3D printer introductions, shenanigans, and actual useful things!

Offloading at 3 AM, thanks Erik and Arclight!

Howdy gang!

Well, if you haven't been formally introduced to our newest addition to the 23b family, take a good look at Mr. Printer, a close relative of our Mr. Coffee and Mr. Radar!

Not to be easily confused with a RepRap or a Makerbot, This is a Stratasys Dimension 768 SST, which stands for "Soluble Support Technology".  This printer is special for the dual extruder heads, one of which lays  "soluble support" alongside the ABS model itself as it's being built, to provide an extra structural bracing, allowing us to print unusual contours that lesser printers only dream of.  Here's what I mean.


Notice the darker layer of material that is around the base and certain structures of this print.  That is the support layer, meant to be dissolved away once the print is done.  It appears black in this picture, but it's actually dark brown, slightly translucent, and remarkably brittle (warning! removing by hand will cause slight amounts of bleeding, it forms shards!).  It's unclear what the proprietary material truly is, but I was warned by a trusted source to keep the support material dry, as it will absorb moisture from the atmosphere and clog up the extruder head. Another unusual characteristic of this material is that it goes into the machine as a white filament, and comes out a totally different color.  I'd suspect a sugar addition to the plastic, as it has a burn caramel color (but no odor).  This is also the older style support, the newer machines seem to have a material that does not change color as it is extruded.

It's hard to speculate further on what the material is without a chemical analysis.  Strangely enough, at a recent trade show, I met with a local company who compounds polymers, and also does reverse engineering, should the need ever arise.  Heh heh.  The support is most certainly not PLA, the water-soluble print material that bukobots and certain other printers use, as the extrusion temperature for our material is approximately 240 C. 

Another clue to this support material's properties is the way it is removed.  Stratasys sells another piece of equipment which appears to be a large circulating bath with some special witch's brew.  Upon closer inspection, I am instantly reminded of the large ultrasonic cleaning tanks I used at my last job.  The acrid smell of strong, scalding detergent is unmistakable, I recall my hands being extra clean due to the powerful additives in the cleaning formula 

Without a spare $1000 to spend for the special cleaning device, we quickly hacked a solution to dissolve the material away.  This past summer, we scored a small, heated ultrasonic cleaning tank from Ford Electronics.  Dusting it off and quickly filling the stainless tank with sink water and Boraxo soap, (hey, it was plentiful and nearby) the dino head was left overnight to cook and buzz away.  Once morning came, and I returned to check it out, nothing happened; all the support was still attached.  As I suspected, this witch's brew needed some more "pep".  We found an old bottle of Red Devil Lye to raise the pH.  With a small sprinkle into the tank, the head was left for another night.

Voila!, that was the trick!  Out came the model from the hot, steamy, familiar smelling tank looking pristine and finished. 

Strangely enough, this is already made of dinosaurs

 So what do we do now with this printer?  Well, for the moment, we're working on getting the cost down.  It's neat to have around for making models and Gyro-cubes, fully-articulated chains printed in place as an entire assembly, as well as other neat examples.  Currently we're stuck to using the $250 material cartridges from Stratasys, so that seriously hinders our Yoda and dong-making abilities.  Don't forget, this machine has a HEATED work envelope of 8x8x12, but the special Dan-O-Matic model that large would be a tad expensive.  This all works out to be about $5.00 a cubic inch.  For reference, the model above was nearly 10 cubic inches of model (and 3 of support), so this dino model cashes in at a cool $65.  

$65 for a tiny bit of plastic?  You've got to be kidding me.  This should be at most a tenth that price.  Don't get me wrong, I do not underestimate the value of having a 3d model that was downloaded off the internet, created with virtually no effort or skill.  Yet here I am complaining about the small price of cutting edge technology.  First world problems, right?  Wrong. 

