Inhaler Cover

Inhaler Cover

or

Should Have Checked Thingiverse First

If you have an inhaler you may find that you press the canister in your bag or pocket. This isn't good, so a cover or box would be a good idea. years ago I made a wooden cover for an inhaler. It had a swivel lid and was quite large as it held the instructions as well. Unfortunately it has broken so I had a go at a 3D printed version. This is a simple push on cover that prevents the mechanism from actuating.

I printed four test parts that were only 10mm high to check that the part would actually slide onto the inhaler (the first two wouldn't and the last was a slimming down of the outer profile). I then printed the full height version and it slides onto the inhaler nicely, with enough friction to stop it falling off.

All good then. 

Then I wondered if someone else had done something similar and, well, yes, they have. Oh well. I should have checked Thingiverse first...

Infrastructure

Infrastructure

A bit of tidying up and some infrastructure. First, scrap metal used to be in a slowly collapsing cardboard box. I replaced that with two wooden boxes made out of scrap:

These were quick to make and were made out of dinged wood anyway, so anything the scrap metal does to them is irrelevant. As well as being more sturdy than the cardboard version, they fill the space in the cupboard now:

so they can hold more bits and pieces.

The second thing I made was a tray to fit on the top of my drill press. I had used magnets to hold chuck keys and drill bits, but that was getting to be a bit messy and didn't work that well. I cut some scrap bamboo flooring to the same shape as the top of the drill press belt cover.

To stop the tray moving I 3D printed curved plastic edges that screwed to the flooring.

These stop the tray moving sideways and falling off the drill press. I put a piece of non-slip plastic on top of the drill press, this stops any sliding of the tray and should deaden any rattling when the drill is running.

On top of this I put a tray that will hold all the bits an pieces. It's plywood and more scrap,

and it totally screwed together.

How I will arrange what goes in the tray I haven't worked out yet, for now, the chuck keys are in a little area of their own:

I might put a drill index in there somewhere.

There's a Global Shortage of Toilet Paper

There's a Global Shortage of Toilet Paper

But more importantly there appears to be a global shortage of PLA. I've been printing a fair few things recently and thought it'd be a good idea to stock upon PLA filament. Unfortunately I found that lots of suppliers were out of stock and the price had risen to about double what I last paid. I managed to buy some PLA at a higher price than my last purchase, so I have some in stock.
I had a look around and found that PETG was an odour free plastic (not biodegradable though) that seemed to be similar to PLA. More importantly it was available. I bought some as a sample.

My fisher 3D printer doesn't have a heated bed. This hasn't caused me any problems with PLA other than a slight warp on some larger prints. The bed has Buildtak (BuildTak?) on it which is a very nice surface. PETG seems to need a heated bed according to the internet. Anyway, the PETG arrived and I had a go at printing with it using my normal PLA settings and no heated bed (I've ordered some parts but they won't arrive for ages).

First, the robot that came with the printer:

He didn't print very well, in fact his foot half fell off, but it wasn't a total disaster. I then realised that the file was an STL that was on the SD card and it has a print temperature of 200C. I don't print PLA at that temperature, for some reason all my printers work best at 220C. PETG seems to have a slightly higher print temperature than PLA. I tried a couple of my smaller parts with PETG at my PLA temperature: 220C:

That's a dehydrator knob and a thicknesser latch thingy and both printed fine. No problems at all.

The layers look very similar to the PLA versions. The part does seem to have a little more flex in it compared to PLA.

My Panasonic lens fix was a success until I dropped it again, I then printed another part and fitted it, but it was a slightly different design and had a hole in it which caused too much flex for the contacts on the lens to reliably engage with the camera. It finally got to the pint where I couldn't use th elens, so I decided to fix the problem. I altered the model and printed a new part in PLA and an identical one in PETG. Of course, it's white not black as that was the PETG colour I bought:

The PETG part seems to be a bit more 'slippery' and this is useful on a lens mount, so the PETG part is better than the PLA one in this respect.

