d use these dehumidification methods of course, and the small-scale test with the RS1 showed that with a full filament spool in the box, humidity inside the container would only drop very gradually as more and more moisture replaced what was removed from the air. In particular the cardboard element of the spool being used was suspected of being one of the biggest sources of moisture.

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Radioactive 3D Printed Flower Glows And Glows

February 26, 2024 by Al Williams 7 Comments

Glow-in-the-dark projects aren’t that uncommon. You can even get glow-in-the-dark PLA filament. However, those common glowing items require a charge from light, and the glow fades very quickly. [Ogrinz Labs] wasn’t satisfied with that. His “Night Blossom” 3D-printed flower glows using radioactive tritium and will continue to glow for decades.

Tritium vials are available and often show up in watches for nighttime visibility. The glow doesn’t actually come directly from the radioactive tritium (an isotope of hydrogen). Instead, the radioactive particles excite phosphor, which glows in the visible spectrum.

Once you have the vials, it is easy to understand how to finish off the project. The flower contains some long tubes inside each petal. There are also a few tiny vials in the center. The whole assembly goes together with glue.

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3D printed test jig to determine the yield point of a centrally loaded 3D printed beam.

One Object To Print, But So Many Settings!

February 25, 2024 by Dave Rowntree 12 Comments

When working with an FDM 3D printer your first prints are likely trinkets where strength is less relevant than surface quality. Later on when attempting more structural prints, the settings become very important, and quite frankly rather bewildering. A few attempts have been made over the years to determine in quantifiable terms, how these settings affect results and here is another such experiment, this time from Youtuber 3DPrinterAcademy looking specifically at the effect of wall count, infill density and the infill pattern upon the strength of a simple beam when subjected to a midpoint load.

A tray of 3D printing infill patterns available in mainstream slicers — Modern slicers can produce many infill patterns, but the effect on real world results are not obvious

When setting up a print, many people will stick to the same few profiles, with a little variety in wall count and infill density, but generally keep things consistent. This works well, up to a point, and that point is when you want to print something significantly different in size, structure or function. The slicer software is usually very helpful in explaining the effect of tweaking the numbers upon how the print is formed, but not too great at explaining the result of this in real life, since it can’t know your application. As far as the slicer is concerned your object is a shape that will be turned into slices, internal spaces, outlines and support structures. It doesn’t know whether you’re making a keyfob or a bearing holder, and cannot help you get the settings right for each application. Perhaps upcoming AI applications will be trained upon all these experimental results and be fed back into the slicing software, but for now, we’ll just have to go with experience and experiment. Continue reading “One Object To Print, But So Many Settings!” →

Multicolor Resin Prints: Give It A Shot

February 20, 2024 by Al Williams 8 Comments

[Thomas TEMPE] has been making two-color resin prints. While printing in multiple colors is old hat for FDM printers, the way resin printers work makes it a more difficult proposition. [Thomas] has a simple solution. First, he prints an item with a cavity where he would like the second color. Then, after printing, he fills the cavity with a different color resin using a syringe and cures it. Simple, really.

Of course, it is all about technique. For fine lines, you’ll want a smaller needle, and you flood the area with the alternate resin and wipe away the excess. For wider lines, you simply fill the cavity from a larger syringe.

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