Crazy keyboard at my library

 This has been bugging me for a while.   At my library you can either type in your library card number, or you can have it associated with a user name which is easier to remember.  I've chosen the user name route because it makes logging into the website easier for me.  So when you go to the actual library and go to enter your account details, it assumes you 're doing a number and presents a typical numeric keypad on the touch screen.  There's an option to get the alpha keyboard, and when you press it this is the keyboard layout you get:

It's the most bizarre thing I've ever seen in a user interface.  I mean the dangling "i" and "=" along with the "R" and "/" row?  Makes little sense.  I could imagine an assumption that a wider screen resolution was used which would make the short rows not wrap around to the next row, but that doesn't fully explain the "=" and "/" being mixed in the middle of the alphabet. 

3d printing a Raspberry Pi "laptop" case

 I had some Pi-3's laying around so I thought I'd try to make one of these from the Adafruit learn program: 

https://learn.adafruit.com/mini-raspberry-pi-handheld-notebook-palmtop

The parts list from the Adafruit site:

• Powerboost 1000C
• Mini Metal Speaker
• Raspberry Pi 2 or Raspberry Pi 3
• 3.5" PiTFT
• Miniature Keyboard
• 3D Printer
• Filament
• #2-56 machine screws
• #4-40 machine screws

The funny thing is this list doesn't include the audio amplifier you need later in the guide.  Oh well.  

The STL's printed from my PrusaMini as is.  Getting software working and parts connected turned out to pretty easy.  Not simple mind you, but if you follow the steps, it goes pretty well.

The screw holes aren't sized very well, they're a bit too big. - I used my 3d former pen to fill in the holes and then drilled them to the right size.

Took a few tries to get the adafruit software to work the way I wanted it to, but eventually

sudo python3 adafruit-pitft.py --display=35r --rotation=270 --install-type=fbcp

was the trick to get the screen right side up. 

But it works pretty well.  Takes a while to get used to typing on the small screen.  I don't think I have the eye sight needed to run the gui so I won't even try but it's a nifty little toy.

3d printed mini-printing press

 So my daughter found this site:  openpressproject.com that has a small printing press you can 3d print. So I thought I'd give it a go.  I downloaded the stl's from thingverse sliced it up in PrusaSlicer and loaded up in OctoPrint.  The Prusa Mini did an amazing job with it.  It came out quite well and the tolerances for the gears and parts that slide were amazing.   There's an excellent build guide on makezine that can explain it much better than I ever could.  

Intermediate build pic - testing the fit and meshing of the gears.

The assembled press

Not ambitious enough t make this a GIF but it moves smoothly.

The underside of the printing plate showing the gears

Now I have to wait for my daughter to come home from college to try and make some prints with it.  It won't hold up forever - eventually the PLA plastic will give out and need to be replaced but it should be a simple matter of reprinting the part(s) needed.

Kitty Paw toe bean macro pad

 I'm catching up on my tinkering projects.  The latest one: Kitty Toe Bean Keypad with Color TFT.  I forgot to take in-progress pictures but here's the final just before assembly shots.  I 3d printed the parts on my Prusa Mini and they came out excellent. Only some minor looseness in the snap-together parts.  The rest of the parts I ordered from Adafruit.com listed in the build guide. 

Pretty happy with how the qtPy soldering turned out

The Kahil Jade switch wiring isn't great, but it works - you have to solder to a pin/post which requires very steady hands to keep it smooth - I do not have steady hands.

Press fit together.  You can see some of my sloppy soldering on the TFT display.

With the Toe Beans installed.

Here's a video of it in action - the original build guild has a dancing parrot as the image, I swapped out pictures of my cat Lola.  Sorry about the vertical filming I wasn't paying attention. 

All in all a fun project - the buttons do CMD+S (save), CMD+X (cut), CMD+C (copy) and CMD+P (paste).  I'll have to open a thread in the adafruit forums as the overall performance is really slow.  I have to hold the button longer than I would expect for it to take the action.  In the video on the build guide you get the impression that it works much faster/smoother than that.  Probably a wiring issue on my part

printing with PETG in my Prusa Mini

 

So I bought a low-cost spool of OVERTURE 3D PETG from amazon - it was on sale for $21, so I went for it.  First off, Overture's packaging was good and came with a 20cm x 20cm build surface sticker.  It's too big for the mini, but might come in handy with my MonoPrice printer at the office.  It also came with an overture branded ruler/card type thing that's making a nice bookmark in my Foundation and Empire book.  Trying to read them before the series drops on AppleTV+, but I digress. 