The PLA part doesn't seem to be quite as tidy as the PETG, but the difference in colour doesn't help the PLA.

The lens is now working with the PETG part, which is what I wanted. It looks like PETG is going to work for me in the same way I use PLA. Excellent.

Dehydrator Knobs

Dehydrator Knobs

To go with the new front panel, some knobs:

3D printed and then hand drilled to size so it fits nicely on the shafts. The printer didn't seem to be able to print the splines that were on the model. They stiil fit though as the hole was snug.

DIY "Digital" Watch

DIY "Digital" Watch

OK, it's digital in that it's made of bits. From ebay. It's actually mechanical and uses a movement, case and strap from ebay and a couple of 3D printed movement rings to hold it all in the case. The current setup is this:

I bought really cheap parts, and had a few adventures along the way but I have finally got somewhere. I started by buying a Chinese movement that might be based on the ETA 2824, or not. I also bout a case which is better than I thought it would be, and a bracelet. I also bought some hands to fit on the movement. For some reason that I can't remember I part dismantled the movement, I can't remember why. There must have been a reason as I intended to just fit the movement in the case. Anyway, in the process I managed to shear a screw (left and thread, I though they were marked with three slots?) and lose a click spring. I have subsequently managed to make a click spring and replace the sheared off screw with a new one, and the movement works again.

While I was wondering if I'd ever fix the movement I bought another one (even cheaper than the first), as a replacement for the broken one. It was about £11 on ebay and I found out that that isn't really enough money to make a decent movement. The move expensive movement was £22 and that does seem to be enough, just). The cannon pinion never worked properly and the movement kept awful time, simply because the minute and hour hands weren't moving. I eventually gave up on this movement, I may have another go at getting it to work sometime.

At the same time as buying the second movement I bought a correct sized dial, which was very nice. Unfortunately the dial doesn't fit the dial mount on the first movement so I can't use it. I may get another one if I feel like it.

The dial is held in the case with a 3D printed ring, you can see it in the photo above. The movement is also held in place with a 3D printed ring. The case has a clear back, which I didn't deliberately look for, but turned out to be useful when I was sizing and adjusting 3D printed parts:

The movement is automatic, so should and does appear to wind itself.

So, this is an alternative to the digital watches I've been trying to make, and stalled on for the time being, it tells the time, doesn't need batteries and shows the date. That covers most of what I want it to do.

Fix of a Fix

The tripod I use broke a couple of years after I bought it. I think i dropped the tripod, or it fell over, I can't remember. I didn't want to throw it away and I must have just built my first 3D printer, so I modelled and printed a new part for it. A while later another clamp on the tripod failed, so I modelled that (it was a different size) and fixed that problem.

Recently I had started to notice that one replaced clamp was a bit loose. Of course, I carried on using the tripod until the part failed, which is did a few days ago.

The broken part is here:

I think this was printed on my Mendel, but however I did it it looks like I was using very little infill at the time. You can see here

that there's none, really.


I printed the new part at a higher infill figure (50%) and also at a layer height of 0.1mm rather than 0.2mm. This leads to a denser part that hopefully will last a bit longer than the original.

Fixing a Panasonic H-FS014042 Lens

I use Panasonic GF1 and GF3 cameras for stills and video. I use the 20mm lens that came with a GF1 and also a selection of Pentax lenses and micro four thirds adapters. The 20mm is an auto focus lens, but all of the others are manual focus. This is fine in the workshop when shooting video or taking macro shots of bits and pieces, but when out and about it's a lot more convenient using auto focus. I've been looking for a zoom lens for the cameras for weeks. they are quite expensive, probably because they can be used on a wide range of cameras. Not wanting to spend much money on the lens, I waited until a broken one came up for sale that I thought I had a chance of fixing.


The lens I bought had probably been dropped and the mounting flanges had broken off. I removed the part that was broken:

I tried the most sensible route to a fix: try to buy spare parts. As usual, they aren't available. I was told that my best course of action was to have the lens serviced at an authorised service centre. I suspect this would have cost more than I paid for all of the GF cameras and lenses put together.
So, instead of this I decided to have a go at making the part myself. I have a 3D printer and this is a plastic part...