This technology is DISTRUPTIVE.  What I mean by that, is there are incredible changes approaching in our manufacturing paradigms, the old way we do things.  By implementing this technology in creative, novel ways, we can now design parts that were impossible, unthinkable to manufacture only a generation ago, then share our designs instantaneously across the globe, FOR FREE.  In my own short lifetime, I've seen CAD change dramatically (I started with CAD on  Brøderbund Print Shop several decades ago), and only in the last few years have the tools and software advanced to the point of being cheap enough for the general public to afford, and powerful enough for them to fit on our laptops.  Sure, the Stratasys printer is a bit pricey, and a RepRap is hokey and hard to setup, but consider this: remember computers in the 70's?  Either you had these homebuilt, hobby units built by geeks with their friends, operated by switches and lights, or you have these large, prohibitively expensive industrial units that not every homeowner can deal with.  Surely nobody in the 70s could forsee the proliferation of computers, or how dramatically they would change our lives.

The price gap between the professional models and the industrial ones is quickly closing in, tracking along with Moore's law, albeit not directly.  Soon the line will be blurred altogether, and then these things will be in the hands of the masses.

We can't afford to ignore the significance of that fact.  This technology WILL change many things.  Even President Obama is keen on the idea of 3d printer:

   "A once-shuttered warehouse is now a state-of-the art lab where new workers are mastering the 3D printing that has the potential to revolutionize the way we make almost everything"

Sound like anywhere you know? 

It's hard to say exactly where this technology is going to head into the near future.  It's impossible to tell unless you're at the front of the wave, and even then, it's always churning and tumbling over itself, exposing a new leading edge.  I can assure you one thing, we'll never have a big problem with 3d printed guns. 

If you haven't heard of DEFCAD, and the related Defense Distributed, now you have.  Their project was started as an extension of some "misfit" files that were taken down from Thingiverse.  Someone was apparently unnerved and uncomfortable with the thought of 3d printed AR 15 lowers receivers (the part designated by the ATF as the firearm), so Bre Pettis played it safe by removing the misfit files altogether from the website.  Understandably, this new technology is scary if we can suddenly start printing unregistered weapon parts, but not every makerbot can do this (yet).  Not to be deterred, DEFCAD carried on.

With some more wind in their sails, they collected some money to get a 3d printer of their own, Stratasys uPrint.  A fine printer in itself, also using the same soluble support technology (which is ESSENTIAL to producing the AR15 model so accurately) they could now make their own parts for experimentation, as well as develop their strategy, which seems to be some libertarian, texas-gun-slinger 2nd amendment fapping.  Which is totally fine, especially now that they have their ATF license.

However, Stratasys was slightly uncomfortable with Defense Distributed's approach, and quickly revoked their lease this past September, due to the questionable legal status of DD's operations.  Keep in mind, this was all before DD got their ATF license, which happened only in the last few weeks.  In retrospect, it was probably good business practice to keep the Defense Distributed project stalled for a few months, as there was enough commotion of unfortunate gun incidents in recent news.  Honestly, those happen all the time, as pointed out on the DEFCAD FAQ.  I suppose until there is an incident involving a 3d printed gun, they now have a taste of legitimacy since the recent ATF ruling. 

Determined, Defense Distributed was steadfast in obtaining a high-quality 3d printer for their own use, and this time looked to Objet for one of their $40,000 UV-cured resin printers (3X the price of a uPrint, the original machine).  These printers have a much higher resolution than the Stratasys machines, due to the technology being dramatically different.  One ironic point of note, Stratasys and Objet merged a few months ago, and now command about 60% of the rapid prototyping market.  Whoops! 

Another point to remember is that some of Stratasys' biggest customers are arms manufacturers and defense.  They're putting a huge 3d printer on every aircraft carrier in the US Naval fleet!  There's even an entire 3d printed M4 rifle at the Stratasys office in Rancho Cucamonga.  Not just the lower, the entire assembly as well as the case are all 3d printed.  Obviously, Stratasys is pro-gun, they're just in a different line of business.

3D printing is making it's debut in the public eye as we speak.  The last PR this technology needs is a Yosemite Sam to introduce something new and unusual, with bullets flying out of it, to the general public.  Surely the Bald Eagle story is a better place to start winning the hearts and minds of the masses. (ironically, the eagle is in need of a beak after a poaching accident).Yin and Yang.

Remind me again why this won't be a problem? 

