Ask the Filipinos, who are the ones who both invented and named it. “Butterfly knife” is a western neologism for it.

Dem overhangs, tho. Did you print this upside down, with the open end on the print bed? It looks quite good.

I think PETG is probably a good choice for this application. PLA, especially if it’s thin walled as I suspect it is here, will disintegrate pretty quickly with continued exposure to temperature variations, moisture, and sunlight.

ABS is infamously pretty vulnerable to UV, also. You could protect it (or any of the others, really) with a coat of paint.

From a chemical composition standpoint I couldn’t tell you, but my off-the-cuff testing indicates that the glow remains visible for quite a few hours – All night, in fact, though obviously tailing off in brightness considerably as time goes on.

I have a diamond nozzle installed already.

PETG’s issue in this particular application is layer strength, wherein it’s difficult to top PLA except with some semi-exotic and rather hard to print materials like polycarbonate. Both the screws and the blade carrier in my design rely on layer adhesion not failing for durability. Otherwise honestly the parts are all pretty low stress other than I guess potentially the pocket clip.

For a short time in total darkness it actually is pretty bright. Obviously my phone’s camera automatically wound the exposure up quite I bit when I took that picture in the dark, though. That was without any special charge-up, just an hour or so of exposure to the largely LED based lighting in my office with it lying face up on my desk.

This is the Overture brand glow PLA.

I whacked it with my little Lumintop single AA flashlight last night and left it sitting on my bedstand, and found that it was still quite visibly (albeit dimly) glowing by dawn the next morning.

I would say we should just implement it in open source software, anonymously, and let them kick rocks.

If they want to press the issue they can go after whoever-it-is for their “slice” of the infringing revenue generated, which is zero dollars and zero cents. If they want to shut down a project we can just pack it up and pop up elsewhere under a new one. removed 'em.

It is obviously already possible on a technical level, at least with varying degrees of ease, using modifications to existing tools. Sefan from CNC Kitchen posted a video a while ago where he managed to pull off and test several prints using brick layered perimeters.

Measuring with the printer is an excellent idea. When in jog mode, mine displays the nozzle coordinates right on the screen.

I was considering that a truly dedicated nut could figure out which layer the print failed at (possibly approximately) and hand edit the gcode for the print to just replace all the layers up until the failed one with Z axis move up to that height. I think that would be problematic, though, because on my machine at least the model still being on the bed would definitely be in the way of the print head homing at the beginning of the print, and I don’t know if there’s any way to force it to skip that part of the procedure. Failure seems likely, and the penalty for failure is high.

Just printing the remaining half of the model and supergluing the parts together seems like a better idea.

My Qidi has a heated chamber and can allegedly do it stock, and I’ve had an unopened spool of pure Nylon sitting in the printer cabinet for over a year.

But I’m chicken.

If your nozzle can withstand it, glass filled is way easier to print.

Your slicer should also be able to compensate for this already.

PLA only shrinks about 0.3% which is negligible unless you are designing with super tight clearances. A 6mm hole, for instance, will be out 0.018mm which is probably scraping against the XY resolution limits of most consumer 3D printers anyhow.

Other materials can definitely shrink more. ABS is harder to manage than PLA, but for instance Nylon/PA’s shrink rate is comparatively immense – around 2%. The various engineering polymers that are filled with something like carbon or glass fibers actually tend to shrink less than their raw counterparts.

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Cripes. I’d dissolve like the Wicked Witch of the West.

If it were me, I probably would not be able to resist the urge to make whatever inserts you develop compatible with a Gridfinity baseplate, because I am that kind of nerd.

To create perfectly console-shaped two dimensional inserts, or at least close enough, I would start by laying each system flat on a piece of paper and tracing around it with a narrow bodied mechanical pencil. Stick this in your scanner and make an image out of it, and then trace over that image at scale in the CAD software of your choice (FreeCAD is… free). This will automatically come with a built in amount of clearance in the amount of half of the width of the body of your pencil.

Just make a flat base with a wall sticking up maybe 2-3mm thick or more if you feel like it, to roughly half the height of each object. You can put some gaps in it if you prefer to have places to grab the item directly.