Here's one of the prototypes I made along the way:

Did it work? Well, yes it did. In fact the first two photos in this blog entry were taken with the previously broken lens.

This photo wasn't, for obvious reasons:

I do get a few lens attachment errors ( I think the contacts need to be moved up a bit), and I lost a screw (not technically lost I suppose, I know where it is: somewhere in the workshop), I have only aligned two of the four mounting screws and I have to drill a few holes by hand, but it does work.

Auto focus and everything.

It works as it is, but I'll probably improve it to remove the annoying lens attachment warning. Just because it isn't perfect doesn't mean it won't do the job.

More 3D Printing Usefulness

A colleague has a clothes dryer that came with two feet used to attach it over bath. The feet sit over the side of the bath and the other side of the A frame design sits next to the wall. This is fine if you have only one side to load up with clothes, but if you want to spin it round 180 degrees and load the other side then there's no feet on the side that is now on the edge of the bath. The dryer has the holes for the other two feet, they just weren't supplied.

A foot:

There's a screw that fixes the foot to the frame, there's four holes for feet, only two feet. The screw is countersunk so it doesn't damage the surface the foot rest on.

An OpenSCAD model later and we have prototype one:

This was fine, except that I'd left out the countersinking of the screw and the screw hole was too big.
Prototype two has the countersinking.

I printed two of the latest version and so far it looks like they do the job.

The Failures of 3D Printing

Not 3D printing in general, but the 3D printed parts that were no good, for whatever reason, when I was building my prototype can transformer. The finished article is here:

and makes things like this:

When I was building the prototype I printed many parts, a lot of which didn't work. This is normal for my builds, but this time I kept the failures. It was surprising how many there were:

The histogram of failure

I laid them out grouping the same part, so you can see which bits I had trouble with. The X carriage, for instance, is there as four failed parts, and the Z carriage is there in a form that isn't in the final machine. There are some gears in the picture (a lot of gears, in fact) which are also not in the final machine. I started off driving the Y axis using gears as they 3D print well. They have a lot of backlash, however, and just didn't work well enough. The final machine uses MXL belts.

The biggest failure is the part that engages with the top of the can and has to grab the can well enough to stop it moving as the Y axis rotates. They are the two rows of circular objects just down from the top. I had a lot of trouble with that poart and still don't have it perfect. In the end I made a common base for the part and screw inserts of different shapes in to it. This means I don't waste (any more) plastic and time printing the main body.

Most parts are failures for mechanical design reasons, the printer itself is very reliable now and I only had one or two print failures and they tend to be operator error in some form anyway.

The reason for black and white is that I have two printers, one set up for black and one for white. I found they print slightly different sized objects, so having different colours was useful as I knew which printer had printed what.

Table

To go with the chairs I made:

I needed a table. After a few weeks of work I have finished it. The table and chairs project is finally over. It's taken a while. The chairs are made from scaffolding boards, and so is the table. they are both stained in Osmo wood wax stain (Walnut 3166, I think).
The table is built around a frame:

The frame is put together with pocket hole screws. (I tried a cheap pocket hole jig and all I can say about it is that I immediately bought a more expensive Kreg jig after trying to use it).

The entire frame could be dismantled as it is totally screwed together (with about £50 worth of stainless Kreg screws). The legs are bolted on.

To get chunky square legs I glued several pieces of board together after running them through the thicknesser:

The final legs are about 100mm square:

I put storage into anything I make that can have it, so the table has four drawers inside it:

The drawers are on full extension push-to-open, push-to-close runners:

I used a cheaper brand of runners that I have used before and they are OK, but not great. If I have troubles with the drawer opening  action and I get irritated enough with it, I may have a look at replacing them with better quality (i.e. more expensive) ones.

The table top is made from the flattest planks I could find, run through the thicknesser to get them smoother than in their raw form, and then biscuit jointed:

and glued together.

