Between 485 & 705 SQ/FT 3rd time's a charm with a 3 car workshop

[loganb]

Life has gotten in the way of much project progress....silly life

Tried to print a clear ghost to stick over some LED's, print failed for an unknown reason at the end but should be enough I can trial the concept and see how it looks at night.




Got some time in the garage while wife was at work on Saturday, brought little buddy out to watch while we had big sister's camera feed up on the TV during her nap time.



Supposed to have family over this afternoon...not sure if it's gonna happen but trying ribs for the first time on the pellet smoker

 

[loganb]

Quick couple of updates while I deal with an independent 3 year old "who doesn't want daddy to help" as she gets ready for school.....we keep reminding ourselves that independence is a good trait


Ribs from the smoker...the cook was great but won't use that rub again. I didn't pay much attention to what was in it at first until I was making the rub and realized how much sugar was in it....it got good reviews but was too much for me so I'll find another one to try for the next time but overall a success!



Moving one of the wireless access points to the garage but in the course of the move the wall mount got lost....so 3D printer to the rescue


Earlier in the year I bought a large assortment of small plastic bins from Schaller as they were cheaper for hardware storage than printing them....well I'm 2nd guessing that a bit but did take the plunge and bought some of the files/designs from the high energy Norwegian maker Alexander Chappell...specifically:

https://www.alch.shop/shop/p/assortment-system-master-set

and also the shorter set:

https://www.alch.shop/shop/p/assortment-box-collection-55mm

I've been aware of his channel and a fan for awhile but wasn't until the video below that I connected that his grid design would solve an irritation of of stuff sliding around in the toolbox drawers

So I've started to print some grid bases and an assortment of boxes as I get familiar with it, but hopefully some CAD work will allow me to better organize some drawers like the ones below in a more modular/dynamic way than foam cutouts





First couple boxes and a grid base. Have been able to tweak settings getting the grid print time from 61m down to 42 minutes, haven't done much work yet to find the sweet spot on box printing

 

[Trapps]

If you 3D printer guys don't stop with the organizational candy posts, my wife is going to be pissed.

Of course there are a few steps between 'post' and 'pissed' but you get the picture....

And the ribs look delicious!!!

 

[nicholam77]

Quick couple of updates while I deal with an independent 3 year old "who doesn't want daddy to help" as she gets ready for school.....we keep reminding ourselves that independence is a good trait

It's a blessing and a curse!! My wife often works early morning shifts at the hospital (out of the house by 6am) so I get my 3 yr old and the baby ready and to daycare in the mornings. Having my daughter able to dress herself and take herself to the bathroom, put coat, shoes, socks on, etc, is actually a huge help now, even though it takes longer and very occasionally results in a frustration or meltdown.

Earlier in the year I bought a large assortment of small plastic bins from Schaller as they were cheaper for hardware storage than printing them....well I'm 2nd guessing that a bit but did take the plunge and bought some of the files/designs from the high energy Norwegian maker Alexander Chappell...

Oh dang! I was actually thinking about those same ones. My drawers are a mess and after seeing what @bj383ss and @T-handle did with drawer bins I knew I needed to do it eventually — that was actually a main justification for me to get on the print train! I think the grid system is really smart, though, as I don't know that I have a "complete picture" for each drawer at the moment. Being able to not have it completely full and still have the bins organized and not slide around is great. That way it can still be functional while you figure out what goes where.

My question for you is — how easy is it to customize his files? I believe they are .STL files? When I've tested bringing those into Fusion360 they show up as mesh and I'm confused at how one would modify them.

I also found this guy who modeled the bins from the new Systainer organizer boxes as well as a "drawer mat" for use in other drawers. So I'm thinking over if there would be any advantage in that for me since I have a couple of the Sys org boxes already (like perhaps taking bins or tray out of workbench drawers and putting into mobile organizer to bring to the house)?

You'll have to update and let us know how you like the Chappel ones!

 

[loganb]

If you 3D printer guys don't stop with the organizational candy posts, my wife is going to be pissed.

Of course there are a few steps between 'post' and 'pissed' but you get the picture....

And the ribs look delicious!!!

