New guy, saying hi and thanks

[GuardsmanBlue]

New guy here, picked up an M2 about 6 weeks ago and have been printing just about everyday since. Just wanted to thank everyone on the forum, what a great resource.

Little background and other ramblings. Went to school for 3d modeling/animation but have been working at a mortgage company for the last decade. Wanted to get back into 3d modeling and 3d printing fascinated me so I took the plunge. Thanks to the forum, printer choice was easy. Hobbies include building cars, automotive photography and now 3d printing.

So far I've printed replacement parts for an old R/C car for my kids, taillight housings for my hotrod VW, a skull I'm going to use for the shifter, a number of clock pieces for a clock I'm making out of car & motorcycle parts, miscellaneous brackets.

My experience hasn't been without issue. I did have a bad x-axis stepper which Makergear replaced quickly. I also managed to completely clog my v3b hot end, took it apart a dozen times trying to clean it and destroyed it in the process. The jam was 100% user error, I was tuning the machine and got the glass too close to the nozzle causing the filament to back up. I've cobbled it back together but I do have a v4 sitting here ready to go in. If I can just stop printing long enough to install it.

Picked up Simplify 3d when I bought the printer, I love it. Most of my modeling has been done in 3d Studio Max, but I've been learning OnShape over the last few weeks. I don't have much to compare it to but I really like it, it's been really easy for me to learn. The ability to make changes quickly really lends itself well to rapid prototyping/3d printing. Those same changes using polygon modeling in 3dsMax would take a lot longer.

Also picked up a raspberry pi w/ camera and am running Octoprint on it. It's nice to be able to monitor the print and control the printer from my phone.

The last few weeks have been a great experience. There is nothing like the feeling of designing a part, sending it to the printer and then coming back a few hours later to something you can hold in your hand. Going from an idea to a usable part in a few hours is amazing.

Just wanted to thank everyone who has contributed to the forum, you all have taught me a lot. Here are a few prints I've done in various stages of completion...hopefully I'm posting photos correctly.

Tom

[jsc]

What a splashy intro. Those are some awesome prints. Did you model any (all?) of those prints yourself? At six weeks in, I think I was still just going wild on Thingiverse.

Then again, you did go to school for modeling, and you do photography. It's like you were trained for this

How was your ABS taillight housing finished?

A note on the skull: 100% infill is rarely useful, unless you need the most rigidity. Check out this very interesting study: http://my3dmatter.com/influence-infill- ... t-pattern/ Yield stress tops out at 90%, and surface quality drops off at 100%.

OnShape is awesome and I'm glad they're there. OnShape and Fusion 360 are the only two high caliber mechanical CAD systems I've seen with a useful free tier. I tend to stick to Fusion just because I love my 3D mouse and OnShape doesn't support it. Fusion 360 also has superior surfacing tools, for more sculptural/industrial design applications, with its support for T-Splines.

[Jules]

Hi Tom, nice to meetcha! (That's some beautiful work dude!)

[GuardsmanBlue]

Thank you both. I modeled the taillight and clock base. The skull was off of thingiverse, I think it was this one: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:168602. The clock base was done in Onshape.

The taillight housing was done in 3dsmax as Onshape doesn't have an ellipse tool. After about the 3rd alteration I was really missing the flexibility of CAD. I'll have to try Fusion 360. I assume it's not cloud based like Onshape is? I like the convenience of cloud software and it'll be nice when they get their Android version up and running but there have been occasions where my internet connection was effectively non-existant.

As far as finishing on the taillight, it was printed at .2mm layer height with a 30% infill. I sanded with 150 grit, then 320 grit, sprayed with a filler primer and then rattle canned them black with Rustoleum. The surface finish is far from perfect but I don't have a good place to paint (I need to convince the wife to let me turn one of the kids bedrooms into a spray booth). I did try other finishing techniques. I placed the part in a can with some acetone for a while but wasn't happy with the finish. I also tried Rustoleum Triple Thick Glaze which was mentioned in this thread: viewtopic.php?f=3&t=1000. The glaze has Acetone in it and it looked great, but it didn't completely smooth it out and I wasn't sure how it'd hold up on a car out in the elements.

I printed the skull at 100% because I wasn't sure how I wanted to mount it to the shifter so I wanted to make sure that wherever I drilled I was drilling into solid plastic. But I have printed other brackets at 100%, I'll have to reduce that to 90% in the future, thanks for the tip!