3d printed objects don't scale economically. If the first print costs $120, the 1000th one will also cost $120.  Compare this with injection molding.  There's a prohibitive upfront cost for moldmaking that requires special equipment and highly trained operators.  Well, once it's up and running, one injection molded part can be produced with 15c of plastic every 30 seconds.  With 3d printing, each receiver takes about 15 hours to print, and another 8 to dissolve the material away, and will always cost  $120. 

Compare this further with CNC machining.  I was at a shop last week that produces AR15 lowers on their 5 axis CNC mill.  $15 of aluminum and 1.5 hours of machining time (nevermind the lengthy programming time and experience required to do so) produces a REAL AR15 lower, made the way it was intended.  Again, this is a completely different discipline, but if looked at against this light, if real, mass-produced, ALUMINUM weapons aren't a problem in today's world, we're certainly not going to see a problem with inferior, lower strength PLASTIC ones. 

We've all seen enough Elmer Fudd cartoons to know what happens when a gun malfunctions, right?  I don't think I need to experiment for myself, thank you.  I'll leave that experimentation to you guys.

SO WHAT KIND OF COOL STUFF ARE YOU DOING INSTEAD, MACHINIST?

I see the start of 3d printing taking baby steps toward the unknown.  The printer by itself is a neat toy, a novelty without a whole lot of direct use, but when integrated with other tools, the resulting combination creates a holistic environment of problem solving. 

THE HELL YOU SAY?

I used the 3d printer to make unique, one-off fixturing for the Bridgeport mill.  Flea came in this weekend with a challenge for the machine shop.  He needed to modify a huge ball joint, there wasn't much to grab on to with the vise.  In this case, a set of custom soft-jaws with a 1" diameter shoulder on the inside to grab the only exposed area of the ball joint.  They worked together swimmingly!

$12 of material, 2 hours of print time, and any Reprap can print this design.

I could have made some higher quality soft jaws using more solid delrin or nylon, but consider the time to find the stock, cut it to size, drill and counterbore the holes in the right location, set up the boring head, only to use the fixture ONCE.  I avoided all of that with about 10 minutes of using calipers on the old jaws, made a quick Solidworks model, and let the printer do its work.  While it was busy printing away, I was free to continue doing other work, instead of screwing around making jaws from scratch, THAT is the most striking, tangible benefit of this technology.  Next time I need some soft jaws, I won't even need to spend the time making the original model, it's ready to go and proven!  We even know that they're perfectly flat and square, dimensionally perfect!  Wow!

They weren't the most solid feeling jaws in the world, and upon further inspection you can see the stress in the material at the thin point of the radius on the jaws.  But for only needing to work once, I imagine that these have far exceeded their original design intent.  Plus, if I flip them, they're still fresh and machinable for another project. 

The moral of the story?   Find a 3d printer to play with, go learn a little Solidworks (or your preferred flavor of CAD), and use it to solve problems, because that makes your brain grow. Or use it to cause mischief, because I'm cool with that too. 

Stay tuned for more. 

Beginner electronics book review

I read There Are No Electrons: Electronics for Earthlings by Kenn Amdahl recently, and believe it would be a very useful book for anyone who wants to learn about basic electronics.  This funny and readable book shows you the basics of AC and DC electronics in a very easy manner, using fantastic illustrative stories about dancing chickens, green buffaloes, a naked Norwegian girl in a boat, and everything else except electronics.  It's much easier to absorb silliness than a dry textbook of formulas and numbers, and it all comes together.


The book covers the fundamentals of electricity, AC and DC current, resistors, capacitors, inductors, transistors, diodes, and how they work on their own and in circuit.  It explains electrons and the different ways their flow is described by conventional and electron flow notation.  It gives you good explanations for why everything behaves as it does.

I'll put my copy in the shop library. It's only about $10, so you should give it a look here, and then maybe go buy a copy. 

Metal fabrication basics: part 2

In our, last post, we covered the basics of fabricating things from metal. One of our visiting hackerspace guests, Travis, is building a set of hexagonal columns. This week, I thought I'd add a few more things about measuring, layout and doing accurate welding work.

 

Once you've cut everything out as accurately as possible (see Part 1), you need to lay out your work on a flat surface. Here Travis is using a 10mm steel plate, but anything flat (even a concrete floor) is preferable to trying to do it "by eye." 

