3D Printing - A useful thread

[rwillett]

22 minutes ago, Dad3353 said:

I don't think that it's the dimensions the issue, but the material. A nut has to be pretty dense and hard-wearing, and the materials used for 3D printing are seldom either. Nylon, or ABS could be an option, and some industrial-type printers can print metals, but I don't think there's any domestic printer capable of printing the equivalent of a brass nut.
Our Eldest solved the issue by asking our local butcher for an ox bone. It made a fine enough nut, but the process of cutting, filing and polishing turned him off ever doing that again, as the odour is very unpleasant. My recommendation would be to either make a nut from a piece of brass, or raise the slots in the present nut using superglue and baking powder, which sets to become a very hard substance. 

 

I'm playing about with Fusion 360 to make a replica of the Ibanez nut. The Ibanez one is plastic, probably nylon or ABS.  The design of it is quite complex, it's very organic in shape, the back is higher than the front. The slot holes are different widths for the strings (not so bad), the slots aren't parallel either, I've got digital calipers out and am measuring everything.

 

The printing will be 15 mins, the design will be longer.

Rob

[BassTractor]

Folks, does a glue exist that will stick to all or most of the common types of material used in 3D printing?
Dunno which material I have.

See, I have a non-solid object in two printed halves, and the halves have deformed. I wish to fill these halves with a weighty material that also brings them back to shape (the latter part is easy), and glue everything together.

I've contemplated not gluing, but see before my inner eye that the two halves will show. The object is an invention by my daughter, and I want to display it in a nice display case.

My object is a supersized version of the black bond like in the vid, as said non-solid, and was printed in a matte black material, of which I have no info.

Thanks!
bert

 

 

 

Edited August 25, 2023 by BassTractor

[rwillett]

I've never really tried to glue anything I print face to face. We do use glue, Gorilla glue and super glue to make some of the finger bolts, but we use it differently.

 

Here's a cross sectional analysis of one of our finger bolts.

 

Here you can see the outer part of the finger bolt and a void between the outer part and an inner part. This is where the bolt fits. We used Gorilla Glue in small amounts and we now use Super Glue as it's slightly easier to manage. This works very well but it's all enclosed within the fingerbolt. Never had any issues to date.

 

What I'll do is see if I can glue two pieces of PETG together using Gorilla Glue and a super glue and see what happens. I strongly suspect that it will be a fragile bond.

 

I'll do it this evening and see what it looks like

Rob

[rwillett]

Here's the printed verison of the Ibanez nut, the original is black and my version is white. I printed it at 100% in PETG (as thats on the printer).

 

 

 

 

I then put in the Ibanez and had a play. As far as I can tell, it has made zero difference, neither better nor worse.

 

The design is now parameterised so I could do another just by taking a lot of measurements. These are not all of them either.

 

 

If somebody wants one printed, you would need to do a lot of measurements or better still, the nut.

Rob

[BassTractor]

1 hour ago, rwillett said:

What I'll do is see if I can glue two pieces of PETG together using Gorilla Glue and a super glue and see what happens. I strongly suspect that it will be a fragile bond.

Thanks, Rob. Highly appreciated.
Dunno whether it helps though. Does this mean gluing PETG gives an indication about how the glue might perform on other materials?

I've contemplated filling the halves with epoxy, but there again haven't found articles stating it can be done with any of these materials
Might end up making a wooden shape that fits inside, and use no glue. I can't risk damaging the halves, as no new ones will be bought.

best,

bert

[rwillett]

Bert,

 

Apologies, there are two separate conversations going on in this thread in the guise of 3D printing. One thread is about printing nuts and is it feasible. The second thread is yours, how to glue stuff together. I haven't done anything with that.

 

Just ignore the nut printing messages

 

Sorry for the confiusion.

Rob

[rwillett]

4 minutes ago, BassTractor said:

Thanks, Rob. Highly appreciated.
Dunno whether it helps though. Does this mean gluing PETG gives an indication about how the glue might perform on other materials?

