Bird Feeder Ornament, feeding those hungry birds in the winter! Wood is native Holly. Design inspired by work done by Frank Penta.

Bird is nesting inside and, of course, that IS a Christmas Tree inside the top of the Pagoda roof.

Look closely, you can see the bird nesting inside.

Next, the ‘usual’ collection of gifts…

Box to keep Finley’s Things. Sides are Ash, top is Wenge with Holly Inlay.

Front Corner showing grain matching.

Back corner showing grain matching.

Lift the lid and you’ll find Walnut lining with a surprise! Random tracks from an SD card will play every time the lid is opened. Currently the tracks are recorded animal and insect sounds.

The liner is removable including the false bottom.

With the false bottom removed, the custom electronics, including the SD card, is accessible. Note the wireless Charging circuit on the left side. This will keep the battery charged without wires when the box is placed on its stand.

For Kerry, I made a large, shallow bowl I’ve been wanting to make for some time. I had to wait until I had refined my Woodturning skills enough to have the confidence to take it on. I’m pleased with the result:

Large Bowl for Kerry

Showing back side of bowl after buffing.

Here’s the bowl right after turning the bottom first. Note texturing inside the foot.

Bowl right after turning the inside. Freshly oiled with Walnut Oil, it will need to cure for a few days before final buffing.

Bowl Rim detail.

Bowl Lamination Detail. The woods are Cherry, Purple Heart, and Walnut with dyed veneers between the layers.

Finally, here is how you deal with overly long handles on your turning tools. I couldn’t get enough sweep with the original handle to turn the inside of Kerry’s bowl. Solution? Cut it off! I’ve since replaced the wooden handle with an adjustable Aluminum handle. Much better!

and have to make some Yard Art!

Yard art for Kate & Paul’s place.

Some yard art I made for Clare and Finley’s house.

New 3D Printer, busy printing the next thing!

The printer is a ‘resin’ type printer where the print bed is moved (rather than a print head) and is dipped into a vat of resin that is cured using Ultraviolet light.  The pattern to be cured is generated by a high resolution LCD under the vat and selectively passes through UV light from below.  The print bed is then raised to the next position and the next layer is projected on to the last.  It’s a slow process, but very high resolution and, I’m hoping, without the printing gaps that you get with a ‘FDM’ type 3D printer.

The print volume is small, only 4.5×2.56×5.9 inches, but almost all of my printing is smaller than this.  Interestingly, with this type of printer the time it takes to print is entirely determined by the height of the object and the layer thickness, while a conventional 3D printer the time it takes to print is a function of the volume of the printed object and the resolution of the extruder.  Hence, in a lot of cases, the print time will be shorter with this type of printer, especially on complex objects.

So, what have I done since I unpacked this yesterday?

Included with the printer was a sample design file of a mythical WatchTower.  I printed it in a Green Translucent resin purposefully keeping it small to test the resolution:

WatchTower complete with Spiral Staircase in the middle of it.

To give you some idea of the size of this tower, try this on:

WatchTower with some perspective added.

Finally, here is a closeup of the walkway at the top of the tower:

Bird’s Eye view of the watchtower. You can see the stairs descending and the printing on the walkway. Those letters are approximately 150 microns thick…

I ordered one about 8 weeks ago and it finally arrived last week!  Having built the previous one, with the help of the entire family, this one was a breeze to assemble, although it did take longer in elapsed time doing it single handedly (about 5-6 hours).

I considered going with a different printer, lower cost and not a long lead time, but the quality and features (Auto calibrate being the most significant) of the Prusa convinced me to stick with a winner!

I noticed a few improvements or tweaks in the design since the previous unit telling me that the company is constantly monitoring their product and continuously making improvements – a very good sign!

So here it is:

Finished Printer with miscellaneous parts. Note the mounted camera to the left.

I did make a mistake in assembly that cost me during the calibration cycle (you can see a nasty dig in the right hand side of the platen).  This can be replaced, but, so far, I haven’t printed anything so wide that I would need that area of the bed.  Since then I was able to realign the assembly and was able to perform a good calibration of the unit.  I think this unit has much better print quality than the first one.

I switched cameras on this one, using the small camera designed specifically for the Raspberry Pi.  The reason for this is that I discovered that the camera really needs to be mounted on the platen, otherwise the timelapse videos will drive you nuts as the workpiece keeps moving with respect to the camera.  With this arrangement, the camera and workpiece have the same frame of reference and you can easily see it being ‘built’.

The camera mount came from www.thingiverse.com/thing:2113975.  However I made a mistake printing this in PLA.  The part connected to the platen ‘drooped’ after I printed a couple of ABS parts (which has a much hotter platen).  I’ve since reprinted the one piece in ABS.

Closeup of camera (Raspberry Pi Camera V2.1) and filament dust filter enclosure. This is a hinged piece printed in a single pass.

The 3D Print server works very well with this camera:

View of screen running 3D Printer server, complete with video!

Having a queue of projects and add-ons for the printer, I spent the next couple of days printing various items…

Close up of Extruder Filament guide adapter plate. Teflon tubing connects this to the filament dryer filament feed guide. Also note the filament dust filter. Normally this will be located just before the upper feed guide as the tubing will keep the filament dust free after that.

3D printed drip valve, just waiting for the PCB to control it.

Miscellaneous parts printed on the new printer. Overall the quality appears better than the printer at the House In The Woods. Probably due to better calibration and newer printer firmware.

With my limited space at LHV, I knew that the printer would be relegated to the garage/workshop, which is both dusty and humid.  Humidity and 3D filaments don’t mix well – or, I should say, they mix TOO well with 3D filaments LOVING to absorb any moisture in the air.  So, I needed a setup where the filament was kept in a dry spot.  After some research, I discovered that Food Dehydrators are very popular mods for 3D printers and this led me to this next series of photos…

Filament dryer base (Cake Transporter) with final modifications sitting on top of unmodified Food Dehydrator. Note lazy susan bearing and 3D printed hub to keep spool aligned and turning easily.

I found a Food Dehydrator and a plastic Cake Transporter that appeared to be ‘right sized’ for this application.  The Food Dehydrator was PERFECTLY sized with the cake transporter base fitting just inside the rim of the dehydrator, I didn’t need any modifications for the dehydrator base.

I was then able to cut out openings in the cake transporter base with a flush cutting router bit in my trim router.  The lazy susan, used to allow the spool to spin freely, was also ‘off the shelf’ and it just took a couple of simple 3D printed add-ons to complete the dryer!

Filament dryer base (Cake Transporter) with final modifications sitting on top of unmodified Food Dehydrator. Note lazy susan bearing and 3D printed hub to keep spool aligned and turning easily.

Filament Dryer with spool and filament guide. The fitting holds a teflon tube that guides the filament down to the extruder.

Completed Filament Dryer, drying a spool of PLA.

I’m trying a simpler enclosure (a large cardboard box) this time around, but I may go the same route as HIW as the cardboard box is a bit too rickety.  We’ll see and I’ll update this when I reach a conclusion…

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