General 3D Printing Thread


 
I think Matt hit it on the head. Spend money where it counts like on solid drivers, sturdy frame, gears, belts, hotend, lead screws. Things that will ramp up costs (but really make life easy) are silicon heat pads and linear rails. We are here to help so let us know what you need.
 
Matt, I've had some spare time while flying to play with inventor fusion. I'm definitely digging it and even had the time to convert over the case (ver 3.6) and my servo files. It was actually very easy and as you stated, the only problem was renaming and resorting all of the components. I'll post the new .dwg files tonight. It also seems to run much faster than 123d beta. Thanks for providing the kick in the a$$ I needed for switching over.
 
Yeah, I've decided to finally make the move as well. I'm a bit frustrated by continually having to choose 'New Component' after drawing anything, but I'm sure I'll get used to it. Maybe I should RTFM.

And it seems to be less crash-happy than 123Db9, which is nice. I got a part designed today fairly easily, and I slipped right into the interface. There are some very nice things in there as well that 123D doesn't have. Much more to explore.

And it imports other formats really nicely - head and shoulders above 123D in that respect.

I've got to explore the parametric aspect of the software. If it's implemented properly it could be VERY powerful. :D

But you see what I mean about importing parts - if it's an assembly or a grouped object (which is almost everything that I do anymore) it's a real pain in the a$$ to re-establish the relationships.

Now all I need to do is re-work my parts library...which will take until Christmas. :(
 
The biggest issue I've seen thus far is that it will not launch in Windows 8.1. Windows 7 is fine and apparently so is 8.0. Autodesk products have been having trouble with 8.1 across the board (except for 123d) and they are slowly issuing patches to fix. I emailed them and they don't have a timeline on an inventor fusion patch. I'll probably revert my Win 8.1 box back to 8.0 and see how it goes.

I have to look into the parametric modelling features when I have time because you are absolutely correct in that it could be a game changer for revising parts. Imagine how easy it would have been to adjust the case for a 4 line display if all you had to do was increase the side wall length by x mm and then make the LCD opening slightly bigger.
 
Tom Kole said:
I have to look into the parametric modelling features when I have time because you are absolutely correct in that it could be a game changer for revising parts. Imagine how easy it would have been to adjust the case for a 4 line display if all you had to do was increase the side wall length by x mm and then make the LCD opening slightly bigger.
Click to expand...
This is why I love OpenSCAD so much. I can't imagine how I'd revise some parts if I had to do them by dragging them around. This bit needs to be 5mm taller and 3mm deeper, but the connecting piece needs to remain a 45 degree angle sooooo (math).

I need to give this new product a try, although I have Windows 8.1 so looks like I'll be waiting a bit.
 
Those are the openscad features I love, but when I model I use more of a mix of visual and calculated which is why I prefer a cad program like inventor.
 
Never seen it before, thanks for bringing it up. Looks like you'll have to wait to waste your $100, 'cause it seems they aren't ready to sell it yet....

This is a completely different concept in 3D printing, they are using a photo sensitive liquid resin that is solidified by a beam of light to make the layers, the resin is floated up on salt water to create layer upon layer. Control is done through the sound card audio out and mic in, pretty innovative... I can't see why a HM case or servo damper would be any different than any other object so I assume it could create them, though I have no idea what the properties of objects created with this liquid resin would be (how solid, rigid, flexible, melt points etc). Nice to see people taking a different approach to getting things done, it keeps innovation moving along..
 
Adam P said:
Have any of guys seen The Peachy Printer. It is supposed to be a $100 3D printer for home use. http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/117421627/the-peachy-printer-the-first-100-3d-printer-and-sc Would this be able to print say a heatermeter case or the dampers that others are printing? For $100 seems like a great thing to waste my cash on.
Click to expand...

There's no reason you couldn't if they tune their method a bit. This technology has been around for a while and is already used in other more expensive printers. I forget the name of the last one I saw, but it used a DLP projector connected to a fiber optic cable as it's light source. The prints they demonstrated were far more refined than the prints these guys show. In it's current form, the printer you referenced would be a bit of challenge for creating anything requiring precision. I would follow their progress and see how it goes. If it is really only $100, it would be worth a try.
 
I actually backed the peachy printer. :D

If you watch the videos they're making great progress with their machine. However, at this point I'm not sure the peachy will be able to scale up enough to print a HM case or anything that is fairly large. I could be wrong though.

True DLP printers are quite expensive, but http://open3dlp.blogspot.com/ is looking VERY promising.

Tom - how did you get RAMBO to do autolevel? Was it the edits in marlin or was there more to it?
 
It was pretty simple. I just added the following to the pins.h:

#ifdef NUM_SERVOS
#define SERVO0_PIN 5
#endif

and used the pwm ext pins. I originally used pin 13 because it was right next to ground and vcc, but it was shared with an LED and I would get servo stuttering every now and then. I moved the pwm to 2 pins down (pin5) and everything went smooth. The rest is just the same config.h changes that are described on the Marlin github page. I also enabled microstepping on my z drivers because they are constantly adjusting for the subtle bed alignment changes which are quite small. Now that I have this in place, I got rid of my bed springs and locked the aluminum surface down because I don't need to manually adjust anymore.

I have been experimenting with alternative bed surfaces and thought I might have struck gold when I finally got a company to send me sprayable polyimide resin. I sprayed it directly to a 3/16" piece of aluminum and let her rip. Unfortunately, it did not work as well as kapton and I was left with a mess that I had to clean off with MEK. Needless to say, I wasn't happy nor was my wife who was complaining about the horrible fumes coming from the garage.
 
Matt, I forgot to ask you, have you looked into parametric modeling with inventor fusion? As far as I can tell it only works with fusion 360. Am I missing something?
 
I looked into it as well. I could have sworn that it said on the website that IF is a parametric modeler. Turns out that it's not - just a direct modeler like 123D. :(

Even with that downside I'm happy with Inventor Fusion - faster than 123D, and some great options. I'm still getting used to the workflow though.

And yeah, microstepping on Z with autolevel makes good sense, even if it's just to reduce noise.

That sucks about the resin. It looks like it needs some serious curing.

http://www.arl.army.mil/arlreports/2009/ARL-TR-5031.pdf
 
How much did they charge you for the resin? It looks really interesting. Any idea why it didn't stick? Maybe the coating was too thin and didn't uniformly cover the AL? Or, does the AL need to be roughed-up to accept the coating?

I wonder if spin-coating a plate with multiple layers of resin would create enough tooth for plastic to stick. If it works it could be a fantastic solution to ABS juice/kapton tape/PET tape.
 
It was $50 for 100g of the resin solution. I used a paint sprayer to apply it to a 13.5"x12" sheet of aluminum. It formed a nice layer and cured easily. There were no problems at all with adherence to the aluminum. The problem was that abs didn't want to stick to it at all. There has to be some other additive in kapton that assists with abs adhesion.
 
I was wanting to use Fusion like you guys, but it seems it has issues with Windows 8.1, as previously mentioned. I can install it fine, but when you go to run it just never loads/displays. I have been messing with Fusion 360 a bit however, and was able to successfully import a solidworks file and manipulate it to my needs.
 
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