• About Renaissance Engineer

Renaissance Engineer

~ Additive Manufacturing and Technology

Renaissance Engineer

Category Archives: Uncategorized

$500 Coupon for Formlabs

01 Tuesday Dec 2020

Posted by Eric Albert in Uncategorized

≈ 2 Comments

Currently Formlabs has a referral program that provides you, if you are a new customer, a $500 discount on their machines. Yes, this code does provide me with credit for materials and supplies, but you get a $500 credit directly on your order. It is valid only for orders from North America. And, I don’t know how long this will last, so you might want to act quickly. In fact, this was reduced to $250 a while ago, but has been returned to $500. As I understand it, there are no limits on how many times this discount code can be used, but only one $500 discount, once per new customer.

Form 3 SLA 3D Printer

Some folks are selling their discount codes on ebay, but I would rather help you get a great laser-based SLA unit (Form 3 or Form 3L) to make incredibly precise parts. And better yet are all of the material options that Formlabs has calibrated to their equipment.

So here is the code – really – no purchase necessary from me for the coupon!

FORM3-KWWS8Q

You can contact Formlabs through their sales department at 617 702 8476 or at formlabs.com

And thanks for helping me continue this blog!

COVID-19 and Additive Manufacturing

13 Wednesday May 2020

Posted by Eric Albert in Uncategorized

≈ Comments Off on COVID-19 and Additive Manufacturing

Or how my personal additive manufacturing lab was turned into a PPE manufacturing facility.

It was the second week of March 2020 as we closed out the first half of our Spring semester and sent the students home for their traditional week of Spring Break. Lurking already in the background was the spread of the COVID-19 infection. Situated as we are in a largely rural area, such a threat seemed at best a distant problem. But at the end of spring break we extended the students’ return out one more week. And then we were on a permanent hold until May. Maybe we could get in one last week of labs and teaching during our normal finals period, but that was quashed too. Thankfully 93% of our courses were able to complete online, in some fashion or another, but from my own experience not in an ideal manner. But these are not ideal times. And as of this post there are still about 10% of the student body left waiting to know how to complete incomplete Spring semester courses perhaps this summer.

Switching immediately to an online format for a materials science class and a class in additive manufacturing — both with “hands-on” lab components — meant doing some serious modifications. Thankfully I was somewhat already into the technology of video production for teaching. And then the “fun” began.

We do teach our manufacturing students in the 4-year program all sorts of logistics, planning tools, productivity concepts, and more. The strain on the supply chains from panic buying (“where’s the toilet paper??”) honed some of our points often seen as unimportant – but these students were living it. And as for me, seeing the need for personal protective equipment (PPE) was crucial to the safety of healthcare workers and others, the shortages were unacceptable.

So what has been the output? I’ve honestly lost count, but somewhere around 300 face shields, 800 “ear savers” and several hundred other adaptive items (door handle grabbers, key chain sanitizers, cloth mask clips etc.). Among the PPE were some odd items for class. Everything was donated to the recipients – including visiting nurses, nursing homes, dentists, child care centers, etc.

And while it has slowed down, I’m not completely out of the business. I’m sure my work has helped in a small way to contain the spread.

If you’d like to help me pay for my personal materials and wear and tear on my equipment (besides supplies, my MakerBot Replicator+ needed a new extruder and my Flashforge Adventurer crashed a nozzle and build plate) just use the PayPal donation button on the left menu! Even a dollar or two would be a wonderful acknowledgement.

OK, one year later…

23 Thursday Jan 2020

Posted by Eric Albert in Uncategorized

≈ Comments Off on OK, one year later…

Talk about being totally distracted! This past year professionally and personally was filled with all sorts of new things. To catch up with everything will be difficult, but from the last post, yes, I did get the new Prusa SL1 last fall (but still under construction, however). Our new college Makerspace is fully up and running, and I’m the faculty-in-residence this year to assist with all sorts of things maker. Because my teaching schedule is now reduced, there is much more time for adding to this blog – hopefully things of value that somebody will tap my “Donate” button! 😉 Feeding me caffeinated drinks is the best way to ensure more technical content here!

What will 2019 Bring?

01 Tuesday Jan 2019

Posted by Eric Albert in Uncategorized

≈ Comments Off on What will 2019 Bring?

As is obvious from date of this post and the last one I was not doing much blogging here – and for a good reason.  I was still very immersed in additive manufacturing problems and solutions, but my own personal life was so overloaded with family needs that blogging just didn’t happen.

Well, I hope to fix this several ways.  I have some neat project information to share involving additive manufacturing in the restoration of several antique automobiles.  This will definitely be the year of the liquid SLA printer – just take a look at Josef Prusa’s first UV/LCD unit the SL1:

Expected to be shipped end of January 2019, and yes I do have one on order.  I will also be posting a review of the Anycubic Photon too – it is a very nice unit that works well for me.  And I picked up a used Formlabs Form 1 – main issue dirty mirrors (that seems to be a common issue) and Formlabs nicely sent me a replacement set even though I was able to restore the ones in the unit.   Plus an upgrade to the SparkMaker’s system to increase resolution through a parts kit and a test run of T3D’s phone / tablet unit.  Maybe OLO / ONO (the much late phone based 3D printer) could appear!

