3D Printing

PM me your address and I'll pop them in the post. (Once I've tidied them up a bit)

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What even are these things and why would you need one to make coffee?! :D

Wow, that was quick. You could've removed the big one in front to save some plastic. Nevermind. Thanks I'll PM you the deets.

Tamp aka squish the ground coffee down so it forms a more even, hard to penetrate 'block' of coffee that resists the water somewhat. Otherwise the pressurised water would just blast a hole through the loose coffee which would fail to take coffee flavours with it.

The other two things just allow you to grind straight into the handpresso basket without spilling coffee everywhere.

try out OctoLapse !

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• timelapse720p.mp4

Ha I will, thanks!

Just the videos are enough to make me want my own printer :)

Its a frustrating but rewarding hobby. And needn't be expensive now days either.

Lockdown has caused a 3d printing supplies issue. Not much good quality filament available at the moment and spare parts are in short supply too. Some of the shops are taking 3 weeks to get orders to you due to the increased demand. Partially due to people printing PPE (which incredibly is still in demand with the NHS) but also just people having more time to do their hobby.

Will try and get the things in the post to you today. Little bit embarrassed at the print quality. You'll have to forgive my slightly slack nozzle.

3D printing is like modern-day sorcery to me. Fantastic.

An added bonus for me is that the code used by 3d printers is the same code used by lathes, CNC machines and laser cutters. Multiskillz.

my slightly slack nozzle.

We've all been there.

I'm thinking of having something CNC'ed which could be used as a frame presentation.

Something like this but somewhat simpler. I don't need all the different mounts. Just a 15mm thru axle, I've got a carbon insert to convert to 12mm and an aluminium one to convert to 5mm QR.

To be honest, I haven't got a clue where to go here in Italy or about potential cost. I also have no experience in CAD or access to CAD for that matter. :D

You could make something like that pretty decently with a good 3d printer. Only hitch is that you'd have to find somebody with one with a big enough print volume.

Guess I'll need to brush up on my Italian :D

Sticking with the coffee theme... Can anyone recommend a 3d printing service that’s willing to deal with noob questions, like which material should I use?

I’m after a hopefully relative simple job replacing the drip tray on my Gaggia with something smaller. As this is a common ask, someone has helpfully drawn up the specs: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2319146

The material choice is quite simple. Any plastic that has a glass transition temperature above the temperatures a drip tray would normally be exposed to would be fine. This means PLA is out (gtt of 60 degrees) . ABS (gtt ~100 degrees) and PETG (gtt 88 degrees) are the two most common filaments used apart from PLA so would be a good choice for this application.

I'd offer to print you one but I'm not sure i'd be able to as I had a print bed shatter last week and only had a specialty print bed spare which can't easily be used for anything other than PLA. It'll be a few weeks until I have some replacement borosilicate sheets so I can print high temperature materials again.

Thanks for the advice, that clarifies things!

I’d be happy to wait and ping you some cash for one, but appreciate it’s a pain taking ‘orders’ so do shout if you know of any decent commercial vendors.

Honestly it's fine. I normally just ask for a donation to the forum of at least the P&P amount in return.

That’s kind of you, I’d be very happy with that if nothing else comes up in the meantime. Thank you.

Do you know if there would be demand for these on the coffee thread?

I don't carry black filament normally but if a few people wanted one of these I'd buy some.

What's the cheapest printer worth getting? I want one but I don't want one, I rarely printed stuff but now I no longer have access to free unlimited laser cutting at uni I can see that changing...

Do you find the corners lift on a design this sort of shape and size using ABS? I've not had much success with >100mm designs on borosilicate glass and hairspray due to the print lifting about half the time, regardless of bed temperature, rafts and brims etc.

I guess it won't matter too much if the corners are rounded under the stainless, but it would be nice to know if there's a magical combination that works IRL - 3D printer forums seem to be dominated by answers along the lines of 'Its easy, you just need to throw your printer away and buy exactly the same kit as me, and do it exactly the same way as me'.

Perhaps it's just me.

Yes, I certainly do. At least I did.

Hairspray is fine for smaller parts but to go bigger you need to use something stronger. I use a spray called 3dlac or ABS slurry if I don't have that. The big problem with this is that these adhesives work so well you WILL end up tearing chunks of glass off your print bed when removing a part because they stick so well. I've even had a bed shatter while printing because the part warped and the 3dlac held it on so well the glass failed. For this reason I apply a self adhesive polyimide film to the print bed before I apply the adhesive.

Other than adhesive you can try:

Fiddling with your parts. (Snigger). The higher the infill value the less flexion.

Fiddling with temperatures. A heated bed set to at least 100, preferably 110 degrees, is essential.

But if you really want to succeed the majority of the time with ABS, you need your printer in a heated enclosure. If I'm printing a large format ABS part I use an ambient temperature of between 40 and 50 degrees depending on the type of ABS I'm printing. A lot of people get away with placing their open bed printer inside a cheapo amazon photography light box and using the printers bed to reach the required ambient temp.

So, in short, 3dlac or ABS slurry and a heated enclosure is the secret.

Thanks - straight away it sounds like I'm not using a hot enough bed - mine takes ages to reach 80 deg. and won't go much higher regardless of settings.
An enclosure (at least insulated if not separately heated) looks like being an addition to the 'to do' list: probably DIY as I'm only playing with a Prusa clone as a retirement hobby.

I had to mod the electronics and power supply on mine to get to 110.

If you can't reach the glass transition temperature of ABS with your heated bed it might be time to give up on ABS for now. Less than that and physics is against you. Its a great material but PLA and PETG are ideal for the vast majority of applications too. ABS also releases some nasty shit into the air when printed so people are increasingly requiring an enclosure to orint it in for those reasons too.

Edit: As you suggest, ABS is fine on a printer with low bed temperature if you stick to small parts.