3D Printing on

Adventures in Ender 3 Pro Noise Reduction (plus a Review)

Sun, 15 Mar 2020 01:37:18 +0000

I recently acquired an Ender 3 Pro. I was immediately impressed with how nicely organized everything is with it. Granted, the last printer I actually bought was one of the very first MakerBot kits. Anyway, I love my little Ender 3 Pro. As someone who’s done a lot of custom printer work, I couldn’t help but make changes, as much as I bought this machine specifically with the intent of changing nothing.

3D Printed Hard Drive mount for 27" iMac

Fri, 03 Mar 2017 23:54:10 +0000

One of my delightful neuroses is collecting abandoned non-functioning macs and fixing them. Last week I managed to pick up a completely dead 2010 one for $174, all parts included, just totally dead. Today I got the carcus of another for $51 (no screen, no memory, no motherboard, no glass). The carcus’ power supply happens to work and the $174 unit’s problem was exactly that - a dead PSU.

Illuminatrix

Wed, 22 Jun 2016 18:00:54 +0000

I first posted about my lighting solution in Cupcake155 Episode 4, it’s since evolved a bit and it’s time for an update.

Illuminatrix is mainly documented here on hackaday.io and the code assets are�here on github.

The latest is it’s now fairly easy to install the Octoprint Plugin component of Illuminatrix. The instructions for that are posted on the readme on github. Also, the Octoprint plugin was broken by changes in Octoprint at some point, so the plugin has been updated to fit the new requirements.

DeltaFlyer Episode II: Prime Line Rollers

Wed, 13 Apr 2016 11:14:08 +0000

DeltaFlyer Episode II was originally posted to hackaday.io. I’ve mirrored it here for my own purposes.

For the Delta Flyer’s maiden voyage, I opted to go cheap and use Prime Line rollers (referenced in an earlier log). They’re fairly inexpensive and I didn’t have much grief finding them at a couple different local stores. They definitely have slop in them, so they’re not really a good choice and probably go from rough to terrible as print speed is increased. Episode II here is to illustrate how well these actually work.

DeltaFlyer Episode I: First Flight

Wed, 13 Apr 2016 10:16:01 +0000

Delta Flyer Episode I is out, it’s on the Delta Flyer Project site on Hackaday.io. I’m mirroring the episode here since my blog might out-live hackaday.io.

Last weekend I managed to get the Delta Flyer running. Most of the parts I’ve sourced came from very inexpensive (relatively) suppliers in China and I didn’t pay extra for shipping, meaning shipping has taken a very long time.

I’ve also been a bit worried that calibrating a Delta would be really brutal and have been kind of dreading the potential pitfalls.

Cupcake155 Episode 5

Mon, 01 Feb 2016 00:27:59 +0000

Cupcake155 Episode 5 is where I list some supporting alterations I’ve made that supporting its operation. These are all nice to have things.

Check out Episode 5 here.

Cupcake155 Episode 4

Sat, 16 Jan 2016 15:52:05 +0000

Cupcake155 has been endowed with a sweet lighting system. I built it in an open way, so others can re-trace my steps without having to start from zero. It’s actually a pretty sweet system, I call it Illuminatrix.

Check out Cupcake155 episode 4 here.

Cupcake 155 Episode 3

Thu, 10 Sep 2015 17:07:55 +0000

Episode #3 of my Cupcake155 project has been posted.

The key jist being that I found on complex prints, I would typically get a few major slips in the print. There often were also places where the print delayed in a location for a time, this left scars too.

Ultimately, a $10 SD board and a quick firmware change later and my prints were vastly improved.

Cupcake155 Stream

Sat, 28 Feb 2015 00:04:32 +0000

(updated: I’ve switched from ustream to YouTube Live, this post has been retroactively updated as there’s no point with linking to old junk)

I’ve been working on Episode 3 for a couple weeks now, but until I slay a certain dragon, the episode shall remain enroute.

In the mean time, I’ve updated my main printing page with a copy of my live stream feed, so when I’m printing you can watch the video stream from that easy-to-find location.

Cupcake155 Episode 2

Sat, 14 Feb 2015 01:53:28 +0000

After roughly a month of effort, I’ve now got my old Cupcake heavily retro-fitted and running pretty well.

Cupcake155 Episode 2 gives the key details of how I modified my old MakerBot Cupcake in to something modern and unique. Others may find it helpful to re-trace my steps and perhaps get printing sooner!

Cupcake155 Episode 1

Wed, 04 Feb 2015 10:24:26 +0000

I’ve missed playing with 3D printing since I mothballed my printer years ago. It was shelved over major pains in getting the extruder to work properly. I also wasn’t especially fond of working with ABS plastic, which feels pretty toxic to me.

A few weeks back I decided that my old printer, while in bad shape, was still most of a 3D-printer. I had been looking at ready-made products I could potentially buy, but I wanted the satisfaction of doing most of it for myself. I knew right-off-the-bat that I’d be replacing the extruder as it seems clear to me vast progress has been made about that point.