Between 265 & 485 SQ/FT Made By Miller Studios

[MadeByMiller]

Great job w/ the Prusa! i've built and used a few of those in the past, but through employers, so i'm "struck" with an ender 3 pro at home. But it gets plenty of use and gives some nice results! Currently saving up to do a bondtech upgrade and maybe an "ender extender" to ultimately get to 400 cubed!

Fantastic work here! Excellent craftsman, talented designer, what a combo!! Have you been following Gregor (@sakurama) w/ his "Mid-Century Moto Mecca Makeover"? I'm sure he'd dig your build here too!

Hey, thank you! When I took the plunge into 3D printing I went straight for the Prusa, and as such I have no experience with the ever popular Ender printer. As I understand though, they have a massive online community and with that, an extensive mod list. While I am in awe of 3D printing, I prefer to keep time spent working on the printer to a minimum, and that's why I chose the Prusa.

You're very kind, many thanks! I do my best. Of course I'm well aware of and follow along with Gregor here and his legendary thread. I'd almost be ashamed for him to see my collection of MCM, as what he's created with his home is just awesome!

 

[wannabridin]

I will resonate that sentiment re: the Prusa (but i still modified/upgraded the Prusa)! Funny thing, I went back-asswards w/ AM. I cut my teeth on a Concept Laser M2 8 years ago, then went to work for CL, then integrated FDM into jobs following that, onto my personal Ender.

In case you ever see a black friday deal on an ender and can get one for $100, I'd recommend it. Fix a few small things with it, namely the thermistor, and you can have a reliable and pretty high quality printer for cheap.

I was wondering - do you have your Prusa on a granite slab? Also, awesome work leveling that bed, those are crazy results!! I just let auto leveling work it's magic :-D

 

[MadeByMiller]

I will resonate that sentiment re: the Prusa (but i still modified/upgraded the Prusa)! Funny thing, I went back-asswards w/ AM. I cut my teeth on a Concept Laser M2 8 years ago, then went to work for CL, then integrated FDM into jobs following that, onto my personal Ender.

In case you ever see a black friday deal on an ender and can get one for $100, I'd recommend it. Fix a few small things with it, namely the thermistor, and you can have a reliable and pretty high quality printer for cheap.

I was wondering - do you have your Prusa on a granite slab? Also, awesome work leveling that bed, those are crazy results!! I just let auto leveling work it's magic :-D

I just ordered a second Prusa with enclosure on Black Friday, and have the Prusa XL on preorder, so between those three machines I should be set for a long time!

I have my Prusa on a concrete paver tile that is set on some weatherstripping foam. It helps to reduce resonance for both noise and print quality. Mesh leveling (especially the 7x7 grid) does work mostly, but not entirely still for me and how out of flat my bed was. It also doesn't produce a flat bottom to your printed part obviously, so if that's critical then it's an important mod.

 

[fasln]

Great shop an inspiration to us all!

 

[MadeByMiller]

Great shop an inspiration to us all!

Thank you!

 

[wannabridin]

I just ordered a second Prusa with enclosure on Black Friday, and have the Prusa XL on preorder, so between those three machines I should be set for a long time!

I have my Prusa on a concrete paver tile that is set on some weatherstripping foam. It helps to reduce resonance for both noise and print quality. Mesh leveling (especially the 7x7 grid) does work mostly, but not entirely still for me and how out of flat my bed was. It also doesn't produce a flat bottom to your printed part obviously, so if that's critical then it's an important mod.

Man, print farm coming up!!!

I had my old prusa's on sorbothane feet, and the Ender as well. Works a treat! PEI sheet on my Ender w/ the touch probe and active leveling gets QUITE flat results :-D

 

[MadeByMiller]

On Saturday we continued our now four year tradition of heading out to the forest to harvest a Christmas tree. We recently changed our living room furniture layout and in doing so lost our usual tree spot. We have it in the corner now which necessitated a much smaller tree than usual. This tree is 8', where in years past our tree was more like 12'-14'. Yesterday we all did our part to get the tree decorated. My duty of course is to trim the tree to size and install it in the stand, as well as string the lights. My wife and kids took care of the ornaments, and the boys and I set up the train. Last night I had fun playing around with the DSLR camera. The painting behind the tree is an original by my great-great-grandmother - it's around 100 years old!