It's helpful to make sure the printer is someplace that if you get kicked to the doghouse you can easily use it without disturbing her

And at least here it makes gift ideas easier and she just tells me to "order some fun filament" as part of bday//fathers day etc!

It's a blessing and a curse!! My wife often works early morning shifts at the hospital (out of the house by 6am) so I get my 3 yr old and the baby ready and to daycare in the mornings. Having my daughter able to dress herself and take herself to the bathroom, put coat, shoes, socks on, etc, is actually a huge help now, even though it takes longer and very occasionally results in a frustration or meltdown.

Somewhat similar routine here, getting them to daycare is on me but the wife is home still as she's out the door about 7:30 but on Monday I'm going to start turning the light on in the 3 year olds room about 10 minutes earlier as she has her mother's "love" for mornings and is highly in the "I do it" phase and we just need more time for her to do it as she wants, at the pace she generally wants while I work with little brother. It's way faster if I get her dressed....but if she's slow but gets it done and we leave the house smiling over crying...that's a win!

Oh dang! I was actually thinking about those same ones. My drawers are a mess and after seeing what @bj383ss and @T-handle did with drawer bins I knew I needed to do it eventually — that was actually a main justification for me to get on the print train! I think the grid system is really smart, though, as I don't know that I have a "complete picture" for each drawer at the moment. Being able to not have it completely full and still have the bins organized and not slide around is great. That way it can still be functional while you figure out what goes where.

My question for you is — how easy is it to customize his files? I believe they are .STL files? When I've tested bringing those into Fusion360 they show up as mesh and I'm confused at how one would modify them.

I'm pretty clueless about modifying existing .stl, from what I can tell Fusion plays with it "nicer" or maybe "easier" than SolidWorks, but I'm in the process of designing the "bottom" of the boxes to mate up with the grid in Solidworks myself so I can easily do my own. He tossed a couple boxes up on Thingiverse and there is a "remix" of his boxes on the Prusa Printers page here

https://www.prusaprinters.org/prints/55929-assortment-boxes-with-grid

A number of his designs I'll likely use "as is" but for most of the tool holders they'll need to be custom and I was struggling with how to do it "intelligently" but here is what I'm trying:

The base of all the boxes are a repeating pattern of the same element, so to minimize work one should be able to design that "element" then use the pattern tool in Solidworks to generate the desired grid size....well here goes!

Started with the base "element", this is a simple square profile that was then chamfered on the bottom, "shelled" out for the wall thickness and then some fillets for the corners:



Next up is making a pattern of the desired size. In this case I did 3x3 as that's the size I need for the first item I want to design some holders for and the larger size will show any stacked up dimensional issues easier than a 1 x 2 or 2 x 2 grid. The largest I can print on my Prusa is 3 x 4



In the left hand part "tree" it shows this as a pattern with 9 iterations of the same part...this is a problem in 3D printer land as it "sees" those as 9 separate parts instead of a larger, single component so next I need to fix that


This step probably took me the most time as my Solidworks experience is seriously rusty but with the help of Google I eventually got the "join" command to do what I wanted....once I found the command in the right sequence it was super easy!



So that got me a .stl file I could then import into the Prusa....and a trek down the stairs to the basement later I've got this running right now:



Going to try and stay up until it comes off to see how it fits....it's only a 75 minute print since it's so short so it won't be too much past my bedtime since it's not a school night

And some unorganized, future organizational candy to help those who need encouragement to jump in the rabbit hole:


My box of completed bins straight out of the Chappell files. There are also (10) of the finished "grid" bases as well ready to be used...hoping this weekend I get a couple installed and into real usage....maybe??

 

[nicholam77]

Awesome Logan, can’t wait to see them in drawers. I’m probably going to follow a very similar path if it works for you. If I can figure out the modeling part.

Kind of a bummer if the .STL files can’t be manipulated like a solid model. I know you can scale them in the slicing software etc, but it would be very handy to use someone’s file as a starting point and then customize it, vs starting from scratch with the grid base like you’re doing. At least for a modeling noob like me.

But great work!

 

[loganb]

Well ready for Rev 2....Rev 1 needed a bit of a tweak

The "box base" didn't fit snugly into the grid....but was close...




