6th Annual Scratch Made Light Contest - Flashy Mike's machined project

Whatever you do, 3d printing is some weird black magic stuff.

How do you like petg? (Compared to pla?)

Success :laughing:
I know its not too beautiful but it works. Haven’t printed PETG before and I’m pretty impressed. Of course there was a lot of stringing but layer bonding is pretty tough. This component is only about 37 grams, flexible but strong. As you can see, I did a redesign of the housing. The lower housing is printed in 2 parts now. The outer one has been stripped down to achieve shorter printing times. I omitted the knurling - it did look pretty well but it increased printing time a lot and needs thicker walls, and my spare time is limited currently. I still have to finish the design of the inner part, printing this part will be less demanding since its usually hidden.

@thijsco19: The reason why I’ve chosen PETG over PLA is the higher heat tolerance and the stronger layer bonding.


Hooray!!! :+1:

Good to see you work around the problems you faced. :student: Well done

interesting build

Fails and wins printed so far. I’m not sure if I’ll finish this project in time since now I’m too busy with family activities until Monday.

An impressive number of pieces.

Can you share what software you use and how difficult was it to learn? And if you don’t mind me asking, is the use of 3D printing something you do at work or simply something you learned because you are interested? Thanks, I have been curious about 3D for some time, but learn better by doing than by reading.

I’m interested in 3d printing for years now and since it gets more and more affordable I bought my first cheap printer this summer. I tinkered with electronics and software all my life (privately and commercially) and this 3d printing actually offers many oportunities I was missing the past years - particularly since my hand crafting skills and my patience are somewhat underdeveloped. And I have 2 kids who are also interested in this and other technologies.

My first 3d designs I created with Tinkercad which is great for beginners. But soon I was missing advanced options which I found in Fusion360 (free for private use). Tinkercad is easy to learn, Fusion360 is not due to its unique user interface. I had a hard weekend with much cursing and swearing when starting with this software, although I’m a software engineer by myself.

Its pretty easy and encouraging to create and print the first simple designs, and if you learn rather by doing than by reading you should try it. For advanced designs and more beautiful prints you have to do lots of reseach though - but there are many sources of knowledge and many people eager to help, just as in BLF.

In addition to a design software you need a slicing software which prepares the designed object files for printing. It “simply” calculates the path the print head has to go. Currently I use Cura and Slic3er (no typo), they are good but not perfect, and for better results there are many tuning options. Both are free.

You have the makings of a work of art there FM.

Man, after all this I hope you are able to get it together.

Maybe we could all vote for a weeks extension to the comp…. :innocent:

I’ve finally sucessfully printed all large and most of the smaller parts. Since I modified the design and made upper and the lower casing two parts each I was able to use the green ABS for the shells as primary intended. The blue components are made of PETG which is also more heat resistant than PLA.
And I assembled the light the first time right now. Electronics not yet inside. Don’t mind the orange thing in the middle, its just a printed placeholder for the final copper disk which I still have to drill and file. Did I mention my missing handcrafting skills and patience? Fortunately only a small ring of the copper can be seen in the final build so hopefully people don’t notice my handcrafting disability …

Closed lantern:

Opened:

Bottom view (the orange triangle is a printed tool for dis/-assembling):

The electronics compartment. You might notice that the bottom plate has threads at the outside and in the center. This should ensure the o-rings pressed tightly for proper water protection. Magnets still missing, haven’t arrived yet.

Very nice :+1: looks like you’re on the home stretch. I wouldn’t worry too much about your hand skills. End product will be awesome :wink:

Looks good, Mike

Cool :+1:

Nice :open_mouth: Good looking :wink:

That looks super impressive FM. Its coming along nicely now. I’m guessing its about 3.5’’ in diameter?

Thanks! Its 102 mm in diameter with a height of 56 mm closed and 130 mm fully extended (excluding the lanyard mount on top).
And it already feels more heavy than expected. I guess it will be about 400 grams finally with copperplate and cells.

Hope the magnets turn up soon.

Very creative build, & good to see some new tech entering the Comp. :+1:

Looks good. I hope all your parts arrive soon!

Well, the circular 20x2 mm magnets are still missing. Yesterday I ordered other ones locally from Amazon, they should arrive tomorrow. These are smaller though, only 15x2 mm. Dependent on which batch arrives first (if any), I have to reprint the bottom plate.

Managed to finish the copper disc. Not too beautiful but functional. Was a pain, hands and arms do still hurt. Only minor injuries though … :person_facepalming:

I borrowed a step drill from a friend for the 28 mm center hole. For the small holes and the first steps of the center hole I used a small hand drill until it’s cells were empty. Didn’t want to wait for charging, so I took my fat and heavy hammer drill for the last steps. Both without drill mount and bench vise (which I don’t own). I screwed the copper disc on top of a wooden block before in order to be able to keep it in place with one hand.

There are still some smaller parts to print, I hope I’ll finish printing today.