I’ve printed a couple of spools at different sizes, it’s really kind of nice to have them. Particularly smaller spools for smaller sample lengths, super worth it.

But another thing you can do is just print a little single-wall cylinder that friction fits inside one of your existing spools, then cut the existing (non-printed) spool in half down the middle and use the cylinder as a friction-fit sleeve to hold the two halves together. That also gives you the same functionality. It’s not as cool but it saves on filament? ^_

Eyyy, someone else playing with PHA!

I have a bunch of PHA commentary (and experimentation) over on the kbin 3d-printing group:

https://kbin.social/m/3DPrinting/t/40862/PHA-filament-heat-resistance-testing

Yeah, under the build plate there are four bolts pointing down. Those bolts.

My next printer will be multifilament ^_

I’m already doing like four-colour prints with my 3v2 but obviously there are severe limits in placement.

It has pegs but I was able to see that there are rather typical screw heads in the heating plate to hold it down onto the bed’s support frame, and if you look you can see the bolt ends coming down out of the underside of the supporting arms.

So I think what’s here is pretty simple: regular bolts with fixed length spacer tubes around them.

And that means that OP should be able to sort this out with, say, the right collection of 0.5mm-thick washers. One on the front left screw, three on the right rear screw, uh, six on the back left screw should get close enough for the mesh to handle the remaining difference.

HVAC assist system. It cut our peak electricity bill by 40% year over year under similar conditions, too, with substantially better performance.

But really it’s very simple. All I’m doing is improving the effectiveness of very traditional methods of temperature control by being more accurate and much more aggressive about exchanging air in and out when appropriate. Obviously in the middle of a 90-110F heat wave that’s not going to matter, so it’s more of a northern thing - but it really does a great deal in a lot of climates. (And in spring and autumn in more southern climates, I suppose.)

One of the key elements is that outdoor temperature varies a lot from point to point on the property, so we have air exchange measured at five points around the house, keyed to local indoor vs. local outdoor air temperature. (And air quality and a few other things, of course.) The actual air exchange is a combination of the original air-exchange system plus just opening and closing windows. We overcool at night with air exchange so we’re always below ambient outdoor temperature during the day.

It’s remarkably effective. We went from… well, it varied a lot, but +7 to +10 F above ambient to -7 to -5 below. (I was doing all this in C internally but F because I was talking about it to Americans.)

Again, I’m in an environment where this is particularly effective, but it costs so little and saves so much money and energy use I have to think it has some general utility many places.

Here are some of my posts about it:

https://solarbird.net/blog/tag/ambient-hvac/

Thanks! And honestly it’s one of the best parts of 3D printing, being able to come up with things like this.

The really annoying part is that the indoor matching sensor, the companion to this one? That USB port sticks out the side, like it was designed by a sane person. xD

I do, but with a temperature tower. You get top and sides, curves and spanning, and, well… temperature. ^_

…wow. okay. wow. xD

Absolutely not. I have nothing against the actor but yeah. Jim Carey every time.

If you’re willing to get into annealing, I’ve had good service from annealed HTPLA in high temperature/humidity and even overpressure environments. I’m three years into a build that gets multiple hours of use in such conditions a week and it’s held up fine. There have been other problems, but nothing related to bad behaviour out of the HTPLA.

oh that’s pretty great :D

When my house got electricity in 1924, they got a backlit front light for over the doorway. It wasn’t in good shape when we found it, but it was there, and I got it back together - except for the lighting. Which this really, really makes me want to fix now. :D

Nah, but I will print a temperature tower if it’s a new filament - even if it’s very similar to a filament I’ve had before. (As long as it’s not an identical replacement. If it’s an identical replacement and the previous isn’t ancient, I won’t even do that.)

Having done this, you can also get a “3D pen” that will work with your filament and that’ll work decently well for small areas, and you can also use it to fill in gaps. Overheat the PLA a bit and work fast.

Like you, I’ve got a little assortment of spools I either printed or modified for this purpose - and in different sizes - and they work great. I’m at the point of getting spoolless filament when I can and I haven’t seen a downside yet.

But if I’m going to get a new spool with my filaments, I’d prefer it be cardboard.

Yep, and that was like… the second thing I did for my printer. Since then I’ve gone to printing out of a warming box, but I still use the roller occasionally and I’m still glad I did it, it solved problems.

Oh wow, that looks hilarious, but in a fuck yeah you mad lad way. Is it the tower resonating or the part you’re printing? If it’s the tower I’d bet money you could solve the last of the problems with some kind of wall attachment for the tower. (Clip if you actually do haul it around, bracket if you don’t.)

I had similarly good luck with a height mod on my 3V2 but that thing has a lot more mass to it, I expected it to work. I would not have expected this to work.

I have my 3V2 to the point of being “just print a thing”-ready but it’s taken a lot of learning and tinkering, a lot more than you’ve done. I’m glad I did it but if I were in your shoes yeah I think I’d put that on the backburner until the kid’s a little older and not quite the complete time-sponge.

Once they’re older it might make a great educational and fun thing to do with your kid, too.

Also yeah instead of paper for levelling I bought a feeler gauge and it’s way more reliable since, well, that’s what it’s for, as opposed to paper where thicknesses can be all over the place. They cost very little (under $10 USD) so they’re something I consistently recommend.

I am running magnetic sheet on glass bed with magnetic layer and it works great for me. I get a lot of weird pushback from people but… yeah, it works fine. And you can swap out plates and keep the rigidity and thermal mass of glass. If you don’t want that then yeah, go straight to putting the magnetic sheet on the heating plate itself, but I’ve had heat-evenness issues and I like the extra thermal inertia so it solves problems for me.

I wrote it all up here if anyone wants to see details:

https://solarbird.net/blog/2023/04/09/the-question-im-sure-was-on-everyones-mind-can-you-combine-pei-and-glass-beds/