 

[MadeByMiller]

As we prepare for a blizzard tomorrow, I took some time to do a bit of wrenching on the Dakota. I had been suspicious of a stuck open thermostat since I bought the truck, so about a month ago I bought everything I would need to do a coolant flush as well as replace the thermostat and housing.

The thermostat is not as easily accessed as I had been expecting, as it's down behind/between the alternator and a/c compressor and their mounting brackets. I decided to swing the alternator out of the way to help a bit with access. I removed the upper rad hose, thermostat housing, and old thermostat and cleaned the gasket surface on the engine side.


I slapped some thermostat/water pump (gray) RTV sealant on the intake, lined up the gasket, installed the new 195* thermostat, added more RTV to the the housing, and fastened it down to the spec'd 17 ft lbs in a few stepped increments. Next, I drained the radiator and flushed it with water, then ran a Prestone cooling system flush through the system for about 45 minutes while I went inside to warm up. I flushed that, did another water flush, and then filled the system with a 50/50 coolant mix.

At this time I figured it would be a good idea to address an intermittent squeaky pulley I had been hearing, so I r&r'd the idler pulley and tensioner assembly. I cleaned all the remaining pulleys with brake clean as well. I don't know for sure which was squeaking, but I suspect it was the idler as I could feel a slight rough spot in the bearing when I removed it. I also replaced the belt because why not.


I took it on a quick test drive which was noneventful, and here is where the temp gauge now rests:


Contrast that with where the temp gauge sat after a 2.5 hour drive home after I bought it:


I'm happy with these results and the cab is warmer too! To finish off this little pre blizzard tune-up, I wanted to check the transfer case fluid level because as the previous owner disclosed prior to the sale, it leaks. I removed the fill cap and found it to be low, so I then had to rig up a transfer pump. I cleaned out a recently emptied body wash bottle, created a barb-like shape on the nozzle with the belt sander, and pushed some soft tubing I had laying around (+1 for keeping junk around!) and it worked really well to top off the transfer case. I will however, accept recommendations of a purpose built tool for next time ha. It only ended up needing about 1/8 qt to fill up.



Now bring on the snow! I've heard reports ranging from 4" to 2', so we will see!

 

[nicholam77]

Just catching up with your thread. Those dining chairs turned out great! I love seeing stuff like that preserved and saved. I can't believe they had an Eames lounge rotting away.

And the Dakota is looking super clean, too!

The OctoPrint plugin can be set to show you how many degrees of rotation each screw needs to be turned to achieve flatness.

Wow, that's pretty neat.

 

[MadeByMiller]

Just catching up with your thread. Those dining chairs turned out great! I love seeing stuff like that preserved and saved. I can't believe they had an Eames lounge rotting away.

And the Dakota is looking super clean, too!



Wow, that's pretty neat.

Thanks Nick, glad you stopped by to catch up. Can't wait to get our new dining table setup as well!

 

[fouckhest]

I will however, accept recommendations of a purpose built tool for next time ha. It only ended up needing about 1/8 qt to fill up.

Oddly enough, these work great....when installing my lift I had to fill the reservoir, figured this was a cheap trail....pump ~4gal and it did great

Multi-Use Transfer Pump

Amazing deals on this Multi-Use Transfer Pump at Harbor Freight. Quality tools & low prices.

www.harborfreight.com

 

[MadeByMiller]

Oddly enough, these work great....when installing my lift I had to fill the reservoir, figured this was a cheap trail....pump ~4gal and it did great

Multi-Use Transfer Pump

Amazing deals on this Multi-Use Transfer Pump at Harbor Freight. Quality tools & low prices.

www.harborfreight.com

Well that's just not fancy enough ha! Thank you for answering my call for recommendations!