I also expect to see some new breakthroughs in scanning.  I’ll be posting a review of Qlone (tablet / phone app) that recently got upgraded to 4K.

And as my college has opened a new Makerspace, I’ll devote one post to showing you how our design team of faculty and students created a unique facililty.

Happy New Year! 😉

Happy New Year 2017

06 Friday Jan 2017

Posted by Eric Albert in Uncategorized

≈ Comments Off on Happy New Year 2017

As always, a new round of technology is on display at the Winter CES show in Las Vegas. Given that temperatures are in the teens where I live, warm and sunny Las Vegas sounds rather enticing… However, from my research on the 3D printing space there it is clear that the economic downturn and “cooling” of the market is showing in the types of new offerings. XYZPrinting is there in force with some new selections, but other than the new Markforged desktop metal printer, there isn’t much to be excited about. For one thing, that machine will not be a consumer-priced offering (and as of this writing no price has been announced).

I do have some reviews that have been neglected: the Pixelio scanner table is here, a Mod-T 3D printer, and hopefully by early February a Uniz3D Slash LCD-SLA unit. The Tiko mini delta printer also came just last week, and I’ve managed to get some prints out of it, but nothing great so far. At least I got one! It also looks promising to get the PolyMaker Polysher unit by early February too. I’ve tested a sample of their PVB filament used in that process and had great results – even rough polishing it with IPA in a perfume atomizer. I’ve worked with some Monoprice IIIP units including the MakerSelect and the prints have been fantastic. I’m going to tackle these one by one with some video included too.

And now on to my predictions for 2017 and 3D printing: the consumer space will further consolidate – and educational (read more expensive) offerings will be the norm. I’d like to see a reliable resin printer for under $1000 with decent software (it is possible). And I’d like to see some better 3D scanners. 2017 looks to be the year of IoT, Virtual Reality, and maybe drones… so I rather think that the additive manufacturing space will see less development for now. However, I would not mind being pleasantly surprised!

Fall is here and I’m so way behind on tech reviews!

29 Saturday Oct 2016

Posted by Eric Albert in Uncategorized

≈ Comments Off on Fall is here and I’m so way behind on tech reviews!

In case you follow this blog and thought that I’d been abducted by aliens or worse — no I’m still much in the game and there are so many things to catch up on. Such as:

We’ll look at the new MakerBot SmartExtruder+, Tough PLA SmartExtruder, and MakerBot Replicator 5th Gen Plus. That alone is a lot. I have tested the new tough PLA in the heat of battle – 3lb battlebots to be exact – and the three parts made this way held up exceptionally well. More on that to come!

A review of the Mod-t printer is also in the works. And my experiences printing TPU (thermoplastic urethane) have been really fun. Again, some parts made for a recent 3lb battlebot competition held up so well they came out without a scratch.

Liquid resin printers are getting into the mainstream – check out this awesome new offering on Kickstarter: The Morpheus Morpheus 3D This machine is using the concept of an LCD screen and appropriate lighting, such as the ONO unit coming out later (we hope) this month. The ONO 3D printer uses “daylight” curing resin (probably deep blue actually) from the LCD / LED screen of your phone. The promise is of smooth layers and even clear prints if desired.

Scanning is also an area seeing new options. Smartphones have such incredible cameras these days it doesn’t make sense to use some other imaging part. The long-awaited Bevel from Matter and Form seems to be still long awaited… But I did get my Pixelio scan table and can say it works nicely. More on that later too. Check it out here: Pixelio

So stay tuned – by US Thanksgiving holiday I should have at least a few new personal reviews out there.

Amazing new tabletop laser cutter

24 Saturday Oct 2015

Posted by Eric Albert in Uncategorized

≈ Comments Off on Amazing new tabletop laser cutter

CO2 laser cutters have been around for a while, but they are either very expensive or just (like low-end imports) not well designed.  A new offering that is probably the most consumer friendly device I’ve seen in this area is called the “Glowforge.”  The basic unit comes with a 40W CO2 laser, continuous autofocus, a 12″ x 20″ bed and internal object recognition cameras that work to identify the materials and alignment.

Check it out here:  glowforge laser

And if you would like a $100 coupon off the purchase check here:  $100 Coupon

This will cover the $99 shipping charge (if you are in the US) so think of it as free shipping!

Early orders go out in December 2015 but I’d guess that later orders will not be fulfilled until mid-2016 (just guessing).

UPDATE: Shipments have been delayed for at least 6 months due to an issue with the power supply – claimed to be a custom component – and that only now (4/16) have the first samples of properly spec’d parts arrived. Refunds are available if you do not want to wait…

Some upcoming reports and a coupon!

14 Monday Sep 2015

Posted by Eric Albert in Uncategorized

≈ Comments Off on Some upcoming reports and a coupon!

First – a shameless promotion… MakerBot is running a coupon special.  If you tap on this link $25 MakerBot Coupon you’ll get a coupon for $25 off your order on a MakerBot machine and supplies.  The details will appear in a new window… Yes, I’ll get a small commission if you use this custom coupon, but any receipts go back into paying for this blog and purchasing machines and materials to test and review.

