A very small scope, 3D print.

[Bassnut]

A 3D print I made today.

Dont get me started on the difference between drawing a nice 3D pic to look at on a screen and a printable 3d pic, with no join leaks, reverse faces, non solids, what a nightmare :P.

Its about 120mm high.

[MortonH]

Probably gives better views than my first scope...

[sheeny]

OK, the scope is obviously a Meade... the mount I'm not so sure about...

hmmm, from about 45° latitude, but I can't tell which hemisphere from that shot...:P

I assume it's painted, Fred?

Al.

[blink138]

massive dew problem on the front corrector there fred ha ha!
pat

[Bassnut]

OK, yes, there is a dew problem, well spotted. The OTA is indeed a Meade, the mount is a mini PME and the cam a new SBIG 89MP model (6 fans on it you cant see on the pic). Im working on PEC, although the mount seems to be stuck right now.

[Bassnut]

No, its not painted at all, its all snow white, as per the pic.

[ZeroID]

Cute, not sure about the colour scheme though ... :D

I realise this is all practice stuff for you. How would you feel about making something small and useful ?
I have a requirement for a small 44 mm x 44 mm 'cube' as a positional element in a beam splitter I'm working on. No stress loading just an accurate support device.
Design is quite simple basically being a cube with hollow 'cube' inside which puts the quad prism into alignment with the optical axis.

I've proved it works with my experiments, now I need to make a proper assembly for it.

Let us know anyway. Happy to pay material costs and whatever within reason. Preferred colour is black if possible btw
Something to get your teeth into ...

Cheers
Brent

[Bassnut]

Brent

Yes, Id be happy to make that, its all good practice :), no charge.

Make a drawing with measurements or better still, if you can, draw it up in Sketchup (free, google it, its owned by google, really easy to use).

If your not familiar with drawing apps at all, or dont want the learning curve just for 1 item, just draw it 2D. I have black filament.

email me on fredems@ozemail.com.au

Cheers
Fred

[ZeroID]

Hey thanks Fred, I'll do a drawing somehow. Haven't used Google sketchup in ages but I'm sure I can draw what I need and provide dimensions.
I'll have to measure the offset of the optical axis of the quad prism as the central cavity is not quite central..
Send it soon

Cheers and thanks again.

PS, I'd rather cover filament and postage cost at least if you don't mind. You'll deseve a beer or two after.

[Jeffkop]

I reckon the uses for one of these 3D printers is boundless .. Thats awesome Fred .. is the material you can print with tough enough to say make a working gear or worm drive or instrument shaft ????

Ive seen reviews of this stuff but your the first real person Ive had the chance to ask about this stuffs true potential.

[Steffen]

I suppose we're still in the "dot matrix" days of 3D printing. Can you fast-forward your imagination five or ten years, to the "colour laser" stage?

Cheers
Steffen.

[ZeroID]

Well, the drawing has gone to Fred, will have to see what the result looks like when it gets here. I'm quite intrigued to see the result.

[Bassnut]

Remember this is plastic being printed (ABS). Its pretty tough, but not metal tough. You could make plastic gears and shafts, for applications that suit that, but the res would be to to 0.1mm. OK I guess for RC toys or so. Shafts with tight fitting gears attached would need some finishing, but then youde just print the shaft with the gear attached in one piece :P.

I have noticed that there can be some warping over long distances on some thick edges (only), so this home printer is not for large precision engineered working components really, unless you spend time tweaking it to the nth degree (a bit like astrophotography with cheap gear :lol:)

[Bassnut]

It was pretty easy to knock up in the 3D app actually, sent you an email.

[Bassnut]

In case someone is vaugely interested in getting a 3D printer, the Printer is the easy part. Selection of a 3D drawing program and useing it is time consuming.

I started with free Sketchup. What a waste of time, its basically useless for the kind of solids required for printing. Even the few solid tools it has, are only in the pay for pro version. Everything I produced with it was full of errors on importing to the printer software.

Im now trialing Bonzai3D and its brilliant. Full of solid tools and no errors, everything drawable that looks like a solid, is. It has a bigger learning curve though.

[Bassnut]

Well no, 3d printers including with lasers and printing with metal (powdered in resin) have been around in industry for a long time, at over $200k a pop.The revolution lately is with cheap "home" printers, that is still pretty basic.

[Steffen]

You're right. I remember back in the 90s when I was in the business of writing AutoCAD modules there were ACAD drivers for some fabled prototyping printers that used lasers to solidify a structure out of a liquid.

Then again, back in the 80s we had line printers attached to mini computers (like VAXen) that would print much faster than any modern home use laser printer…

Cheers
Steffen.

[Jen]

Thank you Fred my Jen arrived safe and sound I can't wait to see what it looks like with the LCD's in it :)

144802

:)

[Bassnut]

Hehe, that would be LEDS methinks ;)

I tried it with LEDs and it looked cool. Sorry the clear version was a bit of a disaster, I'm still learning :P

[Jen]

Oops dam autocorrect lol don't be sorry practice makes perfect :)

[sheeny]

Where do you get purple LEDs, Jen? I haven't seen them...

:P

Al.

[ZeroID]

Just to update with Fred's sterling efforts on my Beam Splitter project I have to say it is an unqualified success. Build quality is excellent and the material more than suitable for the purpose. I'll post a few pix up later but tests with webcam and EP work perfectly. Now I just gotta wait till the clouds go away !!

[Jen]

It's a secret hahaha :)

[ZeroID]

Ok, some pix so you can see my latest experiment. It essentially uses a quad prism to split the incoming beam on the 80mm Achro so most of it gets to the webcam in the direct path but enough gets up through the 12.5 mm Ret EP so I can do visual pre-alignment. The real issue was to align the prism block accurately enough so both outputs showed the same view and was solid and stable. That's where Fred and his 3D printer made the essential element of it all.
There is still internal black painting to be done and some tweaks to alignment and finish but it works. I can put a webcam pic up on screen and view same pic in a wider feild view through the EP. Now just got to get rid of the clouds that came in the envelope with the optical block. How did you get them all in Fred ?? :lol:

But I think I need purple LEDS to finish it off ......

[ZeroID]

Just a comment re the above. The house on screen is about 3 km away across the valley from us. It was amazing to see just how much the image wobbled and waved during the testing. If you ever want to see why stars and planets are so hard to photograph through turbulence I'll post up a short video from this setup. Very enlightening.