State of the Blog pt 2.

Daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaang.

My fellow blog readers,

As you may know, my dear Frankenstein build died in August. I've been phoning it in, quite literally. Using my smart phone for all business, including applying for a mortgage (that's some crazy shit, right?) Unfortunately, the blogger interface on my phone sucks, something fierce, so it was too much work. Rockband, d&d and trying to buy a house have all killed my motivation.

That said... I have FINALLY fixed this shit. The amazing users on reddit were able to identify and help me troubleshoot exactly which part was broken. And let me tell you about it - I originally went to /r/buildAPCForMe and they helped me get something put together. I upgraded the power source (gold certified instead of bronze) and the video card (bumped it up one model nicer.) It worked fine for a while but then just died.

I asked for some help, did some research, RMAd my CPU (2x), motherboard (1x) and my video card (1x)I bought a second copy of the same model of Motherboard, just in case.

A guy in /r/3dprinting posted something about that feeling when your DIY project just wont work. I commiserated and talked about my issues. The guys there walked me through every step and diagnosed it as "It has to be the motherboard."

I had a real Luke Skywalker moment. However, after about a month, and stressing about money for something called "Earnest Money" and paying for inspections and appraisals, I finally found the space to budget for a new motherboard. I upgraded my build from a msi b350-m gaming model to an Asus b350-f gaming model. It came in the mail this morning, but I was on my way to look at a couple houses, so I didnt have time to install it.

My first block of time to install it was at lunch. I only had an hour and the mobo was new, so I didnt have time to test it. It was a real schroedinger's computer. I installed a new mobo, but i could pretend it was working until i turned it on and proved it wasn't.

Lo and behold. I turned it on and it worked. And all my software was in the same state I left it in.. so now I am up, watching it, scared it wont turn back on.

OH! I wanna test my terraria.. the old mobo/graphics card would get all messed up and freeze during the storm event.

It's my creation... is it real?

I know the last few posts have been boring to non-d&d players, and a bit exposition heavy.

In our d&d sessions, the group seemed to like the book base I printed for my miniature (which is funny because the character is obsessed with books and has a small library in her backpack, for buying/selling/trading.) My DM described a life counter style he would like to use for his monsters/mobs.

His request was to have three digits, and he sketched out his idea - which was basically a flat counter with three 0-9, all stacked on top of each other, so that 000-999 would be visible from the top view.

I found a couple interesting things on thingiverse, but nothing that works how I wanted, so I opened up SketchUp and designed a couple prototypes of my own.

My first design was a little cumbersome and blocky. I never printed anything to keep all the pieces together, so it was just a cup with three thing rings that had a small gap between them (for spinning ease.) But if you flip it over, the three rings fall out.

My second design was intended to print a topper piece that would snap into place, and hold the rings down. I also decided to make the rings more nested, with a thin disc on the bottom of each, with just a small hole in the very middle to stick on the spindle. I liked this idea more, but the snap on top didn't work very well.

My third design was base-free. Keep the nested pieces with the bottoms, and stuck a small spindle through, capping it with a snapon piece that has just an indication arrow. This is neat, but harder to change the numbers, because it makes some weird pressure points, causing numbers to spin out of turn.

My fourth design incorporated the base again, so there could be a clear line from side to side. (An arrow on the base and the center. I designed the center of the base to stick up through the disks and another snap on top to hold everything down and also line up with the outside arrow. Also, realizing how big these were coming out, and how large the battlefield in 4e is (25mm squares for each mini) I made the discs smaller.

I colored the numbers in with sharpies because I didn't want to mess around with swapping colors. The reaction at game night(Session 3) was mostly interested, but unenthusiastic. It got a look and then they got pushed to the side, unused for the evening. To be fair, they are just prototypes, and they are kind of huge, even the smallest one is 40mm diameter. The DM commented on their size, so my next prototype will be working towards functionality + small size/printer detail ability. On our next game night(Session 4), DM did whip them out and use, our battlefield was small and easy to put them to the side, corresponding with each monster.

Going forward, I am going to expand on my 4th design, making them thinner and maybe resize some of the spacing so it is easier to spin. Let's see if i can get 3 digits and a base within 25 mm.

