rwillett

Something just turned up from the postie. Not sure what it is, perhaps a pick guard or perhaps a plectrum or two?

This is why 3d printing (and product design) can be so difficult The above shows a slot for an embedded M3 square nut with the screw channel running into it. I was out by around 0.3mm and it breaks the wall and compromises the strength of the part. Oh well, need to track it down and move it by a mm or two. It could be worse, I could have spent 20 hours printing it Rob

A load of Telecaster type parts have turned up. Further examination of the design, shows that the distance spacing between the hexagons wasn't enough to allow countersunk bolts and hidden nuts to smooth the design out. I want the design to be clean and fastenings to be as hidden as possible. This meant throwing away everything with a honeycomb and starting again. The joys of product design. Redone again and now printing the top left part at 0.2mm and 30% infill but with a lot of perimeter walls. This is 20 hours of printing and has circa 10 embedded nuts inside to screw things together. This allows it to be easily changed in the future. Here's in the cross sectional view in Fusion 360. The Telecaster Bridge will need far more design work now I have a telecaster bridge to use. The sketch at the left is the mounting hole for the guitar strap.

Is the bottom pickup something that powers most of the lights in North London or just local to you?

I have now taken a punt on a Yamaha neck, a separate punt on a Yamaha body (non working as it has no neck), some cheap Telecaster parts and some other odds and sods from eBay. Still would like a thin Squier or Fender Telecaster neck <hint hint santa> now printing off drill templates for the plywood backbone.

I was looking at the Spark Go which is about 2W

Thats good of you. I'll send the invoice shortly 😉

I know I'm playing with fire here, but I thought I'd document my feeble attempts to build a 3d printed guitar. Initially I looked at building a bass guitar but I wasn't sure what I was doing and whether it is even possible to build a 3d printed bass guitar, so I thought I'd try and learn about it and what might and might not work on a six string. Other people have built 3d printed guitars before, probably the most well known is the Pruscaster https://www.printables.com/model/398795-the-prusacaster-a-3d-printable-guitar. You can head onto Thingiverse and see quite a few different models, that are very similar. So why do another one? I downloaded all the files for the Pruscaster and worked out how long it would take to print and how much it would cost. I run a very small business as a sideline doing 3d printing, mainly for astrophotography, and if you think GAS is bad for bass players, I can assure you that we are playing in the fourth division here regarding costs, astrophotography eats up a lot of of money, I know people in the USA who have spent £60K+ on their setups. Anyway, back on track, the costs of printing the Prusacaster is a lot and it uses a lot of filamanent. To do a decent job, it's around 11 days solid printing and uses around £50-£60 of filament. You also have the cost of the Telecaster kit from Thomann. If you priced up each of printing time as well, there's another £100 minimum there. I have two Prusa's so there's less cost but it's not free even to me 1. The telecaster kit is £87 from Thomann. £77 + £10 delivery. 2. The core is approx £20 of filament plus just under 5 days of printing. Yep five days at the right quality level. 3. The piece that holds the control panel is around £10 at 30% infill and 37hrs. 4. The orange middle is 40 hours and £12.50 of filament 5. Odds and sods another 24 hours and £10 of filament I have no idea how they can say its a cheap thing to make as it's not. The amount of printing and filament is ridiculous and I thought it's just designed to sell filament. So I had a long think about this and was prodded by @Owen who is wholly to blame here. After a lot of thought I worked how to significantly reduce the amount of printing and still keep the strength using a 15mm plywood backbone. I also set myself some other objectives: 1. All my own design so nobody can claim I'm stealing their design. 2. No glue. I hate glue, it gets everywhere. 3. As there is no glue, all fittings most be as hidden as possible. 4. Must be modular. I don't know which bridge to use yet, I don't know which pickups I want and, importantly, I might want to change them or add three pickups without having to print everything again. 5. Must be able to take different necks. I don't have a neck I can use yet, so not sure what I'm going to get. I'm looking for a thin telecaster neck but not found one on eBay I trust to buy yet. 6. Must be playable. 7. Must be easy to print and fit on a 220mm x 220mm print bed. The Prusacaster one takes four days to print one part. No doing that 8. Must be able to use different controls as I have no idea what I'm buying, Telecaset and Stratocaster wiring is easily available second hand on eBay so thats a good start. 9. As few as possible supports for 3d printing. This has zero supports needed at the moment. I'm delighted with that So after a lot of scratching my head and thinking about things, I cranked up Fusion 360 (a 3d design package) and started work. Everything is based around a 15mm plywood backbone This is the end result of playing about and once my coping saw turns up from Amazon, I'll be cutting this out. As I wanted to be able to use any neck, this is the neck section I've designed. Its easy to print (3-4 hours) for a wide variety of necks. Here's the module for the neck pickup. This is wide enough for two pickups and has the routing slot cut out on the side. This is the last module and its going to hold the bridge. Currently it's based on a Telecaster Bridge. The holes are not string through, but to bolt the bridge down. The plywood base bolts upwards to these three moduls. We also need something to hold the controls The cable routing is sorted out for the bridge pickup, but I need to work out the cable routing for the neck pickup(s). This is still work in progress and I want to get the amount of printing right down so a good chunk will be honeycomb and it will be in two parts. Of course we now need the rest of the guitar body, so this is where the honeycomb comes in. The honeycomb is in three pieces and is bolted together using fairly hidden bolts. The honeycomb also bolts to the bridge, neck pickup and neck modules And lastly we need a pickguard in place. The pickguard is the largest I can make on my Prusa print bed of around 215mm. It's shaped for Telecaster controls but thats all I have to go on at the moment. The pickups will be suspended from the pickguard. The bridge pickup is suspended by the bridge. Now it's easy to talk about, so here's some of the modules I've printed off to check for fit. Looks OK, so far, but until I can get the bridge in my hands and find a thin neck, I can't go much further. Some various bits have been brought on eBay, an awful lot of countersunk M3 screws, telecaster parts but not a neck at the moment. So if anybody has a thin neck with tuners they wish to donate or sell me, I'd be grateful. Nothing likely to change until the end of next week as things turn up. Rob

