More Plastic, a Fourth offspring, and an update to IPR

I used the money I made selling my first three Mendels to buy more PLA from Ultimachine.  I bought 2 rolls each of Green, Blue, White, Silver, and Black.  Someone that I met at Metrix: Create Space is buying one roll of the Green from me.

Willow is happily restocked with plastic and the Green was used to finish a fourth Mendel set that will be listed on eBay in the morning.

I also made some progress on my Integrated Parametric RepRap work and posted a new version of the OpenSCAD files on Thingiverse.

Black Light PLA - Call-out for Pictures

I have been playing with UltiMachine's UV glowing PLA for a while now and have made a variety of things.  Here are some pictures:

 

and the picture that was such a hit back in June:

Now that I have completed my first Mendel set, I think that next set I print and sell will be made from this PLA (A UV Glowing Mendel will be very cool...)

I even have a Moai necklace made with it for sale on etsy.

,

Are other people printing with this PLA?

Are there pictures?

Please leave comments with links

Still Running Strong

I am still running strong and have started printing Mendel parts again.  I have been using RepSnapper from the beginning and have been very happy with it.  Although there are a few cases where it will crash while slicing (usually because of strange geometry, but I have not determined exactly why.)

I have not decided what I will do with my set of Mendel parts once they are printed but I am about 75% complete on a full set of parts.

Printing with PLA again!!!

Clear PLA illuminated with a red laser

More progress was made today when I managed to find settings to print again in PLA.  I had to turn the temperature up to 220°C (which I thought I tried before to no avail...).

 After getting the temperature tuned in I adjusted the feed speed, material width, & layer thickness.

And I am back to results close to what I had before the heater failure...

Printing Again!!!

Now that my brothers wedding is over and I have caught up on things that fell to the side, I have had some time to start printing again.  Since I was having some trouble with PLA before and some luck with ABS I thought I would work with the ABS for a while and see how things were working before trying to figure the PLA out.  The part I tested on was something I have been thinking about since I got my new Droid X.  The speaker is on the back and it does not carry the sound to the front very well, also I thought it would be nice to have a stand for it.  So I designed a dual purpose stand/sound director. (my first useful, non-reprap related, design.)

Here you can see the inlet hole for the sound (lower left)

A test print to check the fit on the phone (you can see the sound path)

24min 40sec to print

My first test print (slot for phone was too small and I had a de-lamination toward the bottom)

As you can see I am currently printing very well with ABS.  I could tune it in a little better but I am pleased with the results (especially with no heated bed...)

I think I may print a few more parts with ABS then go back to PLA and see if I can work out the bugs.

Mixed Emotions....

After several nozzle failures I have a design that seems very robust and made several acceptable prints.

But then more trouble...

Most of the PLA prints have decent shells but the infill is spotty at best.  The extrusion seems to just slow and stop then start again. I tried some ABS I had and that seemed to extruded a little better but the layers did not stick.  I think that is a setting issue but I have not tried adjusting that yet.

As far as the PLA goes I have now tried turning up the heat, down the heat, oiling the filament, manual feeding, adjusting the tension on the Wade's extruder, adjusting the current...  But no luck after the initial success.  The one good thing is that the new nozzle design has not fallen apart and seems very strong.

I have some more ABS so I plan to try adjusting the settings and seeing if I can get the ABS to extrude consistently. (Although I hate the smell and the warping issues with ABS, but I will live with them to diagnose my problem.)

Glowing PLA...

After receiving my PLA from UltiMachine on Monday I put the natural roll on and did some test prints.  I was saving the blue translucent until after adjusting the machine a little more.  For some reason I thought "I wonder if either of these PLAs glows under black-light?"  So I dug out a black-light and tried, nothing from the natural but look what the blue does...

 This is very cool and as far as I know previously undocumented.  Here are some more pictures:

Also check out my video of this print on YouTube.  And if you like fluorescent materials you should go buy some of this very cool PLA.

Plastic on my porch!!!

So far the materials I have used are some Makerbot ABS (Black and White), some UltiMachine PLA (Green), and some New Zealand (from Vik Olliver) PLA (red) from Metrix Create: Space.  I prefer the PLA to the ABS as it warps less and smells much better.  So I decided to order more PLA from UltiMachine.  I ordered 5 lbs of Natural and 5 lbs of Blue Translucent.  I also ordered some nichrome, polyimide tape, and a few thermistors. (for spare parts...)

Here is my un-boxing...

SURPRISE!!!  they sent a sample piece (about 14 feet of each) of  black and silver PLA...

They packaged the nichrome, polyimide tape, and thermistors very well in a inner envelope to protect them (complete with cardboard around the nichrome and thermistors).  Overall I am very pleased so far. Now to start printing with my new plastic...