Having to convert measurements cause you're not used to working in metric...yeah that's a pain



5 minutes on CAD to adjust the base "element" size, then reslice and ready to print and down to see if she fits this time!

 

[loganb]

Well think I have the dimensions of the base close enough, still a few tweaks to make but it seems functional

Going to try and finish the design over nap time, but first design will be a sandpaper disc holder based off Chappell's design of this:



My changes will be to make it shorter as his stock one is 75mm tall which for my needs is about 2x taller than I need, then make them stackable. I've been buying Mirka Gold assortment packs and just sorting thru the box to find the grit I wanted so excited to be able to sort them out and have them well organized and easy to move to the work for larger projects

Other accomplishment on Saturday was trying the 2 kids, 1 stroller for the first time...not as easy to push for sure but they seemed to enjoy it and got us all out of the house on a beautiful mid 60's and sunny afternoon

 

[bj383ss]

Wow so much awesome. I am still laughing out loud at Trapps comment. It's too late now but Chappelle has several FREE files on Thingiverse. I printed several of them before I wiped my harddrive during the reinstall. Now I can't exactly remember which designs I printed because I modified the height. I also found the grid system on Thingiverse. I printed out several of the grids but haven't gotten to printing the containers yet. I am still trying to decide if I want to do the LED Xmas lights. I got the wife on board but honestly its just going to be a time constraint with opening the new store. Only 1 day a week off right now and my body is just shot. I am thankful that my foot pain has not returned even with taking 20k + steps a day.

Bret

 

[iced98lx]

going to have to send along some dimensions of drawers and a few rolls a filament if you don't stop with these awesome 3D Printer posts lol

Looking awesome!

 

[loganb]

Wow so much awesome. I am still laughing out loud at Trapps comment. It's too late now but Chappelle has several FREE files on Thingiverse. I printed several of them before I wiped my harddrive during the reinstall. Now I can't exactly remember which designs I printed because I modified the height. I also found the grid system on Thingiverse. I printed out several of the grids but haven't gotten to printing the containers yet. I am still trying to decide if I want to do the LED Xmas lights. I got the wife on board but honestly its just going to be a time constraint with opening the new store. Only 1 day a week off right now and my body is just shot. I am thankful that my foot pain has not returned even with taking 20k + steps a day.

Bret

Thanks for stopping by Bret! Hope the store opening is going well! Curious...in your environment what is your choice of footwear for that many steps on concrete? When I've needed to do that for prior jobs it was always in industrial settings and I didn't have to care about how it looked....guessing for you the looks matter a bit more?

I saw his files on thingiverse and ended up buying the designs cause I think I can use about half of them and I enjoy his videos even if his energy is a bit over the top for me so I didn't feel bad supporting him. I'm in the fortunate situation of my time is more valuable to me than the 30 bucks

For anyone interested, the designs Bret referenced on thingiverse are here, also someone else took the same concept and modified it and posted a larger set of files on Prusa's project page and can be found here

I'm pretty happy with the Christmas light project, need another day or so of nice weather to hopefully finish the last outdoor run in this "phase 1" but it got a ton of questions and compliments on Halloween....and I might have run Chiefs themed colors the other weekend when they were playing Green Bay as the neighbors across the street are Cheeseheads....lol.

going to have to send along some dimensions of drawers and a few rolls a filament if you don't stop with these awesome 3D Printer posts lol

Looking awesome!

Thanks sir! Unfortunately exactly 0 progress on prints since the last update. As you mentioned in one of your latest posts the colds and various winter ailments have hit our 2 kids(and currently the wife) and that extra mental and physical effort has pretty much ruined any productivity outside of the bare minimum. Hopefully we get past this current round of stuff this week....fingers crossed!

Have tried a few things on the pellet smoker and cooked plenty so we could eat some and freeze some for future usage....some smoked meatballs that came out really good for a 1st time:


And the classic pulled pork. In this case it was a Duroc Boston ****/shoulder roast as it was on sale and one of then neighbors with the same smoker has been raving about the Duroc(which is a specific breed of hog) over the "standard"....it was good don't get me wrong but for the "normal" price of 3.99 lb and on sale for 1.99 lb....not sure I noticed that much difference. Will have to try again with a side by side roast in the spring or summer for some larger event and see what people think then





Working to try and complete the move of the home office around which means selling the old cubicle setup stuff....so if anyone in the driving distance to Omaha area is looking let me know!


