Finger splint/protector that was scaled up to fit.
After injuring a fingertip, leaf blower intake fan blades & fingers don’t mix well, I was looking for a splint to protect my now injured index finger. Couldn’t find one in the medicine cabinet at home and was thinking about going to the makerspace to get one out of the first aid kit there. Of course a friend mentioned that he figured I’d just print one. Of course I could!
So did a quick online search and found one that was an easy 3D printing job. After taking some measurements of my finger (don’t forget to take into account any bandages), then scaling up, 25 min later I had a custom fit finger protector! It’s worked great, I got to pick my own color, and doesn’t look bad if I do say so myself…
Last weekend I traveled up to Goshen Indiana for the Midwest Rep Rap Festival (MRRF), a trip every 3D printing enthusiast should make. It’s been 6 years since I went to MRRF, and it’s certainly grown since then! One big improvement: more space! When I went in 2019 it was so crowded it was difficult to walk around.
By no means the only 3D printed castle there, but often the most crowded table in part to the life-sized figurines including girl on the right with pink & gray hair.
The annual event has changed slightly, although the biggest portion is still regular folks showing off what they’ve made. It does seem to have shifted more from new/unique 3D printers to what you can print, but there were still some different 3D printer designs there. There were several interesting belt printers, a few variations on the Positron printer, and a new Bondtech multi-material upgrade unit that looked really promising among others..
Death Racers on display before competition.
There were also many vendors there: Prusa had a large presence there, Polymaker had one of the most challenging tables with their interactive filament color guessing games, and Indiana based Atomic Filament had lots of filament at the show. And even some youtubers with tables, occasionally doing interviews, and of course a few vendor raffles (I won a Voron board from LDO Motion!).
Turtle on the right (with Tiny Bikes to the back left) took 15 spools of filament, 82 pieces, and 350 hours of print time.
But what I really noticed was the increase of the activities vs 2019, there was even a separate building for setup, repairs, and the competitive challenges. Death Racers, jousting in small tank like 3D printed cars where you knock off the head of opponents, were quite popular and Mayhem at MRRF continued this year. Then there was an occasional Tiny Bike parade in the main building and 3D printed drag racers outside in the parking lot.
3D Printed Drag Racers setting up at the starting line Christmas Tree. An RC Fuel Truck is in the corner going out to ‘fuel’ the racers…
Perhaps what impressed me the most was the congenial, family friendly atmosphere of not only the participants but also the attendees. It will definitely be on the list to attend next year!
For the last several years we’ve been helping out at the Putnam County Public Library (PCPL) with their Scary Science event on Halloween. It always draws a crowd and love making things for the event.
A trick or treater tries on the animated eye mask we made for Halloween.
We usually bring one of our 3D printers to make something there and this year we printed out a mask for an artificial animated eye. And while not original, we made a ghost for a robotic vacuum that was often seen wandering around the library’s lower level cleaning up things.
Topping off our tricks was an updated version of Pepper’s Ghost, an optical illusion that makes animated things appear to be floating, using a tablet and a prism created on our laser cutter. We already have some ideas for next year’s event!
Last year we had a Stereolithography (SLA) 3D printer donated to the makerspace and finally made time to get it up and running. The makerspace has been using using fused filament fabrication (FFF or FDM) since we moved into the physical makerspace and myself longer than that, but have resisted making the leap to other forms until now.
Our Resin 3D Printing workstation
SLA so far has been pretty much what I expected: really great resolution and detail but it’s more complex dealing with the uncured resin. Post-processing time and especially cleanup is more involved than FFF, so processing 3D prints in batches makes a lot of sense. We haven’t experimented much with different resins, cost of the resin feels like it it is much more than FFF printing, although it’s a difficult comparison since SLA prints use a lot less resin and the uncured resin can be reused if you’re careful.
Eiffel Tower Printed at 50 microns
But oh, what resolution compared to FFF printing! You’re hard pressed to see the height layer lines when printing at 50 microns (yes, that’s .05 mm or .002″) and ours will let us print at 20 microns if you’re willing to take the time. X and Y dimensional resolution is at 75 microns (.075 mm/.03″), which is something you’re not going to see coming out of a filament nozzle printer. Of course for those levels of detail it will take longer to print, although the Digital Light Processing (DLP) system helps make the individual layer printing time much shorter.