I've contemplated filling the halves with epoxy, but there again haven't found articles stating it can be done with any of these materials
Might end up making a wooden shape that fits inside, and use no glue. I can't risk damaging the halves, as no new ones will be bought.

best,

bert

My suspicion is that the material on the balls is probably not amenable to glue so glueing stuff to the outsides will probably fail unless you use an epoxy resin AND carefully align everything AND leave it to cure. I was going to try PLA and PETG just to see if it works for those two materials. Filling the balls with epoxy resin would probably work.

 

Also if you knew the internal diameter of the balls it's relatively easy to print two half spheres to fill them. Glueing these together once they are in the balls should work

 

 

 

 

A 40mm hemisphere takes 24 mins to print. Happy to print a couple out and post them to you if you tell me the right size.

 

Rob

[BassTractor]

19 minutes ago, rwillett said:

My suspicion is that the material on the balls is probably not amenable to glue

Thanks again, Rob, and thanks for your very kind offer!
There's no need to take you up on that offer, though. See, I should've been more clear: what you see in the vid has little to do with the bond I own.
- The vid shows the product as it's sold: cheap Chinese factory atoms and bonds made from an unknown but clearly diffent material.
- My supersized bond (5 inches maybe) was ordered by my daughter from a lovely geek firm in the USA, who 3D printed it based on an adaptation of her CAD file. Only one copy exists, and no more can be ordered.


As a result of your remarks I now feel more confident trying some two-component epoxy in a little corner, just to see if it will stick. If it does, I think I might fill the halves over time. At any rate I'll try and make a wooden filling as a possible alternative.

all the best,
bert

 

[rwillett]

44 minutes ago, BassTractor said:

Thanks again, Rob, and thanks for your very kind offer!
There's no need to take you up on that offer, though. See, I should've been more clear: what you see in the vid has little to do with the bond I own.
- The vid shows the product as it's sold: cheap Chinese factory atoms and bonds made from an unknown but clearly diffent material.
- My supersized bond (5 inches maybe) was ordered by my daughter from a lovely geek firm in the USA, who 3D printed it based on an adaptation of her CAD file. Only one copy exists, and no more can be ordered.


As a result of your remarks I now feel more confident trying some two-component epoxy in a little corner, just to see if it will stick. If it does, I think I might fill the halves over time. At any rate I'll try and make a wooden filling as a possible alternative.

all the best,
bert

 

Send me the CAD file and I'll print them for you. 

 

Or I can design and print them again

[BassTractor]

1 hour ago, rwillett said:

Send me the CAD file and I'll print them for you. 

 

Or I can design and print them again

Hey Rob,

 

Wow! That's very kind of you, and it might just prove to be a last resort solution in the end.
I won't take you up on this great offer right now, but please accept that I do appreciate it highly.

For the time being I'll do everything I can to keep the bond I have. It's the one Martine specially ordered only for me, and it's the one I wish to display - be it glued or only with a bit of tree inside. In this I'm lucky that the halves bend inwards and so will put pressure on a bit of wood.

Thanks big time!
bert
 

[rwillett]

I understand a bit more now. You want to keep the originals. That's OK.  Pictures would help to confirm though.
 

I can easily and quickly print two hemispheres to go inside your custom printed hollow balls. I am assuming that you don't have any flat sides on the balls which would complicate things but is doable. 

 

Filling with epoxy would work, but it will take weeks to cure and cost a lot. Epoxy resin isn't cheap and if you made enough to fill the spheres in one go, it might take a very long time to cure. You also can't make a single mistake. Epoxy is very unforgiving. 

 

Printing two hemispheres to fill your originals out is pretty simple. The design takes about 60 secs, printing is a function of volume but none of the printers are doing much this week so I'd just put them on and let them run. I have loads of filament anyway, so am more than happy to set them running and bang them.in the post. No charge. 

[BassTractor]

On 24/08/2023 at 08:27, rwillett said:

I understand a bit more now. You want to keep the originals. That's OK.  Pictures would help to confirm though.
 

