Flexi Dolphin by robotic_arm is licensed under the Creative Commons – Attribution – Share Alike license, Published on October 17, 2019.
Printed with silver PLA .2mm layer height and 20% infill.
Available HERE.
Trolley Token coin holder keyring by OblivionStar is licensed under the Creative Commons – Attribution license. Published on October 16, 2019.
Printed with Prusament Orange PETG at .2mm layer height, 20% infill and 4 perimeters.
Available HERE.
GEARSHIFT KEYCHAIN KEYRING by CASTALIAM, Published on October 15, 2019 www.thingiverse.com/thing:3917199, Creative Commons – Attribution – Non-Commercial – No Derivatives
Available HERE.
Established and operating in Poland, Fiberlogy uses German machines and high quality raw materials, producing materials with a diameter tolerance of +/- 0.02mm and oval tolerance of +0.01mm. You can find out more about them here.
Fiberlogy PETG and comes supplied vacuumed sealed with a clay sachet in a windowed box.
The box is stamped with a serial number including the date of 21/12/2018, assuming this is around the date of manufacturing would make it less than 12 months old.
The black PETG has a satin like appearance and the filament has a slight texture.
Pre-wound on a rather different looking fixed spool, it is also available as a “re-fill” for a lower price.
The re-fill can be loaded onto a “masterspool” available here. (Check sizes).
Material Safety Data Sheet PDF
Before loading the filament for the first time, weigh the loaded spool (1.175Kg) and subtracted the filament weight of (850g) to get the spool weight of (325g).
This is can useful for calculating the remaining filament weight for future prints.
As with all new filaments i confirm the real diameter with a caliper at 4 points over the first couple of meters.
The result was( 1.74+1.76+1.75+1.74)/4= 1.7475mm Average real diameter.
You can use this to create a new filament profile in your favorite slicer and adjust the filament diameter to suit.
To benchmark all new filaments i print a calibration cube and a benchy.
The calibration cube is a quick and simple print to establish any basic problems that may present themselves later.
Moving on to the Benchy, it preformed very well with good layer adhesion, bridging and only some slight stringing. Both where printed with 0.2mm layer height on a Prusa i3 MK2.5S.
After the successful calibration prints of the Fiberlogy PETG, i got down to business with printing some parts for a Colido bowden conversion. This included a j-head hotend carriage and extruder which can be seen below.
I had a great first experience with Fiberlogy PETG, producing high quality strong functional prints.
I do like that Fiberlogy offer these filaments as a “re-fill” to reduce the waste produced from spent spools and save money at the same time!
Fiberlogy PET-G Black 850g is available from but not limited to the following:
shop.3dfilaprint.com £26.10 inc VAT, FREE UK delivery and a filament storage bag. I also received a free 10M sample of black Alloy 910 HDT by taulman 3D, very nice.
aes3d.co.uk £33.96 and FREE UK Mainland delivery.
If you opt for the refill, it can be loaded onto the “Master spool” available here, which could be then used to load already spent spools?
The PETG filament is a copolymer, basically Polyethylene terephthalate (PET) what is used in plastic bottles, modified with glycol(G).
Benefits:
*Check with manufacture. See technical data sheet PDF above.
PETG offers many of the benefits of ABS such as strength and heat resistance without many of the drawbacks, including printing difficulty and odour.
PETG is hygroscopic which means it will absorb water. To preserve the filaments lifespan and quality it should be stored in a cool dry place, ideally in sealed environment.
Printing small parts in the center of the bed may lead to bed thermal runaway. This is something i experienced when printing these shelf pins on a Prusa MK2.5S. I resolved this by printing more at once and positioning them away from the center. You can find out more about this at Prusa3d.com.
For even more on PETG filament check out Thomas Sanladerer’s excellent video below.
Looking for something different? See our list of currently available filaments here.
Also referred to as a photo/light, studio/tents, they are primarily used for product photography. The purpose of the tent is to diffuse the light through the nylon material removing shadows and reflections.
This tent environment can also serve as an breathable enclosure for your 3D printer!
Photo tents are readily available in a range of sizes and can be found for under £20. Many have a “pop-up” design making them very simple and quick to use, as can be seen above this one also came with a detachable door with a camera slit (see an alternative use for this below).
Before you start check the dimensions of your printer against the tent to be used. As you can see above the Prusa i3 MK2.5s fits perfectly in a 60x60x60 tent.
Place the printer in the tent and ensure there is sufficient distance between any moving, hot parts and the tent material. Connect power and USB if required, load a filament and power on. Moving all axis’s to their limit confirms clearance.
This tent featured a detachable front with a camera slit. I used the camera slit on the front door to insert an extractor duct. This helps to create a negative air pressure, drawing air through the breathable tent material and extracting to outside. A suitable HEPA/Carbon filter could also be used here.
The display and control knob are easily accessible by lifting the bottom part of the detachable door, to start or make an adjustment during printing.
To trial the tent i set up a benchy print in ABS and monitored the temperatures with an in/out thermometer. The outside probe was inserted in a handy elastic loop at the top.