The wife's getting to the point where she wants her ride back in the garage at night so need to do a purge of a lot of my garage stuff that I moved here and still haven't used taking up space on a shelf so I can free up some space and just "feel" better about the space. Getting more organized is great....but I've got a long way to go on the first step in the '5S' process which is Sort.

 

[iced98lx]

Yea I know the sickness game well, just hoping we hit the round-about jackpot and are healthy over thanksgiving. Those meatballs look good and give me another thing to try on the pellet cooker. I've been meaning to do a meatloaf for a while.

 

[nicholam77]

the colds and various winter ailments have hit our 2 kids(and currently the wife) and that extra mental and physical effort has pretty much ruined any productivity outside of the bare minimum. Hopefully we get past this current round of stuff this week....fingers crossed!

Hope you get through it soon. We had a string of back-to-back colds earlier in the season. Balancing work and 2 kids and projects is hard enough when you're not sick!

The smoked goods look delicious.

 

[zanyad]

the colds and various winter ailments have hit our 2 kids(and currently the wife) and that extra mental and physical effort has pretty much ruined any productivity outside of the bare minimum. Hopefully we get past this current round of stuff this week....fingers crossed!

Hope you get through it soon. We had a string of back-to-back colds earlier in the season. Balancing work and 2 kids and projects is hard enough when you're not sick!

Ugh, this round is at week four or so for us.... I was lucky the first stretch, but have had a chest cold since Wednesday of last week.

 

[loganb]

Ugh, this round is at week four or so for us.... I was lucky the first stretch, but have had a chest cold since Wednesday of last week.

I feel for ya...about 3 hrs after I posted last weekend the stomach bug hit me and the baby is a bit under the weather now. In good news it was patient and didn't have any if us sick simultaneously and it didn't hit me on the front end of a weekend!

Otherwise not a ton accomplished here it feels like aside from keeping the household in a single, toy strewn piece.

Little garage time did include installing a couple new air fittings from @Stedlin, haven't really used them but impressed with shipping speed!



We bought the wife's Volvo used in 2018 and as I hadn't ever changed the battery figured probably should. Wasn't excited about getting it out as I assumed it was well buried for a large, transverse mounted engine but it wasn't bad



It's a 2014 model, based on the date sticker I'm assuming it wasn't the original battery...may have had another year of life but as its the wife's and our primary "go somewhere" mobile its one less thing to worry about.


It was nice to get a little even rudimentary car time in...need to get rid of the stacked up office furniture in the garage and then get both thru the garage for long overdue cleanup before it gets too slushy and nasty outside!

 

[gearhead1960]

I can appreciate having to change a battery in a transverse engined car...my 2017 Mini's battery gave up the ghost earlier this year. $400-500 dollar exchange at a dealer. It took me about an hour to disassemble firewall it was hidden behind, remove old battery (about 30lbs of dead weight), install battery, re-assemble the firewall and then register the battery with the car's computer....whew! Oh yeah, battery was about $125 at Advance..... BTW, $$$ coming soon......

 

[loganb]

Couple other items I forgot....

Had an unused wireless access point so got it mounted, that's a Ubiquiti which has power over ethernet so mount locstion isn't reliant on a close power outlet which makes things much cleaner. Didn't really need it in the garage but I already had it and when the garage doors are open it will provide far better service in the driveway and at a couple other driveways I sometimes end up in on summer nights.... so nice plus



While attempting to help a buddy write down 2021 profits on his side hustle woodworking business with a new CNC router the topic of what to do with his current one came up... so we are talking about it being added to my garage. If I was smart(often not the case) I would say hell no and finish the other projects etc etc etc... but I've been thinking about such an add for awhile.... so I don't know. It's a roughly 50" x 50" cutting area but a bit of a project as it was a kit that he got assembled(minus the z axis and spindle) and is under power and moves in the X and Y, so an off the shelf z axis assy, 2.2KW water cooled spindle and dust collection should be all that's required... famous last words

Also put a deposit on a new 3D printer as Prusa released their long awaited Prusa XL for ordering. Lots for a printer nerd to geek out about it on, but biggest difference is the size as print envelope goes from an approximate 7 inch cube to a 14" cube which for hobbist printers is flipping huge. Lot of other bells and whistles I'm excited about but am going to have to wait as shipping timeline is Q2 or Q3 to start so lots of time to build up a stack of large things to print!

