Boy, my mechanical room is a mess.
I've never been more proud. A year ago,
I bought my kids a 3D printer for Christmas, and it was one of my most
devious parenting maneuvers yet. See, they thought I was giving them the means
to make toys and fidget gadgets. But
what I was actually giving them was some motivation to learn a little bit about
3D printing and 3D modeling, which I hoped would serve as a catalyst to
getting them a little bit more curious about the technology around them and how
it actually works. But it has gone so
far beyond that. I've been selling 3D printed fidgets to classmates. I went to
the entrepreneur fair last week at school and made 200 bucks, which puts my
total at 500. Now, even the teachers are
apparently getting in on the action. Uh, these are apparently super popular with
the adults. This is your number one seller right now, right? Easily number
one seller. >> Naturally, when I learned that the storm
that hit our mechanical room was an entrepreneurial hurricane, the first
thing I did was bring home some idle 3D printers and the Prussa Core 1 that
Joseph, I call him Joseph. >> Hm. Have we actually met [laughter]
>> sent over for evaluation? Unfortunately,
the second thing I didn't do is organize
our newly planted print farm. And we
have learned extremely quickly that scaling up takes more than just
printers. We have got to fix this. And
there's no time to lose because next week is round two of the entrepreneur
fair. And Randy here sold almost all of the inventory that he prepared for the
first one. Just like Colton's team sold this segue to our sponsor, Meta PCs.
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>> Dad, we're out of red filament again. Okay, we can talk about filament later
because first there are a lot of things to address here. Some of them are
obvious at the surface like the total lack of organization of our workspace,
but some of them are a little deeper, like the destroyed print head on our OG
machine, this bamboo P1S. >> That wasn't my fault. That was my
sister's. >> Well, let's start by fixing that. As something of a 3D printing novice,
hotends are something I don't really know a ton about, and it's a
surprisingly deep topic. We might need a bit of help. You laid out your
requirements, and I chose BQ's Panda Revo hotend with a mix of brass and
obsidian nozzles, and in a variety of nozzle sizes. These are going to help
you change your nozzles really fast, and Obsidian is great for abrasive
materials. Your Core 1 doesn't really need this because it's got a pretty good
system already. You just kind of loosen two screws. >> This sounds amazing. Just one question.
Who the heck are you? >> Oh, I'm I'm Sean. I uh I worked for a
couple 3D printer manufacturers. My last job was as an editor at a 3D printing
publication, and I work here now. You you know me. You drilled me on Star Wars
a couple days ago. >> Cool. This has been out of commission for almost 2 weeks. What did you guys do
to it? Like you got a whole bunch of filament on it, and then when you were
trying to remove it with a torch, you like killed it. >> Yeah, somehow. We melted the temperature
probe by accident. >> Okay, let's go ahead and throw the new one on. Theoretically, this is as simple
as just >> [snorts] >> propping it on there and then we're good
to Oh, wow. Is it really that easy? Wait, are you sure you don't want to put the fan on first?
>> Yeah, we should probably do that. >> Okay. And we should probably call out
the precision screwdriver from ltdstore.com. Great for these types of
jobs. I don't know how he managed to drop the screw cuz it's magnetic, but
like father like son, I guess. Also, we've got new sizes now. So, we got the
obsidians in 4 and 6. And we got a brass
nozzle not just in4, but also 0.25. So,
if you wanted to print finer stuff on this one, then you could. It'll take
longer, but if people are willing to pay a little bit more for a finer print,
then hey, >> who cares? >> Yeah, exactly. Can I see?
>> Yep. Just needs man strength. Or rather, just needs being willing to force things
a little bit. It's good. >> I don't want to break the new nozzle.
>> Yeah, I don't want to break the new nozzle either. These are way more
expensive than our old ones. The obsidians are like twice the price of a
brass nozzle. >> How much are they? >> Around $75.
>> 75 bucks per nozzle. >> Pretty. Wow. >> So, the deal we have with him and the
girls for that matter is we have no problem encouraging their entrepreneurship. We're willing to
provide the equipment, but consumables they need to reimburse us for. And I
haven't figured out where hotends figure into this.
>> I'm on the side of equipment. >> Yeah, you would be. Oh, now's a good
time to mention that we got some new desicant that you can put in your AMS. >> Finally got better desicants.
>> These are the silica gel desicant packs from Wiser Dry and they are
rechargeable, which means that they'll change color when they're too wet and
then you can put them in a microwave, a stove, or just your filament dryer to
recharge them and put them back in. >> That's great. I hate lowquality
desicants. >> Uh, you're going to want to take these out and you're going to want to open
that and take out the desicant that's already in there.
>> Great. And that's probably old. It feels moist. >> Yeah.
>> Oh, wild. >> This is way more than I need.
>> Yes. But it's great that you can put these packs in your vacuum sealed bags.
And that's going to help keep the filament dry while you're storing it.