 

[MadeByMiller]

After a three day winter storm, I went out to start the Dakota to head into town. As I had expected, there were some fairly tall (2') drifts in front of the shop. This is the first good opportunity I've had to use my new to us fourwheeler and snowplow, so I was excited. It went well, and I managed not to push up too much gravel I think.






I'm not a fan of the way this plow mounts to the fourwheeler. It bolts on to the front bumper unit rather than mounting directly to the frame. That has caused a couple of welds to crack and break on the front cargo rack and slightly bent a bumper mounting bracket. I also noticed after I was finished that at least two of the I believe six mounting bolts had rattled loose and were missing. I should have checked this before plowing today. With that in mind, I now have a project that will need attention soon.


Please disregard the messy shop!

 

[zmotorsports]

I figured you guys were getting hit as well Austin. We are on Black Hills Harley Davidson's email list due to stopping in their and making purchases over the years and I received an email a few days ago stating they were closing early for the day and would remain closed for the next day due to weather.

 

[Denwood]

I'm sure that Dakota will run a bit more efficiently with engine temps where they should be. Always nice to have heat in winter

The "Colorado Low" hit us today with a fair bit of snow...but with temps just below zero. It's like summer out there...

 

[gearhead1960]

Nice looking house. Gives me a little MCM vibe. While we don’t live in a MCM house we have it decorated and furnished in as much as we can find. In keeping with the pics I posted before, here’s a few more, continuing my earlier hijack of your thread

 

[MadeByMiller]

I figured you guys were getting hit as well Austin. We are on Black Hills Harley Davidson's email list due to stopping in their and making purchases over the years and I received an email a few days ago stating they were closing early for the day and would remain closed for the next day due to weather.

I'm not sure what it's like over in your part of Utah Mike, but here in the hills the weather is strange. We got maybe 4" of snow that just blew up into drifts, in town reported 7", my friend in Hermosa got over 1', and my dad in Spearfish got over 3'! Crazy how much it varies within a 40 mile radius.

I'm sure that Dakota will run a bit more efficiently with engine temps where they should be. Always nice to have heat in winter

The "Colorado Low" hit us today with a fair bit of snow...but with temps just below zero. It's like summer out there...

Yes, I hope you're right, certainly is nicer in the cab now anyways!

Well good thing you've got a pool then haha!

Nice looking house. Gives me a little MCM vibe. While we don’t live in a MCM house we have it decorated and furnished in as much as we can find. In keeping with the pics I posted before, here’s a few more, continuing my earlier hijack of your thread

Yes, being built in '75 perhaps pushes it a bit past true MCM, but things move a bit slower here in South Dakota, so I'll stick with it being an MCM house ha! Thank you for sharing more of your excellent collection, I sure love that clock! We would have to get creative with hanging a lot of art in our house since we don't have much vertical wall space.

 

[gearhead1960]

Yeah vertical space is valuable. I would hang it all like a gallery, which is what my parents used to do, but the wife likes to spread them out a little. The 2rd pic is a couple of pieces from their collection. They were heavy collectors from the 50's through the 90's. Frequenting a gallery in Wash DC known for their MCM and modern art. I have quite a few others like that in other areas of the house. My mother still has a few more pieces to give me once she is done with them (she's 96). Of course we have collected our own over the years from Estate Sales. The clock is another rabbit hole. There is a least 3-4 more similar ones around the house. I'll grab a few shots soon and post them. One interesting note on a piece we picked up at a sale, the artist had pieces on the set of Mad Men....I'll grab a shot and note that one in the future.....

 

[MadeByMiller]

Yeah vertical space is valuable. I would hang it all like a gallery, which is what my parents used to do, but the wife likes to spread them out a little. The 2rd pic is a couple of pieces from their collection. They were heavy collectors from the 50's through the 90's. Frequenting a gallery in Wash DC known for their MCM and modern art. I have quite a few others like that in other areas of the house. My mother still has a few more pieces to give me once she is done with them (she's 96). Of course we have collected our own over the years from Estate Sales. The clock is another rabbit hole. There is a least 3-4 more similar ones around the house. I'll grab a few shots soon and post them. One interesting note on a piece we picked up at a sale, the artist had pieces on the set of Mad Men....I'll grab a shot and note that one in the future.....

