Thanks to the nice folks over at Elegoo we will have a brand new 3D printer at the Makerspace soon – the Elegoo Neptune 2S! It is an i3-style “bedslinger” with many cool features like Filament Runout detection, a spring steel magnetic sheet w/PEI coating, a dual-gear all-metal extruder, and a Power-Off Resume.

As a special treat, we will be unboxing, assembling it, and getting the first print going LIVE during our next 3D Printer Clinic on Saturday, August 13, 2022, at 1 pm CST! Everyone is welcome to this event, member or non-member. This is a great way to learn about 3D printers and 3D printing. Even if you’re already familiar with 3D printing but are having issues, come on out and let us help you resolve your problems. Or just hang out and watch us build our new printer!

We look forward to seeing you then!

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.

Recently Ben, Cliff and Claudio have built Diametric’s Mini Quadcopter. We met a fellow RepRap user- Diametric- at this years Midwest RepRap Festival in Elkhart Indiana. He brought along a 3D printed quadcopter that he designed and built.

The quadcopters are remarkably inexpensive, the design, models and bill of materials can be found on Thingiverse. They are easy to build and easy to get off the ground. We’re still learning how to fly them however. While all three have taken flight, we have had some accidents and damaged the frames on 2 of them, twice. We’re not too worried when that happens, for we can always reprint the frame within about an hour and a half on one of our 3D printers.

Building the quadcopters

Claudio’s Quadcopter

Cliff’s Quadcopter

Claudio’s Second Quadcopter

Ben’s Second Quadcopter

Ben’s Quadcopter- We are still learning…

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.