What the Sam heck happened here? You left it loaded with red, but you took
the red spool out. >> Yeah, cuz I needed the red.
>> I noticed, by the way, that you only comp me for the weight of your finished
prints. >> Yeah. >> What happens to all this? >> I don't know.
>> Want to go ahead and fire up a test print? Sure. >> Just don't forget we have a 6 mm nozzle
in there. Now, other than that, the Obsidians, Obsidians, however you
pronounce them, they're drop in replacements. There's not going to be a
preset for Obsidian nozzles. I would stick with E3D's high flow profiles. The
thing to keep in mind is when you're using a bigger nozzle, you may need more
heat to make sure that it gets through the entire thing, but there's a pretty
good uh melt zone on these nozzles. So,
you should be fine for 6. Now, let's go ahead and print a benchie. Uh oh. After
calibrating >> 26 minutes.
>> You know what? That's a perfect time for us to do something about the state of
this room. Oh, you thought it was just all fun and games upgrading your 3D
printers today? >> Yeah. >> See, making space for the Prussa Core 1,
that was no biggie. I just shoved this guy over and then plonked it on there.
But when logistics offered up these three bamboo X1C's that we retired from
our print farm at the office in favor of more Prussas,
there was no plan. Okay. Wait, why am I
doing this? Kids,
guess who got a special assignment? >> Me.
>> Both of you. You're both right. Time to clean this place up. I want all the
garbage dealt with. And anything that isn't garbage, I would like organized in
a nice tidy little pile. Why don't we put it in this toolbox that Randy made?
Okay. >> Okay.
>> Chop chop. While the kids are working on that, Sean
and I have a few things to deal with, too. We've got to build this shelf. And
I've got to get all of my camping stuff out of this storage room.
And then slide it down.
If you're going to take the printers out, then what are you going to put in here?
>> Um, I'm going to put a big battery that keeps our house powered in power
outages. Oh, >> our test print failed.
>> Doesn't know what filament to use. >> Oh, you know what? Honestly, that's probably fine. Why don't we just move
this out first and then we'll do the test print out there. Oh, this is cool.
Thanks to the power of our magnetic cable management, it's just one cord.
See? Using our power bar holders like that. Using our arches like that. Good
stuff. Good stuff. ltstore.com. All right, let's go, boy. Oh, hold on. We're
not clearing the door. We're like a BC trucker. Little bit of local humor for
you. This space is not as big as I
thought. Well, you're going to use the space. What do you think we should do?
>> Have two just two racks. One here, one there, or whatever. We'll make our best
effort to line up all the printers on this rack. And then along this wall
right here and then this shelf, I want you to organize all the filament tools,
desicant, consumables as best you can.
Now, before we put any printers onto here, there is something that I wanted
to do first, and that is put some of this MDF on here.
All right, shelves are in place. It's time to find out if we can get all three of the X1C's on here. I kind of doubt
it. >> They're each 15 1/2 in and the shelf is like 46. So, it might be hanging off,
but it's okay. >> No. >> How do you want to handle the AMS's?
Would you rather have one printer that can do many colors or more printers that
can do a handful of colors? >> More printers that can do a handful. >> A man, I was afraid you were going to
say that. Now, let's just make sure they all fit on the shelf. And a one and a
two. We're not going to get a third on there, but we >> Not with that attitude.
>> Oh, did we talk about fumes at all? >> No, we're not yet.
>> Oh, okay. Do you want to do that? >> Well, we took this out of your mechanical room, which is a separate
environment from the rest of your house, right? >> Yes. >> Okay. And in here, you're not. So, we're
going to want to put an air purifier in there. It's not a perfect solution. You shouldn't use engineering grade
materials or ABS, things that have
styrene in them. PLA, PETG, they're
generally considered to be safer. >> Okay. And shout out HouseFresh, who we
collaborated with a little while ago. I'm gonna go to them and I'm gonna find an air purifier.
>> See called
definitely going to fit. >> You know what? You're right. That's a good call. They are [laughter] like
practically touching each other. Look at this edge. It's like just hanging over
it. It's perfect. >> Uh let's move the AMS's down to the
bottom. One of the major challenges for me organizing the space was that it has
to be children accessible. And he's pretty big now, but she's not. So, we
can't have her changing spools up here.
Okay. Hey, that could work. Now everything
reaches. It's much more organized than before.
>> Actually, that's that this is way better. So then Oh, dude. No. No. Hold
on. What? What was I thinking before? What was I thinking before? bud.
Hello. A boom.
Oh, yeah. That right there. That's the 3D printing
space [music] money shot. >> I'm going to start the test print again.
>> Go for it. Something I noticed. You've been printing with your doors closed,
right? >> Yeah. >> Okay. Okay, with the Bamboo Lab machines, Bamboo Lab recommends that you
have the door open and also the top if you're doing best practices, but I would
at least prop the door open when you're printing with PLA. Otherwise, it might
get too hot inside for that kind of material and you won't get the best prints you can.