And for anyone who winds up struggling with this when trying to gauge their own printer, make sure this option is enabled:

This is in Prusa/Slic3r and its derivatives. If this is disabled, the final outer wall perimeter can wind up being pushed out by some fraction of the width of the wall behind it, which will have the net effect of shrinking vertical holes in your model (and other critical clearances in the X/Y dimensions) by an unpredictable amount.

As long as you stay within its plastic deformation limit, “many cycles” should not matter.

PLA’s downfall for flexible design elements is permanent deflection. It cannot be used on anything that is expected to stay in its tensioned state for anything more than a few seconds. This is why PLA works for catapults and toothpick guns and latches that have a single position rest state where the flexible element is relaxed. If you leave it under tension, though, even just for a few hours, it will not spring back fully. Eventually, it just won’t spring back at all.

Through much testing (read: slowly pissing myself off) I determined in the course of developing my Rockhopper that ABS is the best commonly available choice for permanently or semi-permanently loaded printed spring fixtures – at least out of what most normal and sane people can print with their hobby level machines. Even PETG is better than PLA in that respect, but PLA was useless for me.

Weight is really the only reason, but even then I think that’s self-defeating on a bicycle.

Believe it or not, a chain and sprocket drive is actually the most efficient method in terms of energy transmission losses. And when it’s you physically pedaling your bicycle, that’s kind of important. Turning any significant fraction of your pedaling input into heat rather than forward locomotion is kind of a raw deal, which is why even fancy high end bicycles are still chain driven even to this day. A chain drive loses 1-4% of energy in the driveline whereas as comparable belt drive is more in the order of 9-15%.

Print time: 10 minutes. Time for 2048x2048 point “bed” auto mesh: four hours.

FWIW the default PETG profile on my printer doesn’t even run the part cooling fan at all except during bridges. PETG has a very narrow window of suitable temperatures typically between 240 and 260° C, and if you’re printing with your nozzle at 240 you’re already scraping the lower end of that range. And unlike PLA, especially the modern blends we have now that are full of additives to make the stuff easier to print, there is no leeway. PETG will essentially solidify instantly once it falls below that critical temperature point. Not only underextruding severely (or not extruding at all) but likely also failing to bond to the layer underneath with whatever does manage to make it out of the nozzle.

On my machine you can hear it when this happens, a least. The extruder gears click like mad whenever there’s a failure to extrude at any significant volume.

not sketchy Chinese spyware

People are going to suggest Bambu printers, but if avoiding Chinese spyware is one of your criteria I would advise avoiding anything and everything by Bambu, regardless of how shiny it is.

Look into the Qidi I-Fast, which is a dual extruder machine, i.e. with two separate toolheads. Its multi material capability is superior to the Bambus in that regard, working more similarly to your work’s Prusa, albeit only supporting two materials at a time. Qidi is also Chinese but I have owned two of their printers so far (an OG X-Plus, and a current Gen 3 X-Max) and I can find no evidence that they engage in any spying or other misbehavior. The I-Fast is $1800 USD right now which is well within your budget.

Honestly, for $5000 you can buy a lot of printer, or multiple printers. Plan B I think would be to just get the Prusa XL as you have already suggested, which is a sound strategy. Me, if I ever manage to accumulate enough Prusameters to do so, I am 100% cashing them in for a Prusa XL.

Despite claims to the contrary (largely by their manufacturers and fanboys, myself sometimes included) there is no such thing as any 3D printer from any brand using any technology that is truly plug-and-play, and 100% problem free. The damn things are inherently full of moving parts, tiny clearances, consumables, and wear items which will all at some point or another require your attention either via tinkering, tuning, or occasional parts replacement.

A little vacuum pump, like a carburetor on a motorcycle from the 70’s? Hell if I know, but that’s my idea.

I scanned your QR code.

…I should have known.

I have used OpenSCAD for various things, and I am a programmer by trade (at least partially) but it still breaks my brain. I just do absurd things with FreeCAD formulae instead.