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3D Printing Camp ReCap

3D Printing Camp Wisconsin

It all happened pretty fast… I think it was the beginning of May when Bob Waldron floated the idea of a BarCamp-like event focused on 3D printing past me, and of course I couldn’t ignore it. I helped set up the web site and did some promotion and sponsor-wrangling, because I figured if he was throwing such an event, I wanted to see it happen so I could go to it. :)

3D Printing Camp

Getting sponsors took a lot of time, but in the end (and I mean very end!) we got what we needed, and were able to cover most of what we wanted for the event. People got fed, Sector67 got a few bucks for use of their space all day, and nothing went wrong… well, almost nothing.

If you attended 3D Printing Camp you owe a big round of applause to Bob Waldron, but you couldn’t give him one on Saturday because he was not there! Despite all the comforts of our modern world, if your plane gets delayed, and you get stuck, you miss things… and Bob missed the event. (Don’t worry, this will just ensure he does it again next year.)

3DPrintingCampWisconsin

So what did we do? Well, we printed. A lot. And we also had a few sessions related to 3D printing, modeling, security, repairing things, and we just generally got to meet everyone else who is into 3D printing. Remember back when you were the only person you know (not counting online) who was really into something, and if you got to hang out with others who were into the same thing, how awesome that was? Well, yeah, that was it. I think we had about 20 printers, and saw over 60 people come through the door throughout the day. Not a bad turnout at all.

3DPrintingCamp

For me one of the highlight was learning more about Sketchup. Kemper Smith led an amazing sessions showing tips & tricks for 3D modeling and I took plenty of notes.

And then there was Tony Warren, who showed up with a partially done RepRap and got it printing by the end of the day. I can certainly attest to the fact that having an unfinished printer is something no on wants, so getting it running is pretty awesome.

3DPCWI

The event was pretty laid back, and plenty of people just spent most of the day (and evening!) printing, which is cool. There could have been more sessions, but when you’ve got all those printers in a room, you want to talk about them, and trade tips, and melt some plastic. It’s all good.

As for the RepRaster 5000, it started a little shaky because I could not get my bed up to temperature, then I noticed a ceiling fan above me! I moved and all was well, for a while. I printed a few things, and then I did a print that failed, then the next one failed, and then it was time to just give up. I had managed to knock things out of alignment earlier and I think things just went pear-shaped from there. Too much printing I guess. Once I got home I got everything back to normal, leveled the bed, and it’s back to normal. (It’s always a RepRap adventure somewhere…)

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OpenSCAD to DXF

There are many posts here which may not offer new information, but what they are is my information, usually gathered from other places, and with my own point of view. So with that said, here’s how I converted an OpenSCAD file designed to be used on a laser cutter into a DXF file. I put this out there as much for myself (so I know how to do it next time) as much as for others who might find the information useful.

Converting OpenSCAD files to DXF files

We’re going to start with a .scad file in OpenSCAD. I’m using this file from the Laser Cut Filament Spool, and even though there are DXF files available, I ended up tweaking the .scad file, so I had to create new DXF files.

Rendering the OpenSCAD file

We start by opening the plate.scad file in OpenSCAD and doing a Compile and Render (CGAL) command, which is what you would do with any .scad file.

DXF? Not yet!

Once your object appears, you might say “Hey look! There’s an ‘Export as DXF’ command under the Design menu.” Well, that won’t work because our object is a 3D object, not a 2D object. So we need a few extra steps.

Instead of exporting as a DXF, just export it as an STL file, which may be what you normally do if you use OpenSCAD for generating things you can print on your 3D printer.

Render the DXF!

Did you output the STL file? Good! We’re ready for the next step…

We’re going to create a new file in OpenSCAD. Name it something like plate2dxf.scad and use the following line of code: 


projection(cut=false) import("/Users/pete/Spool/plate.stl");

(Obviously you’ll need to edit the path to the file to match your own situation. If you have the files in the same folder you can just use “plate.stl” instead of the full path.)

Run the Compile and Render (CGAL) command again, and wait… wait… wait… Yeah, it took 10 minutes for this file to render. It’s not a fast process.

Once this is done, you can now use the “Export as DXF” command and get a standard 2D DXF file suitable for other applications.