Interlude During the Holidays!

Hi guys,

It's been a very busy month! Lots of calibration. For every adjustment I made, three other things broke. I ended up needing to recalibrate flow AND my raft settings - after I finally had it tuned in to peal away. I have messed up a couple prints, solely because of the bad print. I moved on to a couple gift boxes. I would like to print something neat for everyone I see at Christmas - they have business-card-sized build-a-prints. it gets all the pieces for a snowman, a reindeer, etc.

I am not sure that will pan out. For now here's some cool gift boxes I have been printing.. I used my gold and red PLA from pushplastics.com They fit together perfectly, and I have been able to interchange the colors. I am waiting on white and green so I can make more Christmassy stuff.

Success - Puzzle Boxes!

I finally have a success! Long needed, after a week of calibrations and each solution causing another problem - I'm still trying to get my first layer to be perfect AND also  separate from the raft easily.

Here I am printing in PushPlastic's Gold and Black. I also have a Red, which I may try later on. I wish I had Green and White, you know. . For Christmas. I used a generator online to make some neat snowflakes, and would like to use them on gifts.

I can go with the flow, don't say it doesn't matter anymore.

One of the better things about having my own printer is that I can switch gears, and make neat stuff that I find. With Christmas coming up, and my Nameless Roommate #1 leaving, cross country to be with his Texan Lady Love, we have a very low spending limit for the holiday. Since his birthday is a month after Christmas, and he will be gone, I am buying him something small for under the tree, and then wanted to give him some cash money (above our limit, because + birthday) (Sorry if you read my blog, Nameless Roommate #1, spoilers!)

I didn't want to just give him a crispy Hundo, because while that is my ultimate favorite gift to give, it's harder to spend and he will probably be stopping at places like restaurants or gas stations, where that is cumbersome. Also, I love the idea of opening lots of presents Christmas morning, because I'm basically a 5 year old.

I considered breaking it into 1s and 5s and individually wrapping it. However, that is a lot of work and would be frustrating/hilarious Christmas morning. I am not sure if he would find it as hilarious as I would. I havent really made much for him, outside of a tiny dickbutt and a life counter for Magic, which he no longer plays. So when I hit a wall with my Cosmic Encounters project, I thought. . maybe I could print him a nifty gift box? I have seem some beautiful gift boxes on thingiverse and I have a couple colors coming. . someday. . from Push Plastics, So I can make him a non-black box. (most of my prints are in black if you havent noticed.)

But thats kind of boring, and I know he hates having extra junk around the house, plus with a giant move coming. Long story short (too late!) I decided on a puzzle box. After browsing what was already available on the web, I found  This Cool Labyrinth Gift Box by Sneakypoo on thingiverse.

I read the comments, most people LOVED it, but recommended to print the lid just a fraction larger than designed, as the fit was so tight some people had issues getting it to fit at all. I started with the inside, that has the maze on it. I wanted to make sure it would look good when printed.

However, as you can see, I had some issues with the first attempt. Maybe related to my cosmic encounter fail from earlier in the week, I am seeing a lot of unclean lines and bubbling/zits, etc once the print reaches a certain height. Google led me to Reddit and Printrbot Forums, which told me that I am probably overextruding. PLA should usually be around 90% flow. I had it at 100% flow.

The second print I used 90% flow and had a much better result. I may try one more at 87%, because the very tip-top is a little messier than I would like. Plus having a couple of these lying around couldn't hurt.

I will post some more images when I get the top printed too. I am a little worried that I will put it on and won't be able to open it again, even though I know the pattern and have multiple copies of the same puzzle.

She's got a ticket to ride, but she don't care.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Today I have some random garbage I have been working on, no finished project, just a little insight into my work process, which is kind of wasteful.

I have been looking into a storage solution for ticket to ride that fits for me. I have taken out and done who-knows-what with the original insert, so I need to make this work in a barely structured box space.  I also need to find(but haven't yet) a good solution for my cards (and I have 1910, so they are all full sized.)

For some reason all of the storage solutions I found pre-designed are weird. None of the lids snap or slide into place. This feels like it's a great way to end up needing to sort all your trains every time you want to play.

