Joe's Makerbot will now be Joe's 3D Workbench

Joe's Makerbot is now Joe's 3D Workbench. http://joes3dworkbench.blogspot.com/

This has been a long time coming. I avoided it for many technical reasons, but I now feel it's time.

Joe's Makerbot (this blog) will remain with it's history and posts, but I will no longer be updating it. From now on all posts related to making, designing, and teaching will be on Joes3dWorkbench.blogspot.com. I hope you'll all visit me there. I will also occasionally post my more editorial thoughts on 3DHacker.com's blog.

http://joes3dworkbench.blogspot.com/

Well that's new

One of the great things about 3D printing is just when you think you've got a pretty good idea of what's going on it throws you a curve ball. I'm printing a model that is mostly infill in PLA and about 1/4 inch up it stops doing the infill for no apparent reason. I wasn't watching it at the time so I don't know if it was trying an none was coming out or if it just didn't think I would notice. But as soon as I started watching again it started trying to do the infill. However, without a solid base to stick to it just made these wispy little threads across the infill area.

The print is finishing out fine, so there was no lasting effects from this infill gap, but still I wonder what caused it.

I'm planning on playing with HIPS next. I've got some cool disolvable ideas to try out. I'd also still like more likes on my book's facebook page. Sooner or later I need to get a contest together for that.

Store is open, Chessbots discounted

The etsy store is back in business. And since this is Black Friday I've dropped the price of my chessbots from $25 to $15. There are only 9 left and when they're gone they're gone.

That is a great idea

I've got a couple loose spools that I don't know if they're ABS or PLA. I wish I had thought of the idea Joseph did. Acetone will stick to ABS, but not PLA, so it makes the perfect identifier.

Printing again. Again.

This will mark the 3rd time I've had to replace the ceramic tape on my extruder heads, and it was just as painful as the first two times. But hopefully this time it'll be the last. Because this time I've used high temp tape.

My theory is that the reason my tape keeps failing is because when a print fails the plastic touches the kapton tape and ABS plastic loves kapton tape which wrecks things. However now I'm concerned that the tape is going to transfer too much heat to the print. But initial prints are working, so we'll see how this metal tape works over time.

Had a bit of a scare while doing the repair. The washer that holds the thermocouple in place fell of. I always thought they were attached but checking the assembly PDF turns out they weren't. Good to know. So I've finally got my outstanding Etsy orders out the door before vacation. Huzzah!

New website and facebook page for the book

Busy day. First thing to report is I finally got off my rump, registered learn3dprintingblueprints.com, which is a bit longer than I wanted but squatters these days, and made a web site for it including that video I made a while back.

Secondly, 3D Printing Blueprints also has a facebook page. If you could go and like it that would be awesome. I plan to update the facebook page with cool things I've modeled and highlights from the blog that might be interesting to people who want to learn to do design. My wife is actually coaching me on this one. So if you can go and like that page, I'd be very happy.

https://www.facebook.com/3DPrintingBlueprints

Shutting down the shop for Thanksgiving break

I'm going to be out of town for Thanksgiving, and what with the problems and maintenance that I haven't had time to do on the 3D printer I've got to shut the shop until December. I wish there was a way I can do a soft shut-down so people can still see what I have to offer.

First thing when I get back I'm going to reopen the shop and do some repairs to my bot so hopefully it will be more reliable than ever. Hopefully I'll be able to do some modeling while I'm out.