During the approximately 1 hour print the inside maintained a steady 29 degrees celcious with a room temperature of 20 degrees celcious.
Minimal odour was noticed whilst being in the room during printing and the Benchy came out with good layer adhesion and no warping.
The photo tent worked out as a great cheap and quick way to enclose a 3D Printer and improve the chances of a successful print.
The bonus of easily inserting an extractor duct through the camera slit was nice, and its original purpose is great for sharing photos of your prints!
My overall Verdict of the Phot-r photo tent is that it offers great value for money for the two uses it for fills. This basic tent may not be suitable if you are a professional photographer the creases in the nylon material and folded backdrops are noticeable and still present after several day of being setup. However it did a good job of improving the photos i took.
A photo tent is a great option if you are on a budget and do not have time to build a custom enclosure however there are a few considerations to take account off.
As the tent is not being used for its intended purpose its should NOT BE LEFT UNATTENDED with an operating or heating/cooling 3D printer inside. The tent material could pose a FIRE RISK.
Further more the breathable nature of the tent will limit the internal temperatures that can be reach, and is more affected by ambient temperatures.
However this means the psu and control board should be happy being left inside. If extended high temperatures are reached these components should be relocated to outside.
As might be expected there was little if any reduction in noise.
The Phot-R tent featured above is the 60x60x60 collapsible version available from amazon *HERE for £16.95.
Growing on the photo tent enclosure, another alternative use of an already existing product is a grow tent. Used for growing exotic fruits, herbs, vegetables or seasonal fruits out of season, this option may offer improved thermal and sound insulation over a photo tent and has dedicated vents.
The above 60x60x60 grow tent is avaliable *HERE on amazon for £29.95.
There seems to be little availability of universal 3D printer fabric enclosures. However if you have a LulzBot TAZ or Mini you are in luck!
The Lulzbot nylon enclosure is listed on digikey.co.uk for £64.74 HERE.
Althought the funding period ended Mar 28 2016, an interesting project for a universal 3D printer enclosure with filter system founded by James Nordstrom can be found HERE. 3DPrintClean filtration systems have a patent-pending recirculating filtration technology within a fabric enclosure. Offering 600mm squared and 800mm squared and suitable for almost all printers. Kickstarter https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/64537310/3d-printer-lightweight-enclosure-and-filtration-sy – https://www.3dprintclean.com/products
DIY Arduino Garden Waterer by DIY_Machines, Published on September 22, 2019, www.thingiverse.com/thing:3875075, Creative Commons – Attribution – Non-Commercial
Available HERE
Most of my crimping experience is with larger cables and terminals. When it came to repair or make the odd non critical smaller terminal i would attempt to compress with pliers and solder, not ideal.
Faced with the task of having to make and repair several different terminals for a 3D printer i realized the need to invest in a pair of suitable crimping pliers.
These terminals included 6 way female JST PH 2.0mm connectors for the stepper motors and 2/4way Mini PV (Also called Dupont) with a 2.54mm pitch for connection to a ramps 1.4 board.
When i searched for a specific JST PH crimper i came across the official WC-240 JST Crimper. At an eye watering £337.99 this was out of the question.
Official crimp pliers are available for every different type of connector and can be very expensive. I turned to find a pair of budget generic crimp pliers capable of handling 24AWG cable and the connectors above.
After a short browse of generic crimp pliers i found the Engineer PA-09 Mirco connector pliers. Capable of crimping 80 different terminals 0f 1.25-2.5mm pitch and 32-20AWG cable, just the ticket.
The PA-09 micro connector pliers are 175mm long, carbon steel construction with a Elastomer (TPR) cushioned handle and are made in Japan.
This all sounded promising, without a local shop/supplier i found them listed on amazon at a very reasonable £39.99. *Available HERE.
After a very quick delivery, i put them straight to the test. Removing them from the Japanese text covered packing the quality is immediately noticeable.
They feel nice in the hand and the hinge mechanism is smooth with an adjustable screw
Following the instructions provided, i started with with the JST PH connector. Firstly inserting the striped wire into the crimp and crimping the conductor.
Secondly, re-positioned to the next size die and crimp the insulation.
Finally to get a smooth entry into the connector housing, i pressed the terminal between the end of the pliers jaws. Repeating the process for the other conductors.
For the Mini PV/Dupont connectors, just select the correct die and follow the same procedure. I found that helping hands(a stand with clamps) useful to hold the wire in place whilst carrying this out.
My overall opinion of the PA-09 is that they well made, good value and capable of making accurate and reliable crimps for many different terminals.
The versatility and cost of these crimp pliers will help save time from bodged terminals and money spent on made leads, a winning combination and a sure tool to turn to in the future.
If you need to crimp larger cable and terminals, the ENGINEER pa-21 is suitable for AWG28~AWG18 with 1.6mm, 1.9mm, 2.2mm & 2.5mm dies. Both variants are listed below.
I hope you found this useful, if you have any questions or would like to add to the above please leave a comment.
