Repairs and reshoot

After yesterday's printing I noticed that while hitting the top frame, the x-carrier had not only lost it's z-axis calibration but also the x-direction belt has become loose from one end. I must assume  my original assembly was a bit weak and the extra hassle at the end of printing the angel figure was just the final straw.

To reattach the belt at the carrier part, I'll need to remove the printing hot end and open up the carrier assembly. It should not be a biggie and I think I might even try to video it with some explanatory documentation while fixing the issue. Also the print bed level + head distance calibration will be necessary to do before I can continue printing.

I also got a small project to do with printer. A certain small plastic fixture is broken and there's need for a replacement part. It would be my first real 3d designed item that's for real use.

Otoh, I do know that my intro-video is a bit late. Perhaps I'll get it done too? Someday?

Size limit, xmas decorations and usefull items.

As I have now moved to clear pla, I decided to try some objects I could use led-lights with. This xmas angel printed quite nicely, but the printer ran out of room just before the end. So the wing tips are perhaps 1mm too short. Well, I'm sure the gift receiver don't mind.

This angel figure is 10cm high and 10cm wide. It's now cooling, while I write this post. I'll need design and install light fixture and battery some later day.

All in all, the adjustment to different PLA type has gone quite well. I received this natural clear pla reel Monday 28th Nov. and have since printed some useful items with it.  Like the vice that can be used on electronics soldering.

OpenSCAD, scaling existing STL object

I found this nice hand figure from open stl library and wanted to print it for ongoing D&D game. As it happens though, this printed part fits well on scale for Large size (4 squares) and we happened to need Normal size (1 square). So OpenSCAD to rescue. After some reading of the manual, all I needed to type in was just this:

scale([ 0.5, 0.5, 0.5 ]) 

   {import_stl("G:STLs/hand.stl", convexity = 5);}

Then press F6 to compile and render, and select menu for STL export.

Result bellow. I printed this smaller hand with support-material enabled, so I'll need to clean it up before use.

Somewhat unreleated sidenote: I have noticed that sometimes my phone fails to upload entire picture to Picasa albums. There's no error message but about half or 1/3rd of the picture becomes grey. I'll need to test this further..