{"id":505,"date":"2019-10-15T20:53:56","date_gmt":"2019-10-15T08:53:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/motordrivephotography.co.nz\/?p=505"},"modified":"2019-10-15T20:53:57","modified_gmt":"2019-10-15T08:53:57","slug":"because-i-dont-have-enough-hobbies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/motordrivephotography.co.nz\/index.php\/2019\/10\/because-i-dont-have-enough-hobbies\/","title":{"rendered":"Because I don’t have enough hobbies…"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

For something different and potentially useful, I \nmade the jump into the world of 3D printing recently.  Did a heap of \nresearch in to the printers and found one at a good price point for an \ninitial foray into this creative world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While they aren\u2019t as cheap as your average home \npaper printer, for the price of a mid range Inkjet, you can pick up a \nreasonable entry level 3D Printer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There\u2019s a catch though.  Unlike home printers, they\n are not even close to the stage of buy it, unpack it, print with it.  \nThis is still very much a hobbyist or tinkerer device for those who like\n building, adjusting and tweaking things. \n Think back 20 years, were you the type to build your PC from components\n or the type to buy a premade one and just turn it on and use it?  If \nyou are the latter, then 3D printing is not yet for you.  Sorry, try \nagain in a few years, maybe sooner.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Upgrades:
These come in two forms.
1.        Purchased parts to improve the printer.  For example:
a.       Upgraded nozzles to handle the more abrasive exotic filaments (with wood, ceramic or metal in them) or to handle filaments that have a higher heat requirement.
b.       Upgraded motherboard with better features.
2.       Printed parts that you print yourself in a fairly meta printing manner.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So you have this shiny new printer and the first \nthing you print is generally going to be some form of \ntesting\/calibration model that gives you a base to start tweaking the \nsettings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

This particular model tests lots of different \nabilities of the printer from fine details, tapered points, bridging and\n overhangs (where it\u2019s essentially printing on thin air).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Having got that out of the way, I spent most of the\n rest of the weekend printing parts for the printer.  Firstly a mount \nfor the webcam so that I can monitor prints remotely and also create \nsome (hopefully) cool timelapse videos of the\n prints in action.  Because, seriously, watching it print layer \n(fractions of mm) by layer is only slightly more interesting than \nwatching paint dry.  Printing can easily take hours for one thing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here\u2019s where I hit the first snag.  I couldn\u2019t get \nthe camera mount parts to stay stuck to the print bed for the duration \nof the print job.  And as soon as they come unstuck, they get dragged \naround by the hot print head and you end up\n with a ball of spaghetti or worse unless you manage to catch it and \nstop the job.  While you can pause and resume a job, sticking a model \nback to the build plate in exactly the spot (to the fraction of mm) it \ncame off from is next to impossible, so there\u2019s\n no option but to start from scratch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I expect the \u201cwaste\u201d filament container to fill up fairly quickly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Google is, like always, a very useful port of call \nand I soon had many browser tabs open across all manner of 3D printing \nsites to figure out how to resolve the issue.  Tweaked a few settings, \nopened up some of the advanced settings and\n tweaked a few of those also, and finally, another successful print.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Having printed the camera mount and set that up, \nthe next discovery was that the default focus of the camera meant it \nlooked like it was taken on a potato.  More googling and it turns out \nthere\u2019s a manual focus ring that you can adjust\n if you print yourself a tool for it.  Handy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Finally some progress.  A few more basic printer \nparts produced, complete with build timelapse videos and I\u2019m now at the \npoint where I can look at printing things not specifically for the \nprinter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

First up, some things for one of my other hobbies, \nD&D, a piece of terrain wall, mainly to see how it will look \nactually printed vs the pictures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n