There’s some other minor differences, like the way you have to think about supports since the prints are pulled out upside down out of the resin tank. But it’s a nice tool and addition to the makerspace. Stop by sometime & we can show you what we’ve printed. We always have a class in November or December for folks to learn about 3D printing by making holiday ornaments, watch our events webpage or sign up for our newsletter to find out that date and more.
One of the injection molding machines making printer and other parts at SeeMeCNC.
While makerspace folks are all about hacking things, sometimes it’s useful to get someone who makes them for a living involved. Our Rostock 3D printer was an early purchase and with some recent intermittent problems occurring and wanting to do some upgrades, we decided to take it back to the factory in northern Indiana where we bought the kit in 2016 for a tune-up. Besides, we figured it would be a great chance to see some of the latest improvements in 3D printing with a Delta!
Steve shows off some previous 3D printer designs.
We scheduled some time with Steve Wygant at SeeMeCNC in Ligonier IN to look over the makerspace upgraded Rostock Max V3.2 to see if he had some clues about the intermittent problems we were starting to see. If you’ve printed a lot, especially in an environment with multiple people using the machine, you can understand why it’s important to have a 3D printer that just prints. And one where you don’t have to keep tweaking settings to get things printed correctly.
Testing our Rostock printer at SeeMeCNC next to their latest BOSSdelta.
One of the first things we learned: all SD cards are created equal. Ours ended up with a generic card in our Duet controller. Steve had a stack of bad used cards pulled from troubleshooting other printers. After upgrading the Duet firmware to the latest SeeMeCNC configuration, we also installed a PanelDue – an upgrade we’ve wanted to do for a while.
A hotend replacement with an improved connector and resetting the Cura settings/configuration finished the job. And after a month of trouble-free and much improved printing quality, I can truly say the time & trip up there was worth it. It’s really nice to have a printer with online guides and the support behind it to keep it running for over 6 years, plus it still makes prints that people are impressed with. And not having to pitch & buy a new printer when it wears or something goes wrong!
Last Saturday was Field Day for North American amateur radio, an annual ‘open house’ where 40k ham radio operators get out the radio equipment to make contacts and demonstrate to others how it’s done. We’ve helped out the local group PCAUXCOM the last few years by having a project to build or putting on an education session at their location.
This satellite tracker was built with 3D printed parts and components from Castlemakers.
Last year we did something on using WSPR with a Raspberry Pi, so for this year we talked about listening to amateur radio satellites and the International Space Station(ISS). Although we don’t currently have the equipment to transmit to a satellite, it’s not hard to listen with a handheld receiver or police scanner. We have hopes of someday acquiring the necessary equipment to be able to actually contact other amateur radio operators using one of the satellites, or one of the radios on the ISS.
We also showed off a prototype satellite tracker that Ian has been designing that was made with 3D printed parts from the makerspace. While it’s still a work-in-progress, the prototype uses data from a satellite tracking app to move a mounted antenna to follow the satellite as it passes the sky overhead. There wasn’t an ISS pass but Ian was able to show how it tracked another satellite during the presentation. The major components were designed in Tinkercad, the same program we use in our Intro to 3D Printing class, and the tracking hardware is moved by software running on a Pi Pico!
This last week I got to do something different during “bring your kid to work day” – provide additional STEM activities for the kids that came to MESH Systems in Carmel, Indiana. The idea came about when a parent in Greencastle, who often brings his child to Castlemakers, wasn’t sure if there would be enough to keep his son interested all day. Since his son really enjoys stopping by the makerspace, and he knew we’ve done many youth programs in the area, he asked if we could do something at his office. After some discussions with their HR person, we were able to put together an afternoon STEM session at Mesh.
Programming a micro:bit using Makecode.
We began by going over the micro:bit by demonstrating beginning programming on the IoT like device. It’s been one of our favorite single board computers since we gave them away to every 6th grader in Putnam County. The MakeCode web interface, where you can use block based programing or even JavaScript & Python, allows you to accommodate different levels of programming knowledge – important when doing a group of mixed ages kids. As expected, some picked it up quicker than others but there’s enough projects available at different skill levels to keep everyone busy during the time we had!
Explaining how to export 3D printing files for printing.