 

[loganb]

So lunch hour classified shopping cost me...turns out there is a home based 3d printing business not far from me switching filaments and selling all the old filament.

Prusa filament in my limited experience is very nice and more consistent than some other brands but as it comes from Europe shipping is pricey so I don't buy it much. This lot will get split with my brother but should keep me in material to print some holiday gifts and organizer boxes for a week or two!

 

[HPRifleman]

It's helpful to make sure the printer is someplace that if you get kicked to the doghouse you can easily use it without disturbing her

And at least here it makes gift ideas easier and she just tells me to "order some fun filament" as part of bday//fathers day etc!




Somewhat similar routine here, getting them to daycare is on me but the wife is home still as she's out the door about 7:30 but on Monday I'm going to start turning the light on in the 3 year olds room about 10 minutes earlier as she has her mother's "love" for mornings and is highly in the "I do it" phase and we just need more time for her to do it as she wants, at the pace she generally wants while I work with little brother. It's way faster if I get her dressed....but if she's slow but gets it done and we leave the house smiling over crying...that's a win!



I'm pretty clueless about modifying existing .stl, from what I can tell Fusion plays with it "nicer" or maybe "easier" than SolidWorks, but I'm in the process of designing the "bottom" of the boxes to mate up with the grid in Solidworks myself so I can easily do my own. He tossed a couple boxes up on Thingiverse and there is a "remix" of his boxes on the Prusa Printers page here

https://www.prusaprinters.org/prints/55929-assortment-boxes-with-grid

A number of his designs I'll likely use "as is" but for most of the tool holders they'll need to be custom and I was struggling with how to do it "intelligently" but here is what I'm trying:

The base of all the boxes are a repeating pattern of the same element, so to minimize work one should be able to design that "element" then use the pattern tool in Solidworks to generate the desired grid size....well here goes!

Started with the base "element", this is a simple square profile that was then chamfered on the bottom, "shelled" out for the wall thickness and then some fillets for the corners:



Next up is making a pattern of the desired size. In this case I did 3x3 as that's the size I need for the first item I want to design some holders for and the larger size will show any stacked up dimensional issues easier than a 1 x 2 or 2 x 2 grid. The largest I can print on my Prusa is 3 x 4



In the left hand part "tree" it shows this as a pattern with 9 iterations of the same part...this is a problem in 3D printer land as it "sees" those as 9 separate parts instead of a larger, single component so next I need to fix that


This step probably took me the most time as my Solidworks experience is seriously rusty but with the help of Google I eventually got the "join" command to do what I wanted....once I found the command in the right sequence it was super easy!



So that got me a .stl file I could then import into the Prusa....and a trek down the stairs to the basement later I've got this running right now:



Going to try and stay up until it comes off to see how it fits....it's only a 75 minute print since it's so short so it won't be too much past my bedtime since it's not a school night

And some unorganized, future organizational candy to help those who need encouragement to jump in the rabbit hole:


My box of completed bins straight out of the Chappell files. There are also (10) of the finished "grid" bases as well ready to be used...hoping this weekend I get a couple installed and into real usage....maybe??

Importing an .STL file into SolidWorks will give you a non-intelligent model but you should be able to add features from there. That would be easier than creating an assembly and joining components.

 

[loganb]

Importing an .STL file into SolidWorks will give you a non-intelligent model but you should be able to add features from there. That would be easier than creating an assembly and joining components.

Going to have to try that...thanks! Currently debating keeping SolidWorks, not a huge fan of their new license model so I may switch back to Fusion which will probably go that same way as well or possibly switch to Alibre which is currently running a sale cutting the cost by 50% or so. Never used it before however my brother uses it for his work at a 2 man shop and he's happy with it, works very comparable to SolidWorks and does all he needs which is far more than I need.

During the precious "golden hour" where our kids are both scheduled to be asleep at the same time we tried to get started on hanging outdoor lights on some trees...my heavy protesting that my light hanging duties were done already with the house lights was met with strong opinions to the contrary....so I helped.

