You can also vent your printer outside, which is what I currently do, using this.
Progenitor of the Weird Knife Wednesday feature column. Is “column” the right word? Anyway, apparently I also coined the Very Specific Object nomenclature now sporadically used in the 3D printing community. Yeah, that was me. This must be how Cory Doctorow feels all the time these days.
You can also vent your printer outside, which is what I currently do, using this.
I mean, you could make a jig to use a box cutter to make consistent width strips very easily with three pieces of scrap wood. But this commenter coming in here for the express purpose of trying to removed on 3D printer hobbyists was a stupid move on his part.
Things like this give us… balance.
Otherwise known as, “Justification for ownership of printer.”
Look, I totally didn’t just buy this thing as a hobby to make more parts for itself! See, I actually do occasionally make useful things with it!!!
That’s what I tell myself, anyway…
For your next trick, you should try going into a biker bar and loudly proclaiming that motorcycle riders are sissies.
I can only conjecture it must have cost a mint.
Crikey. I have to wonder what that ~2TB unit must have cost in 2016.
Interesting that the one has such large capacitors in it. I imagine that is as last-ditch effort to keep the board powered long enough to finish flushing all of its caches in the event of a power failure.
If this hasn’t been thoroughly driven into the ground already by everyone else here…
Modern consumer 3D printers are self-contained, and do not require drivers for your computer, nor do they necessarily have to be connected to your computer at all. That definitely means no blobs. You can even run your printer with your PC powered off completely, or stick it in a room separate from your computers entirely. You might want to do either of the above because A) long print jobs can take approximately forever and you might want to let them run overnight, and B) they’re not exactly silent…
3D printers have an internal microcontroller and run what’s called “G-Code,” which (arguably in true UNIX/Linux tradition) is ultimately just a text file that’s even vaguely human readable that contains a set of specific instructions on how to move the print head around to create the object in question. G-Code is essentially just a program that your printer will run, and there are multiple ways in which to create it. How you get it to your printer is up to you: Most modern machines can be accessed over the network interface somehow, usually via a web browser, or you can just stick the files on a memory card or USB drive and chunk that into the printer physically.
The .gcode files you feed to your printer will be created by a piece of software called a “slicer,” which takes a 3D model and converts it into move instructions on a layer-by-layer basis (hence, “slicing”).
Whatever printer you buy will certainly come with its own slicer software, which may be lightly customized or not at all.
Nearly all slicer software is either open source or is derived from open source. The most notable and biggest name is probably Slic3r/Prusaslicer, which is open source, and is the basis of many manufacturer customized slicers such as Bambu’s OrcaSlicer, and Qidi’s QidiSlicer. Prusaslicer is available for Linux, and due to its ubiquity I recommend you start there.
You absolutely do not have to use the slicer your printer came with, and in fact you may not want to for various reasons. OS compatibility being one, and if your printer’s maker uses e.g. a customized version of Prusaslicer it is almost a certainty that their customized version is not based on the most recent version. If you don’t use the slicer software your machine came with you will have to configure Prusaslicer or whatever it is you decide to use for your machine, which is not as difficult as it sounds and basically just involves telling it that the physical maximum print volume of your machine is, where you expect the print head’s home position to be, how many extruders it has (probably just one), etc. The work has probably been done for you by someone else; you can get configurations for pretty much any machine from somebody on the internet somewhere.
You will also have to ensure that your slicer is spitting out G-Code in a format (or “flavor”) that your particular machine understands but that’s not a big deal these days considering basically every current consumer 3D printer can use Marlin G-Code.
I have only owned two printers personally, both Qidi machines: An original X-Plus, and now an X-Max 3. I’ve had great results with both. Qidi provides their own lightly customized version of Prusaslicer (see above) which they provide for Windows as well as Linux, but you can also just use Prusaslicer if you feel like it (see above again).
At the moment you can score an X-Plus 3 for $599 USD which is 536.95 EUR if Google is to be believed. I think this may be a good starting point for someone who wants a turnkey experience, a plug-in-and-use machine you can start printing with right away without a bunch of assembly, tuning, upgrading, fiddling, generalized nonproductive removeding around, nor dealing with Bambu’s proprietary bullremoved. (You could spring for the X-Max 3 like mine if you want, but it’s physically enormous and probably overkill if you don’t absolutely need the larger build volume.) The Plus 3 and Max 3 are essentially the same except for size. The Plus/Max 3 are also fully enclosed machines with internal build chamber heaters and are thus ready to handle higher temperature and more exotic filaments right out of the box if ever you feel you would want to print in more than just PLA and PETG, again without having to mess with upgrades or aftermarket stuff. For instance my X-Plus 3 prints ABS and ASA pretty much just as easily as plain old PLA which is not something you can say about a lot of machines.