You were born into it sounds like. Share away, I'd love to see them!

 

[sponserv]

Dude!!! You are my hero!! Awesome job on the shop and all the projects. Congrats

 

[MadeByMiller]

Dude!!! You are my hero!! Awesome job on the shop and all the projects. Congrats

Well thank you very much, that's a very nice comment!

 

[zmotorsports]

Merry Christmas to you and your family Austin.

 

[racer-john]

Best of the season to All.

 

[MadeByMiller]

Merry Christmas to you and your family Austin.

Thank you Mike, Merry Christmas to you and yours as well!

Best of the season to All.

Thank you very much, same to you, Merry Christmas!

 

[Boostingaz]

Merry Christmas! Looking forward to following along and seeing what you get up to in the new year. Blessing to you.

 

[MadeByMiller]

Merry Christmas! Looking forward to following along and seeing what you get up to in the new year. Blessing to you.

Thank you so much! I'm looking forward to the new year too, who knows what it will bring! Merry Christmas and best to you and your family as well.

 

[Mr. Roboto]

Well, I started reading your thread after you made a few posts in mine. Then, I saw the feature on the home page, which pushed me through finishing up! You’ve done a ton of awesome work in that space, and have it very well set up. Loved reading about all the craftsmanship you put into all of your projects. Well done!!!

Merry Christmas to you and your family. I’ll be following on from here on out

 

[MadeByMiller]

Well, I started reading your thread after you made a few posts in mine. Then, I saw the feature on the home page, which pushed me through finishing up! You’ve done a ton of awesome work in that space, and have it very well set up. Loved reading about all the craftsmanship you put into all of your projects. Well done!!!

Merry Christmas to you and your family. I’ll be following on from here on out

I'm glad that you took the time to read it and leave a nice comment, thank you! I haven't done any real work in the shop in so long, I've been up in my office. I'm not complaining, I love it in here too!

Merry Christmas to you and yours as well!

 

[xtremek]

I hope you had a nice Christmas. I don't know how I missed the t-stat/t-case post, but for stuff like that I use a suction gun. https://www.autozone.com/test-scan-...ump/p/performance-tool-suction-gun/142102_0_0

 

[MadeByMiller]

I hope you had a nice Christmas. I don't know how I missed the t-stat/t-case post, but for stuff like that I use a suction gun. https://www.autozone.com/test-scan-...ump/p/performance-tool-suction-gun/142102_0_0

We did, I hope the same for you. I like the suction gun. I hadn't seen one before, but I was thinking as I was doing it that a big syringe would work well.

 

[MadeByMiller]

About two years ago I finally took the plunge into 3D Connexion SpaceMouse ownership to help navigate the 3D environments that I find myself in daily on the computer. At the same time, I purchased their CADMouse as an upgrade from my basic Logitech wireless unit. The SpaceMouse is awesome, I don't know how I got along so long without it. The CADMouse on the other hand, has had one issue that had bothered me since day one: an erratic scroll wheel. For the longest time I just put up with it, I could overlook it, but recently it got worse. I would flick the scroll wheel to zoom or scroll, and it would sometimes just wiggle the screen a little, sometimes scroll a little in the direction I wanted and then slightly scroll back the other way, and rarely, it would function as expected. Talking to some folks on here, as well as researching the topic, led me to find that this glitchy scroll wheel is very common. Many folks have had good luck getting a replacement mouse from the manufacturer, and others have upgraded the scroll wheel encoder themselves, but I decided to use this opportunity to upgrade.

In steps the Logitech MX Master 3S. After researching and compiling feedback from folks responding to my Instagram stories, I decided to purchase it. I've been using it now for several days and I couldn't be happier with it. Ergonomically it's far superior to my old mouse, build quality and materials feel miles better, the side scroll wheel is a great feature, and the button's/scroll wheel's actions feel luxurious. I highly recommend this mouse, especially for CAD/modeling/editing purposes.

