Something Useful

When I first got the 3D printer I wanted to print everything I found—and there was a lot to find.   The only problem was most things would take eight, twelve or even more hours to print.  It doesn’t even need to be a large model to take a long time to print if it’s complicated or dense or you want extremely fine detail in the layers.   I just wanted to print things, going from a spool of filament to something finished on the printer. 

So I learned to be selective on the models I picked to print and figured out what print settings I could use to have models print faster at the price of detailed accuracy I didn’t really need in some models so I could get experience printing different types of things.   I learned about “vase mode” which ignores everything else and prints only a single perimeter in a slinky-like fashion.   Vase mode was really fast and would churn out models faster than anything else as long as the model would work with only one perimeter.   Not surprisingly, vase models were ideal for this type of print. 

I figured out how to change nozzles to a much thicker one which enabled me to print larger models with bulkier lines of filament, but for some models, this worked well.   Faster extrusion of filament through the larger diameter nozzle meant I could get models printed faster, again, at the price of detail and accuracy.   Still, some models look great printed this way and many of my favorite models to date were printed like this. 

For the longest while, my husband would contend that I was printing things that were mostly trinkets or another slew of vases and as far as he saw, none of it was useful.   I bristled.  I balked.   Of COURSE everyone needed thirty-odd vases in their basement mechanical room.   And how could he say those articulated toys weren’t a complete necessity in everyone’s household?   

I’m exaggerating, but he did say he didn’t think I was printing anything useful at the time.   Now that the new printer is in, I’ve been able to send one printer on a long-haul print, while having the other printer do shorter-length work.   I’ve even sent them off on full overnight prints as I’m more willing to wait for that perfect model to come off the print bed.   

I’ve been printing things for teacher holiday presents.  I’ve found some really beautiful and useful models and I’ve been printing and assembling them.   I also have some functional parts I’ve been printing that have a specific useful use.   So when my husband came in yesterday and told me he wished he had useful prints to do on his printer, well, I almost laughed.  Only he was serious.  

His printer is an entirely different process than mine.   It does an outstanding job of printing some things, but isn’t as ideal for the types of things I’ve been printing.   He’s made a lot of highly-detailed figurines, but those are less functional and more beautiful.    

I’m getting up the nerve to sent prints to the printer that are over ten hours in length.   I’ve never done it before for several reasons.   First, if something goes wrong at hour eleven, you’ve lost the material and print.  Second, if something goes wrong and you’re not watching it regularly, you can have a massive mess that could damage the extruder and third, it’s a long time before anything else can be printed.   

Tomorrow we’re going to add a raspberry pi to the second printer to enable remote printing monitoring as well as putting a camera on it.   I’ll be able to check the status of the print in the middle of the night without getting out of bed and I can stop it if something’s wrong and we’re away from the house.   I can also do time-lapse videos of prints, and those are always fun to watch.

I have to end this so I can start something else useful on the printer. 

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  The week of my daughter’s birthday has begun.   She wanted Barbie things, and she has several things coming from grandparents.  She opened Nana and Papa’s gift today and tomorrow she will open Mimi and Gramp’s present (it’s also Mimi’s 80th birthday!)  There is more Barbie madness to come.   It’s going to be a Barbie birthday for sure. 

The Big Boy Update:  My son wanted to play Minecraft with his father last night.   I was listening to him talking to my husband and then my husband’s responses.   After a while I told my son, “I know you wanted to play with your father, but after a while it seems like what you want to do is have a show-off show, not actually play with dad.   I see your father is trying to build something.   I’m getting the sense from the tone of his responses to you that he’s not having fun with the way you’re wanting to play by showing off all you know.   You’ve got to keep in mind you know so much more about Minecraft than either of us do, and that’s great, but maybe you’d get a better response from your father if you spent your time working with him instead of just trying to show all the cool things you can do.”  I tried to say it in a nice way, and I think he got the message.   It’s tough to play with him because all he wants to do is show off.   After that, he started helping his father and they had a good time.