3D Design/3D Printing/CNC Service - South Jersey Shipyards

@bsgkid117 - post some photos of your printers & printing setup!?

 

This is a thread I had for my older printers which I just now have replaced. @Justin Ragucci bought both and is getting them running for his own plastic adventures.

The new printers are these, they are a factory-built clone of a Voron 2.2? I believe. Voron's are a very popular high end DIY printer kit. I got both used from a guy in Michigan for $500 each (retail is $1600ea~), so thats why I nabbed them vs just building some Vorons. Both printers have been modded with Phaetus Rapido UHF hotends, running .6 Bondtech CHT nozzles, Orbiter 1.5 extruders, all contained in a custom X axis carriage that was backgineered from the EVA 2.4.2. I print at 150mm/s 5k accel, .4 layer height .6 or .8 line width. That's about 50mm3/s volumetric flow rate, which is 3.5x your "average" V6 hotend's maximum flow rate.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/tR9JL9jmNxvdbH9VA (this is a sped up timelapse, about 5x normal speed)

They need some more fine tuning but so far #1 has been producing satisfactory parts, #2 is waiting for the last new components to arrive from amazon today to get the new x carriage assembled and running. They run on Duet mainboards, so this is my first time experiencing a printer with a built in web interface and it's pretty glorious. Hacked some Wyze security cams to display in the web interface. Very pleased.



I will add that they are FAR too large physically to fit inside the old heated cabinet. Luckily, they're self-enclosed. I've had no real issues with it being 30 deg in the garage at night and #1 printing ABS objects that are 300mm tall (so not near the bed to be heated). If I notice I have issues, they make solid state electronics enclosure heaters, and I will mount one inside each printer with it's own thermal fuse, relay control, etc.

Also, spy pic of the first 3DPIB prototype. This one is going to stay here as it's already been improved upon. I'll keep the misfit toys and send the v1.1 to the testers.

 

Spy photos of the version 1 vdt and invincible. Both of these have already been improved upon and the actually shipped prototypes will be superior to these ones.

VDT 1/8 rod stringer fit perfectly...snaps into place almost like it was designed to.

 

I’m going to try and get my supper structure and everything on the topside of my ship! Then I’ll finish dressing it up ! How do I order from your email account?

 

Well… you know I want one…

 

A couple of fun videos to check out.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/LyCbvG6SPEQE8u6Y9

https://photos.app.goo.gl/LVLaKTqe4diKjbvr7

https://photos.app.goo.gl/85hNhtU7hCtivGKB7

https://photos.app.goo.gl/tgCty9SMSQfEzeEs9

https://photos.app.goo.gl/4fSN2BwQNZ4Cj2Mz9

I want to add that the 35 lb pinpoint impact Force is so much greater than literally anything you would experience in this hobby. I'm pretty sure if I did that to anyone of the wooden or fiberglass boats in my garage they would shatter just as easy. I think the small cross slide vice drop test would break a strike/swampy glass boat.


Also, for the sake of this conversation, the water channel cut out in the bottom of the boat is a right angle. And is not filleted/blended to the rest of the boat. If you look in the video right in that corner is where it broke. If that was properly blended a lot of the force would have spread over more of the area and I'm sure it still would have broke but it would have broke differently.

 

Lol.

It occurs to me that if you are dropping shit on your boat, you are using it wrong…

 

It's just a silly strength demonstration. And while dropping shit on your boat may not happen very often dropping your boat on shit happens quite frequently.

 

Worst case scenario on the water is being the center of a full speed Yammer sandwich where both behemoths ram you @90 degrees and exactly opposite each other Painful no matter the the ship's construction.

 

I’m not sure I agree with your testing methods. Need to T-bone that part with a full weight, at speed Yammer to be sure.

 

End of December update:

(SKIP if you only care about the hulls and not printers, CNC machines, and their associated drama)

Hit a few snag with my equipment. The CNC machine decided to start tripping the limit switches when the spindle was powered on. This is a relatively common occurrence, so there were plenty of fixes available, but I needed to wait for the fix to arrive. I just received the optoisolation board for the limit switches, so we should be in business this weekend cutting decks.

