3D Printer yet?

[Brumby]

In all the noise, has it been established that we are talking about the SAME product?  Just because it's called the same, doesn't necessarily mean it IS the same.

For example, there are XLR connectors and there are XLR connectors.  Comparing one of these sourced from a budget manufacturer against one sourced from an aerospace certified manufacturer could end up with a similar, pointless debate.

As an objective exercise - do you each have a couple of examples you could send to the other party for comparison?

[beanflying]

In all the noise, has it been established that we are talking about the SAME product?  Just because it's called the same, doesn't necessarily mean it IS the same.

For example, there are XLR connectors and there are XLR connectors.  Comparing one of these sourced from a budget manufacturer against one sourced from an aerospace certified manufacturer could end up with a similar, pointless debate.

As an objective exercise - do you each have a couple of examples you could send to the other party for comparison?

When it comes to WS Deans and Co there is only one standard http://www.wsdeans.com/products/plugs/ultra_plug.html The cloned product was always hit or miss and the Australian importer I was buying Genuine Deans from had also sourced an 'ok' clone from China. I stocked that Clone along with the real thing as part of the R/C sideline to my Kite Business and anyone going cheap was given appropriate caution as to overloading them and the fit. I also brought in some other samples direct from China that finished up in the Bin they were so bad.

The simple reality of the 'average' R/C electric flying is done below 30Amps and generally 2-3S Lipos so even the better clones were fine - just. The average 'Park Flyer' would run around 10Amps and even the Aerobatic ones under 20 in most cases even my favourite 100MPH hunk of foam ran 22-23Amps on the ground on 3S.

[mnementh]

Nope, not gonna drag me back into it. You were the one who said it didn't belong here, and that's right, so please stop trying to drag me back in.

mnem
*toddles off to ded*

[Nominal Animal]

Dudes.  Your experiences differ.  You are also pretty much at opposite ends of the world.
The only reason you disagree so strongly is because you care about the experience/opinion of each other; if you didn't, you wouldn't care.

Now hug it out, and get back to the topic.

Kidding aside, I don't even see a contradiction in your experiences, as the use cases differ enough to explain the different experiences.
Critical stuff like vibration patterns are completely different in your use cases.  Not to mention what Brumby wrote, too.

[beanflying]

Just downloaded for a perv 

[mnementh]

Another Fun Project: Print #790 Servo Saver Hub & Servo Mount

   https://a360.co/35zf0Nv

So the slow boat from China finally surrendered my latest order from TomTop; a FS-GT3B 3-Ch surface transmitter and the rest of the bits & bobs to convert my WLToys 4WD RC Truggy to fully "Hobby Grade" electronics with separate RX, ESC, and normal 3-Wire steering servo. I have one of these in the trailer held hostage against the Canadian Bureaucracy; someday I'll see it again...  These are one of the best non-telemetry RC transmitters ever made; easily modded to ball-bearing action, and if you're not afraid of a little JTAG action, it can be reflashed with one of the best-developed alt firmwares out there.

This car uses a bit of a oddball slim servo; nothing available on Amazon is a direct fit, and most standard size servos won't even fit between the base uprights, so I ordered the closest TomTop had which happened to be also metal gears for a whopping $4. I figured worst case, I'd use the controller PCB to convert the stock 5-wire servo to a proper 3-wire signal. When it got here, I was actually quite impressed with the strength and speed of the servo, and build quality appeared very good as well, with even hybrid brass/steel gears in the last 2 gear stages.
However... (there's always a however ) it wouldn't quite fit in the original servo mount, and even as close as it would go with ghetto-fab mounting, the geometry was wrong to fit the OEM fixed-length steering links. Oh, and it has an oddball 21-spline output shaft, which is probably why it was on sale for only $4, so no go on the servo-saver.

I fiddled and futzed around with the regular servo horns that came with, but even they refused to cooperate... so finally, I gave up and decided to take the time to design and print these parts. The servo mount was pretty straightforward; just direct measurement to make the correct offset so the servo hub is in the same location as stock. 

The servo saver hub was actually a lot easier than I thought it would be though; all concentric circles, and I was able to keep them in order in my head for the pushes & pulls to make the shape as needed, and I was able to make the base flange a little extra thick so more meat around the output shaft area.

        

This was the output of my CR6-SE at 0.12LH with 0.2mm nozzle; the precision on both outer and inner dimensions (even holes, which I've always had to fiddle around with the get anything even close to an exact diameter) is effing amazing. 

I guesstimated on the necessary diameter of the hub opening and got it right the first try; I dismantled the servo and took the output gear, then after screwing an extra-long m2 screw through the hub as a pilot, I was able to press the brass shaft into the printed hub with my soldering iron, melting the correct splines into the printed part for a perfect fit. This worked astonishingly well; a quick squirt with alcohol to make things cool quickly and the part slipped off snug but perfectly intact!