[lem]

Fusion 360 is cloud based.

[jsc]

Onshape got an ellipse tool (and lofts!) on 5/15: https://www.onshape.com/cad-blog/whats- ... -may-15-15

Fusion 360 is cloud based, kind of. The client itself is a downloaded program that you run on your computer, but all the models live on Autodesk's servers, and they do format conversion and cloud rendering. You can also run it when disconnected, and it will sync up when the network comes back. There is a free tier for hobbyists and startups.

For finishing ABS, you can try the potentially explosive technique of getting a large jar and using your heated bed to take it up to 100C to get acetone vapor. A slightly safer method would be to use an ultrasonic transducer from a humidifier to generate the vapor: http://www.3ders.org/articles/20150509- ... parts.html. But I've mostly given up on ABS, and it was always really difficult to get consistent results with acetone. A little too long and everything looks too melted. I've been having good results with XTC-3D, a two-part epoxy that's marketed for 3D printing. I use it like you would use high fill primer, but easier to apply (for me) since you don't have to go out every five minutes to shake the can for another minute and apply another coat. Sands very well, too, but you will want to paint over it once sanded. Sturdier than primer.

[GuardsmanBlue]

I was modeling a hood latch last night in Onshape and noticed they added an ellipse tool. That's the only thing I've been missing so far, although I would've needed lofts as well at some point. I will give Fusion 360 a try, since it's made by Autodesk (same company that makes 3ds Max) I'm wondering if the transition may be even easier, although I find Onshape very intuitive.

I tried a covered coffee can with a thin layer of acetone on the bottom sitting on the stove with the oven on warm. There was just enough heat coming out the top of the oven to turn the acetone to vapor, but it didn't appear to be doing much, then the next time I checked it looked melted like you mentioned. I built a rotisserie for painting wire wheels that I'd like to attach a can to and try making a tumbler. I also have a sand blaster but it's not in a cabinet so the media gets everywhere. I really dislike hand sanding, I know it's inevitible but the less I have to do, the better.

I have a roll of PETG here that I'm wanting to try, I was concerned after my clogging disaster with ABS that PETG may be even more difficult to unclog. I just soaked the parts in acetone and the ABS cleaned up really well.

I'll have to give XTC-3D a try.

[Dale Reed]

GuardsmanBlue,

Looks like I'm remiss. I'm the guy who always says to Joe DeNewguy: "Welcome to the fun!"

Guess I'm late. You're past fun and into awesomeness already. Well done! Now I just need to resist the temptation to call you "BlueManG".... Oops- too late! And thanks for the info on new tools to try. I'm a fan of OpenSCAD, mostly because I'm an old textual programmer and think in terms of primatives (cube, cylinder, etc.) and operations (union, difference, rotate, translate). But I'll have to take a look at Onshape.

Welcome!
Dale

[jsc]

If you're comfortable in OnShape, you should have no difficulty in picking up Fusion 360. Or really, any modeler in the "history-based parametric" paradigm. They all seem to work more or less in the same way, with the same concepts. It turns into a game of "now where did they put that feature."

I tried tumbling some PLA/ABS parts in a rock tumbler with stainless steel pins. Did basically nothing, maybe a small color change. I ran it for a day or two. Maybe it would have some effect with longer times, but two days is about all I'm willing to put up with. If you do find a decent medium that works well, please let me know.

Here's an interesting instructable with before and after shots of the effects of sand blasting: http://www.instructables.com/id/3D-Prin ... -Surface-/

[GuardsmanBlue]

Dale,
Give OnShape a try, there are a lot of great videos online to help you get started, but after a couple videos on the basics I jumped right into a couple of projects I had been planning. I still have a lot to learn, but so far I've been able to do everything I've wanted.

jsc,
I've gotten as far as downloading the free trial of Fusion 360. I agree, finding features in new software is a bit of a hassle, but my biggest hurdle seems to be moving objects/cameras around in 3d space. I now use 3 seperate programs regularly, 3dsMax, Onshape and Simplify3d and every one of them has different controls for navigating in 3d space. It takes me a few minutes to get acclimated each time I switch.

Your tumbling experiences have me concerned. I don't mind a day or so of tumbling if it saves me an hour or so of sanding but if after 2 days you're not seeing much of a change then I agree, it's not worth it.

The sand blasting link looks promising though. I find sand blasting therapeutic. There may be a blasting cabinet in my future.

Thanks,
BlueManG...Er, Tom