I can't find the source for the first box I had - it has been in my "to print" folder for a while, and of course I didnt save anything to attribute - but I didn't design it, if you did, give me a holler and i'll throw the link up.

the breakdown of what you are seeing:

Green & blue are in a simple design from thingiverse.. had to rubber band the lid to the body. I had an issue printing the lid and ended up needing to carve/cut up the lid to make it fit. I also adjusted the lip a bit so the lid would sink down into the box. But it has to be rubber-banded closed, which I hate. And you have to set the trains in just right (at least for the american map.) While I don't mind this, I know a lot of my friends and playgroups would hate this.

Yellow is in a second original design from thingiverse, designed by Nicofr57. I didn't like the relationship between the lid and body so i started changing stuff. The original design was made to allow you to keep the original insert for TTR:Europe. You should set the body in the cup, place the oversized lid on top, and then use a spacer to hold it in place and stack another body on top.

 Since I also have TTR:USA, and have lost the insert for it, i needed a slightly enhanced storage solution.


Black is modification no.1 from Nicofr57's design, All I did was raise the outer edge 3mm and in Cura set the width/height to fit inside the outer rim (66mm x 95mm) This is good and looks great when the bin is full and the lid is on. However, this didn't really solve my "trains all over the place when transported" issue, without rubberbands.

Red is in modification no.2 This is my favorite so far. I lifted the outer rim another 1mm and then pulled that 1mm out so that it would form a lip on 3 sides. I then lowered the front side to match the original height, that was preserved by the inner divider. The only issue I am having here is that it is a little tight. I think I can just make the change in Cura on the lid (make it half a millimeter thinner and take a millimeter off the width. I also added 3 mm to the length to create an overhang to give the player something to hold onto to yank that lid out.

Overall, I am pretty satisfied with modification no.2, and once I get a Filament refil, I will be printing two sets  - one for TTR:Europe and one for TTR: USA

A cause for calibration - or - Success! Codenames

I am going to spend the day calibrating, after a "success" but the successful print didn't work as intended. So I am going to use some calibration tools and document that, inc. tomorrow or maybe Wednesday.

In the meantime, here was an actual success! An organizer for the games Codenames. I had to use sketchup to edit it a littl bit, removing 2mm from each end do it would fit on my printer.  The original size would have fit perfectly the other orientation in the box, but this way, the hourglass holds it in place perfectly.

If it Fits, I prints

A quick write up of my experience with printing the Eldritch Horror insert. Two of the larger pieces didn't fit. (sad face)  I covered this a bit in the last post, but I thought I would include more images.

Here I have a screenshot of my Cura(splicing software that sends prints to printer) and one of the two pieces that was too big for my printer. The blue checked area is representative of the area my printer can handle. When an item will not fit on the printer, it turns gray. As you can see in the above image, this image overhangs, but only on one axis, which is pretty easy to fix.

I imported the .STL file into Google Sketchup and cut the last compartment off the storage unit. As you can see below, the newly sliced piece fits both pieces on the bed, so I was still able to print it all at once.

After I printed the two smaller pieces, I used tacky glue to connect them!  It's not 100% aesthetically pleasing, but it works, and the glue is actually strong enough to pick it up by either side and it will not fall apart.

Success - MTG Life Counters

 I printed more of these - this time experimenting with mixing pieces from different batches - The black is harder to read, but I think the black framing the gold looks really good together.

Keeping it short - More tomorrow!

Success! - Eldritch Horror

Earlier in the week I posted some reviews of my favorite boardgame accessories - The Broken Token inserts.

While I love Broken Token, and would love to spend all my extra money on them, they don't have solutions for every boardgame I own. That said, every single new 3d printing site with free files is bombarded by searches for my favorite topic - board games, box organizers, specific board game titles, because some people don't know how to properly tag or title or describe their stuff to be easily found.

I have a folder of all the STLs I have found, waiting to be printed. Amongst them is a folder for a custom Eldritch Horror insert that ZektheMad created over on thingiverse. He did a great job! Except that two of the 9 pieces are too large for my tiny printer to accommodate. I printed the 7/9 small pieces that would fit, and then spent 4 or 5 days pouting about the remaining pieces, contemplating seppeku.. or even just contacting Zek or one of the commenters on that "thing" requesting the file. He did provide a .dwg file, but I don't have the software or knowledge of how to handle that/make google sketchup handle it. In reality, I was just hectic and busy the last week or so, trying to keep up with my blogging goals, and having a hard time of it.

