Out of Thin Air

 In keeping with new hobby tradition, another new toy arrived this Wednesday. In my defense, when the idea was struck into my head, I was actually searching for new keyboards, a mouse, and a new headset for the computer. But while talking to a friend from work, they mentioned something to the effect of "they can 3D print guns, that's crazy" and in the midst of my Amazon spree, my brain went AHA! And not just because the thought of guns is all manly.

A Creality Ender 3 Pro 3D Printer has found it's way to my desk (the one that my prior post alluded to having more space on). As with a lot of hobbies, this thing is addictive. It came partially assembled, and thanks to copious YouTube videos while waiting for it to arrive, I had it fully put together in probably an hour. I've never owned a 3D Printer before, but I've looked before. There are a few different styles, and different technologies. The most common that I see for general public use are FDM machines, standing for Fused Deposition Modeling. As the name implies, they work by heating up a filament, usually plastic, and fusing it into layers upon itself. Depositing it, if you will. One style that had caught my eye before was a Delta style printer. They look like this:

Obviously that is not the type I ended up with. I'd still like a Delta, if for nothing else because I love the motion the print head has when it moves. But no, I settled for a Cartesian style, the most common out there. The two are fundamentally the same in principle, with the main difference being the Delta machine, the print bed stays fixed and the nozzle dances around. The Cartesian such as the Ender I purchased, has an X,Y, and Z axis movement - the nozzle travels along the gantry for the X and Z motions, and the bed itself moves back and forth for the Y bit.

When I went to Amazon, I typed in "3D Printer". Novel idea, I know. I then picked a budget, relatively small. I knew I wanted one, but also had the presence of mind to convince myself to start basic, and see how I got on with it, or what I would even use it for. So for a max budget of $250 dollars, I sorted by rating, and well I'll be dipped if this Ender 3 didn't pop up at the top of the list with over two thousand ratings, 4.5 stars with almost 80% being a 5-star rating. Good enough for me, I was sold, and a few days later, it arrived. This particular model is also a very popular one, with great community support to boot. Couple that with sites like Thingiverse.com for free prints of almost anything you can imagine to serach for, and I felt fine with my choice. 

The hardest thing to do with most 3D printers for novices, is leveling your print bed surface. A video make a good point that while it's referred to as leveling the bed, it's not entirely accurate. What we're really doing is making sure the surface of the bed is square in relation to the X and Y axis of the nozzle as it goes back and forth, and at the right height off the surface. Too low, and the nozzle can scrape, scratch or damage your print bed. Too high, the material doesn't get smooshed onto the surface enough to adhere to it and your plastic just flakes off before you get anything accomplished. I felt relatively proud that it didn't take me too long to find a dialed in setting, and I got to work printing test prints.

This turned into a finished dog, that I was rather impressed with. Certainly as a demo print, they had the quality dialed up pretty good, but hey, if the machine wasn't capable of printing it as fine as it came out, it wouldn't have mattered, so I was thrilled with it.

The picture makes it harder to see than real life, due to the single color and being unable to make out the depths and contours well enough. But it printed great to my eyes. I printed some other things, like a Baby Yoda holding a pumpkin, and a tool holder that clips to the top of my printer to hold the various hex keys and things that came with the printer. There were plenty of other things to print for the printer too, but I knew I wanted to wait until I had some black filament to match the black printer, instead of the light gray, whitish sample I was playing with. Fortunately, that didn't take long to arrive either, so I've done a few of the common Ender 3 additions since. And when I say since, I mean in the last two days, I've been having a ball.

There's the tool holder, and there's a standoff arm to help the filament have a better arc down into the Extruder, where the filament gets driven and pushed through the tube to the nozzle. I upgraded that tube to a newer one that can handle slightly higher temperatures which will be ideal for different plastics to print. I added a little cover for the front of my rail, then some panels to cover up some of the wiring, and even swapped out the extruder to an all metal version. 

I swapped out the factory Extruder which had a plastic assembly (but did at least have metal gears and a proper bearing), to an all-metal version and topped it off with a printed knob. And you can see the tubing, called PTFE or the Bowden Tube, so named as this is considered a Bowden type extruder and nozzle setup, is now blue and not white as it was originally. This blue tubing is made by a manufacturer called Capricorn and seems to be widely accepted on these printers as the go-to upgrade. This is more heat tolerant, where the end is that sits against the nozzle, is less prone to damage over time and can handle higher heat for certain other materials.

