3D Printer yet?

[mnementh]

   

Deceptively simple...

This filter grille is to go over the rear case fan on my PC, which is now reversed to pull instead of the usual push configuration. Normally, I'd just put a cheap magnetic filter grill there and be done with it. The weird part is... and I don't know what the case designer was thinking... this grill is 120mm x 140mm with slotted screw holes.  But the space between the MB IO header/shield and the side of the case right there is only 130mm, so there's no way in hell you could actually put a 140mm fan in there...

Maybe that's why the stoopit case was on 70% off sale when I bought it... it really is a stoopit case. 

So that's why I decided to try and print something custom up real quick; but the "real quick" bit turned out to be a bit more work than expected. This simple filter screen was quite difficult to produce, as there appears to be some limit to the number of polys the free version of Frustion360 will handle; or maybe it's a deliberate RAM access limitation...

Bottom line is I couldn't deal with the whole design due to the huge number of tiny holes; I had to make 1/4 of it to be able to make the pattern and manipulate anything. Any revisions I needed to make, even a simple press/pull, I had to go back to the 1/4 design and make mods there, as if I tried to do it with the whole object it would just hang.

I'm guessing this is a deliberate limitation in the free version that I just didn't understand in one of the "we're taking this away from you now" updates they send every few weeks now. I let it try for over an hour to render one time and it never, ever used more than aboot 8 gig of RAM total (out of 32GB) in ResMon, instead of the usual ballooning RAM usage during the render then back down to a sane level once the render completed. Weird also, it seemed to hammer the fuck out of only two cores... and only rarely did it use another two cores... but again, no progress, and only when it "hung". I really do think it's an artificial limit baked into the "free" version.

But I did learn a lot with this deceptively simple design. The syntax of the pattern tool is effing infuriatingly dynamic; what the dialog boxes mean changes with how it thinks you've clicked and dragged, and while you'd think that selecting "spacing mode" would make the spacing fixed and increase the number of iterations, it does not for some reason.   

I also finally figured out how to get the damned Search function to come up when I want it, not just when it feels like being available... and figured out how to get it to do the MIRROR and JOIN function in the same operation, which everybody with a tutorial does so effing fast you can't even see WTF they're doing.

Currently printing a 2nd copy as the screen area is literally 1 layer thick, and I needed to do a little releveling to get the squish right in one quadrant.

Current Settings: PLA, 215°C/60°C, 0.28LH, no adhesion, no supports, bridging mode enabled, CONCENTRIC top/bottom pattern, part rotated to place longer side in the X-axis so that it presents better to the layer cooling fan.

Separating the part from the OVERTURE print surface has taken some creative thinking due to the thin screen layer; last one came off intact by squirting alcohol all over the inside of the part as soon as printing completed, while the bed was still hot. The quick cooling seems to make a big difference.

We'll see if that works again or if it was just a fluke.

mnem

[mnementh]

Okayyy... so tweaking first layer just traded one kind of void for another, and made it much harder to remove.

The OVERTURE print surface is a mixed evil; it makes big flat things without the corners curling up dead easy, and I really love the sandstone texture it leaves on the finished part... but getting the part off without damaging it or the print surface can be a bit of a horror show.  The alcohol trick definitely did help tho, for those of you playing along at home. 

As either of these filter grilles will actually work just fine, I'm going to pick the one I like best and use it.



Installing these little magnets is the first project where I've actually had a need for my new ceramic tipped tweezers. Better than advertised!



And here it is slapped on the back of my PC, doing its job. I'm hoping it will work like the magnetic stick-on air-electrostatic filters they sell to go on a PC case; if not, I can always cut the mesh out and use this as a frame for that material, or maybe find some 2mm-3mm thin filter foam to go under it.

mnem
 

[beanflying]

Dust Bunny Protection I just did a full cleaning of my box and apart from the front fan area generally it runs well.



Re Fusion mega holes or mass features can be an issue depending on the system. Manipulating high count mesh bodies is a no go on all versions and you need to look at something like Blender for that  Not an issue with the actual models made in fusion but if you import a mesh to use as part of it a huge PITA.

With repeat patterns like your cover the way you draw the first and then pattern it seems to play a part. The Laser cut Glasses Case file was a horror on my old I3 Box with 8Gb but on my current 32Gb box not an issue in particular as I went back into it later and re worked the initial sketches.

The more recent cooling tray for my Coffee Roaster worked easily even with the partial holes and extra number crunching around the perimeter but as I used some of what I now know about timeline management and patterning no issues at all with this one. The Hole Layout btw is maximized for a bit over 70% open area for better airflow and hence cooling.

Keep up your Fusioning Grasshopper 

[mnementh]

Thanks... everything is a learning experience. 