I was able to get the original .stl files into Google Sketchup and cut them in half. Or really more like 2/3 + 1/3 & 3/4+ 1/4, making them just small enough to fit on my printer and then to be glued back together on before being placed in the box.

I actually got the chance to finally post something on thingiverse! It's just a remix, but it already has likes, shares and collection adds..

Down to the nitty gritty! It took me a while to print all the pieces, I only batched a couple of the smaller pieces, but the rest were individual.  There are supposed to be 9 pieces, but I have 11, since I had to cut two up. There is still enough room in the box for another board. Since I don't have any of the expansions yet, I may just print a couple spacers to hold everything in place.

Overall, I am pretty satisfied with the print. I feel that this might have been underwhelming and built up.

Using the last of a roll!

I started a print, knowing the roll was low. I had a backup roll, by a different company, as my normal company was sold out of black PLA.I don't even know how much of a difference the same company would make, as I would imagine that the quality could change roll for roll.

However, my roll ran out with about 45 minutes left on my print (biting my nails about whether the ever shrinking roll would last.)

My Print, which is awaiting a write up of it's own because it's my first remix from a thingiverse project, wasn't too bad. You can tell where the second roll started(in case you are missing it, it is the left half inch, the texture, color and shininess are all a bit different. the lines are a bit more noticeable.

Calling it a night, Hope I have time tomorrow for a write up on my newest print project and my adventures in remixing!

An exercise in rafts

Lately I've been having issues with my raft. I have had luck with a couple - they peel away from the main print easily and leave barely any stress marks. However more and more frequently I seem to be having issues with the raft sticking to the print.

Google has informed me that maybe I need to experiment with my raft settings. Probably the Airgap. Cura has two airgap settings, so that's not frustrating.. I think this issue stems from having a messy raft. Sometimes when pla is being melted it gets a little stringy or at the beginning the bed and extruder heat at different rates and the extruder ends up at full heat before the bed is ready to go. This means that a little plastic is melting out of the extruder, not too much but enough to leave strings or a clump. Before printing the z-axis lowers and touches the bed and then lift's a little and pulls. That is meant to grab whatever plastic has been oozing out of the extruder.

However it's not a perfect system and sometimes strands get stuck in the first layer of the print and then they get pulled around which causes the raft to be imperfect. When the raft is imperfect the first layer of the main print can get entangled with the plastic from the raft. I think this is what is causing the difficulty in separation of raft from print.

My experiments tonight have been printing some cases for the Trains in Ticket To Ride. I got the file from Thingiverse, thought I am not sure I will end up using this in my set. The lid doesnt seem to stay on properly, and I found some matchbox style alternatives I might use, but  for now it's good enough to test.

As you can see from the above pictures, I had some difficulty with the first layers of the print while using a larger airgap on the raft settings. the gray, gross result is actually because i cut most of the first layer off and then sanded it down. It looks 10x better, but still not even half as good as the second print with only a .15 gap.

I am printing again with the same airgap, but 90% initial layers instead of the 115% it was set at on the second print. I also adjusted the surface layer thickness from .2 to .5, so we'll see what this does!

Good thing I ordered another roll of black PLA
 

Success! - Machi Koro

I printed a box organizer for Machi Koro designed by Kabong  on Thingiverse... It was Successful!


The raft settings were a little rough again, but it looks  decent! I may prime and paint it. 

It fits Machi Koro with Harbor and Millionaire's Row expansion. If you want to keep the neat inset (and I do) this box actually fits in one of the smaller boxes made for the expansions.

I'm going to keep it short. I have some other projects going that I can talk about this weekend, also it's board game day!

I will hopefully have more time to post tomorrow, but thought you guys would enjoy the Machi Koro insert! Isn't it such a perfect solution for the game?

Does that make me crazy? Maybe I'm crazy?. . . Probably.

