New prints: Custom Doorstop, Medication box, Smartphone Stand and Bracelet

Custom doorstop for a friend, made in Sketchup, printed in ABS.

Emmet's Three Cube Gear

I already printed some objects from Thingiverse created by Emmet. Now I printed Emmet's Screwless Three Cube Gear.Total print time around 5 hours. ABS @ 245°C with a 200µm layer height. Customized with Thingiverse's customizer and sliced with Slic3r.

Solar Cel clip for a DIY sunjar

My friend Richard is working on a DIY project making a Sunjar. 

After creating the solar cell holder clip in Sketchup we printed it on the RepRapin ABS.

Very happy with the end result he's now going to make six more Sunjars!

(ToDo: Post link to STL file)

From pictures of a face to a 3d head

Going from pictures of a face to a 3d printed head.

Step 1 - Use FaceGen Modeler's Photofit feature to generate a 3d-mesh and a uvw-map of the skin.

UVW-map of the face generated with FaceGen Modeler

The whole head is exported from FaceGen as an OBJ-file
and can be imported in any 3d modeling software.

Step 2 - Fix and position the mesh using Autodesk's free Meshmixer app (they have more free tools for 'Makers' and 'Hackers') and generate a valid STL file. I wasn't a fan of Meshmixer but I'm becoming one fast due to the automatic error fixing capabilities!

Step 3 - Print it!

A timelapse of the 3 hour print....

 

HoneyComb infill @ 80% by Slic3er and 3 perimeters

Support material generated by Slic3r
(facing up only the back of the head looks ugly)

the End result

A failed test print that is hollow and has only 1 perimeter.
Use meshmixer to 'fix' these things by
making valid 'single solid' 3d objects.

Reprap to the rescue: Fixed my daughter's favourite toy

Original Broken & Newly 3d printed lever

My oldest daughter's favorite toy is the Fisher Price Sink Set (1982). It's a toy that my wife used to play with when she was a toddler so it's quite old (no darling you're not old!) but still in good shape. Recently my daughter was upset because water stopped coming out when she pushed the lever. I opened up the set and noticed a broken lever that pushes a rubber pump.

 So let's fire up Sketchup and get the calipers ready and start drawing! Then generated an STL file (you need a plugin to generate STL files in Sketchup) and sent it to the Prusa I3 reprap.

I know one little person who will be very happy when she wakes up in the morning...

Let me know if you need the STL files. I printed in ABS with layer height @ 200µm and Slic3r Honeycomb infill @ 80% with a tiny bit of Brim (2mm)

My first 3D print with PLA - a Gear Bearing

To test the PLA material I never printed with until now I printed some planetary gears.

This is a customized version of Emmet's Gear Bearing on Thingiverse. The tolerance is set to 0.3 in the customizer. I'll print another one with 0.1 as these are even a bit too loose...
Printed in PLA, extruder @ 200°C, heatbed @ 65°C, layer height 200µm, (still no cooling, I really need to connect my PLA extruder fan to my electronics!)

Panelolu2 and the new Marlin firmware (T3P3 fork)

Upgraded my Prusa i3 with a Panelolu 2 display/controller.

The display has an SD-card slot so no need to keep a computer running while printing. You can print G-code right off the sd-card. Saves on power consumption as well!
While printing you can also monitor and change the temperatures for the heatbed & extruder and change the power to the extra extruder fan (needed for PLA).

Because of the 'adapter board' you can plug the LCD into the Sanguinololu without soldering or adding components.

You do need to add an LCD library called Lincomatic to the Arduino IDE and flash updated Marlin firmware to the ATmega 1284P chip. The T3P3 Marlin fork can be found on GitHub.
Full Panelolu2 installation instructions are available at Think3dPrint3d 's blog. When the instructions say: "Don't use Arduino 1.x", then don't! Marlin was originally designed for Arduino 0.23 and does not work on 1.x, trust me...

I've bought the electronics from Richard @ RepRapUniverse.com.
The case for the BPC can be found on Thingiverse and can be printed yourself.

The Panelolu 2 electronics & adapter board

Printing the case for the Panelolu 2 Display

The adapter board connecting the Panelulo2 display to the Sanguinololu

A working Panelolu2 after flashing new Marlin(T3P3) firmware to the ATmega1284p

To test the new firmware and electronics I decided to print the 50mm 'torture' bridge in ABS. All seems to work fine!

Next step: Print some PLA...

Backup - Marlin Configuration.h & Slic3r Settings

I've spent days configuring and calibrating the printer to print with ABS and I'm very happy with the print quality. I have a spool with Blue PLA lying around that I want to try next. For that I'm going to install the Panelolu2 display and I need to make changes to my Marlin firmware. As I don't want to mess up anything i'm going to take a backup of my Marlin firmware and Slic3r configuration and share it here with you.

