This software aims to make the process of creating 3D CAD models more accessible to a broader audience by leveraging AI-driven generative design.

Article:

https://3dprintingindustry.com/news/mits-new-liquid-metal-printing-process-enables-rapid-large-scale-metal-3d-printing-227870/

Bambu Lab issues recall of A1 printers over heatbed cable, proposing existing customers several options to resolve the issue

I haven't really expected much since this is the first time I've tried ASA, I just printed a simple flow test on my textured plate. If anything I expected it to fail. But oh my, does that stuff stick. I hope the plate can handle acetone because I've tried everything else I could think of.

Printer: bambulab x1c textured PEI sheet
Filament: Fillamentum ASA

I saw this guy on tv the other day and thought folks here would appreciate the fantastic work he does, and maybe even decide to do similar work for your local children's hospital/hospice?

https://www.3dtoy.shop/

To achieve faster speed printing for functional and draft prints, I wanted to try a 1.0mm nozzle with my Neptune 3 Plus. This is the first time I replace a nozzle so I followed YouTube videos and replaced the nozzle. After replacing the nozzle I leveled the bed with manual + automatic leveling. The extruder seemed to be working, taking and extruding the pla filament. Success? Sure not yet .

I started fiddling with cura profiles, increased line width, layer height, temperatures for head and bed, decreased speed.. Tried a few times to achieve adhesion and printing. So things looked good. After the trial and errors I was satisfied that I could print now.

I started a 1 and a half hour print. It started well and I went for some tv and started checking the video feed. Things started well, but in time some warping occurred. It was evident that the print would fail. However I wanted to see how things will end up so let it continue. Sure it ended with some spaghetti.

Everything is as expected up until now. So I returned back to stop the spaghetti. But there was a strange blob at the end of the extruded filament spagetti. And the nozzle was there?!? I am still confused how the nozzle ended up out of the extruder being intact.

So I made Gandalf's staffs and put an insanely powerful flashlight in it so I could light it up like he does in Moria.

I saw someone else did a staff from Final Fantasy and they made it so you just had to bounce it on the ground and a rod inside on a spring (cylindrical boss) turns the flashlight on or off. I thought it was amazing but he wouldn't go into details when I asked him about it so I figured this out myself.

First I got some wood filament to print the staff. It actually smells like wood when you're printing. filament

The flashlight is what SWAT teams use to blind people and actually gets hot enough to burn you if you leave it on for too long. The flashlight has to be kinda locked into place between the top and the spring attached to the rod that runs the length of the inside of the staff. I put a bolt through the top to hold it in place but it can be unscrewed to take the flashlight out to recharge it. light

I wanted it to be easy to get to the flashlight so I designed the top to have powerful magnets printed inside it so you can just pull the top off if you need to get to it magnets

The actual model used for printed is a modified version of this from a very very nice guy on Etsy: staff stl

I had to make the staff much wider to fit the flashlight and boss, then I cut out a lot of inside of the top so there was more room for light to shine out, then the modifications for the magnets.

I used one of these for the internal rod rod spring

I printed a piece here to hold the spring and tap the button on the base of the flashlight.

and some 1 1/4 Charlotte pipe to put the outter print on as it wouldn't be strong enough if I just used straight PLA pipe

Printing took about a week straight and once it was assembled my wife used this video from Wesley Treat vid

to make it look like real wood. It took about another week for all the sprays and stains and modge poge and whatnot to dry. This was the stain we landed on stain

I'm pretty happy with the end result even though it is a little heavy. I'm pretty big and I didn't want it to shine directly in my eyes so I sized it to about 6'3 not counting the head piece.

It is bright as fuck, the videos don't really do it justice.

All said it probably took about a solid week to print all the pieces and then another 2 days to reprint the head after I dropped it and the magnets exploded out immediately stuck together which was both awesome and heartbreaking.

My wife probably ended up doing more work on it than I did. She also added a sort of silver leaf to the inside of the head to make it more reflective when the light is on. There were like 3 layers of that and some shellac to keep it in place.

The plan is to send it with our niece who is into cosplay to the Renaissance fair and see how it holds up for her. I might do a V2 someday where you just hit a button to turn it on so it can be thinner and lighter.

Hope you found the project as interesting as

all images and videos

A luxury horse barn in Florida is primed to be the world's largest 3D-printed building.

I went hunting for new bed surfaces the other day on AE (Ender 3 clone and Bambu X1C), and I veered off into other materials. That got me thinking about further possibilities.

The regular options I've seen/used:

• Material/coating: Glass, PEI, PET, PEO, G10 (and G11)
• Textures: Smooth, matte ('textured'), coarse matte, faceted, carbon fiber

I'd like to put together a table of materials, finishes, coating vs. solid, recommended filament, max temperature, price, etc.

Finding G10 made me think that, really, ANYTHING can be a print surface as long as it isn't toxic and displays decent adhesion to filament. Then I stumbled on to carbon fiber sheets, which got me thinking about patterned surfaces. I looked around but didn't find many.

So, what else is out there?
Is it possible/reasonable to make my own surface textures, and if so, is there any info on the depths of etching or useful techniques?

Edit: Just found these PEY sheets. Apparently they're smooth and the only selling point is that they're sparkly.

If you do any kind of machining, 3D printing, or PCB layout, you probably have at least considered buying a pair of calipers. Old-fashioned ones had a dial and were mechanical devices, but lately, …

I'm currently getting by with a mixture of Design Spark Mechanical, FreeCAD, and OpenSCAD for prototyping/editing files, I'd love to find a good alternative that isn't from a predatory company like Autodesk