I printed a decorative cap complete with the Ender dragon logo, to cover up the pulled and belt adjustment on the front of the machine.

And I printed these snap-in panels that cover up the wiring for the control panel. If you look in the first picture from when the printer was first assembled, you can see the rainbow colored ribbon cable. Not any more!

And as I type this, I'm printing more goodies, like a different arm for the filament and a little guide for the bottom, so that I can use that original PTFE tubing as somewhat of a guide tube from the filament arm, down to where it goes into that new metal extruder. While the arm does a good job of holding the filament out to allow a less steep angle of entry at the bottom, it's still not the best way of doing it. Having a piece of that tubing will really allow it to make a more graceful curve at the bottom, and enter straighter. Similar to this:

I might just need to let that one finish on it's own and go to sleep. It's already almost 2 AM. I need to stop finding new hobbies, they're costing me sleep!

Wait, I should look for some sailboat models to print while I'm at it...

Vroom

2020 has been kind of a weird year to say the least. With working at home being a thing, one thing that has also been a consequence has been free time during the week. Obviously on the weekends I prefer to go to the water, but a funny thing happened on the way to the lake.

Early in summer, my uncle had asked if I had ever tried iRacing. At the onset of the pandemic, NASCAR had actually been running virtual races using this service, with the racers in their homes running on computers and steering wheels. I think this is what prompted the question due to the increased exposure. But iRacing.com isn't just for NASCAR races. There are plenty of race types, cars, tracks, and experience levels. One of these avenues is dirt track racing, something that my uncles and family had been involved in for years. Perhaps this was some of the motivation as well.

A few months back, I decided to take him up on this offer, and signed up for an iRacing account. They are running still a promotion on a yearly subscription which costs far less than many forms of entertainment. I believe plenty of drinks at Starbucks would also singly exceed the monthly cost of the service. Costing a little more than a caffeine fix, I also picked up a second-hand racing wheel - a Logitech Driving Force GT. While it's many years old, they're a solid starting point. It clamped to my desk, and the pedals sat on the floor under my feet. It provided a good learning curve for me, learning the challenges between sitting in a real car, and in a chair at my computer. 

It became time to replace the carpet in my bedroom, opting for a laminate option to ease the keeping of it. At the same time, a lot of changes fell into place like dominoes clattering. As I sat back and saw my lowly desk sitting in the corner, I outlined it:

My current computer was still plenty strong enough to run anything I needed to do it. It was an i7-7700k, with 32GB of RAM and a GTX 1070 FTW video card, all housed in a Genome II case with integrated water cooling. I had an older 43" 4K TV sitting on the top, and my work computer to the side. 

Admittedly, part of the urging for an upgrade was spurred on by the announcement of the 30-series graphics cards release. I started thinking about different situations, and the next thing I knew, I had new goodies and a plan. First, the computer. 

Out with the old, in with the i7-10700k, newer faster RAM, and a shinier motherboard than previously installed. I kept my existing case - the cooling has been fine, and I like the look. So the new parts were chosen to compliment that look as well as a performance bump. Sadly I must keep my existing 1070 video card until stock comes back in the newer generation. I also traded out my big tv for a more modern ultrawide monitor, to better serve my racing playtimes. I then built a new desk, one that gave more space, but tighter to the wall, moved the tower up to the corner on the wall for even more room, and reassembled my goodies.

One issue became apparent after I renovated the flooring in my bedroom, from carpet to wood, and my pedals no longer stayed where they started. It's quite hard to stop an imaginary race car when you push a brake pedal that darts away from you. So next it became time to make myself more comfortable. 

A new chair, and a new wheel. The T300 RS GT edition comes with the 3-pedal setup, and seems to be a proper upgrade in quality too. The Driving Force GT was a great start, but it did nothing more than make me yearn for better. And in the T300, I've found better. Smoother, more precise, and combined with a better seating position in the Playseat Challenge, it made me quicker the moment I strapped in. Granted, I'm still slow. But it did improve my own times at least. The advantage is that when I'm done, it simply folds up and out of the way like a lawn chair, wheel still attached. When I want to race, I take it out of the closet, roll my desk chair out of the way, and plug it in.

The worst part of a new hobby is telling yourself that you're satisfied with what you have. In truth, it took a half an hour in my new setup to decide I need even more. Time will tell.