Next snag/hiccup/whatever is with the new 3d printers. Man they are fast compared to a bed slinger. They also have some weird shortcomings I needed to resolve. The stock cablechain for the toolhead was 0/5 garbage, the stock toolhead itself was 0/5 garbage, the stock hotends (Phaetus Dragon standard flow) couldn't keep up with the print speeds, and the plexiglass panels + ambient bed heat wasn't enough to keep large hull chunks from cracking with temperature. Had a bunch of wasted plastic and failed QE prints due to this. So, solution time:

I retrofitted the printers with modified EVA 2.4.2 toolheads, Phaetus Rapido UHF hotends, .6 CHT nozzles, 5010 blower part cooling fan, 4010 hotend fan, and re-used the stock Orbiter 1.5 extruder with LDO motor. This greatly improved basically everything about the stock toolhead, including replacing the Dragon SF hotends (20~ish mm/s3) with massive Rapido hotends that can flow 75mm/s3 + and heat up extremely quickly. Combined with the CHT nozzles to increase flowrate even more, and now I'm not worried about laying down .4 layers at 250mm/s 10k accel and potentially even faster. The EVA carriages also greatly improved part cooling, which I basically never use because ABS.

First test print, Printer #2, with EVA head

Printer #1, printing some rudder gears

The EVA toolheads are set up right now with a laughable attempt at a wiring umbilical to get away from the stock cable chain. Imagine zip-tying a bunch of wires into a poor harness, and then suspending that harness from a $.10 Walmart micro bungee cord. Thats literally what's going on in there right now. I have a more permanent solution to this problem, which I'll get to after we talk about the temperature issue.

DISCLAIMER: What I'm about to talk about involves 120v AC wiring and can kill you if you don't know what you're doing. It also involves heating elements which can and WILL burn you and/or your house down. Do not attempt to add a supplemental chamber heater to a 3d printer without EXTENSIVE research and knowledge in this area.

So, to solve the temperature issue, I first tried adding insulation and eliminating drafts. I put automotive stick-on insulation all over the exterior panels of the printer and then used painters tape to temporarily tape up all the seams/gasp/etc. This helped, but not enough. In my 30-40 degree garage, my chamber temps 10" off the build plate were maybe 60F after 2 hours of the bed soaking the chamber with heat. I knew I needed supplemental heating. I disassembled the $15 Amazon 500w space heater that used to heat the whole printer cabinet for the other printers. I whipped up a simple bracket to install the guts of that heater where the printer's stock HEPA air filter went. The heater is temporarily controlled via the STC 1k that used to control it and presto, we have active chamber heating and we are actually producing usable QE center sections. I want to add a note here: no 3d printed parts are anywhere near 120v heating element. The stock heater had an injection molded inner piece that had mounting screws to hold it to the heater body, and the heater grid was secured into that molded part. That molded part is bolted to my 3d printed bracket, and measured temperatures are no higher than ambient, so the injection molded piece is doing a great job of keeping any heat away from the more vulnerable printed plastic.

Now, this is a temporary fix. I need something permanent. To that end, I ordered a bunch of stuff to give these printers a brain redo. I have a few Pi 4 kits laying around, so I decided I'm going to flash the Duet 2 boards these printers came with and instead run Klipper on the Pi's. I also ordered EBB36 toolhead boards to simplify the wiring situation going up to the toolhead with CANBUS. CANBUS is nice because you can eliminate all the wiring save for TX/RX, 24v + and ground. I am going to try an umbilical style to start with, but if it proves unsatisfactory I will use a Voron 2.4 style X/Y cable chain solution to carry the toolhead wiring. The EBB36 also has a built in accelerometer, which I can use with Klipper for input shaping.

