Member postings for Colin LLoyd

I bought my Geeetech - not expecting a lot - so went with what the kit had. I was impressed and wanted to try other filaments - so a second head was the cheaper option over a dual-head.

But I suspect the extra mass load on the y-axis rails might eventually be a problem. and I have not investigated what operational considerations you need to take on board within Repetier Host with regard to the different positions of the extrusion nozzles - although I do know you can do "prints" that combine different filaments, either for artistic effect or structural reasons - so I guess Repetier Host manages to cope.

There is also the difficulty of getting the bed to nozzle initial layer printing distance (usually tested and adjusted before each print with thin paper shims to all four corners of the bed) to be the exactly the same for each nozzle - which to my mind seems impossible. Otherwise, when printing with the nozzle that is inevitably slightly higher than the other, the other one will be pressuring the glass plate and, at best, preventing the easy movement of the bed leading to poor builds.

But I'm just surmising here - others with dual head installations have probably solved these issues or don't have problems anyway.

Here is one of the unadultered Leica stands - and I notice that they are not branded Leica but Leitz Dialux 20 EB - a brand that was taken over by Leica in 1997. a pdf guide is available here:

http://www.science-info.net/docs/leitz/Dialux-Gray-20-A.pdf

The photo shows my conversion of one of these to use a digital microscope. All three of mine came from a firm PHLS in Wales and all three came with all the bottom stand illumination lens etc - all of which I have kept, although I haven't tested whether the illumination power supplies work. I notice that eBay.com is selling a stand alone similar to mine for $199 - wish I'd picked up the other five now. I will not butcher the other two -I promise.

How to use the force is the problem - attraction is easy to deal with but I can't see how you would easily operate a high speed magnetic rotor beneath a lathe or work-bench that could fling the non-ferrous metals in such a way that it didn't just create a mess somewhere else.

Another note to Iain Downs - the Geetech Prusa i3 along with all the other clones of the Prusa 3D printer (it is an open-source design) comes with brass nozzles. I recommend you change those for stainless steel ones - they are so much better - and I use 0.4mm nozzles because I'm not so much interested in final finish as in getting quick (relative) items that I can use - you can always polish up the finish afterwards.

Also many of the failures in 3D printing are due to poor initial design rather than any fault of the printer. If you look at my photo of my LED power supply box above - you will see that the box side ventilation holes have rounded tops - this was not to make it look Gothic - but bridging gaps is a problem with hot filament and this is one way to overcome this problem. Just saying that you need to put a lot of effort into correct design if you wish to avoid just dumping the printer because it fails to produce what you want.

Finally - one of the things I like about 3D printers is how relaxing they are - just sitting watching this "thing" form before your very eyes is somehow better than yoga - at least for the first 10 minutes.

Thought I'd add my pennyworth to the Prusa i3 filament support options. Here's mine - I £D printed a supply plate and stuck that to the top of the Controller Unit. Then drilled 2 holes in the side plates and used a length of polypipe to support up to 3 different reels of filament across the back. It's not quite so obstructive to my computer monitors behind and probably a little bit more stable - although that wasn't a design consideration. You might also notice that I have put the heater/stepper motor power and control wires onto plugs/sockets so that I can easily switch between different units. The heater power unit has large XT-60 plug/socket pair to take the higher power. I use these on my quadcopter large LI-ON batteries.

A little note to Iain Downs - I didn't buy the dual head unit - just 2 separate head units which I swap over.

Hi Russell, I'm running Mageia 5 64-bit. To be fair, I didn't try very hard as I had a spare laptop sitting around and thought I'd dedicate that to controlling the 3D printer. Subsequently I've found that the printing often comes to a halt if there are more than one USB device plugged into the laptop - typically the USB to the printer and a Memory stick with the STL file on it. But I think this is a MIcrosoft (oh how I hate to say that word) problem where it merrily and randomly changes the USB Communication number. But knowing that - I just copy the STL file to the desktop and remove the memory stick - then no problem. Yes I could convert the laptop to Linux - but I still have some programs that only run on Windows.

There was no microscope on the stand - but I accept butchering. These are incredibly solid stands and what started out as a fun hacksaw project rapidly descended into angle-grinder territory. Like a good animal rescue centre I could have also bought the other 5 Leica stands sitting out in the rain next to the old disemboweled Ford Focus, but I only had use for three and where was I going to put the other five. As Michael G says - these appear to be in plentiful supply as schools and colleges switch to digital microscopes.

The other two2 are fine - one is set up as the stand for a digital microscope and the other I've adapted to copy 35mm slides using my DSLR positioned on the Leica table.