So while I’ve been quiet for a bit, here are some upcoming reviews that you might find useful:

DaVinci Nobel 1.0 SLA

iBox Nano SLA

Little RP SLA w/tilt option

SeeMeCNC Droplit SLA

And maybe by the end of October, a Peachy Printer…

Spring update

06 Monday Apr 2015

Posted by Eric Albert in Uncategorized

≈ Comments Off on Spring update

Despite the fact that it is astronomical spring here in the northeast US, still a pile of accumulated snow remains in my front yard.  Hopefully it will not last much longer!

Since early February I’ve been focused at work on a number of extra projects and at my home shop, working on updates to current machines.  So here is a brief summary as to where things are at this stage:

1. MakerBot Mini – working really well, new firmware released recently has made it quieter and the mandatory rafts are now much easier to remove.

2. Cube 3d Generation – with both client and firmware updates and along with some tweaks in the cartridge design have now made this machine very reliable (for me anyway) and builds are working in one or two color mode.

3. Solidoodle Press – soon up for sale.  I’ll be putting it on ebay for $349 plus shipping, maybe less… contact me if you’re interested.

4. Zeepro Zim – the user interface has improved by leaps and bounds.  The machine itself is solidly built and is probably the most quiet hardware out there.  Now that cloud printing and remote control is available, it is one worth considering.  To sweeten the deal, they were having a limited sale at their site http://www.zeepro.com recently.

A new addition to my software resources is Simplify3D.  I’ll be doing a separate review soon, but wanted to mention that it does run a DaVinci 3D 1.0a machine just fine and the results are far better than the free client supplied from xyzprinting with the machine.  In fact, their client software is probably the worst one out there — you’d think a large corporation could manage to create an exemplary user interface to their equipment.  Their new Junior unit is now listed on Amazon for pre-order.

Solidoodle Press – more fixes and improvements

31 Saturday Jan 2015

Posted by Eric Albert in Uncategorized

≈ 4 Comments

I managed to print a 20mm calibration cube using some ABS filament other than what was sent with the machine.  The part came out with some interesting defects (the side walls showed definite herringbone patterns, suggesting insufficient drive to the extruder motor) however the X and Y accuracy was pretty good. But as I unloaded the filament at the end of the job, it was obvious that I too now had the “loose screw” in the drive wheel problem.

Fixing that is not difficult – take the plastic cover off and the left side of the extruder body using the two thumbscrews.  Then take the fan on the right side off and it will uncover some slits where you can easily insert a 1.5mm allen wrench.  Of course you’ll have to get the drive wheel in the correct place on the stepper motor shaft, as well as the proper front spacing.

Pictures coming soon.  Note also Solidoodle released an update (1.1.1 now) to the client software on 2/12 or so) – it fixes some issues reported so far.

UPDATE:  while I get my video properly edited, here are the things you can do to improve your head cable:

1. Remove (and discard!) the factory supplied black cable loom piece – if it is like mine, it is too stiff, too large, and too big in diameter.  It just gets in the way.

2. Use a tywrap to fix the cable bundle at the head to the top side of the extruder motor.  I also used some hot melt glue as an enhancement.  The wires should come off of the left side of the head, low and with enough give for the Z probe to move.

3. Use some tywraps to make the cable bundle secure along its length back to where the wires enter the chassis.

3. Fix an elastic string (I got some at a fabric shop) to the cable bundle about midway, and hot melt glue it there and to the front left corner of the chassis.  There will be some need for experimentation for the best “preload.”  What this does is keep the cable assembly tensioned so that it remains relatively suspended no matter where the head is positioned.

4. Finally, use 1/4″ plastic spiral wrap (I tried 1/8″ and it is too tight) to cover the entire length of the cable.

If I can only get my regular day job of late done, I’ll be able to get to this fun stuff! 😉  And a new post with video will be there soon.  This works fairly well so far but I remain convinced it is just an interim solution — something better is needed for the long term.

DSC01944 DSC01949

← Older posts

Help me keep going in 2020!

Donate Button

Recent Posts

  • $500 Coupon for Formlabs
  • COVID-19 and Additive Manufacturing
  • OK, one year later…
  • What will 2019 Bring?
  • Robo R2 – the big brother to the C2

Archives

  • December 2020
  • May 2020
  • January 2020
  • January 2019
  • July 2017
  • April 2017
  • January 2017
  • October 2016
  • March 2016
  • December 2015
  • October 2015
  • September 2015
  • April 2015
  • January 2015
  • December 2014
  • November 2014
  • October 2014
  • September 2014
  • June 2014
  • April 2014
  • March 2014
  • September 2013
  • June 2013
  • February 2013
  • September 2012
  • July 2012
  • June 2012
  • May 2012
  • March 2012
  • December 2011
  • November 2011

Categories

  • Adventures with a Solidoodle
  • Building the Sumpod
  • Personal 3D Printers
  • Uncategorized

Meta

  • Register
  • Log in
  • Entries feed
  • Comments feed
  • WordPress.com

Blog at WordPress.com.

Cancel