DXF in Inkscape

Here’s my DXF file loaded into Inkscape. I typically use Inkscape to work with files I plan to laser cut. There’s a good explanation of my process in the post Laser. Cut. Files. (Part III). And yeah, I could have used this method previously had I known about it.

Hat tip to Giles Bathgate for his post Extracting 2D mendel outlines using OpenSCAD which was a tremendous help.

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Sparkbooth – Button Renaming

Dropping this here so I remember and so I can point people her if needed…

Sparkboth - View Settings

In Sparkbooth (v3) you can change the text that appears on screen. For instance you can change the word “spacebar” to “button” if you need to.

Sparkbooth Settings

Once you click the settings icon, go under General to On-Screen Messages.

Sparkbooth - Push The Button

Change what you want to change… Done!

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A New Elbow

Arc-O-Matic

You may remember the Arc-O-Matic, an Arduino-powered drawing robot I built back in March for Gallery Night.

Well, things have been quiet on the Arc-O-Matic front for a while, and there are reasons for that. First, while shooting a video showing how it works, It started to fall apart. This was not unexpected. The whole thing was built in a few hours, and held together with hot glue and gaff tape. Failure was just a matter of time. Second, while it was in my workshop awaiting repair, one of the cats (ChaCha!) managed to knock it off a table onto the concrete floor, which made things worse.

But an important thing happened between the destruction of the Arc-O-Matic and now… I can easily 3D print things!

Elbow (old)

Here we see the old elbow mechanism, which consists of glue and tape. Pretty sad. It held up fine for Gallery Night, but it’s no permanent solution.

So my first idea for repair was to take some of the weight off the arm via the elbow joint. I thought about buying some ball casters but then realized I could just print my own! Here is one on Thingiverse, and here’s a photo of the one I printed. My initial idea was to just glue this on to the bottom of the micro-servo.

But when you’ve got a 3D printer, why stop there? I ended up designing a part that would hold the micro-servo, and allow the dowel to attach to it. See this photo.

Now, I know some of you still don’t get Google+, so here’s how it works. I posted my progress there, and someone who follows me mentioned a post about Florian Horsch printing a servo coupler on a Ultimaker. My first thought was, “crap, can I print that on my MakerGear Prusa?” And yes, I definitely can.

Elbow (new)

So here’s the result so far. A new elbow. The bottom piece holds the larger dowel and the micro-servo, while the top piece fits snugly onto the business end of the micro-servo and holds the smaller dowel. I’ve not yet attached the ball caster (which uses a marble) in this photo, but I tested attaching it to an earlier version using acetone to weld the plastic together. (I suppose a screw could be another option there.)

I’m hoping to get this thing rebuilt and working before the end of July (hint hint!) and once I’m pleased with all the pieces, I’ll write up some instructions, toss the files on Thingiverse, and hope someone else thinks it’s cool enough to play with.

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Spray Booth Reclaimed!

Spray Booth

Spray Booth

I picked up an Artograph 1520 Spray Booth from the Hack Rack at Milwaukee Makerspace. Well, just the base of one, but the rest of the parts are fairly easy to DIY, so I did.

This spray booth lists for about $250 from various places, and if you use the 3 stage filter system you’ve got to get replacements at some point, and those aren’t cheap either. I don’t quite have a carbon-impregnated polyester filter for the third stage, and I still haven’t figured out the first stage pre-filter, but I grabbed one of my favorites, the super-cheap Ace Hardware 30 day furnace filter. The 20x25x1 is about $1.29 so even if I replace them pretty often, it’ll still be pretty darn cheap.

Ace Filter

I use the larger Ace filters in my big spray painting booth, and with a lot of painting I can still go weeks before I replace one. Those are a bit larger, but they’re still under $2.00 each. I did need to cut the 20x25x1 down just a bit to fit in the 1520, but only in one dimension, so that’s not too bad. Scissors is all you need to cut it. And as for the cardboard hood (which you can see is recycled from a Pelican case) I ended up tracing the one we have at work. (Yup, same model, it’s a popular one. I didn’t even bother with the slots and tabs for the hood, I just used some gaff tape to secure the edges together.

I’ll probably use the booth as our spray glue booth, as the larger spray booth is already doing great for spray paint, and I’d prefer not to mix those two mediums if possible.

So yeah, a bit of cardboard, gaff tape, a furnace filter, and a little bit of time, and I’ve got an excellent reconditioned Artograph 1520 Spray Booth.