To permanently handle the chamber heating issues, I ordered SSRs, thermal fuses, thermistors, and other accoutrements to make all the chamber heating controls/wiring internal to the printer. This will allow the printer mainboard and Klipper to tell me chamber temperature and control the chamber heater automatically vs relying on an external control box. This will also keep the spicy 120v wiring inside the printer frame and away from fingers. For air sealing/insulating purposes, I am going to properly gap seal all corners/edges and install a foam gasket for the printer door, along with a stronger latch mechanism to secure the door against the foam gasket. I need these 2 printers to be absolutely rock solid, so I will do all of these updates on printer #1 while printer #2 continues as-is. Once printer #1 has been tested and certified ready for work, I will replicate the changes over to #2.


(Actual boat kit stuff starts here)

Right now I have the following boats waiting on decks but otherwise ready to ship out:

1 I Boat beta kit

1 VDT beta kit

1 QE Beta kit

I have 2 more QE beta kits in the immediate production queue.

I have room to add an additional VDT and I Boat tester to this queue, if there are any veteran captains out there who might be interested in these two boats.

Coming up next on the production schedule is the 1920 SD, which shuffled around some of the other hulls due to me personally wanting to build it for 2023 battle season.

 

So it's been a while since I updated this.

I've had my fair share of machine difficulties over the last month. My CNC machine killed two stepper drivers in a row followed by another stepper driver and the stepper motor. So it's out of commission pending a major rebuild. I finally gave up trying to get it fixed to cut decks for the kits and instead ordered 16 boats worth of deck from a laser cutting company. That should all be here tomorrow.

The two new printers have been a bit of a struggle. Printer number one snapped it's hot end in half, which triggered a major rebuild and reconfiguration of that printer. That refit took about 3 weeks and that printer is just now reaching full operation where I can start a print and walk away and be confident that it will finish successfully.

Printer number two has continued functioning, but with a handicap. The jury-rigged wire umbilical that keeps the printer from running into its own wiring prevents the printer from being able to print anything over about 250 mm tall. Printer number two is going to receive the same refit as number one, but I need both printers operational to get kits out to people who have expressed interest. So that has to wait a bit.

I haven't had a ton of time to work on new models. I've mainly been tweaking the existing boats in the collection to make sure that they are as good as they can be for the beta testers. I've had a couple commissions and phone a friend projects, like helping @Beaver with his USS Chester and @Anvil_x with his HMS Fiji. I'm hoping once I get back from the Georgia battle I can clear my plate and start working on the next ships in the design queue while I refit the 2nd printer (Kaiser, Blucher).

I will have, in stock, full hull/ship kits for:

2x QE
2x Invincible
2x VDT

If there are any interested parties in those specific full kits, let me know so I can get you in the production cycle.

 

I'd like to buy one of the deck kits for Invincible.

 

Lots of prepwork before the Georgia battle to get stuff ready for the multiple 3d printed boats I am delivering. I'm sure my fiance will like having our kitchen table back.





Laser cut decks fit great:



All the hulls produced from here on have better manufacturing tolerances modeled into them for deck hatch fitment and whatnot, so these are the "worst" of the bunch...and the decks still fit OK. So I'm happy about that.

 

Faaahnceee!!!!

 

Nice

 

Been a while since this was updated but I still exist and am still working on stuff. Generally my Sprint production time is in the winter for new hulls and such. Once the battle season actually starts for me in February, I start to slow down on the modeling.

That being said, wasp is now complete as a 3D printable boat and the prototype is currently being printed. It's coming out beautifully. Laser cut subdeck hatches and flight deck.


A few of my version 1 beta test kits are out in the wild now and some good feedback has started to come in. Some more beta test kits will be delivered to captain's at Nationals.

If there are any veteran captains who are going to be at Nationals who would like one of the boats I've said I'm willing to do beta testing of, please let me know so that way I can get you on the production schedule and get one made for you.

 

When you get home and have time please put me down for a complete Invincible kit!
Jim

 

One 3d printed aircraft carrier:



@Jim Reeves

I will take stock of what I have ready at this time. I don't know if I'll have time to ship an order out before Nationals (2nd week of July) but I can definitely get to you after NATs.

 

That would be just fine, thanks!