I selected the best side, which would become the top, then hand flattened that side using a hand plane. It came out pretty well, and didn't take too long, surprisingly, perhaps two hours.

The top is fixed to the frame using 3D printed 'buttons', similar to traditional wooden buttons, except the slot is also 3D printed. I was going to use the biscuit jointed to cut the slots, but that wasn't possible as I couldn't get it into some spaces in the frame and I didn't want to dismantle the frame to do it. The buttons and slots are pairs of 3D prints:

Some of the buttons and slots have easter eggs on them for anyone who wants to wander around under the table. There's eight of these button/slot combinations holding the top on and I could add more if I need to. There's also four smaller slotted combination mounting pieces next to the middle of all four drawers which stops that part of the frame from sagging. It is necessary as I cut part of the frame away to allow the drawers to slide in and out.

The side rails of the frame were cut out using a scroll saw and the cut out piece became the drawer front for each of the four drawers. So the front of the drawers match the rails that they slide into.


The final table, with the set of chairs that I made:

Evolution of Another Thing

Time to try to fix something. Or replace a lost thing, really.
Here's the items involved:

If you resign both wizards then you see that there's a nether region problem with one of them:

The plug for the pepper is missing. OK, this looks simple. Hmm, no it's not. The plug that still exists (ok, exists and is locatable), is a bit flexible. So, the replacement will also probably have to be as well. Hmm, never printed in flexible filament, is it even possible on my printer? A bit of internet searching and it sounds like it might be possible even with my bowden tube Fisher printer. The extruder design (at least the new one on the printer I fixed recently) has the required lack of gaps along the filament path. OK, order some flexible filament. How much? OK, order a sample. It's something I've wanted to have a go at for a while, just never got round to it.

Hmm, this is going to be near food, is PLA food safe? Looks like yes it is.  Unfortunately 3D FDM printed PLA doesn't seem to be due to the small gaps between layers trapping food which then decays. Hmm, is that a problem in an application where the 'food' sits on a pot for years and years anyway? OK, it might be, lets look at getting some HDPE in rod form and machining a plug on the lathe. That will be an interesting exercise as well.

Measurements  of the plug done and I have a model in OpenSCAD.

It looks printable too, if it is printed the right way round. There's a small overhang but it should be fine.

There, it is fine:

First attempt. fail. The 'elephant foot' effect of the first layer has caused the end that is first inserted to be too big for the entrance and the part won't fit at all.
OK, print another one with a smaller diameter at the end.

Done:

Does it fit? No. Still too big, but it's close and what are knives for anyway? A bit of a trim and it's in:

Unfortunately, the reason for the flex in the plug becomes apparent as this rigid plug pushes in most of the way then stops (it's got a taper), but then has no 'hold' and easily comes out again. So flex is important.

What about in the salt pot? What? It doesn't fit at all. Turns out that the holes in the ends of these two pots are different sizes. Not a surprise I suppose, as they are pottery. i wonder if the plug has been lost because the hole is bigger in the pepper? Maybe, or when they made these pots an fitted plugs they had a selection of slightly different sized plugs? I don't know, but it does mean that measuring the salt plug to make a new pepper plug wasn't ever going to be a properly grounded tactic.

The sample flexible filament has arrived. Time to have a go at a flexible version.
I find it prints with the settings I had for PLA. No changes at all. The parts

The two on the left are the flexible prints. I added a rounded end to make it easier to fit in the pepper pot. I did two as there was some discolouring on the first. The slicing tried to do retraction which didn't work as the filament was curved in the bowden tube so there's a bit of build-up at one point round the part, but they are pretty good, even so. And they fit:

They fit nicely, in fact.

The HDPE has arrived as well, so I turn a part on the lathe. It's here in the line-up:

It has come out a bit larger than the 3D printed parts as I needed to be able to hold the part in the chuck. It's not as flexible as the printed parts either, but it does fit.

I think the best fit so far is the flexible print. Opinions vary, however.