Professional fabrication shops will often have a ground flat cast iron table. It's worth looking our for old machinery being scrapped, as an old planer or milling machine bed can make a fantastic layout table.

Note the use of magnets - you can get 30, 45 and 90 degree magnets to make fit-up easier.  For precision work, you will still need to measure the joints, but this makes things much easier.

 After the parts are laid out, we tack weld every other joint.


A good process for welding a square, hexagon, or other geometric shape is to alternate tacking the outside and inside corners, and check the work frequently.

 When we've got the basic shape tacked up, we measure all of the diagonals to really make sure it's straight. It's surprising how the initial layout can be off by 1/8" or more, even though it looks perfect to the eye. A straight edge across the diagonals doesn't lie.

 A pipe clamp makes it easy to straighten out any diagonals that are too long by squeezing them down. The errors magically equalize and disappear. You'll probably need to squeeze your joints down a little more than they need to account for spring-back of the metal.

 

As we get farther along, it's important to keep the whole assembly from warping or getting out of flat. Restraining the parts in at least two places prevents this. Here we are using a standard 'C' clamp on the right and a fancy welding clamp on the left.

 Some more detail of TIG welding a corner up. The TIG torch should be held at about 15 degrees from vertical and the filler rod (if used) should be fed into the shielded puddle from the side. Keep the welding time short to minimize warpage at each joint.

 As the assembly starts to take shape, you'll need to think in 3 dimensions. Here, Travis has measured out and drawn a chalk outline on the layout surface. This lets him position both the of the hexagons parallel to each other and not rotated or shifted with respect to one another. The center of each leg of the hexagon has also been marked with a scribe, as has the center of each vertical support. Lining up the marks and tacking with the hexes clamped down will assure an accurate fit-up.

This all seems like a real pain in the rear, but you will thank yourself later, when everything has been covered with hundreds of inches of weld beads and you realize that all of those little errors add up.

Coming soon: part 3.

Arclight

Metal fabrication basics

Dake Arbor Press, Vise and other basic stuff

This weekend was busy. In addition to visiting a new hacker space here, we helped out a Nullspace Labs guy from downtown L.A. with his fabrication project.

Fabrication generally refers to cutting and joining metal pieces to make a 3D object from basic pieces of stock that come in sticks or flat sheets. This is a bit different than machining, which is more about precision stock removal.

Making something out of square, tubular, or angle stock isn't necessarily hard, but having it end up with tightly-fitted pieces, square corners and a flat base requires more than just access to a MIG welder and a hack saw.

Here are some tips:

1. Take the time to come up with an accurate representation of what you need to build on paper. This can be anything from a simple draing on graph paper, to a full 3D model in Solidworks or similar.

For one-off projects (i.e. an adapter bracket for a car engine, the centerpiece of your modified geodesic dome, etc), an easy way to model it is with cardboard and masking tape. Trace out your design, cut it out and tape it together. Use scissors and more tape/cardboard to revise the design until it fits perfectly with all of your existing pieces.

2. Buy extra material. If your project is estimated to take 28' of stock, buy at least one extra 10' stick and go with 40'. There's an excellent chance that you will screw up on one or more cuts or welds.  The leftover stock can always be racked up for the next project.

3. Measure 4 times, cut once. Tolerances stack up, so it's wise to treat every cut you make as if it were a precision-machined part. If your finished item needs to be +/- 1/8" over 24 inches, you'll be wise to make all of your cuts better than 1/32" . Check all of your angles with a a protractor, take care when marking and clamping, and check each finished part with an appropriate caliper, measuring tape, etc.

Pieces for a series of hexagons. The stacked ones are all cut to 1/32" using the dry cut saw above.

4. Use the right cutting tools. For cutting sticks of metal, a horizontal bandsaw makes clean cuts and is quiet. It can also run attended, but it is slow for cutting through thick sections. For precise cuts, a cold saw is fantastic, as it generates very little heat and leaves an excellent, straight cut edge

It's little brother is the dry cut saw, which is noisier and not quite as precise, but cheaper and portable.  An abrasive saw works too, but requires more finishing of the cut edges and generates abrasive dust, so it's best used outside. Good discussion is here.