      

And here it is all assembled; I've packed the gearboxes with light PTFE grease, so now all that remains is to replace the axle hubs and drive hexes with the bling parts. And then do that again on my son's car. 

Hub Printed on my Creality CR-6SE in FLASHFORGE Brand BLACK PLA; 0.12LH, 0.2mm nozzle, 60mm/s, 200°C/60°C Bed, no adhesion, no supports, infill set manually to 1mm grid, 0.8mm top/bottom 1.2mm wall thickness, with combing & bridging mode enabled and part rotated to benefit bridging. Bracket printed same settings, only 0.20LH/0.4mm nozzle.

mnem
vroom-vroom!

[beanflying]

Use some heavy fast forward but interesting to see how the process is actual done from the raw ingredients to the end. Definitely no Electronics applications 

[mnementh]

More Useful Stuph: 4x18650 Battery Box for Bicycle Headlamp

    
https://a360.co/3h3VOOI

I picked this headlamp up for the boi's bicycle a few weeks back; it was approx $4 more than the one I got for my fatBike (which had gone up considerably since my purchase), and came with the battery pack, a charger and even a headband so you could use it for spelunking or whatever.    But (there's always a butt ) the stupid webbing pouch that came with it for the battery was simply abysmal. https://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/B07QQ4CCXJ/

         

So I designed this and printed it up; the main box has brass melt-set threaded inserts for the m3 clamping screws, and the battery pack is potted into the lid with clear silicone sealant so the whole thing slips in & out of the box for recharging just like the little one in my fatBike. It works a treat and my son was very thankful for the switch, as having to unplug the battery due to the pilot LEDs on the headlight was a bit of a PITA.

Main body of box printed on my Creality CR-6SE in FLASHFORGE Brand BLACK PLA; 0.28LH, 0.4mm nozzle, 60mm/s, 200°C/60°C Bed, no adhesion, no supports, infill set manually to 1mm grid, 0.8mm top/bottom 1.2mm wall thickness, with combing & bridging mode enabled and part rotated to benefit bridging. Cover printed on my Diggro Alpha 3 same filament/settings, only 0.20LH/0.4mm nozzle.

mnem
 

[Canis Dirus Leidy]

Note to retro-computing fans. How to make a make a new monoblock case for modern clone of old home computer:

[mnementh]

Fitted the final piece of a lightsaber build with my son last night; I needed to add a 5.5mm charge port, but had to support it somehow while still having it slightly recessed in the handle.

      https://a360.co/3xwzNOi

I ultimately contrived this little fiddly bit; the main body is exactly the right height to wedge snug inside the handle tube, and the little ear fits on the same screw as the rearmost brass standoff on the lightsaber core to keep it in place. It holds the 5.5mm charge port with a single set screw hot-threaded into the plastic boss; once that is loosened, the 5.5mm port can be pressed out the top and the little holder slides out the back along with the rest of the lightsaber core.

My son loves it, and the fact that together we were able to resurrect the lightsaber he killed so long ago.

Printed on my Creality CR-6SE in FLASHFORGE Brand BLACK PLA; 0.12LH, 0.2mm nozzle, 60mm/s, 200°C/60°C Bed, no adhesion, no supports, infill set manually to 1mm grid, 0.8mm top/bottom 1.2mm wall thickness, with combing & bridging mode enabled and part rotated to benefit bridging.

mnem
*waves hand dismissively* "These are not the CC LED Drivers you are looking for..."

[beanflying]

Well it's here and out of Beta. Not perfect but very useable to convert STL's to Solid bodies in a few clicks.

The Red body is the original Fusion model I created some time ago and the one in front is the imported STL I used to make these from. Follow the few steps in Kevin's tutorial and a few clicks later the STL is a solid body you can work on. Dimensionally the conversion on this fairly straightforward model is dead on accurate but I will have a play with something more complex over the next few days.

[PlainName]

a few clicks later the STL is a solid body you can work on

But it doesn't have the original component parts, right? That is, if you have a cylinder and placed a torus around it to form a lip, the stl conversion would be a single solid: a cylinder with a bulge around it.

Freecad will read the stl and let you do normal drawing things with it. (As will Turbocad, but the converted part is a big thing and very slow to manipulate.) But you can't change it in the way of, say, moving the lip a bit along (because it doesn't know it's a torus on a cylinder). Presumably Fusion hasn't found a magical way around that?

[beanflying]

Personally I would want to take whatever STL I was working on and get it into a solid body ASAP before manipulating it as STL's suck. Working on triangulated faces to approximate a solid body is always going to be a 'guess'. Then do your mods in the solid workspace/CAD and re export or convert it into a mesh again if needed.

