3D Printing

Overview

Christmas of 2018 I became a proud owner of a Anet A8 and self assembled the unit. It lived up to many of the reviews I read, printing well enough to allow me to print parts to improve it. I have had to make only a few upgrades to include front and back braces, a kettle plug and switch for the main power, a z axis limit adjuster, and mounting brackets for the Raspberry Pi (that runs Octoprint) and external MOSFETs (which control the extruder and bed heater).

My Experience

I mostly print in PLA but have a spool of PLA+ I am pleased with as well as a spool of PETG that time has not allowed me to get to yet. I enjoy several 3D Printing YouTube channels, CNC Kitchen, 3D Printing Nerd and Maker's Muse. I particular enjoy Stefan on CNC Kitchen's experiments, and I was pleased to see an episode on Makers Muse where Angus indicated that a feeler gauge was a much better tool for manual leveling of a bed then a piece of paper, something I had been doing for years. Apparently I should have shared!

Things I make

Practical Items

There's no job too small! While often not the most exciting of projects, the design and print whatever piece is necessary for the job lends itself to a plethora of small, practical implementations, such as USB caddies, soap dishes that properly drain, or small modifications to existing hardware. Some items, like the USB caddie, are models I pulled from Thingiverse. Others, I can very quickly draw up myself, such as the knobs designed to press fit onto hook ends in order to prevent ripping holes in dish drying towels.

Engineering Items

I have been able to design more than a few parts for my quadcopter. I am particularly proud of the integrated motor mount landing strut. The design is smooth and fluid moving from mount to strut. I also had to do a bit of work to figure out the equation for the holes in the webbing of the strut so I could dynamically create them and have them remove the maximum amount of material. If your interested in the math behind it check out the Wikipedia page on tangential trapezoids.

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