Category: 3D Printing

Chicken Coop Controler Version 2

Chicken Coop Controler Redux

 

After over a decade of service my original coop controller finally died.  This was no fault of it’s own the old 12V AGM battery died and when I hooked up the new one I did so with the incorrect polarity.  This was rapidly followed but a “pop” and the dreaded magic smoke escaping from it.  The flyback diode took the brunt of the damage it followed by the speed controller FET.  Because of this I felt it in my best interest, instead of reviving the old board I would start anew with more goodness.  The original controller suffered from a few problems:

  • It was difficult to tell if the door was actually up or down from the house
  • When it got an error (i.e. chicken poop prevented the door from closing) it was hard to reset
  • It utilized a CdS sensor I pulled from a smoke detector which wasn’t temperature stable year round
  • It was a custom arduino board and the chip needed to be pulled and put in a programmer to update the firmware (whch is lost to time)

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Prusa 3D Printing Station/Organizer

I recently purchased the MMU2s for my Prusa i3 and quickly found my desk was an unruly mess.  With the filament buffer and multiple spools there was stuff everywhere.  I was determined to clean up this mess so I took to my notebook and after a couple quick measurements sketched out a design that would add some additional under-printer storage as well as manage multiple spools and the buffer.  This is the end result.

 

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K40 LASER Chiller

I recently renovated an Iceman Clear3 Chiller I had recieved from someone who had a knee replacement.  The pump no longer worked but I kept this around for the hose quick disconnects and the nice bucket.  When I removed the two screws holding the pump in the nice trim plate on the back fell off.  So I whipped up these retainers in Fusion 360 and printed them out on my trusty old Makerbot Thing-O-Matic and about 10 minutes later I had it back together.  Works like a charm, looks nice, and as a bonus I can see the water flowing into the tank.  Just drop in a couple Blue Ice to keep things chill for the long jobs and replace them later.

Retainers installed with original hardware in the back of the chiller

You can download the STL for the retainers on Thingiverse:  Iceman Chiller Backplate Retainer

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Thing-O-Matic Repair and Upgrade

I recently upgraded my build surface from Kapton tape on Aluminium to BuildTak.  I was a little concerned about this because like everything else there are rumors that ABS won’t come off.  But I figured for the price for 3 sheets for my little Thing-O-Matic it was worth a shot so I didn’t have to deal with blue painters tape if I wanted to switch to PLA.  I found my BuildTak on Amazon for around $8.00 (3 sheets).  I peeled off my old Kapton tape and cleaned off the print bed.  I will say this is way easier to install than Kapton since it’s a small area and the tape forms nice bubbles under it when it adheres to the platform.  I used the edge of a credit card to ensure good adhesion to the platform.

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Water Can Replacement Lid

Photo Jul 19, 12 20 50 PM

I recently lost one of the caps for my nearly new water jug.  A quick search showed me I could order a replacement cap (and spout) for $10!  I would never pay that kind of money for a few cents worth of plastic.  Instead of throwing away this really nice jugs I decided to design a replacement cap in Fusion 360 instead using the cap from my second can as a reference.  The water can in question is  this one which we purchased from Amazon:  http://amzn.to/29JFeCw

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Makerbot Thing-O-Matic Cura Profile

I lieu of the nearly constant inexpliciple crashes I have been encountering with Slic3r I decided to try and get Cura working with my now (Ancient) Makerbot Thing-O-Matic running Sailfish. It wasn’t really terribly hard to get into Cura after the legwork with Slic3r was done. I just needed to slightly correct the Gcode coming out of cure before it was fed into the GPX post-processor to generate X3G for the printer.

My basic slicing profile can be found here: Cura Thing-O-Matic Profile

In addition to this profile I made a slight tweak to the previous post-processor script I had written for Slic3r. This removes the CURA_PROFILE_STRING from the end of the code since it causes a buffer overflow in gpx. In addition it maps over the bed temperature and tool temperature settings over to compatible settings for my Thing-O-Matic. Note: This is for running Cura/GPX on a Mac.

#!/bin/bash -f

pp_path=`dirname "$0"`
export pp_path

egrep -v "M127|M126|;CURA_PROFILE_STRING" "$1" | sed 's/M109 S/M104 T0 S/g' | sed 's/M190 /M109 /g' > "$1.tmp"
# rm $1
mv "$1" "$1.orig"
mv "$1.tmp" "$1"

"$pp_path/gpx" "$1"

exit 0

It’s amazing this thing is still running strong after 5 years of abuse.

Danby Kegerator two draught faucet upgrade

Draught Tower Upgrade

I have a Danby DKC14SLDB 5.2 cubic Foot Single Draught Kegerator  I purchased several years ago.  Several times a year I find myself with two pony kegs of homebrew I want on tap.  Only having a single draught faucet was really cramping my style.  I decided instead of purchasing a whole new tower with two faucets ($90)  or an adapter ($70), which would have required the additional faucet anyhow, I would make it work on the cheap.  I set out by purchasing the following  items form Beveragefactory.com (note I have been home brewing for a long time and as such I have some old Coca-Cola pin-lock kegs that I normally use – please purchase whatever keg coupling is appropriate for your application): Read more

Slic3r Success

Everything is dialed in now in Slicer for my good old MakerBot Thing-O-Matic.  I recently started printing with PLA instead of ABS and I can honestly say I am getting used to it.  ABS certainly has it’s place but PLA does print really nice too once it’s dialed in.  I made this fantastic Valentines Keychain for my family members.  This was printed called to 75% of the original size from the original Thing posted on Thingiverse.  This cool print in place one piece design with moving centerpiece is well done.  You can download it here:  Valentine’s Day keychain

 

Photo Feb 14, 9 31 44 AM

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