>> Okay, >> now is a good time to talk about one of the other challenges that we've had
lately, too. Even on the Core 1, which has been our most reliable for bed
adhesion, we've had some pretty spectacular print failures. Now, print
beds are a consumable, but that doesn't
mean that the ones that we have are bad or broken or anything. They should last
a very long time. So, to avoid this in
the future, couple things. Make sure you've calibrated your printer recently.
These bamboos level themselves with pressure sensors in the bed. Next, we
need to make sure we're cleaning properly in between prints. Remember how I told you that you could clean them
with isopropyl alcohol? >> Yeah. >> Okay. Turns out that for the textured
beds, that's actually not correct. >> Okay. Instead, we want to use a mild
detergent and water because that'll help us really get into the grooves and make
sure that we get any oils or any contaminants off them. For smooth beds,
we just got a bamboo smooth plate. So, you can try this out if you want a
different texture on the bottom of your prints or if you're having adhesion issues. Isopropyl, totally fine, but you
never want to use it for these. These are super tac cool plates. These are
super cool and tack.
[clears throat] The point is, neither Frey nor I have tried them before. But
in theory, they actually allow you to print cooler, which can save you heating
time and cooling time, which is pretty key because another thing that I don't
think you knew is that pulling parts off of a hot bed can actually cause the part
to warp. >> So, we don't want to do that. So, now
we've got a bunch of extra plates. So, what you can do is you can do your print, pull your plate off, print and
all, throw a clean plate on, and start your next print and wait for it to cool
down. I didn't know you had to let it cool down. I've been taking it off hot
in the past. Me neither. >> But hey, I mean, what? We're new to
this. This is how we learn. >> There are other ways you can improve bed adhesion. You can try running 5 to 10°
hotter for your first layers. Uh or you could try making sure your auxiliary fan
is off. Uh finally, there's good oldfashioned glue.
>> Yeah, regular PVP glue acts as a bonding agent for first layers. Uh, you can use
like regular Elmer's glue you get from any store, but I like the 3D printing
specialized liquid stuff because it makes consistent application easy. Glue
also makes it easier to take your prints off of a build plate because though it's
an extra bonding layer, it's also a separate layer from that stiffer surface
of the print bed. It won't stop severe warping, but it will help those tricky
small first layers and tiny features.
Plus, with glue, you don't need to clean after every print. I would say clean and
reapply every 10 prints or so, or just see how a new application works if
you're having trouble. >> Perfect. Now, it's time to talk about something that bothers me a lot more
than it bothers my kids. These multifilament AMS systems. They're super
cool for multiolor printing, but they waste so much filament. The last time
that I tested X1C printing with an AMS
on its default settings, I printed 125 g
model with three different filaments and it wasted over 500 g between the tower
and the purge. Yeah. Now, fortunately, this is tunable. The first thing we need
to do is turn on long retraction. This reduces the amount of the previous
filament that gets left in the hotend during a change. This is as simple as
ticking this checkbox after enabling developer mode in the preferences. But
wait, there's more. Teaching tech has a really good guide on reducing purge.
We're going to have that link down below. But in a nutshell, we're going to be enabling purge into infill, which is
exactly what it sounds like. And we're also going to be reducing our flushing
multiplier. This is the big one. See, you might care about the absolute purity
of your colors. [music] I don't. I'd be fine with, you know,
redish. So, what we're going to do is instead of
purging this much flipping filament every time we change a color, we're
going to set it to.5. That'll cut our waist more or less in half. [music] Uh,
so you're going to remember how to do all that stuff, right? >> Uh, yeah.
>> Okay, cool. Because if you minimize your waist, you minimize how much you pay me
for filming. With that out of the way, I think we're pretty well optimized. The
mechanical room is clean and this is a way more comfortable workspace,
especially if you need access to all the printers. To be clear, there is a lot
more that we could do in the future. I could maybe move my badments and stuff
and we could have like a queuing system for filament that's pending drying. We
could maybe get some containers instead of using those inconvenient vacuum bags.
And automating print removal. That would be incredible. Do you know you can do
that? I didn't know that >> you can automatically have the print get
pulled off the bed and then you can have it start another one for like mass
production. Super cool. There's various options for that. Uh autofarmm 3D is an
effective one but is a subscription service. OctoPrint's continuous printing
plugin is a great alternative. Doesn't work with Bamboo Lab, which is part of
the reason that we uh stopped using these at the office. Once you figure out
like which hotends you like, we could potentially explore getting some
different hotends for the carbons as well. So like higher flow or hardened
nozzles to enable more materials, all that kind of stuff.
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enjoyed this video, why not check out the one where I showed off my 3D
printing setup. Mine kind of sucked, but we collaborated with some other really
incredible creators who showed off their setups that are a lot