Tag: 3D Printing

InTheMail | Voltlog #323

Welcome to a new InTheMail, the series that will touch both your passion for electronics and your bank account at the same time. This one will be focused on 3D Printing because as you know I recently got a new 3d printer, the creality ender 3 PRO and that means new upgrades because why would you get a 3d printer other than constantly work on it and upgrade it. That 3d printing that everyone is talking about is like secondary stuff, you will primarily work on the printer itself once you get it.

Let’s start with the most important upgrade, this is the SKR Mini E3 V2.0 which is the latest version of this 32 bit motherboard that is a plug & play upgrade for the Ender 3. It comes loaded with features like Trinamic silent stepper drivers, it supports dual Z axis and enough memory and processing power to support every feature you would want to enable from Marlin. As far as I know this even comes loaded with the right firmware, it’s a relatively new release of marlin so it’s truly a plug & play solution.

Why Did I Get A New 3D Printer? Ender 3 Pro | Voltlog #312

If you would like to hear why I switched from the Creality CR10 to a Creality Ender 3 pro join me in this video, I’ll share the reasons for which I made the switch as well as talk about the improvements Creality made to the standard Ender 3 to become the Ender 3 pro. But first, let’s do the unboxing.

Inside the box everything is well packaged and protected with foam but compared to the CR10, the Ender 3 is less assembled to say so, there is more assembly work for us to do, if you are in a hurry that might be an issue but for me I actually like doing a bit of assembly work on a new gadget.

While doing the assembly I took a look at the supplied sd card and I also found an assembly video with english captions, it was well made and easy to follow. There are two extra steps I did during the assembly, #1 was to take off the power supply protection cover and made sure all connections are nice & tight and the voltage selection switch is in the right position #2, the lead screw comes already greased but in my experience with the CR10 that type of grease will attract dust on the lead screw which will turn into this black gunk over time. So I cleaned the existing grease with some isopropyl alcohol and a toothbrush and at the end I applied some dry PTFE lube to the lead screw which in my opinion is better suited for this application.

Voltlog #295 – Weekend Update

Welcome to a new Voltlog, this will be just a short weekend update video, to let you know what I’ve been doing in the past couple of weeks. So I’m staying at home and only going out for important stuff, which gave me more time to tinker and work on projects. I hope you are doing the same because social distancing is a good way to slow the spread of this disease.

One of the things I’ve been thinking of doing for a long time is a bench tool holder, the kind that will hold my tweezers, soldering iron tips, flux syringes, stuff like that. So far I’ve been keeping them in one of these pen holding cups but they fill up and it’s hard to grab the thing you need quickly. So I’ve started designing my own in Fusion 360, I included 6 deep pockets, 2 shallow ones in the front and 5 tubes for holding syringes. 

The next thing I did with my 3d printer is related to the current pandemic, as you may know, medical staff in many countries which have been hit hard are lacking protective equipment, they just don’t have enough mask or suits or face shields, not to mention enough ventilators which are desperately needed for those in critical condition. 

In parallel I’ve been designing the battery monitor circuit for the power drill I reviewed in Voltlog #285, this is the first revision of the PCB, the circuit works as expected but I’m still waiting on some parts to be delivered and I’ll do a separate video on this subject. It probably needs a second revision of the PCB because this one doesn’t quite fit in, the way I thought it will.

I also started designing a T10 automotive LED bulb. It’s using a linear  constant current driver and some decent LEDs, because what I’m currently using in my car are the aliexpress bulbs which kinda start dying after a few months of usage. I’ll probably place an order for this panel today but who knows when I’ll receive it.

Voltlog #294 – InTheMail

Welcome to a new InTheMail, the series that will touch both your passion for electronics and your bank account at the same time. Before I get started I’m gonna take a second to remind you to subscribe to the channel and hit the bell notification icon because that’s the only way you will know for sure when I upload new videos. 

