The reason IPA stops working on your bed is you need different solvents for polar and non-polar contaminants. Alcohol will not remove sugars and some plastics, like PLA, when heated will degrade to sugars.
With your cigar lighter torch..another useful tool that I use is a METAL chopstick. With both ends being rounded and one side a bit larger than the other, you can smooth out whatever part you heated up to fix (better than a butter knife) plus you can heat up either end to help weld parts together. Just an idea.
The 15-20 minute length is a sweet spot for me when the material is presented in a clean and cohesive fashion. I am subject to interruptions when I spend too long watching videos (wife, kids, cat, household emergencies, etc.) so being able to cherry pick videos based on length is a habit I have fallen into post-covid. Not to say I don't watch longer videos (Critical Role, anyone?) but I get to watch them in sections.
Us price for Voxel pla is $16.99/kg. In Canada, at Amazon, Voxel pla sells for $25.99/kg. So at 15% exchange rate on the Canadian dollar it should be $19.54/kg... not $25.99. As soon as something comes across the border into Canada, companies seem to think that they have been given freedom to gouge rights!
A 3D pen is definitely useful. I was printing a planet carrier for a planetary gearbox, the planet carrier would require a lot of support to print it as is, so I split it up into the main body of the carrier and the pins. I printed the pins with a hexagon pin on the end and the carrier with a hexagonal hole. These fit together well and then I used a 3D printing pen to melt them together, making the join almost as strong if not as strong as the rest of the print. Another cool application I just thought of is to use on wear surfaces on your prints, when it wears down you could just use the pen to add another layer of material on top, sand it to the required shape and then use it again, without having to reprint the entire piece. Similarly you could just use it for repairing 3D prints.
I don't know if you will see this, but if you do, I would like to offer my thanks for your videos. I'm an old dog trying to learn a new trick, and I'm brand new to 3D printing. Your videos have been extremely helpful to my learning process. I appreciate your time and energy in bringing this to us. In answer to your question, I am a fan of longer videos as long as they aren't full of fluff. Thank you!
Most pharmacies (at least in the US) carry 90%/91% alcohol, it should work just fine for bed cleaning. The 99% and 100% alcohols will evaporate so quickly that it becomes a challenge to accomplish the CLEANING. Even 91% evaporates pretty quick. For the ball end Allen Keys, I strongly suggest these 4 brands: Allen, Bondhus, Wera, PB Swiss.
I wipe down my head bed with isopropyl alcohol with a fresh paper towel before every print and about every two weeks I wash the build plate with good dish soap. These steps really help the curling off the build plate. Thanks for the vids
Great video! I don't know if you were joking or not but just in case you weren't... Deburring tools are indeed designed to remove burrs. A burr is something that machinists like me encounter a lot. Whenever you cut a piece of metal, whether it's with a milling cutter or on a lathe or with a saw, it always leaves a raised rough edge called a burr. Burrs are problematic, because not only do they constitute a scratching or cutting hazard for your poor fingers, the fact that they are raised means that they can cause parts that have tight tolerances not to fit together properly. We use deburring tools in the shop a lot remove these birds so that parts fit properly and don't cut anyone. Also, two straight cuts meeting at a 90° angle can leave a very sharp corner. Even though it may not be a burr as such, we used to bring tools to break these hard edges. I hope that was informative! I get the impression and forgive me if I'm wrong, that before you got into 3D printing you didn't do much other making except probably wood working. Coming from an automotive and metal working place to watch making and then to 3D printing as part of a general Maker's journey, I find it interesting what tools people do and do not know are out there. I also find that the most interesting things come from people who have two intersecting maker specialties that may not necessarily always be combined. I am looking at getting into 3D printing in this video is extremely helpful please keep up the good work and keep making great content.
I store my in-use filaments in an IKEA SAMLA container with weather sealing added to the lip. It's filled with 4L of reusable silica in fine mesh bags. I use some printed PETG SAMLA clips to keep it sealed tight. Easily holds 8 spools, and could stuff another 4 or more if I really wanted to pack it full. The reusable silica can be dried out again in the oven. I think I saw the first iteration of this idea from CNC Kitchen.