We have 1 very nice sized evergreen in a prominent location for the development that looks pretty nice lit up....so it was up first. Last year the inlaws and my wife did all the lights...so this was my first time attempting it and with my wife in charge of light placement I quickly realized that one of us was probably going to strangle the other if we only did this off the 2 ladders....so some quick improvisation was necessary to allow easier placement of the lights so I sacrificed a paint roller to the holiday deity of choice:



Made placing lights much faster and safer:



Ending up with:



And no, they're not programable LED's

I initially said they were going to be....but after realizing that they used 150' of lights on that tree last year and I'd need to order about another $175 bucks worth of lights....I took the wiser and less fun route of getting it done today with what we already owned....maybe next year they get upgraded! With the pole it took about 45 minutes total which included "fabrication" of the placement tool and I'm told last year was at least 2 hours so yay working smarter not harder

Tomorrow one of the nieces is supposed to come over to play/watch the 3 yr old for a bit so we can hopefully finish the rest of the lights in the trees.

Very minor garage project after I had earned some brownie points on the lights involved installing a couple wire shelf standards and brackets I had leftover from another project. I think I have another shelf not being used somewhere I need to find...but with a bit of sorting this will help better organize the cutoffs to try and limit the consistent collection of "stuff" on the nice flat surfaces

 

[loganb]

So trying to finish up an organization project today... or at least make positive progress

Screwed some plywood onto some 2x4's to supplement the wood glue I wasn't going to be patient enough to let dry before using...



Counterbored a couple holes:






Clamped it all up with some story blocks to set the distance...then drill and drive some #14 self tappers and repeat half a dozen times and get tracks to hang 6 "active project totes"



Still need to anchor the track on the far right and buy 2 more totes...but happy so far! Goal is to use them as active project totes so I can keep components together and from being strewn about the flat surfaces when not being actively worked on...will see how successful it is but sounds good in theory and out of pocket cost so far is the totes and the self tapping screws

 

[racer-john]

Great idea, would "steal" it if I had the space. Lol.

 

[nicholam77]

with a new CNC router the topic of what to do with his current one came up... so we are talking about it being added to my garage.

Also put a deposit on a new 3D printer as Prusa released their long awaited Prusa XL for ordering. Lots for a printer nerd to geek out about it on, but biggest difference is the size as print envelope goes from an approximate 7 inch cube to a 14" cube which for hobbist printers is flipping huge.

Just imagine the ginormous Low Poly Pikachus you will be able to make with that build volume.

Goal is to use them as active project totes so I can keep components together and from being strewn about the flat surfaces when not being actively worked on...

I love this idea. Especially for those of us that like to have more than one thing cookin' at a time.

 

[loganb]

Just imagine the ginormous Low Poly Pikachus you will be able to make with that build volume.

You mean something like this:



Low Poly Cat from Thingiverse....another possible idea for a gift and to learn as never printed any of these low-poly figures before. Printed in some of the new Prusament Gold filament, came out pretty well except for an issue at the tail seen better below:



Because of the angle of some of these sides, the overhangs on the layers gets pretty big and less "optimal" and I only had (2) perimeters and layer thickness was too much. Based on this print I modified some settings on a low poly pokemon(increased perimeters, lowered layer thickness) and just hit print to see how that does....9.5 hr print time so probably not going to see this one finished until the morning.

 

[loganb]

Great idea, would "steal" it if I had the space. Lol.

Thx...however I've stolen from many others who have used a similar concept with larger totes for ceiling mounted storage of bulky stuff...holiday decorations etc! I've never had this much headroom in a garage before and has taken me awhile to adapt and try and use it efficiently but slowly getting there

After daycare dropoff I hit the Big Orange Box to get the last 2 totes slide them in a boom...done! Yeah....



New tote on the left...prior ones on the right....this most recent batch has some new ribs that won't let me slide them right in...well ****



So out came the Knipex shears to cut them



Little plastic fatigue bending back and forth broke the rib off easily leaving a small nub that cleaned up well with a chisel...total effort here was 5 minutes or less but still annoyed it was required

And now all 6 in their places and ready for a labeling solution

 

[legenddc]

Check out Dry Erase tape for those. I have it on a lot of our totes to keep things straight and easy to update.