5. Clean and debur your pieces. Use a file, deburring tool, or a whire wheel to clean up any cut edges.  Remeasure everything that has been cut and reject or re-cut pieces that don't meet tolerance.  New metal often comes from the supplier with a thin film of oil on all surfaces. Remove this with a degreaser (water-based detergent) or a cloth with a small amount of Acetone.

NEVER use a chlorinated solvent (i.e. some types of brake cleaner) as these can turn into toxic Phosgene gas when exposed to welding heat.

Cleaning an inside piece with a full-round file.

6. If you're going to weld something, cut some extra pieces from the same material and practice welding them first. You want to get penetration of your workpiece, but you don't want to burn through or put excessive heat into the material (this is a source of warpage).  Practice any out-of-position (i.e. not flat on the table) welds that will need to be done as well.

7. Think about how you're going to assemble the item. If it's possible to rotate the article or assemble it from smaller pieces, see if you can do all of your welding in the "flat" position. This is much easier than vertical, horizontal or overhead. Don't start out fighting gravity if you don't have to.

8. You NEED a flat surface if you expect your item to come out flat. Use the floor, a granite tile, a flat steel table or anything flat you can get hold of to do your initial layout.

A small dog. Not suitable for laying out your project on.

9. Lay out the pieces, measure, take-weld, and then measure again.  If you weld a very small amount on each piece, you won't warp it and you can usually bend and adjust the piece to fit. For example, a square frame should be laid out, clamped down as needed (a collection of C-clamps, Vise Grips and magnets helps here!), tacked up and then re-measured. For a square, measure the diagonals and squeeze them into position with your hands or a bar clamp if they do not match. Welding the inside corner of one and the outside corner of the next makes this easier.

10. When you have the pieces tacked up, take your time with the welding and don't overdo it. For a typical project made from 1" or 25mm square steel tube, it's usually not necessary to weld all four sides of every joint completely. Instead, make lots of small welds, alternating between parts of the project, and stop frequently to let the pieces cool. Metal that got hot will shrink as it cools, so keep distortion down by keeping the heat down, clamping/restraining the pieces, and welding both sides of a joint alternatingly. Also make the small welds first and the biggest welds last. Break the big welds into "stitches" and don't put down more metal than is needed.

Hope this helps!


Arclight

Fix-it Night 10/18/12 - Tips and Pics

Last Thursday, we had our first ever "Fix it Night" at the shop. Basically, we encouraged everyone to bring their non-working electronics over and we'd all try to fix them. It was a success. This time, we did the following:

• Replaced the joystick connector on an Atari 2600 console
• Found and replaced a bad electrolytic capacitor in a 12V-to-110V power inverter. A suitable replacement was harvested from an old ATX power supply, and the unit came right up.  Yet another victim of the capacitor plague was spared from the landfill.
• Replaced an 0603 surface-mount fuse in a Sony DS portable game console
• Figured out why a 60" DLP television wasn't powering up and helped Queeg order parts for it.

Troubleshooting electronics really isn't that hard.  Knowing some basic electronics theory and hands-on skills can provide a lifetime of free TVs and DVD players, less stuff wasted, and a sense of satisfaction when you troubleshoot and fix something.

The important skills to work on are:

 1. Safety (Being able to identify the high-voltage sections and avoid them, knowing how to discharge the capacitors, working with one hand in pocket when devices are under power, etc. ) Sam's LASER FAQ has a great section on safety.

2. Disassembly (Finding the hidden screws, using a guitar pick to spread open plastic cases, heat guns to soften glue, etc). Many sites offer free"teardown guides" for specific products. These are especially helpful for phones, laptops, and other tightly-packaged electronics.

3. Board and Component ID - Figuring out what's inside and what is likely broken is mandatory before trying to fix it. Power supply issues are common and often easy to fix as they use big, simple components. If the device is "stone cold dead," it could be a simple component like a fuse, capacitor, diode, or similar. Tiny little logic boards filled with proprietary chips are not so good for DIY repair.
Lots of good info on component ID is here.


