3D-Printing

September 23, 2020

Quarantine was the straw that broke the camel's back when it came to my sleeping habits. In an effort to get back on track, I purchased some Hue lightbulbs. My main intent was to use them to simulate daylight automatically so that my circadian rhythm would be less affected by having the blinds closed. I also have been experimenting with turning the lights on gradually as I'm about to wake up for the day. I was able to accomplish all of these things through the Hue app.

However, one of the drawbacks to these lights is that they must have constant access to power in order to turn on automatically. This meant that using my normal light switch wouldn't work for turning the lights on and off. I could use the Hue app for this, but I was interested in something more tactile. For a cool $59.99 I could simply buy a Hue light switch, but I laughed at the price and instead spent more in time and materials to make a light switch myself. But hey, at the very least the next light switch I make will be much cheaper as I bought parts in bulk.

March 02, 2020

The rubber pieces on my YG1-TK have held up especially well considering that it's from 1965. However, I decided that it was time to let the pieces go. Several blemishes make it clear that the previous owner may not have been as delicate with the motorcycle as I would've liked.

I had previously experimented with SainSmart's black TPU to 3D print a replacement part for one of the crankcase covers of the YG1-TK. It's held up incredibly well and provides me with the ability to easily reproduce the part should it get broken.

February 11, 2020

A couple weeks ago I was running my Wanhao Duplicator i3 to make some parts for a project (more details coming soon!) and was greeted with the acrid smell of burning plastic. After opening up the printer and poking about, I determined that the culprits were two terminals that had shorted out.

I did some research and it turns out that this is actually a relatively common problem for 3D printers. The terminals short out because they aren't rated for the current that is drawn by the hotbed. In my case, the terminals for both the hotbed and the extruder had shorted out.