The Bigtreetech motherboard has an interface for the BLTouch (I bought one), but haven't gotten around to installing it yet. But pretty much 'plug and play'. Didn't want to change too many things all at once. I was checking out the BLTouch install and calibration videos - rather cool.

So do you initiate a manual calibration on the printer? Or do you let the slicer gcode run it? How many points do you check?

Apologies to the OP. This thread is probably derailed some, since it has turned into discussing printers more than sharing the prints. But if it helps people get good prints, then maybe that's OK.

Yep, it's all about sharing and helping each other, regardless of whatever we are trying to achieve here.

Honestly, for my manual leveling I just do it all by hand with a piece of paper, center of bed and then each of the 4 corners until I'm happy with it, and then go from there. I have the G29 bed leveling command right after the homing command in my start gcode, so I am probing the bed at the start of every print and I'm using a 3x3 grid, which seems to be a good balance between speed and accuracy. Some people just run the G29 manually every once in a while instead of every print. Personal preference I guess.

Looking at the numbers from the bed level routine, my worst deviation is 0.05mm, but most of my measurements are 0.02mm or less on my FT-5, so I guess I'm doing something right. lol

I was cleaning the service buttons on my machine and broke the brackets of two of them. Since i didn't know where to buy new ones without changing the whole assembly, i modeled new ones.

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I've uploaded it to thingiverse. If you know the part number let me know.

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4707231

Very cool mod for hobbit and lotr. Thanks for sharing!

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And a second made for my Hobbit. Printed with wood infused pla for base color, smeared with black paint, wiped high surfaces leaving the dark lines. For the rope I twisted 3 strands of jute twine to get the right thickness and look of real rope, saturated with wood glue to hold the twists. While still wet I cut 6 “ropes” to length and used a hot glue gun to affix to the barrel. Then shot it all with triple thick.

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Do you print PLA or Resin prints?

Advantages and disadvantages?

Thx

Here are a couple good articles on the FDM(pla/petg/abs/nylon/filament variant) vs SLA(resin)scenario.

https://m.all3dp.com/fdm-vs-sla/
https://formlabs.com/blog/fdm-vs-sla-compare-types-of-3d-printers/

I have several designs on thingiverse, just type pinball in the search and BAM. lots of great stuff comes up from others too. All of mine are designed in sketchup. it was free and not to bad to learn. Lots of instructions on youtube. good with easy design stuff. I haven't gotten too complicated yet.

Brian

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4679517

Added link to Thingiverse.

I printed a building with PLA, what's the best glue to hold pieces together. I'm using HF super glue and looking for something better. Most the time my fingers stick to item before they Bond. James Bond. Sorry couldn't help myself.

I've used Testors Cement for Plastic Models (the tube type, not the brush on liquid). It seems to hold up well.

Depending on how much surface space, I either use hot glue or 15 minute epoxy

Weld-on #4 or #16 will bond it like it's one piece. #4 is water thin so you will need some sort of applicator but it wicks into cracks. #16 is probably about the consistency of Testors cement.

Those work great but are highly toxic, so be aware. PETG and ABS need weld-on (I use #3 which dries in about a minute) but PLA only really needs super glue. If your surfaces aren’t perfectly matched, the weld-on 16 will melt the plastic a touch so they bond better.

I may end up getting one of each. Roof just fail apart after letting it set for 30 min. Getting the glue gun until primr gets here. Thanks to all

The great thing about ABS is that you can weld/glue it just using acetone.

If you're using super glue you really should get a bottle of zip kicker. Will set the bond instantly, no sitting there holding it, gluing your fingers.

Thats hot.

Looking at the black / white Snack Bar sign....Question- is something like this printed in 2 colors? Or 1 translucent color and then painted black?

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You could achieve results similar to this a few ways, but hard to tell with the blurry photos:
- Print in single color then paint
- Print separate pieces and assemble (I don't think this occurred due to all o the supports that would be required - too much work and cleanup IMO)
- Use a multi-material printer for 3D prints with inter-layered multiple filament colors (you can achieve multiple color prints on a single head non-MM printer, but each layer would have to be 100% the same color, which this model is not).

My guess is that it was done with either a dual head printer or one that supports multi-materials such as the Prusa MK3s with the MM add-on where you can print with up to 5 colors.

Agreed - Swinks prints his stuff at Shapeways, who have multi-thousand dollar printers. Pretty sure it would be a multi-filament print.

for prints like these I get my gear 3d printed at Shapeways or iMaterialise (each machine is worth over $1 million) and this particular design is 2 separate parts and solid filled requiring no supports and solid core.
- the translucent part is resin
- the black part is MJF - so not a hollow part and is solid nylon

the design is very accurate and presses together with the resin lettering going into the black letter spaces

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Well there you have it. You can obviously achieve better results and use different methods when utilizing "industrial" 3D printers verses home use types.

These are pretty incredible if you've never seen them before. They are not painted, rather, 3D prints using an industrial CMYK 3D printer.

https://www.shapify.me

similar but different - yes industrial machines but only single color - all grey powder and MJF is a process of 0.1mm layers of nylon dust and then they spray a nylon glue onto parts to join, then the next 0.10mm layer of dust. All the none glued nylon acts as the support. Once finished the natural finish is the grey or I opt for black dyed for other parts - super accurate and smooth finish

Home printers are great for one offs and testing but when you are making stuff to sell I like to switch to solid and stable professional prints - but nearly everything is test printed at home first

If anyone is eyeballing a PRUSA i3MK3s+, the MK4 is coming this year, so might want to hold off if you don't need it right away. It will almost certainly be more than the MK3S+ kit, so probably looking at $849/$899 for a kit.

