If you’ve been following Midsouth Makers you know that we’ve been building. using and tweaking our 3D printers for a while now. Well thanks to a kind donation by LulzBot we now have a dedicated 3D printer at the space for member use! The printer is an AO-101, a MendelMax 1.5 variant.

The AO-101 currently uses 3mm filament and can print in ABS, PLA, Nylon and even Laywoo-D3 wooden filament.  We  have it setup to allow for remote printing on the LAN, using either OctoPrint or Repetier-Server. We recommend Repetier-Server due to it’s stability.

The AO-101 will be using a donated a 1U server as the host computer. Repetier-Server will allow you to load a gcode file and control the printer. We will be exploring webcam functionality for use in monitoring and in generating time-lapse print videos.

We will need the following items to get our new 3D printer setup and functional:

• Filament- Currently setup for 3mm:
  • ABS
  • PLA
• Webcam- Logitech C110 or C270 preferred (we’ve already tested and confirmed stability)
• 120mm silent PC case fan

AO-101 Specifications

• Build Area – 190mm 200mm 100mm
• Hot-end – Budaschnozzle 1.2
  • Extrusion temperature range – 180C – 240C
• Filament- Currently setup for 3mm and can reliably print the following material types:
  • ABS
  • PLA
  • Taulman 618 Nylon
  • Laywoo-D3 Wooden Filament
• Heated Print Bed (65C-110C)
• Borosilicate Glass Bed  with PET film on one side for printing with ABS and bare glass on the other side for printing with PLA
• Integrated Filament Mount for either loose coiled filament or spindles for spooled filament

Current AO-101 Modifications

• Nozzle Fan for printing in PLA installed but not hooked up
• RGB LED lighting (white for now)

More information on the new 3D printer can be found in our wiki.

If you’d like to use it, please contact Claudio, Ben, Dan or Cliff- more information will follow. In order to have access to the 3D printer without one of us present you will need to have had verified prior experience with a RepRap 3D printer, or attended an upcoming class on running & troubleshooting 3D printers(TBD) or be able to demonstrate the appropriate knowledge.

Please show our thanks and appreciation to LulzBot and the RepRap community!

We are slowly and painfully making progress with learning to fly our 3D Printed Mini Quadcopters. Cliff has helped us out with some tweaks & balances. Hopefully some more members will be interested in building their own, and will help add to the swarm.

I have a badger-hair shaving brush that I’d like to keep for a while. I’ve read that the brush will last longer if it’s allowed to hang and dry versus being left sitting in the lather bowl. After looking around for a hanging stand I decided to make my own, that works for brushing to so you don’t have to keep thinking if brushing vs combing is the best way to go. My first model took over 6 hours to print at 60mm/sec.

 It turns out I made the model quite a bit larger than necessary. After placing the brush and the razor on the stand, all the extra unused space is really evident.

I decided to see how much time and material I could save on my next model so I tried to use circles and ellipses to minimize the printed area while still leaving enough structure. The new model has a hanger for the razor and a slot with drain holes for the extra razor blades.

This model printed much faster, it only took around two and a half hours at 60mm/sec.

The stand works well enough, but I’m not happy with how tall and light it is, it’s too easy to knock over early in the morning.

For the next iteration, I’m going to flare out the base a bit to prevent tipping and may increase the amount of material towards the bottom of the model. The blade storage slot needs to be deeper as well.

We have a banner stand that is starting to fail at work. The plastic collar is starting to crack. Rather than simply replacing the whole stand, I figured I could make a quick replacement clamp. 10 minutes later thanks to TinkerCAD we have our replacement part model.

Once the stand was disassembled, I  switched out and replaced the collar. It’s a bit brighter than the stock part, but the stand is repaired!

Once I saw how easy it was to create models in TinkerCad, I decided to get caught up with some of our other needs. This is a replacement clip for a hanging banner.

The original clip slides into a channel, the replacement slid right in!

I’ve been wanting to print some of the geared items on Thingiverse for a while. With Valentines day coming up it seemed like an excellent opportunity to try out the Screwless Heart Gears by Thingiverse user Emmett. After reading the assembly instructions the heart came together quite nicely with the help of a hot air gun to help let the printed pins slide in easily.

Completed!

The heart has been assembled and rotated

A view from the top

I found it easier to assemble the larger gears first. It allowed me to better align and mesh the smaller gears.

Working my way down

The top 2 lobes of the heart

The assembly process begins!

Printing one of the 8 gears