Depending on which part of the world you live in, you might be dealing with the same isolation measures as I am, the government is recommending we stay inside as much as possible here in Romania, to avoid contact with other people. So that gives me more time to work on projects, learn new stuff and of course discover and order stuff from the internet.

I’m gonna start with this notebook which has a retro looking leather cover, I think it’s quite neat looking, I’m not sure if this is real leather or not, description just said leather. I always keep a notebook around the workbench, it can be useful for drafting a quick schematic, some dimensions or just for writing down some measurements. Another cool feature of this notebook is the binder style clips you have inside, which allow you to insert or remove paper and what’s even nicer is that you can find this type of paper with different grid styles and they’re very affordable.

Voltlog #288 – New BLTouch 3DTouch Plastic Pin Sensor Upgrade

Back in 2018 I installed a Bltouch sensor on my Creality CR10 3d printer and I showed the process in Voltlog #177, that video is one of the most popular videos on the channel and now after using the printer with the upgrade for a couple of years I can clearly say it’s probably one of the best upgrades you can do to your 3d printer and it’s pretty cheap. I won’t go into too much detail about what the sensor does and how to install it because that is discussed in Voltlog #177.

However I did experience a downside after this upgrade, some users are reporting the same problem while others don’t face this issue. It’s important to note I am using a BLtouch clone called 3D touch, purchased from Aliexpress. It’s the type that has a metal push rod through the middle. The issue I’m having is a vibration noise coming from that metal pin vibrating inside the sensor when the printer moves on the Y axis. This issue might or might not be present on a genuine sensor or just another unit which might have tighter tolerances.

Voltlog #239 – Upgrading The CR10 3D Printer With New Print Surface And Bed Insulation

Welcome to a new voltlog, it’s time for another upgrade on my Creality CR10 3D printer, and this time it’s about the print surface. By default this printer comes with a glass print surface which sits on top of the aluminium bed and that has worked fine for most prints and settings I’ve tried but occasionally I would get some adhesion problems and with glass you need to wait until the part has cooled down in order to remove it. Not such a big deal but there is this newer magnetic print surface, which has two parts, you get the bottom part with adhesive that you stick to the aluminium build plate of the printer and you get the top part which sticks magnetically to the other part.

This way, with the top surface I should get better adhesion and when the print is finished I can just remove the print surface from the printer to have it cool down faster or maybe for easier removal because I could just bend the surface to cause the part to unstick.

I’m also going to upgrade the bottom heater of the bed by installing one of these insulation sheets, this should help it reach working temperature faster and maybe it will use less power to keep it at working temperature.

Voltlog #196 – InTheMail

Hello everyone and welcome to a new InTheMail the series that will touch both your passion for electronics and your bank account at the same time.

This is the list of items shown in this mailbag and there will be links to each of these in the video description on youtube:

  • Foam insulating sheet
  • Cork insulating sheet
  • Bed adjustment wheels
  • Small o-ring 1.8mm ID
  • JST-GH connector wire
  • 18ohm 25W Power Resistor
  • 6 cell AA battery socket
  • TS100 Power Cord XT60
  • Braided cable sleeve
  • Small hand drill
  • Mechanic Solder Paste
  • Smartphone Mount

Voltlog #193 – InTheMail

Hello everyone and welcome to a new InTheMail the series that will touch both your passion for electronics and your bank account at the same time.

In the video I am showing the following items for which you can find links in the video description on the youtube page:

  • TS100 soldering iron tip TS-BC2
  • 0.4mm Brass Nozzle 3D Printing
  • 0.4mm Stainless Steel Nozzle 3D Printing
  • Cabinet LED light
  • Rotary Encoder
  • Soft Protective Pouch
  • M3 x 40mm screw
  • M4 x 8mm screw
  • Double Sided Thermal Conductive Adhesive Tape
  • CAN SPI Transceiver Module
  • Lichee PI Nano ARM9 Computer Module
  • 24 pin Flat Flex Connector 0.5mm pitch