 

[loganb]

Check out Dry Erase tape for those. I have it on a lot of our totes to keep things straight and easy to update.

Hum....never heard of that but that would be much simpler than my other thoughts of a mini marker board or a half sheet of paper laminated and taped to the end! Thanks for stopping by and helping to solve that one!

 

[loganb]

For @nicholam77 the low poly bulbasor came out great! No idea what it is...but a niece likes Pokémon stuff so I'm told it should go over well...time will tell.

I lowered the layer thickness to .15mm and 3 perimeters as the layer angles/overhang is pretty steep. 5% infill...next time that will be 0% infill as I dont believe it matters for these

 

[legenddc]

Hum....never heard of that but that would be much simpler than my other thoughts of a mini marker board or a half sheet of paper laminated and taped to the end! Thanks for stopping by and helping to solve that one!

It works out pretty well and if you hate it, removing it isn't too bad. They also make wall cling type stuff that's whiteboard or blackboard material if you need something for the kids one day.

 

[wreckdiver1321]

Logan,

Been following for a while, but I just wanted to say nice work on the tote storage! I saw something similar to that once, guy had a ton of them on the ceiling with labels on the bottom. Those yellow top totes are great for the money.

Also enjoy the 3D printing projects. The stuff you can make with that is unbelievable.

 

[loganb]

It works out pretty well and if you hate it, removing it isn't too bad. They also make wall cling type stuff that's whiteboard or blackboard material if you need something for the kids one day.

I should know tonight as Amazon should be delivering (2) rolls today as neither Depot or Lowes had it in stock at my local store....thanks again!

Logan,

Been following for a while, but I just wanted to say nice work on the tote storage! I saw something similar to that once, guy had a ton of them on the ceiling with labels on the bottom. Those yellow top totes are great for the money.

Also enjoy the 3D printing projects. The stuff you can make with that is unbelievable.

Thanks! I'm hoping to sort thru the current projects and get them labeled tonight...not sure if work and personal life will accommodate that but time will tell. The 3D printing stuff is a lot of fun for me....I really need to make more time for CAD work to get more of my own designs going...not sure what's going to change to make that happen but like all of us have a lot more ideas and projects in my head then I have time to implement right now!

 

[wreckdiver1321]

Thanks! I'm hoping to sort thru the current projects and get them labeled tonight...not sure if work and personal life will accommodate that but time will tell. The 3D printing stuff is a lot of fun for me....I really need to make more time for CAD work to get more of my own designs going...not sure what's going to change to make that happen but like all of us have a lot more ideas and projects in my head then I have time to implement right now!

Somehow there's always more time in your head than time in the day, right? I think they just call that parenthood.

 

[loganb]

Happy 1st weekend of winter to all fellow northern hemisphere GJ'ers

Got a bit of motivation the other night after getting caught up on the new Amazon series A Wheel of Time and decided it was long past time to make progress on the remote monitoring of the 3D printer.

High level recap: A program called Octoprint was developed to enable remote monitoring and control of 3D printers that don't have the functionality natively. It allows you to push programs to the printer over the network(no more sneaker net) as well as enables remote monitoring of functionality, error detection and even has built in support for a webcam so you can watch live progress and make cool time-lapse video's. This was all designed to be run on a Pi or similar miniature PC but there solutions I've seen to run on other devices as well.

As I wanted to use the webcam function, I got a Pi 4 which is the more powerful one and spent about 100 all in for the hardware, case, memory card, cables etc. I bought this last spring and with the chip shortage the hardware prices have gone up considerably

In short....I'm embarrassed this wasn't already done. This was my first Pi and it was running in under 45 minutes...it took longer to find the memory card adapter for the MicroSD then it did for many of these steps

High level

-Installed OctoPi(an Operating system tailored to 3d printing with all necessary parts ready to go) via Rasberry Pi Imager to the MicroSD card
-installed card in PI
-booted it and discovered IP address off my network monitoring software(Pi was hard wired to network)
-Complete setup of Pi via another PC on the network via the IP address
-Pour another drink

Seriously easy and should've been done long ago....live and learn...onto the goodies