My first print was a small tilt box I found on Thingverse.  It came out really well!

It also came off the bed with out any issue (more on that in a few).  

Next up I wanted to print some buckles that would work with some web strapping I have around the house from a previous halloween costume build.  There were a few out there, but this one on the Prusa Prints gallery was the one I went with.  I printed it twice, with supports both times.  Not sure if I needed them or not, but it looked like some of the spans might be too big to cover with out supports.  They came out great and work pretty well.  I left the straps extra long so I can tie a knot if the buckle fails on me just in case.

The only issue I had was taking the brim and support material off the standard prusa mini bed.  It was stuck on like superglue.  I almost scratched the bed trying to get the excess off.  It took some searching to figure out what was different.  In the tilt box case, I let it run over night and took it off the build plate the next morning.  With the buckles, I was printing them back to back and trying to remove them without letting everything become truly cold.  In the various forums I see all kinds of tips and tricks - glue stick, windex, other release agent kind of stuff.   Then I decided to see what the manual said.  Should have started there in hindsight. 

Heatbed: Various manufacturers suggest using various separation (or adhesive) layers for printing PETG, such as Kapton tape, glue stick, etc. Our print sheets work fine without these separation layers but it’s important to know a few basic rules. First, keep the print surface clean. When printing on a smooth sheet, use a window cleaner instead of isopropyl alcohol. Textured powder-coated sheets can be cleaned with IPA. Once you finish printing, let the print cool before you try to remove it from the sheet. 

And there it is. Let it cool completely before removing.  I will probably try using windex to clean the bed next time instead of the alcohol wipes, but other than that, patients will be my go-to move.

Using my 3d pen to weld parts together

 Ok so I was cleaning out my shelf and found a 3d pen I had from a while back.  I think I got it on Woot.com or something like that for super cheap.  They go on clearance at places like Michaels and JoAnn craft stores as well.  Amazon sells a bunch and recommends this one.  Mine is similar, but I don't think it's manufactured anymore. 

So what I didn't realize when I bought it is it uses the same filament as my 3d printer.  It makes total sense now, but I didn't connect the dots at the time.  I put my 3d printer filament in it and it extruded great! which gave me another idea - could I use it to repair, weld or fill a 3d print.  

The short answer is YES! I took two calibration cubes from my 'stuff I printed but is totally useless' box and tried to weld them together.  It worked pretty good!  I would need a lot of practice to get it smooth and neat, but it does work. I also filled in the X, Y and Z recessed letters to see how that would go and just like the weld, I need to practice and I think go slower - my pen has a variable feed rate to help this. I think it'll come in handy for some very specific use cases.

Anyway if you have a 3d print that you want to melt a little more filament onto for repair or aesthetic reasons, these 3d printing pens are a fun and relatively cheap way to go.

Got a new 3d printer

So I have a Monoprice Maker Select 3D Printer , which is a clone or re-market of a WanHao Duplicator i3 and have had a generally poor experience with it.  It's 75% on me, to be clear.  I knew it required tinkering and tweaking when I bought it.  I thought I was up to the task, but it turns out I'm not. Mostly due to the time commitment required up front.  That's where I came up short.  I have difficulty putting together the extended blocks of time I would need to make this very capable printer do what I'm looking for. 

So I went out and bought myself a Prusa Mini+ (and a spool of  Prusament PLA Prusa Galaxy Black).  I wanted a printer that had a great reputation for easy to use and a large community.  I also wanted something relatively small footprint wise.  Lastly I was factoring price in the overall equation.  

The experience so far has been remarkable.  I had to order it 6 weeks in advance, the demand is so high that you can't really get it immediately.  The shipping from Prague, Czech Republic was amazing.  I received a tracking number Wednesday afternoon (after close local time) and had my printer Friday afternoon.  That includes clearing customs.  Amazing. 

It was pretty easy to set up and get working. The calibration and configuration is very easy and simple to follow.   I was up in printing in under 2 hours.  Could have been faster had I bothered to read the instructions before I started. The way they handle setting the z-height is amazing.  the auto-bed leveling is also automatic, which is my biggest issue with my old printer.

I printed a new set of knobs for my toaster from thingverse which worked out pretty good so far.

I also printed a support for my Dremel 4000 which is going to come very handy for polishing future prints.

Now I'm starting to print out the parts for a Han Solo blaster for a future costume I intend to build.  I didn't do a good job researching this. I've found alternate and perhaps better builds but this one is what I started with and I'm kind of committed to this.