At 8pm  last night I started a print that would prove that batching my pieces is smart. Of course the print would be just under 10 hours, which put the end time around 6am. This doesn't always make for the most restful sleep, but the process would be amazing if it worked.

The project is an insert for a new game Lanterns: the Harvest Festival designed by Tejawood. The current insert was cardboard and just had two slots to put everything, and required a couple plastic baggies....I am not sure if I have mentioned this before, but I have come to hate plastic baggies when it comes to sorting board game pieces - it adds so much time to set up and clean up times. The files i downloaded were set up so that all the pieces would print on my 6" bed. I decide - why not? might as well try to get them all printed at once.

The PROs of doing it this way are to save a bit of time and bed prep(time + materials) and to set up 4 pieces to print all at once. I would lose the most time between prints. I would have to peel the piece from the bed, make sure the bed is good to print again, and set up the new file in my printer. While it isnt a ton of time missed, i would have to be hovering around my printer, waiting to finish one print and start the next, that time would be lost while I slept. this way, i can set them all up and print all four pieces together

The major CON is that if it fails 4 hours in, I am out 4 half pieces, when I probably would have been able to print 1 or 2 fully completed pieces. I have tried batched before, and they usually fail, mostly due to print material or issues with the filament feed, or bed temperature. One by one I am trying to correct all the small issues I have, so a 9 hours batch print isn't that bad.. especially when I have completed long prints before.. its usually the batches that mess up though

This project actually worked! I woke up in the night and heard the printer finishing (the engines sound different because it lifts the extruder several millimeters and moves it to the home position for the x & y axis. I almost couldn't fall back asleep - i was like a kid at Christmas, wanting to check on how it turned out.

I noticed while it was laying the raft, that the filament was a little strange, and before I went to bed, I thought I noticed some peeling from the bed, but I am excited to announce that it actually printed and worked out! I had some issues with the raft removal, it was kind of loose for some reason and took some effort to remove. Good thing I have sandpaper!

I posted a couple pictures of the rough raft bottoms, but look at how great it looks in the lanterns box!

Now I just need to start designing my own inserts!

Rickuh-rickuh-RepRap

A successful print! this is a spool holder (Printrbot Simple Metal Spool Holder designed by in_the_garage on thingiverse) it has the printrbot logo printed in it, and it fits perfectly on top of my simple metal Printrbot.

This is a vast upgrade from the two tin cans I had my spool resting on before. Images later. Why is a spool necessary, you might ask? Well, if I take my roll of filament and place it on it's side, yes the printer will still pull it.. sometimes. However, it will get "tangled" usually just super tense and kinked up. This isn't great as it will affect the flow and can cause failed prints. I have found that if my printer has too much resistance from the feed it will just stop. if it keeps going with affected flow, there is a possibility that it will compromise your print.

 I tried standing the spool up on its own, but it would fall all over the place and cause the same problems as the above solution.

The two tin cans in a box was my "clever" poor people workaround. I had two recycled cookie tins full of pens. i put them in a box so that they would always be lined up and contained, and then put my spool on them.

It was a pretty good idea, and decreased my percentage of botched prints. But it didn't eliminate it, and I still ran into issues with weight and balance. Sometimes it would be too heavy, and it would strain a bit, towards the end of the roll it would be very light and the roll would jerk around and flip out of the container. This is both noisy and can have the same effect as just leaving it on its side, as sometimes it would do just that.

I knew I needed a good spool holder. I tried a one piece, solid in red ABS, and like all of my ABS I send through this printer, it was cracking and warping before the print was over. It held out for a couple prints, but the jiggling in combination with the weight caused it to snap. So I decided to print a sturdier, larger spool holder. It is pretty nice, and you can tell there is basically no resistance when it is printing.

When I get to the end of my current spool I will update on how it handles at the end when the spool is lighter.

Let it go. . Let it gooooo

Last night I printed a piece from the eldritch horror and it came out beautifully. I print using "rafts." Basically a raft will print out a couple layers of pla and the print the piece on top of that. The raft is supposed to peel away from the piece easily.