I had a Spark Go when it came out. Very good for lead and rhythm but not much cop for bass. Might be something to do with a 2" speaker. I suspect the bigger Spark amps with bigger speakers are significantly better. I liked the software they supply as well. Try before you buy.

There are two versions of the NUX. The newer pro one comes with usb-c and has volume buttons. I like it but as daughter has taken it I tend to use a mod dwarf of straight into Amllitube on mac People do gig with them. They also pop up on ebay for around 50-75% of new price.

Nice and easy bloke to work with. Printed some ears for his racks.

To be fair to DHL (I know, I know) all my last transactions for about 18 months have been spot on. Had a delivery from Thomann this morning and they dropped or placed the parcel in my safe place with no fuss. Well I think they have, I'm away in York so they could have drop kicked them over the fence. Find out tomorrow evening. I am exceptionally nice to delivery people including the postie. I make an effort to ask their name and always offer a dribk or use of the toilet. Nobody has ever taken me up but it's the thought that counts. I also live in a very, very rural area where everybody knows each other and watches out for each other. A few weeks ago I ended up with a tractor window as the farmer was out. That was a big piece of glass. Not been entrusted with sheep or cows yet but I'm still hoping. Training the dog (half border collie/half poodle) to round up sheep is pretty difficult from a YouTube video, the cats will not say still. Rob Trob

I have the NUX mighty plug pro. It's very good. Control it from your phone or tablet. Use the Mightier App not the official one and it's good to go. Daughter has nicked it for herself but I really like it. Perfect for noodling around. It is wired though. To be honest a pair of decent wired headphones is £20 upwards vs £100 for Bluetooth. I know which I'd go. I have an expensive pair of B&W headphone but much prefer the cheap ones for playing with. Rob

If somebody can confirm the size is OK, I'll print it Rob

This one? https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1424380

Could be. Almost lost right eye in MTB accident so could be completely wrong.

I’m still happy to print things like battery covers. They’re small and easy. However you need to find a design on something like thingiverse. battery covers have little notches and things are very difficult to design if you don’t have the original. So if you can find a design I’ll check I can print it

Looks fabulous in mint green (?). I do like these pastel colours

Which ones you looking for?

@Dad3353 Yep know all that. I run a 3d printing business as a side line. Done a 100-150 reels in the last two years or so. The issue was that I managed to break the cardboard reel opening it. Overture use cardboard reels, Prusa use plastic reels. As I opened the sealed reel, I managed to pull the cardboard circular wheel and the whole reel fell on the floor, and the filmament unspooled. As there is no cardboard wheel in place, I put a waterbottle in the middle, placed it on a lazy susan, unbroken side down and fed the filament horizontally. The problem was that I couldn't keep the tension and gravity eventually took over. I thought it would collapse eventually, but wasn't sure when. I reckon I got 25% out before it went mad, so not too bad. I've tried despooling and respooling as I accidently brought a 3Kg reel and had to wind them onto smaller reels. I am never doing that again as its hard work. The machines do it properly, an electric drill is not the right tool at all no matter how carefully you do it. Thanks Rob

Sadly, the filmanet tangled up, fell off and got even more tangled on the floor. So I can't print. I managed one job and thats it. Sorry, no more free printing. Rob

I've made ears for my TP-Link network switch as it was shorter than 19". Did them 2 years ago, still fine. I wouldn't think ears for an IBM P-series server would work, given they weigh around 100Kg fully loaded. What I would look for would be the weight, the position of the mounting holes on the device, as that position introduces potential rotational torque, the length of the ears from the frame to the device and the weight of the device. Remember thats a lever. So if you have a device and a design, let me have a look and I'll let you know. Need to be quick though as I have other things to print now. Rob

Just made some for @alexjbassist it also depends on the load on the ears.

Absolutely no problem,

I have already downloaded the files for the Prusacaster and did work out the printing times. It's a lot, 6-7 days from memory, I thought I posted the timings up somewhere on here,but can't find it. Also the Prusa Orange in the video is about twice the price of normal PETG filament. Once the ears are printed, I may have a look again at printing this. I need a shallow neck for this though. So before I do any printing I need a shallow neck from somewhere. Rob