I also have a Geeteech Prusa i3 Pro B printer and am very pleased with it for the price. The build from kit was very easy as there is a whole suite of videos at their website. The build should be no problem for people subscribing to this forum. I bought extra printing head assemblies (Heater/stepper motor unit - so that I could use more than 1 type of filament easily. I use OpenSCAD (as I'm an open-source person but there is a version for Windows and Mac) within Linux as my preferred design application. OpenSCAD, as a constructive geometry and extrusion program, rather than an artistic program, is geared towards creating machine parts with defined dimensions and shapes, unlike applications like Blender or Inkscape OpenSCAD output files in .STL format then go straight into the Repetier Host application on a dedicated Windows 7 laptop as I haven't got Repetier Host to work in Linux yet THere is also a Mac version as well). The alternative is to write the STL file to microSD card and insert that into the Geeetech controller directly. All 3D printing at this price/size level takes a long time. The ventilated cover box for a LED voltage supply unit shown (body + Lid) is 80mm x 60mm x 25mm and took nearly 2 hours total time.

As an update to this thread, I've made a grinding stand using one of 3 Leica Microscope stands I bought from a local scrap yard for £6. I've cut the upper microscope arm off. Even so it's still very heavy and provides me with vernier movement in all three orthogonal directions. The whole arm then tilts in the forward direction towards the grinding wheels (with protractor angle setting and sideways tilt is provided on the base with simple threaded jacks either side of a central knife-edge. The blank HSS tool is then held, on what was the specimen table, using my lathe quick-release toolpost. Seems to work OK and, although a little over the top for experienced machinists provides this grinding novice with fine control over the grinding process until I get more experienced. As this is a "proof-of-concept" build - there are various parts in this build that I will replace especially the wooden base to the grinding rest.

OK - just worked it out. The square and hex blocks go into a milling vice and the workpiecee you want to have square and hexagonally faces is then rotated in the milling vice beneath the mill tool. If I'm wrong tell me.

Sorry - I mean the first 3 items - "cross-drilling, machining squares and hexagons"

This technique was also mentioned by Chris Evans 6. Can someone enlighten me as to what is meant here?

Jason - sorry about not creating a new thread - just didn't know whether the query was worthy of a new thread.

OK you guys - I've gone out and bought a 100mm 4-jaw Independent chuck AND a 160mm faceplate for my CJ18A from those nice people at Amadeal - so I know they will both fit. It's an example of being between a rock and a hard place - and buying both creates a soft cushion to land on.

Does anyone have any thoughts on the new Arceurotrade Original Stevenson's ER collet blocks (square for 4-jaw and 6-sided for 3-jaw chucks. Seems to sort of turn my lathe into a horizontal milling machine - but I already have a vertical milling machine - so can't really see where I'd use these.

You can probably tell that I've now gained a mechanical version of GAS (Guitar Acquisition Symdrome) - I have 15 guitars (5 I made myself), 4 amps, and numerous effect pedals and other playing/recording paraphenalia - which my wife tells me is quite enough - but she doesn't go into the workshop so I can start again mechanically. I'm told there is no cure.

Yes sorry guys - I don't recognise emoji's - something to do with lack of monitor peripheral vision - it's a technical term. Still prefer to use the ancient art of words to indicate emotions. Also my scientific journal editors would not allow such items without a glossary at the beginning of the paper to effectively define these terms so that other researchers could test my observations that had emoji's alongside.

Neil - rather an obtuse comment - can you explain? My simple answer to Norman is magnets don't attract non-ferrous metals - but his comment may have been tongue-in-cheek.

Good to see all the useful insight into this topic. I'd just like to take up Neil Wyatt's point about chuck weights. Surely the 4.5 kg mass of the 6" chuck, especially if compounded by an off-centre workpiece adding to the centrifugal forces, be more than the headstock bearings and motor power are designed for and would put great strain on these items. The C3 mini-lathe is probably not designed to take anything bigger than the 100mm (4" chucks.

Nigel B - I see your point but also Neil's - so was planning to just get a 100mm 4 jaw independent chuck from Amadeal - am certain of getting the right fitting that way. I was up at the Midland Model Engineering Exhibition near Leamington Spa last Friday looking at Chucks and not finding exactly what was needed for my Amadeal CJ18A lathe - was told that it's an easy job to just create new threaded bolt holes in the back of the chuck. Thought this was a step too far for a novice on a relatively expensive piece of equipment and left without buying one.

Thanks guys - It's a 4-jaw Independent chuck then. Good thing I asked as I was persuading myself that the faceplate would be the more versatile - thanks again for putting me straight.