Yeah, my design was deliberately as fine squares as I could get away with in hopes of getting that electrostatic filtering action. 1mm squares with 0.5mm web between. I think it may have been the fact I made the holes square; maybe Frustion360 is more efficient working with round holes, as a lot of the examples I saw online showed similar density (mine is 39 x 49 x 4 sections =7644 holes) with round holes and they processed almost instantly. Of course, those guys were probably running Quadro-powered workstations optimized for their workflow as well.

My original intent was to optimise the design for printing the webbing as straight lines, but no matter which pattern I chose Cura still insisted on printing every little fukkin' hole individually anyways.     If I'd known it was going to do that, I'd have made the holes round.

Fortunately, since the screen portion was only 1 layer thick, it still only took 1.75 hours per copy.

mnem
 

[Brumby]

I saw someone do something similar by specifying the filter area as a normal body - with selecting the infill pattern to provide the mesh.  Then, having the bottom and top layer thickness of zero left it exposed.

Why work harder than you need to?

[mnementh]

A flurpiderp did what with who for how many jellybeans...? 

mnem
I think I heard a loft in there somewhere...

[mnementh]

No, seriously... that sounds like something you can only do when you're modeling and slicing in the same piece of software. Please, please don't get me going down a new 3D modeling software rabbit-hole... I'm already , what with falling down this dozen or so other rabbit-holes all at the same time...

mnem

[beanflying]

Can be done fairly easily as a bit of 'filter' but the frame would then need to be printed separately unless you play with the mesh with modifiers in blender or the slicer you are using. Personally that is really clunky but it can be done. Get used to Fusion/CAD and it is a better way to go with far more control.

The main issue with fine plastic meshes is always going to be the % of open to closed to get the right mix of keeping out what you need and not having the bars of material be way larger than the holes (under 50% open space) and choking the airflow.

[mnementh]

Okay... so what you're saying is that the way I did it was probably the right way to go...? Aside from maybe trying round holes if I feel like it next time...?

mnem
 

[mnementh]

   

Boring Mundane Everyday Print #166: Play Tent Foot

I got my daughter a cheap 2-man tent for her birthday to have as a playhouse; she loves it, but the metal ends of the poles scratch on the living room floor. This snap-in foot took aboot 20 minutes to lay out in Frustion360; much less grief than the filter grille.  Made to fit standard 38mm dia self-adhesive felt floor protector pads; snap-fit into 8.7mm dia x 7mm hole. 

Printed in BLACK PLA, 215°C/60°C, 0.28mm LH, infill manually set at 2mm grid pattern, 1.2mm walls, 0.84mm top/bottom w/concentric pattern, no adhesion, no supports. Print speed 60mm/Sec; printing took 2.5 hours all pieces including single test print which was used as final product.

mnem
 

[Brumby]

This is what I saw.....

https://youtu.be/xc-6xVB9H4I

[mnementh]

Well okay... that is technically doing it in the slicer, but jeez... using Cura for your primary CAD modeling is like doing brain surgery with a hatchet. 

Trying to make the fillets and ribs and recesses for the little disc magnets... just thinking aboot that gives me heartburn. 

mnem

[Nominal Animal]

using Cura for your primary CAD modeling is like doing brain surgery with a hatchet.

A tool is a tool is a tool.  Chainsaws were invented by surgeons to cut bone, predating any use with timber by at least a quarter of a century. 

I'd say that jobs where you wish to control the extrusion process to the teeth (without a chainsaw), like filter grids, are appropriate places to reach for oddball tools.  I prefer metal meshes, but if I were to 3D-print one, I'd like to do a triangular grid with single continuous extruded strands, round-robin interleaved in the three directions...  I think I'd probably generate the Gcode for this programmatically.

[mnementh]

mnem
So... I should use a chainsaw instead of a hatchet...?   

[Nominal Animal]

So... I should use a chainsaw instead of a hatchet...?   

For brain surgery, most definitely.

As to the problem at hand, I really don't know which tool would be best to do the mesh grid.  The more I think about it, the more I sway towards creating the overall part without the mesh itself, say with a thin cross (X) where the mesh would need to be, in whatever program.  Then, I'd slice that, and use the thin cross to determine where the mesh generation part would go, replacing it with externally generated Gcode for the filter mesh only.

Granted, I'm a weirdo; I've often done that sort of stuff, ever since I learned PostScript to do that sort of thing to preprocessed output, oh, almost three decades ago now.  (I think my first one was a serial number generator, where each sheet had several separate parts with their own serial number each.  Yes, they were some sort of admission tickets.)

This is also why I'd like to see more programming options in the slicing phase.  For example, the filter layer could be defined just as a volumetric region - say, defined as the union of cuboids and spheres and convex polyhedra - with the mesh definition as a property, with the slicer generating the mesh part parametrically, just like it does for infills and such.

But anyway, I know nothing.

[Brumby]

Well okay... that is technically doing it in the slicer, but jeez... using Cura for your primary CAD modeling is like doing brain surgery with a hatchet. 

