My funnel in an empty jar
I made a 'Screwable Jewelry Box' or as I like calling it, a twisty box
I finally got the printer running to the level where I felt confident running another copy of this part off. Let me tell you, it's a cool item!
The patterning from printing make the seam between the two halves near invisible when printed in clear PLA.
This particular version is done at 150% size of the larger of the three available at http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:413 because the 'normal' large size won't hold all my Catan pieces for 1 color. 125% may be a better size, as there is a lot of room left over in this big one.
I did this at .2mm layer height with a cooling fan. Took maybe 6 hours for both halves?
Printing a twisted box.
this thing is big. and you can’t see the seem that separates the two halves.
A twisted box full of parts.
Sweet! This twisted box could be more fun than a barrel of monkeys! Each Catan part set will have a matching color box.
There you can see the line between the two halves.
Printed out a set of Catan board pieces
I started to hand forge a set a while back, and then machine the bases on my UNImat but this is so much easier.
Wiggle my fingers a little bit, and out comes http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:770 It doesn't get any easier!
These are printed in natural PLA at .2mm layer height with .2 infil. 3 solid layers and perimeters. A fan blowing pretty good on them so they have nice clean tops. Looks pretty good!
I set up a live video feed of my printer at http://www.justin.tv/creuzerm so I could monitor the build from upstairs on the computer in the kitchen. I can't seem to get a view working from my android phone.
The city pieces on the print bed.
One full set. They need to be cleaned up yet, bits of tape removed, bubbly edges filed down. Probably take me less than 10 minutes to make all of these look near perfect.
Settlements on the print bed with a pile of the roads (done in 2 print sessions)
Settlement popped loose and presented so you can see how nice they look.
A friend wanted some hard drive brackets
He looked online, and the cheapest he could find them where about $4.75 a set, shipped.
So we looked at the ever-useful ThingiVerse and found http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:13472 which are the brackets he needed. So I printed him up a few sets.
This is my first 'print for hire'. He's pretty excited that the printer can be used for making actual, useful things. Things that solve problems. Like hard drives not fitting into a computer.
My cost per set is about $0.85. So I saved my friend $15-20 between the 5 sets I printed him.
I gave him these. But I am tying to figure out a fair price to charge for prints. I obviously need to cover my costs, both in plastic and electricity. There is also some setup time for me. There is some wear and tear on the machine. There is also an opportunity cost, as it could be printing out things for me!
I don't expect to get rich on the machine, but I would like to make enough to keep me covered for spare parts and consumables.
Thoughts?
The computer went to sleep near the end of the print and the printer cooled off with the nozzle touching the print. Trying to lift the Z axis, it picked the part right off the bed.
Don’t let the host computer sleep on the job or a potential for bad things happening exist. Luckily, this had a happy ending.
Printing 2 at a time. I have a torque to my frame that I can’t figure out how to get rid of, so my edges are unusable for me at the moment or I could have printed them all at the same time.
.4 infill with 3 layers seems to have put too much material down and gave me a rough finish on the flat part.
only 2 solid layers seems to have given me enough ‘room’ to get a good flat surface.
These adapt a laptop hard drive to a desktop drive bay.
Left and middle is .2mm layer height, .4 infill 3 solid shells layers with a cold bed. Right is the best with only 2 solid shells and a heated bed. The plastic just lays down better on a heated bed.
You can see the curling on the edges on the center piece really well, while the right piece is pretty flat. Heated build platform for the win!
A pile of pieces! This pile cost me less than $5 to make. It would have cost nearly $25, shipped, if I had ordered something similar online.
I made two 3d printed pill boxes.
Mostly because I had forgotten I had set the scaling to 50% when I printed the first one. It turned out awesome, if small.
The second one didn't turn out near as nice – it's like it didn't slice correctly or something. Not sure.
The finished full size print. The ‘bolt’ seems to have skipped a step so it deposited most of it’s plastic on and next to the box. The lid isn’t supposed to be stepped like that, but domed.
The text didn’t turn out – none of the horizontal lines printed.
bad bolt, bad!
stringing is very minor at this point.
This is the small box printing.
The small compared to the large, which is just starting to print.
You can read the text on the side of this box. This is SO cool!
A little compartment, for a small pill.
Working on about the 4th layer of the large box.