Mendelmax 2.0 - 3D printed ball cap, letting slicer generate support.

Tried something new today. Let Slicer generate its own support material just to see how it would work. A student wanted to try making a hat, and I thought that was a good idea so here is my version. Pretty thin shell, printed in PLA. Really need to get back to ABS.

Took about 6 1/2 hrs to print, and without the support it probably would have taken 4.



First part bridged with the support material.





Taller,



and taller,



aaannnddddd TALLER,





Done.



Print came out pretty decent. Still trying to get a few more things dialed in but I'm happy with the quality.







The support material was a PAIN to get out. Still have some cleanup to do too.



Ended up cracking the shell in a couple of different spots trying to get it all out.



But hey, IT FITS!!!



Now to make a brim. This one's a bit small but I figure once I get everything figured out I can scale it up or down in Sketchup!

On a side note, as you can tell the hair is getting just a *tad* long...  The day I shaved after being in the play I was informed by my students SEVENTY TWO TIMES that I had, in fact, shaved.  Going to put the haircut off a few more weeks so's I don't have to endure that again!

Mendelmax 2.0. Still Chuggin' Away!

Ran several batches of student projects the last couple of weeks...








Decided it was time to figure out why my prints seem to have pretty poor quality. Found a neat little calibration widget to try different settings on, and proceeded to try a BUNCH of different things out...





First and last. I'm almost positive I have a thermistor that is acting wonky on the hot end- supposedly I'm printing PLA at 174 deg. C.



I still think there is room for improvement on the quality of the print, but I'm pretty happy with the results. This is a replacement cone for the cooling fan in the background.



Going to attempt printing an e-nable hand, sort of for fun but maybe for someone that might want to give it a try. We'll see how it turns out!

dorkpunch Engines #1. (re) Learning how to machine.

So I stumbled across this video a while ago.



I've been wanting to try my hand at making some type of miniature model engine for a long time now. I have seen dozens of these cool videos- in fact, here are two more.






I've built a couple of really simple air engines, and even use the one as a project for my Grade 8 students to build.  Here was my first attempt ever at building an engine. This was my test bed for the above engine- basically copied but simplified from one I found on Instructables.





I adapted that one to this one- VERY simple to make and pretty easy to get running decently. ZERO machining- all done on a drill press or with hand tools. Little bit of welding but it could be done without it if you had different chunks of metal.

From this:



To this:







Back to the topic at hand.  I've got my own idea I've been kicking around for a while- flathead with an atmospheric intake valve, 1" bore and I'm thinking either 1.25 or 1.5" stroke. Not sure how I'm going to do the governor but I've got a few ideas. No idea how well it will work, if it ever even DOES. I don't have a real great track record at finishing projects...

Been working on dumping the ideas swirling around in my head out onto paper and the computer.

Here's the general idea.









Currently thinking flathead, with atmospheric intake valve. Main design constraints are the limiting factors of the tools I have, so the goal is to make it as simple as possible and entirely built on the tools I have access to- a Smith 1250xl (?) lathe / mill combo. Been playing around a bit and have made some shavings, will get more pics posted. 

W.I.P.

Work In Progress...  Been playing around with Sketchup and have managed to learn myself a few new tricks.  Gotta love Sketchucation and all of the cool rubys and plugins you add on to Sketchup.  A few months ago I downloaded and printed this engine from Thingiverse.



It works great, but I've wanted to design my own engine for a while now so here's where its at.  I thought it would be cool to make them "stackable" so this is my expandable air engine.  The idea being you print one, and it runs off of compressed air like the one above.  If you wanted, you could then print another long block that could be plugged in behind the first, but with the piston and valving running at a different timing- 180 degrees out, 90 degrees out, whatever.






Little hard to understand, but heres a shot of the rotary valve.



Still working on getting tolerances figured out but its close to actually running.





Getting closer.  At the rate I work on projects I might be done by June!  Of 2018...

Mendelmax 2.0: Tech and Design's latest 3D printed cars.

Finished last trimester's Tech and Design car prints. Little over 50 of them, and there are 10 or 15 more that had some manifold issues so they wouldnt print properly. If the students come back in and fix them, we'll get them a print as well.

Works in progress. Gluing wheels.



3 classes worth.



1st hour's.



2nd hour's.



and 5th hour's.



Here's a few of the more interesting designs. This one was named the "Hippy Bus" by its owner.



Love the lightning pattern on the side of the one, and the truck on the far right I didn't think was going to print because he hollowed it out. Actually turned out pretty decent! May start letting them do that a bit more!



The convertible is pretty cool, the interior adds a lot of detail to the car.



In another month or so I should have some Tech 2 projects done- they usually are a little bigger and more detailed. Harder to get them to work the way the students envision, but thats part of the purpose of the printer- to let them create something and see if it actually WORKS!

Still impressed every time I see the designs these kids come up with. Most of them are only 12 years old, and these were the simplified versions of their designs. The full size models had waaayyyy more details. Some days (okay, most days), I really love my job.






On a related note, there was a great writeup in a neighboring cities paper about a rural library near me that recently also got a 3D printer.  Great to see these popping up close to me.  REALLY wish I could get some locals around here interested in doing some sort of a community class / makerspace... I'll keep trying.  Hoping to offer another class starting February, so if anyones interested, let me know!

Mendelmax 2.0: Misprints and Experiments.

Ramping up the printer for this and next tri's student projects.  Been messing around some more, tried a few things out with ABS and decided to experiment with PLA a bit. This means I've got LOTS of misprints from my experiments! Here's a few.

Students just finished their cars, which means printing about 300 wheels, at 80 a batch. Its SPOSED to look like this:



'sept when you experiment with hairspray instead of the ABS goop and the prints don't stick, and you leave for 2 hrs to a class in a different room. Then it looks like this.



Next up was a larger print with ABS and the hairspray stick 'em. Looks not half bad...



Until you look a little closer.





The bottom warped really bad because I forgot the fan was on... Joy's of using ABS. Then I tried pulling it off while it was still warm and the bottom stuck so hard to the glass (hairspray) that it "bubbled" when I pulled it off.

Pretty sure I have the hairspray figured out and it seems to work great.  Finally, the kids believe me when I say it's for the printer and NOT my hair!!!

This one is just icky. Switched back to PLA and was experimenting with temps, speeds, etc. Finally discovered a partially plugged hot end and solved this little problem.



This is new for me: tried printing a hollow "shell". Came out okay, and with a few tweaks I'll be doing this for all of the students cars with a twist.



Here's what the inside looks like:



And some students cars printing. Notice the .05 infill density honeycomb pattern.



2 cars down, 73 more to go.   Classes finish up tomorrow (we spend every class all day long giving the shop a deep clean) and the new tri starts Monday.  Will be starting right of the bat with Tech 2 on the printer, so in a few more weeks I should have some more cool projects to post.  I'm impressed with what these kids come up with, as you'll see when I get all of these cars done!