Trying to make the fillets and ribs and recesses for the little disc magnets... just thinking aboot that gives me heartburn. 

mnem

I would have approached it like this....

Create 2 bodies - one with all the CAD glory you care to impart and the other just a simple shape which defines the mesh volume.  Bring both into the slicer, align and then apply the appropriate settings to each.  This completely offloads the filter mesh creation to the slicer, saving your CAD engine from herniating.

You also get to play with different infill patterns really easily, to find the best mesh design.

[beanflying]

And I would have done this with a bit of filter fabric or stainless mesh I have in my stash and made the plastic bit the holder for it for more airflow and better dust trapping

Added front end shot of my Coolermaster case as the back end is the exhaust and the case has a positive pressure no need for a filter back there 

101 ways to skin a ....... and to agitate a Dragon

[mnementh]

Yeah, but if I'd done it any other way, I wouldn't have learned that Cura would process the grid that way, and I wouldn't have learned how to wrangle patterns, and I wouldn't have learned that for all the hype, Frustion360 is just like my son when it comes to making it think hard: A whiny little punk-ass. 

I get that we have a regiment's worth of tools at hand... I'm still at the "This is a ratchet, this is a socket, these are extensions and they help you get your worky bits where they need to be so you can put your engine together" stage. Let's not break my brain with the Sonic Screwdriver just yet. 

mnem
 

[Brumby]

The last time I made a filter for my computer case, it consisted of a piece of plywood cut to the shape of the hole, some cardboard glued to it, shaped to provide the duct, a piece of expanded metal for a grille and some black speaker cloth to make it look pretty.

Works really well, too.

[CatalinaWOW]

As neat as 3D printers are, they sometimes aren't the best tool for the job.  Or for the whole job.   

[mnementh]

Arguably, it was Frustion360 was the weak link here... the printer turned out the design just fine, once the modeling was done. Was it perfection? No. Was it usable? Damn skippy. And at 40¢ worth of filament, plus another 40¢ for magnets, definitely the cheapest solution by far. Okay, 80¢ worth of filament, as I printed it twice. 

The knowledge gained, IMO, far outweighed the time spent. A whole new class of objects I know how to design now. Plus, a better understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of my chosen 3D modeling environment.

mnem
 

[mnementh]

Boring Mundane Everyday Interesting Fun Project Print #772: Bracket for Matrexx 70 Case

My son and I are building his first Gaming Rig; A Ryzen 5/Aorus Elite machine with my old RX580 GPU. I'm kicking my old case down for the build; that way I get the fun of building mine into a case designed for dual AiO liquid-cooling.

One of the nice bits of this thing is a glass shelf inside; it is supported by a HDD cage in the PSU tunnel. For obvious reasons, I wanted that to go away, so I'm printing up this bracket to attach to existing architecture inside the case.

Printed in BLACK PLA, 215°C/60°C, 0.28mm LH, infill manually set at 1mm grid pattern (this to produce adequate rigidity as I need to hand-fit to get the screw holes exactly right), 1.2mm walls, 0.84mm top/bottom w/concentric pattern, no adhesion, no supports. Cura sez 1 hour 55 min; I'll report back with pics when it's been fitted.

I'm bumping print speed up again to 70mm/Sec; pray for me. 

mnem
 

[Mr. Scram]

As neat as 3D printers are, they sometimes aren't the best tool for the job.  Or for the whole job.

I'd argue they usually aren't, they're just a useful shortcut to quickly arrive at so-so results.

[beanflying]

As neat as 3D printers are, they sometimes aren't the best tool for the job.  Or for the whole job.

I'd argue they usually aren't, they're just a useful shortcut to quickly arrive at so-so results.

What a load of Rash Generalized dismissive CRAP !  "So-So" massively understates the results of even the cheap end of the market printers can do let alone what the commercial end of the market produces.

Want a fight over this then happy to provide examples 

[mnementh]

Boring Mundane Everyday Interesting Fun Project Print #774: Wherew0lf Escutcheon Plate for AiO CPU Cooler

My son and I are building his first Gaming Rig; we're getting down to the last few items. A special thing for him; I'm making an escutcheon in the form of his custom-commissioned Wherew0lf gamer avatar to go on the pump for his AiO CPU liquid-cooler.

STL created by one of those online Lithopane generators. KISS principle, sez I. 

Tonight, trying something I haven't done since my Tarantula days; 0.12 LH and 0.20 nozzle for super tiny detail work.

Printed in BLACK PLA, 215°C/60°C, 0.12mm LH 0.20 nozzle, infill manually set at 1mm grid pattern 0.84mm walls, 0.84mm top/bottom w/concentric pattern, no adhesion, no supports. Cura sez 1 hour 57 min; I'll report back with pics when it's been fitted.

I'm bumping print speed down to 40mm/Sec in hopes of better finish; pray for me. 

mnem