I can easily and quickly print two hemispheres to go inside your custom printed hollow balls. I am assuming that you don't have any flat sides on the balls which would complicate things but is doable. 

 

Filling with epoxy would work, but it will take weeks to cure and cost a lot. Epoxy resin isn't cheap and if you made enough to fill the spheres in one go, it might take a very long time to cure. You also can't make a single mistake. Epoxy is very unforgiving. 

 

Printing two hemispheres to fill your originals out is pretty simple. The design takes about 60 secs, printing is a function of volume but none of the printers are doing much this week so I'd just put them on and let them run. I have loads of filament anyway, so am more than happy to set them running and bang them.in the post. No charge. 

Yet another "Thank you!" from me, Rob.
I'm impressed.

I think it's probably best to get a misunderstanding out of the way. Mine is a "bond", not an "atom". The bond was Martine' solution to the guy's problem.
By way of explanation, these "Snatoms" allow you to build molecules out of brightly coloured atoms with or without the black bonds in the vid. Atoms have one, two or three flat planes; bonds have four.
BTW, behind those planes are freely turning magnets so any plane will stick to any other.


As long as the epoxy does stick and at the same time won't deform the shape or dissolve the filament material, which I think I can test in a corner, I probably won't have a problem.
BTW, I'd be using a quickly curing two-component epoxy with added black colour. This "ink" makes a possible gap less visible and also makes the epoxy thinner and easier to apply through a fat syringe. As you say: I may not make mistakes.

I think the slightly rough edges will show when joined, so I've thought of filling both halves and then shaving off maybe up to 0.5mm to get nicely flat planes to glue together. That way, I won't have to glue the thin edges of the halves, which gives me fear, but can apply glue to the filling only.
BTW, shaving won't damage the impression of the overall shape of the bond.


Right now I feel satisfied that epoxy answers my original question (which glue?), because as long as I can avoid superglue on the halves' edges (with which I will make mistakes), I'm fairly confident.


Thanks again!
bert

 

Edited August 25, 2023 by BassTractor

[rwillett]

I have an iRig HD 2 interface. It works really well on my Mac but its very light and cables move it around and it's a PITA to keep it steady.

 

So I had a think and realised I had a little tripod which I used for Raspberry Pi stop motion photography. My daughters were keen on this a few years ago but no longer, Its a desktop version, is small and well made and hence heavy.

 

It has a standard clamp on the top of the little plates for attaching cameras to.

 

I looked at the tripod and the iRig. Tryed to cable tie it to the tripod and realised it looked garbage and the obvious answer was to print a iRig HD2 holder with a built in section for clamping to.

 

It turned out rather well, see pictures. if anybody wants the STL file, the Fusion 360 file or a gcode file to use themselves you can have it and do with it whatever you will. If you ask me nicely I'll even print and post it for free. A voluntary donation to the North West Air Ambulance is welcome but not essential

 

I'm rather pleased with it. It holds the guitar cables securely, doesn;t move with the guitar cables and you can access all the controls quickly and easily. The iRig slides in and out, it's tightish but not difficult to remove.

[rwillett]

It's orange as thats Prusament orange PETG and that was on the printer. The other printer had black and that was too dark. @Smanth knows all about this colour

Rob

[rwillett]

Due to a major cockup from me, I managed to pull the cardboard side off a new 1Kg reel of black PETG filament. Never done that before. Bloody cardboard reels from Overture.

 

This means I have a 1KG reel that I need to use pretty quickly. Trying to despool it and spool to a new empty reel is really difficult so thats out as an option. Tried that and it just doesn't work and tangles up.

 

I need to print things with it or it will get tangled up and I'll just have to throw it away.

 

It's currently on a lazy susan on my laser printer whilst I print some ears for @alexjbassist The water bottle is full of water to weigh the reel down so as the printer pulls filament in, the lazy susan spins and the reel isn't pulled off. Not bad for 3 mins of panic even if I do say so myself.