The E3 S1 is a direct drive extruder, right? If so, it should produce some kind of results for you although in my experience you have to retract TPU pretty far to get results, like 5-6mm. In my experience it always oozes as least a little bit so long a your nozzle is at temperature and there’s any amount of the stuff in the chamber, so you’ll never fully eliminate stringing. But some retraction should help, and you can get it down to being very minor.
On a Bowden type extruder, though, it’s basically a fool’s errand because the stuff is so damn elastic, and is also slightly compressible to boot. The more length of it you have between your extruder gears and the tip of your nozzle, the more its elasticity becomes apparent. I think this is where the “common wisdom” of no retraction on TPU came from. The stuff can kink and then jam in a Bowden tube if you really go at it with gusto.
Anyway, you could also try a fairly long “wipe after retraction” setting.
I have been told by people I know who use Blender extensively (I certainly don’t use it extensively – or at all, really) that there are plugins that will bludgeon it into producing models with dimensionally accurate features. I can’t speak for this myself but it appears to be an option.
That’s better than my first attempt with TPU was, that’s for sure. No retraction whatsoever? That’s bold.
If your slicer supports it, I recommend enabling “combing” (which is what Cura calls it), or “Avoid Crossing Perimeters” (in Prusa/derivatives) which work slightly differently, but have the net effect of keeping the nozzle within the outer walls of the print during moves when possible, which ensures that any stringing so caused winds up inside the solid spaces in the model where it’s not visible.
Edit to add: There are of course some shapes where not crossing perimeters is impossible, which in your case would be the uprights on the Benchy’s cabin before the top of the arches meet. Presumably it’s designed this way on purpose. The combing/avoid crossing settings do wonders for not causing extraneous stringing e.g. in holes and notches in your print if any exist, though.
Recharging isn’t the issue, refilling is. The disposables are designed not to be refilled, so the manufacturer can turn around and sell you another entire one instead.
That’s always been my take. I would also much rather be able to easily refill the thing with whatever I want – and have control over what’s going into it (insofar as anyone can, via buying through trusted sources).
I’ve seen Big Clive’s musings on extracting rechargeable cells from these things as well. I’ve always wanted to give it a try, but somehow the apparently conscientious oiks in my neck of the woods don’t seem to litter disposable vapes everywhere so I’ve never been able to get my hands on any significant quantity of them.
It’s astounding that these things are made to just be thrown away. What an absurd amount of waste.
Go for it.
Doesn’t look too tough. I’m quite certain I could print that out of ABS for you. Any color you want as long as it’s black (which is all I have in stock right now).
Re: the dimensions. .STL files inherently have their dimensions baked in, as drafted by the designer. If you print it straight up without modification it will come out at the dimensions at which it was designed.
I see. Yeah, that could pose a problem.
For use in a vehicle I would definitely recommend printing out of ABS at minimum (which is what most OEM plastic car components are made out of anyway, at least the ones I’ve looked at in my life that were marked as such on the back), so you’ll need someone who can do that with their machine also. PLA and probably even PETG will deform in a car sitting in the sun.
I’m probably not local but I am a nerd, and my machine can indeed print ABS. Post the file and I’ll take a look at it?
Yeah, PETG or ABS/ASA would probably be my go-to. For what it’s worth, I’m pretty sure basically all commercial plastic spools are injection molded out of ABS.
Where are you located, as in what country? That will probably change the answer a lot.
I would advise finding a local nerd to print it for you rather than using a commercial print service. For functional parts, it may take multiple attempts or some fiddling to ultimately get it right, which is going to be a massive pain in the ass if you’re ordering parts by mail and paying for each one.
This is what I did. I have not had to change nozzles since.
I will say, however, that this will definitely prompt you to git gud at cleaning nozzles, and inventing jigs and tools for doing so, because you’ll no longer just want to shrug and throw away your current nozzle if it clogs badly.
I meant without printing anything, for anyone without access to a 3D printer. This was in response to the above comment about freehanding it.
To use an ordinary box cutter for this purpose all you need is something to use as an endstop and something to use as a fence, and they have to be parallel to each other.