Thanks for the useful information. I'm not needed one at this time but, when it comes out I may be looking by then.

$849 for a KIT?! Or do you mean MK3 + kit?

Man, after seeing Swinks’ snackbar post, I am seriously considering just having all my R2 parts printed at Shapeways. That’s crazy precise

Yeah, it's a kit. The current MK3S+ kit is $749, factory assembled is $999. I'm assuming the MK4 kit will be in the $849 range for the kit and $1099 assembled.

I created a thread for my next project a cannon for AC/DC. Love to hear what you guys think.
https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/ac-dc-printed-cannon-#post-6080803

Oh gotcha - I thought you meant an upgrade kit FROM the MK3. That would be a bit much.

Ah, I see now. No, the MK4 will be a pretty substantial upgrade from the MK3, so they *might* offer a kit, but I would think that it will probably be a new line. Having used the mini for a while now, I'm looking forward to a larger color screen instead of the one the MK3s have now. Dual extruder would be great, but that might be asking too much.

i would only buy dual extruder if they pivot the head. i owned a flashforge dual extruder, and the 2nd one always caused issues because getting them both perfectly level is impossible.

ideally what you want is a tool changer so you should never have to worry so long as the holder is accurate

Raise3D E2 manages the dual extruders fine. Granted, it's $3500, and that machine has a lot of problems, but dual extruders that work for duplication is the reason I now have two of them even though I have a love-hate relationship with other aspects of the machine and company.

If anyone can get dual extruders done well for the masses, it's PRUSA.

for parts like the sign it is precise and snaps together firmly. I allow a 0.2mm difference between the 2 parts - no sanding, painting and looks good.

agree looks great and you don't have to paint - perfect...

Good morning,

Anyone has a pointer to how to remix an existing STL ? I'm trying to mod a Tron lightcycle STL to "hollow" it at key locations, but I must admit Meshmixer is not the easiest in that respect.

PM me if you have some skills in that respect, goal is to build an alternative (and more fancy) Tron Lightcycle mod, open source, I can work on the HW/SW side of things (switch detection and triggers), would "just" need the 3D model.

If the model is not too complex you can import it into Tinkercad, set color to transparent so you can see through it, then go about placing cutouts within, merge shapes, export updated STL, and print.

Does anyone have a source to 3D print metal parts inexpensively?

I normally use treatstock for plastic parts.

Thx

Try Shapeways, but be aware, inexpensive is relative. They're less than machined parts would be, but a good bit more than plastic through Treatstock.

If you search "Tron" on Tinkercad, there are a few lightcycle models available (not sure if any meet your needs or not).

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I just loaded my 1st file for 3D printing.
It's for a ColorDMD LDC to block light and keep dust out.
I used double sided tape on tabs to place on acrylic screen.
https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4735665
It will show up 24 hours from now

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Thank you, unfortunately unless I'm mistaken these are still STL files. I can import an STL in Fusion360 (which is the tool I use), but the result is hard to modify (well, to me at least).

I'm not an expert on Meshmixer, and from what I can see it can perform boolean operations, but it has no creation tool that I could find, so I need to create the object in Fusion, export it to STL, import it to Meshmixer along with the original model, and then scale and "substract". Not very practical...

Anyway, I'll try to work my way around that, but if anyone has any guidance, help would be appreciated

Regards

Yes, they are STL files and pulling them into Fusion 360 is a bear (I've done it a few times before). Since they are meshes, they will not come in correctly, and it takes too much effort to correct them, if even possible. What my suggestion was is if you like the model but just want to hollow it out, you can do that in Tinkercad.

Ah thanks, I did not know that Tinkercad had that capability, I'll look it up.

Regards

Well, it is a manual process by inserting "hole" shapes into "solid" shapes then grouping them together.

Hi,

I could use some help and direction. I printed a base plate say roughly 3"x5" with small see through slots (for led light to shine through) that lined up with some text that will be glued on above it. The text / lettering was printed both out of clear resin and a milky white resin. The reason I printed the text out of both colors (clear/white) resin was to see which of these would better illuminate the text.

OK - so it was a complete failure - it did not illuminate worth crap.

Can someone suggest materials that nicely illuminate laying flat on top of base plate.

See pictures below of what I was attemping to do.

Do certain PLA's, Resins, etc work better?

Thanks for the help - direction!

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I think your letters are too thick, you need to hollow out the back. The thickness of plastic should be bare minimum, like .06". I don't know what you're using for lights but the brighter the better.

Those slots look pretty thin and with the directional nature of led lights you will almost need one behind each slot to get light through. If you point your light directly behind one letter does it look good? Maybe a panel of 12v or 5v led strips would work. Or glue fiber optic cables into the slots and run them back to your light sources.

Rather than lighting from the back through slots, I would make a horizontal channel for the LED strip that runs along the bottom of the letters with the LEDs pointing toward the top of the letters so you don't lose any of the light through slots. It should make an even light, and the leds source will not be visible.

I thought about this but then channel has to be hidden below the letters. And with this being cursive writing the channel would be visible in between the cursive writing.

Any other ideas welcome? It would be nice to print 2 or 3 colors and the lettering could be it’s own channel.