 

So if anybody needs anything printed in black PETG and needs it in the next few days, I'll happily do it for nothing, just pay the postage. Size is fairly immaterial but the bigger the better

 

I hate to waste filamant, it was my last roll and I'll buy some more, but its annoying to throw it away.

 

Rob

Edited October 18, 2023 by rwillett

[walshy]

1 hour ago, rwillett said:

Due to a major cockup from me, I managed to pull the cardboard side off a new 1Kg reel of black PETG filament. Never done that before. Bloody cardboard reels from Overture.

 

This means I have a 1KG reel that I need to use pretty quickly. Trying to despool it and spool to a new empty reel is really difficult so thats out as an option. Tried that and it just doesn't work and tangles up.

 

I need to print things with it or it will get tangled up and I'll just have to throw it away.

 

It's currently on a lazy susan on my laser printer whilst I print some ears for @alexjbassist The water bottle is full of water to weigh the reel down so as the printer pulls filament in, the lazy susan spins and the reel isn't pulled off. Not bad for 3 mins of panic even if I do say so myself.

 

So if anybody needs anything printed in black PETG and needs it in the next few days, I'll happily do it for nothing, just pay the postage. Size is fairly immaterial but the bigger the better

 

I hate to waste filamant, it was my last roll and I'll buy some more, but its annoying to throw it away.

 

Rob

@cd_david Maybe for the truss rod cover?

[rwillett]

If you have a design, I’ll print it

[Owen]

If you had blue, black and orange I would be all over one of these like a bad rash.

 

 

[rwillett]

I do have all those colours and have seen that video. If nothing else comes along I might just print that up in black. 

[alexjbassist]

Just to add that Rob is a really knowledgeable and informative basschatter, who has been incredibly helpful 👍🤘

[rwillett]

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

 

[tubbybloke68]

I got my young 15 year old stepson to print me some dummy pickups as I think the look better than ramps. Both stuck with double sided tape so no screw holes and on the wal I dabbed silver paint to simulate the screw heads. Really pleased with them as I can now rest my thumb in the‘magic spot’ …..for me anyway. X 

[Crusoe]

We got my daughter a Creality Ender-3 Neo for Christmas. We had no idea if she would like it, but she didn't know what she wanted for Christmas, so we went with this. She looked a bit befuddled when she opened it and gave an "oh cool", but didn't look that interested. We got round to setting up last night and were excited just by the fact that it turned on. This afternoon I had a go at levelling the bed and we tried printing one of the test files that came with it. It started well and we could see it starting to lay a level down, but soon noticed that the first layer or two were lifting. I thought that they paper I had used for levelling the bed might have been too thick, so tried a thinner sheet, but that didn't make any difference. I realized that the z-axis offset was too high (I don't really know anything about 3d printing, but from the little that I've read, this seemed to be the issue.), so adjusted it a little and tried again. Third time was a charm and it started printing a little boat. We tried again with the other file and after a couple of hours had a little rabbit. Once she saw the printer in action, she started getting really excited about it and has been looking up things to print. It'll take a while to get to grips with everything and eventually we'll look at how to create our own designs to print them.

[rwillett]

There are a couple of things that you need to get right every time. 

 

1. Bed levelling. This gives you the foundations of the print. Get this wrong anf your print won't stay put and you're wasting your time. I used a sheet of 80g paper. Not a business card or a thing too thick. The nozzle should just catch on the paper. Not jam the paper, just catch it. also this needs to be across the whole bed or at least the area you are printing. 

 

2. First temp layer. Do a temperature tower. Download a temperature tower for PLA and print it to work out the correct temp. I assume you use PLA as your first filament as that's easiest. Ignore PETG and other filaments for the moment. 

 

3. Clean the bed with isopropyl alcohol. Is the neo a magnetic mat? Or a glass bed? 

 

If these don't work post pics of what the output looks like. 

 

Rob

[itu]

Some years ago when I dove into metal AM (additive manufacturing), went to an international meeting. This is short, but full of interesting details.

 

control-approach-chemical-safety-of-3d-printing-at-workplaces.pdf