I need tools!

Last tuesday I've managed to print some parts for the Prusa Air, but this kind of empirical tuning of Violeta it's giving me something to think about. There's a science behind this stuff, this shouldn't be all about empirical experiments, so I've googled around and found many theories how you should calibrate your 3d printer and/or setup your skeinforge configurations.

Skeinforge it's uglier than hell, but it's the most used slicing tool, there's a bazillion of knobs and values you can change, but apparently, if you suffer from a light OCD, you can get some decent prints by changing just 5 settings :)

At least this is the approach you can find in ProfileMaker.

Josef Prusa made a RepRap Calculator, a valuable tool for sure.

I can't wait to start making some printers. :)

I've done it!

I've finally done it! These are the first 3 pieces for the Prusa Air. Last saturday I went to AltLab to print them, but as usual, Violeta (the resident cupcake... the 3D printer) said - "No you don't!", and after a couple of hours discussing with her, I went home :p

Mental note: If you need give a name to a machine, skip the chapter "Women", for some kind of strange reason, the machine catch their... let's call it "moods".

So, after licking my bruises, I've stumbled on Celso Martinho time lapse documenting his Ultimaker build, and after that he tweeted about some extruder problems, very similar Violeta. We've exchanged some tweets about 3D printing and he has found a post in the Ultimaker forum, suggesting to turn off the Temperature setting in Skeinforge.

This tuesday I went back to Violeta and tried to talk to "her" without mentioning "temperature", and it worked! I was able to print the support for the Y-axis motor and two clamps... and then it was getting late and I had another lady to go to ;)

One after another

Yep, one cube... err... not really a cube, after another. Trial and error it's a scientific approach, but AltLab cupcake can get on your nerves.

First of all, Violeta it's a kind of cupcake prototype with many and many hours of printing, so she can be a kind of moody and the standard setups on ReplicatorG doesn't apply to her, wich it's a kind of a bummer :p

Second, João Neves, Basílio and me, well... how should I put this, we are rookies on 3D printing matters, but very eager to take the bull by his horns :D

Now, yesterday at AltLab, we've started with a new ABS spool, a spool with some bad reviews from AltLab experts, they never got an usable print from it, so,with our natural stupidity we've engaged in empirical effort to calibrate the damn thing.

As you can see, after 4 hours of trials and errors we've give up and wen home... with a promise, let's investigate what is the correct way to calibrate it :)

So full of win!

So it was, yesterday AltLab meetup was full of win.
It started with someone showing off his project, Laser Tag... no, no laserish paintballish kind of laser tag, it was more grafitti tagging, but using a laser pointer, a video projector, a camera and a kind off nifty software :)
Everyone played with it, and headed back inside, it was a kind of chilly in the back alley.

Next, João Neves and me went on a date with Violeta... It was a kind of threesome, but Violeta is AltLab Cupcake 3D printer!

I tried printing a part from a Wallace, bat as usual, Violeta didn't finished the print, and I was using my computer, so the plot thickens! :(

The problem is in the printer, now we're certain of this! We scavanged AltLab junk... err... the nice and very organized wharehouse for ATX PSU, and tried a few, but that didn't, so we plugged the original one back, and it worked! Violeta is printing again, at least two parts for Franky (a mini-mendel) withou a hitch, the future will tell us.

And the pièce de résistance was the first test of a stereolithography printer... "waht?!!?" it's a 3D printer using photo sensible resin as a medium, very impressive piece of technology.

 They made some exposure tests to understand how long they need to expose the resin for a perfect cure, it's around 15 seconds and they-re ready for the next layer :)

A full of win day!