I always love the opensource maker movement. People will publish free to use things that are needed, and go the extra steps to get their designs reviewed by the NIH for “certification as community use.” The folks at MakerMask.com did just that. I love projects so I could not pass up the opportunity to print me a few.

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I had to do some repairs to my old Solidoodle 3, which had gotten a cheap knock off E3D print head to replace the factory print head. Once I got the very annoying “air print” issue resolved. I began printing MakerMask. The beta unit to test fit and finish printed with little or no issues.

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Assembly of the beta unit went smoothly as well once all the parts were printed. I did have to sand a few parts to ensure a snug fit. Once the 0.1 mm layer height was tuned on the printer. I could also print the valves. All the body and filter parts print at 0.3 mm layers to speed up printing.

Now on to the next project while these print in the background. I estimate even at the 0.3 mm layer “fast print” these take about 10 hours on the Solidoodle 3 to print all the parts if I empty the bed and rotate the prints in a timely fashion. I have sourced some HEPA rated filters from some air cleaners to cut up and put into the filter housings once they are finished printing, as I don’t know the rating on available vacuum bags available.

Well I started getting serious about print quality, so here is a sample of the attempt to print the 3DBenchy test.  It took a few tries to get the roof overhang to print, but it came out nice.  SD3 always had issues with inside dimensions, but tuning has gotten it closer that ever.

Description	Expected size mm	Actual mm	Notes:
http://www.3dbenchy.com/		Solidoodle 3 ABS 0.1 mm layers
Roof	23	23.04
Smoke Stack Blind Hole	11	11.63	wire probe
Smoke Stack OD	7	6.98
Smoke Stack ID	3	1.14
Horizontal OAL stem to stern	60	59.64
Horizontal Overall width	31	30.97
Verticle Overall height	48	48.32
Top of box Height	15.5	15.6
Deck box depth	9	9.16
Deck box stem to stern outside	10.81	10.8
Deck box stem to stern inside	7	6.77
Deck box port to starboard outside	12	11.85
Deck box port to starboard inside	8	7.69
Hawspipe ID	4	3.96
Hawspipe flange	0.3	0.34
Front Window Port to starboard	10.5	10.21
Front Window Height	9.5	8.68
Stern window ID	9	8.76
Stern window OD	12	11.48
Stern windo flange	0.3	0.32
High-Cain Spoon bow	40 degrees	n/a	no protractor
Roof slope	5.5 degrees	n/a	no protractor
Name plate	0.1	not measurable

 

 

One key legacy project for me is 3D printing.   I spent my hard earned kongbucks  on a Soliddoodle 3 when they first came out, over 5 years ago.  Long before, this attempt at documentation of my projects.

The SD3 got lots of complaints from the community, but mine has always worked.  Yes, I’m too lazy to alter the firmware to fix the slight discrepancy between inside dimensions and the 3D model, but when properly calibrated it is hard to measure how off it is.   My SD3  even has the original acrylic “jigsaw” extruder, which is claimed to get brittle and disintegrate.   Here is the printing of a spare graciously shared on thing a verse by its creator.  I try not to crash the print head which I assume is the cause of all those shattered acrylic print heads, but having a spare on hand will allow me to sleep at night.

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:111213

I do not think any project shop is complete without a 3D printer, so I keep this one in working condition even if the company has ceased operations.   It is 100% self supported with the handful of dedicated individuals keeping documentation and forums sites online to help troubleshooting.  I would be lost without them.  If it prints there is no need to get a new fancy one even if you can get 3 monoprice units for the same amount of KongBucks. now.

If you have not considered  printing software.  I highly recommend Simplify 3D.   I got to use a friend’s copy and it was so good I spend my own hard earned kongbucks on a copy of my own.  They got my kongbucks, and I still recommend them coming from an open source free software world.  It made the difference between being able to just print what I needed without any fighting, and fighting to print things by trial and error.

https://www.simplify3d.com/