Marlin Configuration.h

for a Prusa i3 (without Panelolu2 upgrade)

Slic3er settings for ABS

I'm only listing the relevant settings that are not 'defaults' in Slic3r. To access all these settings you need to switch from Simple to Expert mode in your Slic3r preferences.

Print Settings

• Layers & Perimeters
• Layer Height: 2mm
• Perimeters: 3
• Speed
• Bridges: 30 mm/s

Filament Settings

• Diameter: 3mm
• Extrusion multiplier: 1
• Temperature:
• Extruder
• First Layer: 245°C
• Other Layers: 240°C
• Bed:
• First Layer: 110°C
• Other Layers: 100°C

That is all!

Dr Who - War Doctor - 3dhubs.com

My first print for 3dhubs.com arrived via my 3D-Hub. It's a Dr Who character, the War Doctor.
This was my first print with Support Material generated in Slic3r, it works way better as I expected. You have to remove the support material afterwards and it may leave some scars behind.

The War Doctor on Thingiverse: the Remixed version works fine, the original isn't printable due to lots of errors in the meshes.

A time lapse video of 3d printing the War Doctor including support material - Print time was 6,5 hours

New Prints - An Ingress Portal Key and a personalized guitar pick

Some new prints:

Ingress Portal Key for an Ingress Resistance player

A guitar pick for TWEX's guitar player & rockstar Bjorn V.G.

Next I'm planning on attaching the Panelolu 2 Display I've been having for a couple of weeks now to start printing with PLA. The extra extruder fan can be controlled with header outputs on the Panelolu2 PCB. For now I've been printing only with ABS. I'm now reading on how to connect, configure and use the display with Sangiunololu and Marlin Firmware.

*TWEX = The Wednesday Evening eXcuse

Julia Vase

Julia Vase by virtox.

My largest and longest print to date: 8,5 hours, ~9x9x9cm

ABS @ 240°C, 200µm layer height, 100% infill, etc 

A Dodecahedron from 3ds Max to a printed object

My brother, Sammy aka XyZeR, made this variation of a dodecahedron in 3ds Max. Although not frequently used for 3d printing, 3ds Max can also generate polygon models perfect for 3D Printing.

In 3ds Max there is a built in 'STL Check Modifier' that will pinpoint any issue you might have when printing the object. You can get a 30 day trial version of 3ds Max if you feel up to it...

Also read ShapeWay's guide on how to use 3ds Max for 3d printing.

The STL file is available on Thingiverse: XyZeR's Dodecahedron

0.2mm layer height, ABS 145°C, Heatbed 110°C, Bridges @ 30mm/s, no cooling/fan

Don't forget to print spare parts for your reprap!

I almost forgot to print spare parts for my Prusa i3 RepRap. I decided to first print the extruder herringbone gears as they seem to wear the most.

I'm very happy with the quality of the printed herringbone gears.
Let me know if you need spare parts for your RepRap!

It's been a while since I posted a video of the printer in action... 

On my PC I use a webcam viewer app and TeamViewer is active so I can check on a print using my SmartPhone / Tablet / PC from anywhere in the world! And it's free.

Ingress XMP - resistance

An XMP with Resistance logo for a fellow Ingress player N3th4cker.
STL's downloaded from Thingiverse: XMP With Logos

Vive la resistance!

Custom made Z-axis Endstop Mechanism

My friend Leo was so kind to design and draw an adjustable Z-endstop mechanism in a CAD program.
STL Files are available on Thingiverse: Prusa i3 Adjustable Z-Endstop by Leo van der Pauw
The mechanism is working fine!

Let's try acetone vapor treated parts!

I've printed quite a few test-Marvins now in ABS, let's throw one of them in an acetone vapor bath!

The setup: big glass jar, a little bit of acetone, a small 'table' that fits in the jar and a heatbed. 

Put the jar with acetone on the heatbed at 100°C and put the ABS piece in the vapor for a couple of minutes.

The result: smooth parts!

Warning: Acetone is very flammable and the fumes are not very healthy!

Just printing some stuff, no calibration this time...

The Droplet Vase from Thingiverse. The top is not very good due to the issue described in the previous post.

I kept losing my drills, so made this object in Sketchup (I need to try other software soon), sliced with the new Slic3r 1.0.1 and printed with PrintRun Pronterface.
Note to self: do not print a 3mm hole for a 3mm object, use spacing!

Bad print quality on small lines/area's/bridges + Custom made adjustable Z-endstop

My <5mm = bad print quality issue

While printing smaller objects the prin quality is really bad. Rounded corners that should be straight corners, ugly 5mm bridges while I can print a perfect (imho) 50mm bridge. etc.
So i've asked the people on the RepRap Forums for their experienced advice...

Custom made adjustable Z-endstop

A friend created a custom made adjustable z-endstop in a fancy CAD program. The print is not perfect yet (due to the issue described above) but a second version of the STL files is coming soon. If it works out fine I'll post the STL's on thingiverse!