Screentshot of the interface via mobile browser



Same interface(different print) on the computer...haven't found any functionality differences



And it on the mobile app....better laid out for the mobile phone...but again same functionality from what I've discovered so far


One thing to note...this particular program only works when you're on the same network as the printer. If you want to monitor/control it while away from home/work etc there are several add on apps or solutions that vary in cost and ease from super easy and a couple bucks a month to more IT intensive but free. For me...not worth it as I work from home so for better or worse out of time is on the same network. Configuring a PC for remote access isn't that hard so if needed I would likely setup the personal desktop for remote access and login to that to then view etc

 

[slodat]

Can’t make out in the photo how you have the Pi setup. I’m case these interest you, I just sent this stuff to a friend.

I used this case and it worked out well: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2334119

This is the camera arm I used. It was really cool to see it go together. It's worth printing for that alone, even if you don't use the camera: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3114849

6 inch USB cable worked quite nicely: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B079ZP65SN/?tag=atomicindus08-20

I really like OctoPrint!

 

[loganb]

And a less wordy more picture update...

Thanks again to @legenddc on the Dry Erase Tape idea...probably going with the version on the right with just a single piece


Back Friday Garage present was a Roku Streambar...we like the Roku smart TV platform and it enables super easy streaming of Spotify for garage tunes with far better sound...so a quick wood butcher project to hack a piece of plywood into 't' shape so could mount it on the bottom of the TV and yay better tunes!


And some jealousy...my brother uses 3D printing pretty extensively in his work and his boss/owner has become a big fan of it seeing it in use so for their Xmas presents/bonus my brother and his full time(and only) employee each got Creality CR-6 Max printers with a 400 x 400 x 400 mm print area! They each have personal printers and (2) at the office as well....it was a well received gift though he may be short an employee after said employee texted his wife pictures of the (2) boxes with a message to the effect of "My Black Friday items showed up"....lol

Adult sized Croc for reference....




If I didn't have a Prusa XL on reserve I'd be tempted as it's a pretty loaded feature set....but I'll be patient...for now

 

[loganb]

Can’t make out in the photo how you have the Pi setup. I’m case these interest you, I just sent this stuff to a friend.

I used this case and it worked out well: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2334119

This is the camera arm I used. It was really cool to see it go together. It's worth printing for that alone, even if you don't use the camera: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3114849

6 inch USB cable worked quite nicely: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B079ZP65SN/?tag=atomicindus08-20

I really like OctoPrint!

Muchos Gracias!

I cheated and bought a basic case...once I get it figured out as to where it'll go I may print one of the cases to mount it out of the way under the control box

The current camera mount....well it's an engineering marvel of (2) 5 gal buckets with gamma lids(my open roll storage) and a couple empty spool boxes on top to get the camera to the right height . A camera mount/arm solution was on today's list to search for and see what others have done so thanks for sharing that. Very nice looking design and I think I've got all the necessary parts split into 2 prints and sliced and ready to go...thanks again for the share and for following along!

 

[slodat]

It's a pleasure to share what I've come across. I haven't touched my printer since I got the OctoPi working when I bought it. Rock solid. Very happy with it.

 

[nicholam77]

In short....I'm embarrassed this wasn't already done. This was my first Pi and it was running in under 45 minutes...it took longer to find the memory card adapter for the MicroSD then it did for many of these steps

Glad to hear it's not too time-consuming, I'm about to follow suit! Removing that SD card back and forth is just annoying enough to want to throw money at it. #1stworldproblems

Since we are in the chip shortage and bare Pi 4 boards are going for $100+ on their own, I found one of the new Zero 2 W's. We'll see how it goes.

And some jealousy...my brother uses 3D printing pretty extensively in his work and his boss/owner has become a big fan of it seeing it in use so for their Xmas presents/bonus my brother and his full time(and only) employee each got Creality CR-6 Max printers with a 400 x 400 x 400 mm print area!

Don't worry Logan, once your Prusa XL shows up you'll be able to print yourself some Crocs, too.

 

[ricketycricket]

From here on out, I am going to use an Adult Croc for scale when taking pictures.

 

[XJSuperman]

What is the area measured in BigMacs? How does that convert to refrigerators?