"I dont even know what a burr is." ...Then proceeds do define it perfectly spot on, LOL! Love the channel, new subscriber. A tip when ordering rotary burr knife blades: For 3D printed parts, be sure to order blades designed to use on aluminum and soft metals, NOT the ones for hard steel. They have different cutting angles, and the one for steel will chatter as you pull it along a part edge, leaving a worse edge than you started with. Also be aware that the blades made for soft materials are ground at different angles on each side and are designed to cut in one direction. If you cut along an edge, and then cut backwards going the opposite direction, it will chatter and make a saw-blade-like edge on the part. These can be found in right and left direction. The blades made for hard steel have the cutting edge ground equally on both sides of the blade and work in both directions. Generally, a right handed blade is designed to draw inward (right to left direction)or toward yourself with your right hand, which gives the most stable control and smoothest cut. Vice-versa for a left hand blade in your left hand. These tools work incredibly well for de-burring or breaking the sharp edge of holes. With a right handed blade, whip it around the hole edge in a clockwise direction, and vice-versa for a left hand blade. In the machinist world, we call this tool a burr whip, and used correctly and with some practice can create a very fine, precise edge bevel or hole chamfer that looks as clean as if it were machined that way.
Many build plates have a PEI surface now. The proper cleaning for that surface is dish soap, as you indicated, but for cleaning between prints, the recommended concentration of isopropyl alcohol is 80-90%. 99% will deteriorate the surface quicker and reduce its effectiveness. For vacuum sealing filament bags, some kitchen vacuum sealers have an external adapter. This allows you to use the resealable bag the filament shipped with and vacuum the air out. The 3D pen can also be used to build up a thin wall before sanding it smooth. Fixes the problem spot and sanding smooth hides the crude fix marks. Look for the hacks where you can use them.
As a new member of the 3D printing community (Ender 3 S1 Pro + Halot One Pro), you have my gratitude. I've been constantly searching for new ideas, tips, tricks, and everything in between; your videos have been the most helpful by a longshot.
I've never tried Voxel PLA, I need to correct that! I laughed at the manual pump option. I only did that about twice before I went to the electric pump! Love the tool list, so many great ones and I need that low profile wrench, that thing is fabulous!
Thanks Courtney! Honored as always that you're watching. I hope you'll join our Discord, I'm setting up a mastermind with myself, Stefan from CNC Kitchen, Uncle Jessie, Albert from 247, etc... you are of course welcome to join :)
When you cut or drill metal you are left with a little material around the edge of the cut or hole, this material is a very thin layer of very sharp metal, that is what a burr is. The deburring tool runs along these cut or drilled edges and removes the unwanted metal, it helps with the finish of the part and it removes the razor sharp burrs, making it safer to handle. So it is a tool for removing unwanted material from edges, which is why it is also very good for 3D prints and cleaning up edges.
I see the 3D pens are basically mini mig-welders. Had my main printers PSU's explode while I was making custom ductwork for a clients PC build on a tight timeline - redesigned the parts to fit on a smaller unit (chopping each piece into sections with lips / pins and chamfers all around...) super glue to locate parts, 3D pen to fill the chamfers, sand flat. Seamless perfection with not a whole lot of extra work. Given that the seams are also "100% infill", yay stronk, you can use a higher temp than normal printing without worrying about stringing. That and dragging the hot tip across the printed surface while depositing new stuff allows the new material to both fully fuse, and key in with the base material.
this was definitely a very useful video. I’m a newbie to 3d printing and am interested in learning more about 3d printing. I love videos that talk about all the tools you need and where to get them. Thanks for adding links and also thanks for sharing other youtube channels that you follow. I definitely prefer shorter videos so that they are more frequent and not have to wait a long time for the next one. Thanks for sharing 😊
I just started the video and you have already provided me a great tool I would never have thought of. Curling prints- I never would have thought to use a lighter to heat and then flatten the area before the situation becomes a horrible outcome. Thank you!! Now, back to the video.
So, there are people who think paper towels are adding to the massive amount of trash in garbage dumps? Paper towels? The things that dissolve in water?
