“It Came From Within The Brown Truck” - Now In 3D!!

[Admiral_dk]

Hi Stan - (and others)

Congratulations with the new "toy" 

I have a question - I would sometime need to produce bigger objects than your printer can do, but must admit that I like the price vs. features / quality etc. of your DaVinci 1.0 - Is there a way to combine two prints ?

Can they for instance be glued together ? .... eh, Googling ABS plastic tells me that ABS is easily glued, so I should modify the question - have you tried ?

My reason for asking is, that I'm in the process of trying to design an aluminium extrusion that should be 220 x 70 x 180 mm. in size and we would like to "try it out first", so an 3D print would be a nice way to do just that.

Best wishes

Per

[zeeprogrammer]

Is there a way to combine two prints ?

A number of ways. You can include tabs/etc and snap them together, use bolts, or even screws.

BTW CAD works well for the kinds of things most of us are interested in. You can also download the free Blender program if you're interested in modeling something with a lot of curves. (Although I found Blender to be way more powerful and complicated than I had time to learn.)

[Admiral_dk]

Hi Zee

Thank you - but in this case the extrusion is supposed to have "perfect" surfaces, so to assemble two halves with bolts or similar is not an option, though creating a kind of hinge to snap them together might be. I was thinking more like making a small ridge in the edge of the two halves that ensures that they are glued perfectly together - but I would still like to hear from someone who have done it.

As for the CAD solution, I got Geomatic Design Pro latest version, so that should take care of that (as long as I'm not making the mistakes).

[GordonL]

Thanks Stan: I will have to look at it. I used 2D CAD quite a bit before I retired but have not really used it a lot since then except to make drawings for model engines. I have found that it helps to redraw existing plans because by the time I am done I have a much better understanding of how things go together and now the drawings are the way I want them and frequently changed from metric to imperial. So far I have not felt it is necessary to use 3D. Knowing how this sort of thing goes with this friend of mine he will sooner or later rope me into doing it for him.

Is the free Sketchup program sufficient for simple jobs or is it only going to make it possible to draw super simple objects?

[Dave Otto]

Hi Zee

Thank you - but in this case the extrusion is supposed to have "perfect" surfaces, so to assemble two halves with bolts or similar is not an option, though creating a kind of hinge to snap them together might be. I was thinking more like making a small ridge in the edge of the two halves that ensures that they are glued perfectly together - but I would still like to hear from someone who have done it.

As for the CAD solution, I got Geomatic Design Pro latest version, so that should take care of that (as long as I'm not making the mistakes).

The short answer is yes; we do this type of thing at work quite often. The key is to design your model so it has overlapping joints and/or keyed areas to maintain alignment. I recently did a job that required 6 separate parts to be glued into an assembly. Two of the parts could have been built already in place but it would have increased the build time substantially. So they were built flat then glued into locating pockets.

Sometimes we print parts and then bond them into existing modified injection molded parts for quick turnaround prototypes.

If the joints are tight solvent cement can be used to bond the parts together. Epoxy also works well but is a little messier.

Dave

[sshire]

Per
I have successfully (they haven't fallen into pieces yet) glued ABS with both cyanoacrylate (super glue) and acetone. I made my external filament holder in 2 pieces (flat mounting plate with a 1.5" dia. recess and the 1.495 dia. spool shaft.). The shaft is, in effect a cantilever, holding a 1 kilo spool of filament. Agree that some sort of locating feature is necessary for correct alignment.

Gordon
A major deficiency with the simple cad software is the inability to create a feature on a curve. So, one can't (easily) put a hole through a shaft. That said, they could probably do the drawings for many of Elmer's Engines. They certainly are a good intro to 3D CAD and conceptually make it easier to move to a full-featured software package. I know that Autodesk Inventor was less daunting after I had worked with SketchUp.
BTW, There is no way that I could budget  $8000.00 for Inventor. Astoundingly, if you are involved in education (teacher or student with an .edu email account or the equivalent in other countries), Autodesk will provide full versions of any of their software at no cost. As in free.

[Admiral_dk]

Thank you for your replies gentlemen, this means that there's a good chance that I get the same model as Stan - though I must admit there's a slim chance that I'll be going for the model with the scanner included - problem being that most says that just about all cheap scanners aren't doing a good enough job.