Here are some wannabe pictures I took with my fancy camera that include some comparison shots of my old mouse.

 

[MadeByMiller]

We finally got a beautiful, picturesque snowfall yesterday, about 5" here. It came down straight and heavy for most of the day, leaving a nice blanket covering the Black Hills where we live. No wind to blow up drifts and make things nasty, so we're glad for that. We love the snow, and we love living here! I cleaned off the snow from the vehicles, shoveled the decks, sidewalks, and tight areas, and pushed the rest off with the plow on the four-wheeler.







Speaking of the four-wheeler, the last time I used it I discovered that the plow mount was in sorry shape. I saw three missing bolts, and the design of it mounting to the bumper/front cargo rack and not directly to the frame had broken some welds on the cargo rack mount. I took some time before pushing snow to tighten up the bolts and I also discovered that two of the missing bolts hadn't come loose and fallen out, they sheared off! So now I have a pretty large project that will require removing the front bumper, cargo rack, and I assume front plastics to repair. I think I can make it through the winter with it in it's current condition, and I'll probably put a different, better designed plow on it for next year.

 

[OutlawDrifter]

You lucked out, my best friend lives in Sioux Falls, said he had 17.5" as of this afternoon.

Thanks for sharing the pics! I grew up south of there in the panhandle of NE. Went to college at Chadron State. The Black Hills are absolutely beautiful!

 

[nicholam77]

Beautiful scenery! The snow sure makes it pretty.

 

[MadeByMiller]

You lucked out, my best friend lives in Sioux Falls, said he had 17.5" as of this afternoon.

Thanks for sharing the pics! I grew up south of there in the panhandle of NE. Went to college at Chadron State. The Black Hills are absolutely beautiful!

Well I'd say he lucked out! I'd love to have that much snow here!

We sure are grateful for our slice!

Beautiful scenery! The snow sure makes it pretty.

Agreed, thank you! It's fun to push the snow too.

 

[xtremek]

I'd say you lucked out, because your plow didn't fall off. Has you weather the last few years been like ours? Where the temps will get warm later this week, and all the snow will melt? We got 8" at Christmas, and it was almost completely gone by the middle of last week.

 

[MadeByMiller]

I'd say you lucked out, because your plow didn't fall off. Has you weather the last few years been like ours? Where the temps will get warm later this week, and all the snow will melt? We got 8" at Christmas, and it was almost completely gone by the middle of last week.

Yes, the snow doesn't ever last too long out here. When I grew up on the east side of the state I remember not seeing bare grass from November to March, but the climate is different out here.

 

[zmotorsports]

Looks like a winter wonderland Austin.

 

[MadeByMiller]

Looks like a winter wonderland Austin.

Indeed it is! As it was snowing it felt just like living in a snow globe.

I do feel bad about having the vehicles just sitting out in the open, with only the F-150 being covered. Hopefully that will sell before the winter ends, we've still had zero interest in it with it being on the market now for almost six weeks. I even improved the price a few hundred dollars at the end of December to no avail thus far. I'm considering some options for one of those tube structure carports - perhaps a two car version. Hard to spend money on that when there are many other home improvement jobs that need attention.

 

[MadeByMiller]

This evening we had nice clear skies and a bright, full moon, so I brought the fancy DSLR camera out to try to capture it. This is the second time I've tried it with the first attempt being a total fail. I used my 50-250mm telephoto lens and set the camera up on the tripod, facing out my office window. I set the focal length to 250mm, f-stop to 16, shutter speed to 1/40, ISO at 100, and did my best to manually focus on that beautiful glowing ball. Even with a two second timer on the capture setting to try to eliminate loss of focus due to my shaky hands, I still had a tough time capturing an image with good clarity. I attribute this to the fact that my tripod is set up on carpet, so any slight movement was throwing off the focus slightly. This is the best I was able to do. Please let me know how I can improve!

Here is the raw, cropped image:


And an edited version to try and clear it up/boost contrast. Maybe I went too far on the editing?


Looking at the moon like this brings up some hard to describe feelings.