There was also interest in 3D printing, so we started with a quick overview of the printing process. After starting our 3D printer making some parts and explaining how some of the 3D printed parts we brought were made, we had them design their own part to be printed using Tinkercad. The later afternoon kids were more interested in design, so we focused in on using Tinkercad to create objects and how it differed from other 3D design programs. Those that were left had access to other 3D printers, so we finished up on how to export and print their designs.
Thanks to Mesh Systems for giving us the opportunity to teach some of their kids about single board computing and 3D printing design!
Foam before shaping with CO2 propulsion cartridges
This Friday night, at Greencastle’s First Friday, we’ll be trying something new, letting folks carve a foam block into a car, then propel them down a wire on Franklin Street.
Finished foam block mounted on the base.
For the first attempts we’re keeping it simple, although admittedly we’ve got bigger plans. For Friday night we’ve built a platform to put the foam block on, participants can carve the block into a car body, then will launch it down a cable using a CO2 cartridge.
Foam box car launcher testing
In the future we’re going to try 3D printed and laser-cut wheels & want to also try using model rocket engines for propulsion. We’ve even thought about dual tracks for racing and putting an on-board micro:bit to measure speed and acceleration. Come join us on Friday night from 6-8 pm on Franklin Street in downtown Greencastle and to try out our first prototypes!
One of the makerspace areas upgraded during the pandemic was 3D printing. There’s been several printer upgrades and we even added a new liquid resin printer to the makerspace.
Ian works on the Rostock Max 3D printer wiring.
The most significant change has been to our delta 3D printer, upgrading our Rostock Max from v3 to v3.2. That included 3 major upgrades; a new printer controller board, upgrading the stepper motors, and a new hot end.
The controller board change went from an Arduino-based RAMBo v1.3, an 8 bit control board, to a newer 32 bit Duet WiFi board for the printer ‘brain’. The RAMBo board is certainly a good one, we’ll probably use it to build another 3D printer, but the Duet has major improvements in both usability and speed. The Duet is also WiFi remote controlled and since the control board is located internally, the former LCD panel and SD card was removal. We recently bought a PanelDue, so there will be a new touch screen control available soon when we make that upgrade next.
New Duet 3D printer controller board installed.
We also changed the 1.5 degree to .9 degree stepper motors. Combined with the Duet control board this reduces the printer noise level dramatically and improves printer quality/speed with the micro-stepping addition. A new hot end assembly also improves the bed leveling sensitivity and heating capability. Bed leveling and the ability to print higher temp materials are a nice improvement for this machine!
There’s been other improvements in makerspace 3D printers, including the Printrbot Metal Simple & an older now modified XYZ printer. We’re in process of setting up a workspace for a MoonRay S100 SLA/DLP 3D printer & will write up more about that in a future post. Come to one of our 3DPO (3D Printer Owner’s) meetups, the next one is 12/30 at 6:30 pm. Or stop by Castlemakers to learn more!
LED lamp at Castlemakers in Rainbow mode, the colors change continuously in this video.
Pointing out the new ping pong ball lamp in the Castlemakers window on Franklin Street is a natural follow-up after writing last month about the micro:bit in the window. It’s a great fun, low cost project built by one of our member with items found at the makerspace, except for the ping pong balls.
Example lamp components, penny included for size comparison to the ESP8266 modules.
Recently several of us started experimenting with ESP32’s, a ‘system on a chip’ device that’s less than $10. I’m working on a squirrel proof bird feeder using an ESP32 with a camera for squirrel recognition, more on that later. This project is built however with an ESP8266 module, predecessor of the ESP32, which cost even less. The ESP8266 modules, bought some time ago for $4, are still quite capable having both wifi and a control channel built in. Ian, who’s known to build things for the heck of it, turned an ESP8266, a bit of leftover led strip lights, some 3D printing, ping pong balls and some glue into a flashy user controlled lamp!
Webpage for lamp controls if you’re logged into our network.
There was mathematics involved in figuring out the right way to spiral the LED strip up the side for tight ping pong ball spacing, which depends on the diameter of the 3D printed cylinder. What’s also impressive is the built in web server. If you’re at the makerspace and logged into our network, type http://pingpong1.local to change the lamp pattern. Pretty darn impressive for a $4 circuit board!
We’re thinking about creating a class to help folks build these. If you’re interested stop by to let us know, post on this blog or send us an email.