[Steamer5]

Hi Stan,
 Following along, the same printer here is a bit over double what you have paid........the toy budget has been pushed in the last 12 months so it's on the nice to have list!

Per,
 Re joining bits The Shed magazine produced here had an article of a guy printing a body shell for a car, full size! Sorry just had a quick look & can't find the article to give more info, from memory he will use that as the start of producing a fiberglass body.

Cheers kerrin

[GailinNM]

Stan,

I bought a DaVinci 1.0 and it arrived a few days ago.  About all I have done is check it out and print a few downloaded STL files for fun.  Won't do much for a while as eye surgeon is going to tinker with my better eye for a while this afternoon. Then about all I can do is pet the shop dog for a day or so.
 
A couple of more links that may be helpful.

A whole series of videos on the DaVinci printer.  Lots of maintenance and adjustment tips as well as projects. Be sure to check out his coming in 2015 video.
https://www.youtube.com/user/beginnerelectronics/videos

A third party software to  use instead of XYZware. You might be interested in it later on as it gives a lot more adjustments for supports and density.
http://www.simplify3d.com/

Gail in NM

[sshire]

Gail
Congrats. It's a bunch of fun.
Enjoy it!

Re: 3d party software. XYZPrinting's (Da Vinci) business model is selling filament. Think of King Gillette. Sell the razor cheaply and make your money on blades.
They locked down the firmware to prevent the use of 3d party filament. The carts are chipped and the printer won't run without the chip.
The early model 1.0 printers we're hacked pretty quickly so people could use Slic3r and Repetier. It was fairly easy to jump 2 pins on the board to wipe the firmware and then load the open source stuff.
Da Vinci kept making changes to make this more difficult. The last was to redesign the circuit board and remove the jumper pins. The forums found the new pin locations but, because of the redesign, haven't yet gotten a stable version of Repetier to run.
That said, the printer uses custom versions of Slic3r ( who comes up with these spellings) and Repetier.
The good news is that the cartridge resetter devices still work. Once the Da Vinci cart is reset, you can use anyone's filament. I'm using SainSmart from Amazon and am quite happy with it. I printed an external filament spool holder which carries a full kilo spool. The only caveat is, when you are connected to the printer, make sure your WIFI is off. If it's on, the printer phones home and the cart info says "Unknown."
No WIFI and all is well.
There is a lot of bitching on the Da Vinci forums about the printer being locked down. My feeling is that this is their business and they have every right to protect it.

I really have no issue with the Da Vinci slicer or print app. I am getting excellent prints. Their are enough options for layer height, infill, raft and support that I don't need to screw around with minute changes in wall thickness or whatever. No one has actually shown in some measurable way that the 3D party software has any significant advantage. Maybe I'm too much of a novice to know the difference, but I'm enjoying the hell out of it.

[Tennessee Whiskey]

Gail, let me and DOG know what you think, he's only got one good eye too you know. He said between you and Cooter,  y'all wouldn't steer nobody wrong.  Hey,  wait a minute,  Gail,  when have them two been talking behind our backs 

E

[sshire]

Rev. Cletus
DOG would look good with a rakish eye patch. 

Gail
Re: WIFI

Might be a good idea to NEVER connect the printer when WIFI is on.
Also, don't accept any upgrades. The last printer app upgrade snuck in a firmware upgrade. My concern is that they'll figure out a way to detect reset chips in the carts and there goes 3D party filament. I'd be happy to use the Da Vinci filament if:
1. It was priced reasonably. At first glance it appears that the prices are competitive but their carts only have 600 gms, not 1000 like everyone else.

2. They had a better color range.

[Tennessee Whiskey]

Maybe I could get Don to have him one made fr a gator hide. I am really interested in this 3D printing, with steamer into his new line of work and you into this, there is some body parts I'd like to work on 

Cletus

[GailinNM]

From the attached video, if it is to be believed, they are releasing the PLA carts soon and are going to start selling refillable carts at some time.  So there may be hope.

Eric: I don't think Coot and DOG talk too much about us but Coot does walk around me muttering unintelligible things some times.  I probably really don't want to know what it is about.  Something about me shorting him on treats or something like that.
Gail in NM
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2w7mT9pEmzE" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2w7mT9pEmzE</a>