If you want to connect two printed parts with a screw, this is a type of a zero-cost thread that you should seriously consider using. It’s super easy to design into your parts, provides strength that’s more than good enough for almost anything you could use it for, and it’s ready to use straight off the printer – no setting inserts or cutting threads. The best part is: It’s just a fancy hole, and solving problems with free details is something that 3D printers are really good at. I useContinue reading
Make replacement parts faster – with CAD or a 3D scan?
We are going to fix my toilet’s clean water flush mechanism – with technology. There’s a little plastic part in here that connects the push plate to the flush mechanism, and that’s broken off. These German flush boxes are all neatly built into the wall, but that means for replacing broken parts, you are dependent on the manufacturer to still make that one exact part. So I thought, why not use this as an experiment to see which would be faster – simply using CAD to draw up the partContinue reading
Making a (fake) Neon Sign for my (very real) YouTube Channel Name Change!
I’m kind of nervous about this one because these are exciting times. First of all, we just crossed 450,000 subscribers, which is amazing. I’m having a hard time wrapping my head around that sheer number, so thank you to everyone watching, subscribing, and supporting the channel. I have to admit, I never planned this channel to be this big. Second, you’ve probably noticed a new name right under this video, and we’re also getting a new logo. This channel is getting rebranded. I don’t know if rebranding is fair, becauseContinue reading
Can you print (with) your spools?
When you get a 1kg spool of filament, you get 1000g in a nice, round strand that you can run through your printer. But you also got a spool, which is another 215g of perfectly good plastic, so are you just going to throw that away? These spools are often made from really good materials like polycarbonate or ABS, and I think it would be a shame to toss them, especially because most of the plastics we chuck into the recycling bin don’t get recycled, they get burned for energy.Continue reading
Try these Filament Combinations for Multi-Material and Supports
This is how support material should work: Easy enough to peel, but sticky enough to hold the part in place while printing. And this is how multi-material prints should work out: UV-resistant material up top, grippy rubber on the bottom, all welded together for eternity. These are surprisingly easy to get right if you keep a couple of tricks in mind and use the right material combinations. So buckle up as we go through what works, what doesn’t and how you can improve things. This is one of the thingsContinue reading
3D printers are worse than I thought. Time to do something about it!
Do you smell it? That smell, the kind of smelly smell. A smelly smell that smells… smelly. ABS! We all have smelled that before, that sticky, sweet, plasticky smell that you get when you’re printing with ABS. Common sense would tell you that that’s not something you want to breathe. So we now all print more with ASA, which smells a lot less, if at all – but if you look into it, it turns out that ASA is often found to emit more harmful particles and VOCs than ABS.Continue reading
Does the Prusa MK4 have what it takes?
When the MK3 came out about five years ago now, it was an easy recommendation in a sea of then-mediocre alternatives that took years to catch up. Now the tables have turned, and it’s on Prusa’s machines to catch up. Is the classic Prusa recipe still enough to make the MK4 worth 1200€? I’m not convinced yet, so let’s explore. Even though they’ve dropped the “Prusa Mendel i3” part of the name, the MK4 still is a continuation of the “Mendel” heritage of Prusa’s printers, and as such, the basicContinue reading
Open Source isn’t sustainable anymore
Brothers. Sisters. I want to apologize. For years you have put your trust in me and for years I have led you astray. Not by evil intent, but by misguided conviction. And for that, I am sorry. I believed open source and the free sharing of information would bring upon a new age. A new age of innovation, creativity and community. And, with a hopeful heart, I preached its benefits to you and reprimanded those who would twist the spirit of free and libre development. But I could not succeed.Continue reading
Testing E3D’s new Revo High Flow nozzle to its limits!
The E3D Revo High Flow nozzle is sort of a solution to a problem that E3D created themselves. It’s typically what Apple would do, but this isn’t in fact a bad ecosystem or a bad product, but the core issue with these is, of course, the Revo ecosystem uses nozzles that are all the exact same length, which makes for super easy quick swapping. You take out one nozzle size, you pop in another one, you don’t have to reset your Z height, there’s no extra mass, extra PID valuesContinue reading