However providing you have changes and mods captured in the timeline you can edit them later and create new face groups and remesh them to keep it better in order. Still running through some of the resources and it is pre coffee this end of the world https://help.autodesk.com/view/fusion360/ENU/courses/AP-C-MESH-MODELING

[mnementh]

So... takeaway is "It's still made of suck, but better than a sharp stick in the eye..." ?

mnem
 

[beanflying]

Ok so 5000 triangles and some complex radii on swept surfaces breaks it or the STL needs repairing first. First Coffee of the day inhaled and still a WIP. Even in this state ripping a quick model from the broken conversion would still be way faster than starting from scratch with guessing the STL dimensions.

Might have found the culprit Straight cut geometry across a Continuous Radius.

[beanflying]

So after some more playing and looking at a few different STL's I know are good seems it doesn't do well at curves on curves and it gets lost recreating them as CAD geometry. This bottle opener I modelled ages ago and STL came out of Fusion.

The continuous radius on the bottle opener gets broken part way around the conversion (jagged line across it on the 'sort of ok') but most of the conversion is fine and comes up at an accurate 2mm as per the original model but the broken sections are approximated to a curved surface with non ideal geometry. The Radius where the keyring goes is then more of a problem as it is a radius that breaks the curve of the part so a curve on a curve that is before you get to the angled rear face (hole is at an angle to it and then is a radius on a hole across a curve) causing the major breakage.

You could fix these broken bits in the surface modelling environment but I suspect it would be faster to use this converted but broken model as a ghost and recreate the model from scratch.

I think for fairly plain geometries without complex radii/curves it will be fine but still needs more work before it can cope well with

[beanflying]

a few clicks later the STL is a solid body you can work on

But it doesn't have the original component parts, right? That is, if you have a cylinder and placed a torus around it to form a lip, the stl conversion would be a single solid: a cylinder with a bulge around it.

Freecad will read the stl and let you do normal drawing things with it. (As will Turbocad, but the converted part is a big thing and very slow to manipulate.) But you can't change it in the way of, say, moving the lip a bit along (because it doesn't know it's a torus on a cylinder). Presumably Fusion hasn't found a magical way around that?

Just tried something similar to what you were describing simple shaft as a one piece and a two bit option (so a collar) both worked with no fuss and came out with correct dimensions. Same thing applies convert it to a solid first then do your tweaking.

[PlainName]

Sorry, not quite deciphered what you were saying! Did the part come out as two pieces, or did you convert to solid then manually separate them?

[beanflying]

Sorry, not quite deciphered what you were saying! Did the part come out as two pieces, or did you convert to solid then manually separate them?

I deliberately did it two ways when I ran up the model and exported both the single and two part option as one file then re imported it as shown. You can work with a mixed workspace of formats so I just left the initial solid model in place as a reference.

As to manual separation of mesh bodies you are really limited to simple planer cuts using offset planes. There is options to have the then split body remeshed across that split or you can leave it as an open body. Both shown below are from the single piece model.

The split shown below of the collar in two pieces came from the two part STL import so I was able to select and seal just that one part or both if needed.

[PlainName]

OK. I am hard pushed to think of a use case for this, to be honest. If I have the stl then I probably have the original design files, which would be preferable to work with. If I don't have those then I would find it difficult to trust the stl (if, for instance, it was someone's 3D model of a part). Kind of like having gerbers or gcode - OK for running off the physical part, but not so hot for manipulating the design.

[CatalinaWOW]

One obvious use case is with cheap 3D scanners which output only stl format.  Accuracy of these scanners is good enough for many applications, particularly if key dimensions are measured by traditional means.

[PlainName]

Ah, that's a possibility, yes.

[beanflying]

Take this random.

Creality sent me an STL a few years ago as one of my Enders arrived with a rubbish print covering the power supply. Just an example but say I wanted to fit an auxiliary switch to it for the lights.

Or you want to use the IEC mount and general layout for a different PS then punch the now solid model to suit using the rest of it.

Take the STL convert it to a solid with a few clicks align the switch to be used and use in with a combine body command to cut a hole. Export back out as an STL. Under 10 steps and 5 minutes work and it's done.

[PlainName]

That's a reasonable use case.

[mnementh]

OK. I am hard pushed to think of a use case for this, to be honest. If I have the stl then I probably have the original design files, which would be preferable to work with. If I don't have those then I would find it difficult to trust the stl (if, for instance, it was someone's 3D model of a part). Kind of like having gerbers or gcode - OK for running off the physical part, but not so hot for manipulating the design.

The obvious use case is pretty much anything downloaded from Thingiverse, et al that is "almost exactly what you need, but needs a little tweak"...

In other words, pretty much anything downloaded from Thingiverse, et al... because 94% of the stuff out there is posted by well-intentioned ding-dongs (like me, for example ) who just got it close enough they could use the finished product then posted it (almost always in .stl format and nothing else) and wandered off to live their lives... 

mnem