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.

Plastic day!

My favorite day! Delivery of plastics from pushplastic.com! I got Metallic Gold, Red and Black.  Not much going on in the way of news regarding prints, but here's a quick unboxing post of my beautiful spools!

I can't wait to print all the things!! I have a couple puzzle boxes and some gift boxes to print, along with finishing up my cosmic encounters box, now that I think I figured out the flow issues I had.

Charlotte was also excited to open the box with me! She couldnt wait to see what was in the box and wanted to smell every single spool.

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.

Cosmic Encounters Updates

I have been busily printing, adjusting, scratching my head.

Like I've said, I don't have the expansions, So I'm not sure how great this solution will be. I have been printing out the pieces, just a little time consuming as my printer is too small to print more than one piece at a time, including the lids!

I also might need to find a different solution for the Alien cards. I can fit the holder on my bed, but once it starts closing the spaces on the top layer, everything starts falling apart and the print actually looks distorted., the plastic widens, and become loosely melted together. I did three attempts - the first attempt died when my power died. The second had the horrible issue with the layers, and the third I stopped when it started having the same issues, even though I slowed the speed.

I probably need to print it without the holes, or make the holes smaller. I have noticed that the Printrbot doesn't like fine detail when it's high up.

Mo printin, mo problems

I had a small issue with a very thin piece for cosmic encounter. I had some rounded holes cut out, when it was closing off on the top, there we
re connection issues - I think it was printing too fast.

I might also need to make the walls thicker than 1mm, because the brittleness of those middle pieces has causes snapping issues. Also - you can see the horrible print quality after the circles closed off.

Designing Cosmic Encounter insert part 3.

I think I figured some stuff out so that it will fit on the printer bed! Yay!