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 .
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.
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 ...
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.
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.
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.
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 .
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 )
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.
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.
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.
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…
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, no charge.
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