Meshmixer support - a very good alternative

I recently tried the Meshmixer support because I'm tired of Slic3r not being able to calculate its support correctly. Apart from looking really cool it actually works really well.
You could even make organic looking sculptures by using this tree and branch technique.
Below you find a tutorial video how you apply and manipulate the support structures a function that comes in very handy if you know your printer better and only need partial support.

The contact point on the model brake of very easy and are surprisingly stable. The only detail to keep and eye on is that the contact point need to be really on the edge of the overhang, otherwise the underside of said overhang will not look good and have a slope of bad layers in them.

The colored trees are the automatically generated support.

Here the model still hot on the bed.

Custom Cookie Cutters

With my 3D printer we can make any shape into a cookie cutter.

The sky or your imagination is the limit. From sigils like game of thrones, the batman sign, a logo or letters, to your littles nieces scribbles on the wall we make cookie cutter from it.
For more inspiration look here: Thingiverse: Cookie cutters

Very popular last year, the Stark wolf from Game of Thrones

Get your own in 3 easy steps

Step 1: You choose a picture, drawing or form.

We can use almost anything to make our shape. The less colors and the simples the shape the easier we can extract the shape.
We can even scan a drawing from you.

The same wolf as finished cookie cutter.

Step 2: Magic and some code.

I have a script ready which allows me to easily transform your picture into information for the 3D printer.

Special order: Rocket from Guardians of the galaxy.

Step 3: Print it.

The printer handles the rest a normal sized form takes around 1 hour to finish, so we can fulfill last minute orders as well. Your welcome to have a look while its made.
Cookies are of course not the only use for these shapes. You can you it as a stencil for spraying or painting or use it as a mold for pouring silicone.

  

Even in tough and chewy croissant dough, the shape comes through.

Practical things:

• In order to get a good cookie long, thin or ragged pieces will make it hard for the cookie to bake evenly.
• The material I'm using is called PLA (poly lactic acid) its used in a lot of food packaging and is non reactive. I've been using it in my kitchen for years. However its not dishwasher safe as its starts getting soft at around 70°C. I can not be held responsible for your safety and/or improper use.
• If you are unsure about safety google the topic and make an informed choice. Here is a short article about the topic PLA and food safety

Vapor smoothing with Acetone

After my failed attempts to smooth PLA with drain cleaner, the acetone vapors work pretty well on ABS. The model is really soft afterwards by that normalizes after some hours

.3mm layerheight, heavenly smoothed

My hub is open

With this this little Marvin I registered my printer on 3D hubs. You can now hitchhike my printer here. I give special discounts for good ideas!

The holy grail of layerheight .1mm

With my new and improved setup I dared testing how .1mm layer height would look like.

Results are mixed, for some reason the model rips itself apart. I also get the feeling that I'm hitting the lower extrusion speed limit if something like it exists.

First I tried normal speeds (30-40mm/s) with otherwise normal settings and furthermore reducing the retraction to 1mm @ 40mm/s.

Then I tried to increase the output by raising the the layer width to 300%, that looked better.

Pushing this even higher to 400% width and 0 retraction made it almost perfect. This is a simple test piece and I haven't managed a complexer piece yet.

Something useful - the stove knob

In one of the earliest videos I saw about 3D printing and Reprap, they mentioned printing knobs (link below).

A rather unexciting idea until you realize how inconvenient it is to fiddle around with metal pins when carefully trying to find the perfect temperature to not burn your pancakes.

Luckily someone like minded already provided a template (Oven knob fully customizable).
This works great, so great indeed that I can put in a custom marker for the prefect pancake setting.

Stability mod part 1

I finally build Masos stability mod (http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:171418).

I replaced the printed arm with 40x20mm rectangular aluminum profile and used a simple L bracket to connect it to the carriage (grey). The wobble is gone now, but the parts were not printed very precise and therefore the carriage doesn't slide very well on the straight rods. I'm waiting for normal linear bearings to arrive.