However, this is not usually how it happens. I end up pulling out the bladed tools and using too much force, slipping and cutting myself.  (No joke, I have many scars on my thumbs and pointer fingers from stabbing it with the blade items.) I have been playing around with the settings for my raft. In the program I use, I have it set to set down a wide base, do a quick layer to fill in some space, and then do one full, normal row of filament It is flexible, but strong, and doing it this way helps the bottom of the print look smooth... when it doesn't stick, that is.

Last night, however,  this piece peeled off almost perfectly. there was one snafu in the corner, but dispatched easily. The post got some attention on instagram, so there are other people out there who feel my pain.

In the picture to the right, all that gray junk in the upper right corner is from my chiseling hack job. I guess it is better to have less. the top is mostly missing layer or two.

You can count on me

 

Just a quick update - Here is a successful print of Spinning Life Counter designed by CarryTheWhat on Thingiverse.

I had a little bit of issues with the raft coming away on the edges, and i printed the internal pin at a small ratio, which messed up the length - i just wanted to change the girth, as it was too tight to allow the wheels to spin. I used some tacky glue and it seems pretty sturdy. I have an extra set of the numbers in the Golden Bronze PLA that I want to pair with black handles. Both sets seem like they would go well with my new Art Deco Box.

Lucky no.6

Hello Print Fans!

I have great news! in my 6th attempt to print Magic:The Gathering EDH/Commander Art Deco Deck Box, designed by mitchel1682, I finally completed print! It's not perfect. I had to trim some pieces and sand down some edges, but  it completed! 

I printed it in the Antique Bronze filament from yesterday's review.   I finally got to print the lid! It fits! I was able to jam 100 sleeved MTG cards into it, but it wouldn't hold the commander too, which was a little unfortunate, i probably would have stretched it couple mm.

Let's review:

Documented Attempt #1: ABS, cracked, horrible, gray ABS.  My mistake in settings, which caused the print to last 39 hours, that actually stretched into something close to 45 hours, set me up for a horrible disappointment.

Somewhere deep in hour 43 the printer stopper, built up a melted plastic bead, which attached to the extruder and yanked the very flimsy, fragile edge away. I watched in dismay, through my webcam setup and had to remote in to my computer to make sure the printer turned off and cooled down. It was a sad day, for sure. When I got home, I cleaned up a small amount of spaghetti, and hacked the edges off so that the print was nice an even... and I use it as a pen/garbage holder in my work area. I didn't have the heart to throw it away.

In addition to my bed print setup, I also don't have the right environment for ABS, as you can see by the warping and cracking.

Attempt #2: PLA, infill set to 100%, expectation for print. . 24 hours. I set up the print  and walked away to make breakfast. came back and thought "24 hours is really high for how big this is..." and realized I could probably set the infill closer to 10%. I didn't take a picture, as it was only about 20 layers deep.

Attempt #3: Black PLA - I misjudged how much space I had and places something on the bed to compare how far along the print was. it caught on a screw, halting the movement of the bed, throwing my print off about an inch. I tried to use force to correct, but it didn't work.

Attempt #4: Black PLA - Ran out of filament about  halfway through. Prompting me to start measuring my prints and spools so i know exactly what is on each roll.

Attempt #5. Bronze PLA, an issue I had noticed but wouldn't think of as destructive until this print. The control and power cords, wrapped in soft plastic, hangs down and to the left of the extruder. In the final hour of the print, the cord caught on the overhang and stopped the bed from moving, Causing the entire print to shift, as you can see in the picture.

As you can imagine, this was very disheartening. I ended up snapping off the misprinted bits and throwing it in the bin with the rest of my misprints.Maybe it, too, will become a tool holder someday. Not to mention the bronze filament is twice as expensive as the black or gray filaments, so I just wasted $6.50.

To remedy the issue I ran into here, I used a zip tie to force the cord bundle a bit higher and behind the extruder, so as not to  hit this snag again.


Attempt #6: Perfection! Almost. I didn't use any supports, so the overhang struggled and made me very, very nervous.there was an issue with some "spaghetti" stringing and looping into the print, which caused a couple, fixable issues. I used my cutting tools and sandpaper to smooth it out.

I was also able to FINALLY print the lid. It was a little tight, but my sanding fixed the weird gaps and it fits perfectly!