Tugboat's 3D Printer Build

Printed nothing last night, as I was up till 10:30 in sketchup drawing a very nice set of barbettes. Still got an hour or two to go on them, but it's worth it because...
1) They'll be correct and look good
2) They'll fit perfectly into the printed superstructure
3) Need I say more?

The tall ones are getting all the vents and will look quite the business. For those who've asked for QE barbettes and SS pieces, I won't have a price until I know how much time and plastic they'll take. Not too outrageous, I promise.

 

Tried printing the barbettes in ABS, first time using that plastic. Much pickier about sticking to the surface than PLA is, but it has a higher melting point. I will see what I can do, might make the barbettes in PLA and run them for a year to see how they hold up.

 

Slightly off topic, but once you get bored with the 3D printer, here's another tool for you Tuggy. http://seattle.craigslist.org/est/tls/4018772083.html

 

Sadly, I am about 8 grand short of affording it But it'd be cool!

After I get the printer going and producing things, the next tool project is a printer than can print a hull in one shot. This is why it is important to me to get the Mendel playing with ABS, so that I can make hulls from the higher-melting-point plastic. Once I can do that, the sky is the limit.

 

I have actually given that some thought, but not made a decision. It's certainly easier than doing a hull.

 

The bow and stern are the most time consuming part of drawing in cad for me, and really easy to do in wood with a beltsander. So I would not do just those

Been working on getting a satisfactory set of barbettes. VERY time consuming print job!
Spent the time waiting for them to be done working on a totally sweet forward SS for Malaya; it's got portholes 2mm deep and eyebrows over the portholes. A couple of doors, and splinter shields. Going to print it in the morning because it'll take like 3 or 4 hours and I'm not staying up till 3 or 4 in the morning!

 

just remember tug, bow and stern are relatively easy for me to draw up in cad, and my services are available

 

Attempted the 01 level of Malaya's SS this morning. A few problems reared their heads. One, part of the print (the skinny piece that embraces the barbette on one side) lifted a little. Two, this being the first really big piece to be printed, I could see that there was a tiny leveling issue, which got fixed before I terminated the print. For the lifting issue, there are several recommended fixes, one of which is to clean the glass print surface well, and spray hair spray on it which is sticky! I was also dismayed at the amount of material that I was using. So I hollowed out the SS. This may sound obvious, but the inside of a solid printed object is not usually solid, it's between 20-40% filled with a corsshatch pattern that supports the layers above, but is lighter, almost as strong, and doesn't use nearly the amount of filament that setting the software to 100% solid would.

So, I go to try printing a hollow SS, with breakaway support in the inside.

 

I will have some pretty things to show you when you get here

 

I had gotten the printer to print, but to get good results, a LOT of tweaking was needed on many settings in the slicer software. Tonight, I printed my first functional object: The motor mount plate for my Mk1 pump. It took about an hour to print, and not a whole lot of filament. With a lot of trial and error, I've been printing in PLA, which is faster to do iterations, since it's got a lower required printbed temperature than ABS (which the final products will be printed in). Without further ado:

The curly stuff visible around the edges is a printed break-away support skirt, so that I can print overhanges. Hard to print a straight line in thin air, so support is needed. This pump will take a 380 or 550 sized brushless motor (19mm bolt pattern), and discharges through a 1/2" I.D. hose. I will be printing the body and impeller tomorrow night.
It looks a little uneven on top, which is a function of the high print speed I was running. Production models will be in ABS (not PLA) and will be done at a lower print speed. Not going into production as in business, but printing them as stocking-stuffers for friends
At the top edge in this pic, you can just make out the words 'ANGRY BEES', which is a tip of the hat to Herr Mangus, who commented on one of my earlier pumps going mad making a 30 foot high pump stream when a restrictor blew off. 'Sounds like a pack of angry bees'!
More pics to follow tomorrow!

 

@JAmes, Chase, and Beaver - Thanks More pics to follow tonight!

@Mark - I think that our terms are different; feed rate on a 3D printer is how fast the filament is being fed into the hot end, which melts it and extrudes a thin line of it. For moving the hot end (the print head, if you will), we speak of speed. And there are a bunch of speeds to control: speed when laying down a perimeter, speed when filling a solid level, speed when doing infill (there are more). These can also vary between the first layer laid down, and the rest that stack on top of it.

Speed-wise, you don't need to be moving the hot end* any faster than 60mm/sec, and you can see in that pic above what the quality looks like at 60mm/sec. Quick and dirty. If you can get 30 or 40mm/sec, you're fine.

Honestly, the 3D printers aren't too bad, running around $600 for a single-extruder Mendel hardware kit, maybe another $100 for the printed parts. If you have the cash, might be better than converting your mill. For a slightly smaller print volume, a Huxley has many of the same capabilities at a lower price.

Converting a CNC mill, I expect that you'll 'move the hot end' by moving the bed under it, but the speed concept still applies. You also want to make your bed a heated bed, ABS doesn't like to stick to anything cold. Shoot me an email if you want to talk about it