4.  Use of multimeters and other test equipment.  Identifying test points and checking voltages is a good place to start.  Many devices (flat panel televisions, for instance) use a generic power supply board that has all of the voltage inputs and outputs labeled. Troubleshooting caps with an ESR meter is another great skill to have here as well.  We picked up the Anatek Blue kit from Amazon and have had good results.

5. Power system troubleshooting - this includes fuses, connectors, diodes, capacitors, transistors, and other high-power components. If a fuse is bad, there's probably a reason, so it's best to identify any other obvious problems before just replacing and powering up.

6. Soldering and rework - Very old PCBs can be fragile and require careful use of the iron to avoid lifting the Copper traces. Small SMT  parts are often easier to work on with a pair of hot tweezers, hot air pencil, and a magnifier. All soldering should be done with a decent temperature-controlled iron. We like Metcal and Edsyn, but many affordable (US$50 range) alternatives exist. Pro-tip: Adding some lead-based solder to a lead-free joint will make it wet and desolder much easier.

7. Finding manuals, on-line forum posts and other resources. Often times, a quick web search with terms like "Toshiba DLP televesion white streaks" will net a wealth of useful information. Certain models tend to have the same things go wrong over and over.

Components can often be exactly identified by part number. Distributors like Digikey, Mouser, and Newark/Element 14 have extensive data sheet archives and links to helpful info.

Here are some pictures:

Desoldering the old Atari 2600 DB9 connector. Date on the PCB was 1980.

Arclight and some other folks hanging out by the Metcal 

Alan Rice talking troubleshooting theory with the group.

Home Brewing Mead

Mead is one of the oldest alcoholic drinks. The Vikings and even the ancient Egyptians had a version of this honey-based beverage. If you've ever tried to buy it you probably know that it's expensive and not stocked in most regular stores.

Pescador, Eddie Current and I decided to go in on a 42lb bucket of clover honey from Honeyville Grain in Rancho Cucamonga. If you live near SoCal or Salt Lake City, Utah, it's worth checking out this store. Their selection is split evenly between bulk bags of exotic grains like spelt, amarinth, etc, staple foods of every description, and stuff for Mormon survivalists. They also have a good on-line store, although prices are cheaper if you walk in, as shipping is included for on-line orders.

We got the giant load of honey in, boiled up a few gallons of water with the turkey fryer, added about 2.5lbs of it per gallon, and skimmed off the junk. We also added Fermaid to give the yeasts some nutrients to chew on. We decided to split it into multiple batches, as it takes 6-18 months to ferment and age and we wanted to hedge our bets. Here's a look at what we got:

Mashing up 6lbs of blueberries and blackberries for batch #1. Oregon Fruit Products makes a nice line of canned pureed and whole fruit bits, perfect for brewing. We just mashed it up with a spatula and poured it in to the "fruit" batch. Be sure to remove the fruit peels and husks after a week or so to avoid off flavors.

 Pouring the cooled liquid into batch #2. Total potential alcohol is going to be 10-11%. We did 3 different yeasts - 2 Lavlin wine yeasts and an Ale yeast. The Wine yeasts should take it to higher alcohol content and/or a drier finished product.

Here is the setup for siphoning the liquid between glass carboys. I like the reinforced poly pressure tubing, used for restaurant ice machine and CO2 lines. The item in front is a specific gravity measurement device. This is how you know the sugar content and thus the potential alcohol to expect from each batch.



Recipes:
Various Mead Recipes
Basic Mead Brewing

Mine car wheels

We have a caving club that meets at the shop on the 4th Wednesday of every month. At the last meeting, someone brought in a mine car that need a new axle. So we built one. The materials were 1" solid 1018 steel bar, with angle iron welded over half of it to form a square section. A bunch of mounting holes and such then got drilled on our 1950s Bridgeport mill.

Here is Chris machining the ends and fitting the wheels:

The finished product with wheels attached:

So the next time your 1800s ore cart takes a dive on you, we can definitely make new parts for it. For real.

Arclight

what madness is this

O how i wish they still used this logo. Not to mention the rest of the entire build, including the sexxxah flared acoustic coupler cups.