Nice list! Adding the wrench to my kit. The others I was already using. 2 tips I've come across related to these tools. Tip 1: Instead of the cigar lighter look up butane soldering irons. They usually have small heat gun attachment that can very precisely heat or clear strings. Along with the torch and metal tips you can use for shaping or cutting prints. Berkling BSG-568 is a quality unit, but there are other cheaper ones. Tip 2: There are other blades for your deburring tool! Noga is a high quality brand that has so many attachments it will make your head spin. One I want to feature is the S150 blade that will drop into your current tool. It is designed for plastics and has a much finer point that the typical S10 style, which is great for getting into tight spaces on your 3d prints. Nice job explaining the uses of each item featured!
Glue sticks for the win! Even my Elegoo Neptune 3 Pro came with a branded glue stick. In those rare situations where nothing else works, and you cant re design the model, this has saved the day on more than one occasion.
Use Bambu build plate glue stick. It creates a thin barrier between the part and build plate. It makes the part stick and also the part comes off the plate easily. It cleans off with water. Bambu printers come with it.
I send my glass plates through my dishwasher and they work great. I still use glue stick on them because otherwise I can’t get anything to release lol.
For one who's about to really get into multiple different types of handy craft stuff, this is very helpful. Trying to learn graphics design, 3d modeling, programming, soldering, and electric wiring, is gonna take a decent bit of time xD
RU-vid definitely rewards frequency over video length however watch hours are also important. It’s RU-vid so you don’t have to have a super polished video with tons of editing and multiple takes to get it right. Don’t be afraid to go raw so to speak.
People make 3d printing more expensive and troublesome that it needs to be. You're the second video I watched tonight exclaiming the usefulness of isopropyl and microfiber rags. I have two Ender3s. I use the cheap kindergarten glue sticks from Amazon. When the build up gets crappy, I run the build plates under warm tap water and use a sponge to remove the glue. Then I put down a new layer of glue and go. If it doesn't stick, I probably need to relevel my bed. As to hygrometers. I keep a one-room dehumidifier next to my print station and run it year around with a setting of 50%. I've never had a filament, no matter how old, to give any problems. And by the way, they sit out unwrapped. But-- Is there an unusually high humidity in Israel?
I'm new to the 3D printing world and just got a Bambu Lab X1 Carbon. I made a few prints in PC which was no problem at all on the PEI build plate. Made sure it was dry then it ran just fine. :) I really like the texture of PC, very smooth.
I've had great success using vinegar instead of isopropyl alcohol for degreasing the buildplate. Even better than alcohol in fact. This was recommended to me by my 3D printing friend.
@@thenextlayer IPA isn't exactly pleasant too 😆 If someone doesn't care for the smell or just in a pinch - it's worth a try. I mostly use spirit vinegar but even rice vinegar works, it's fancier and less aromatic ;)
Excellent tips on tools to get. Not sure if you mentioned it on the Microfiber cloth part, but they're pretty fairly cheap at most hardware stores (Harbor Freight takes the W on this one.) Something that I'm looking for, as I'm in a basement apartment with pretty bad sound insulation, is a 3D printer case, shelf, box, display, Something to let me put it in, close the door, and still be able to monitor it without worrying if there's enough room in there, or vibrations causing the ripple effect on the print. It can also potentially help with the smell of PETG that, while "safe", isn't pleasant to have your apartment smell like. I can see you've got one in the background, but you haven't yet gone over how well it works and how you made it/got it.
I have a glass print bed. I use cheap hair spray for adhesion. Wipe it down with alcohol one a week. Once a month it gets wiped with acetone. granted, I pretty much only print in PLA, so take it with a grain of salt. I also bought a cheap food dehydrator, modified the trays so I can fit two spools plus one regular try to put silica packs (even the non-reusable ones) and put it on low for 9 hours. everything gets dried and I can reuse the packs as well.
Using a textured pei works so good you don't ever need to clean the bed nor need to heat the corners, I've done hundreds of prints without even looking
I also use a 3d pen to strengthen the glued parts together when there is enough space. What I also recommend is a pyrog (I don't relly know its name in english) I use it to smooth and strengthen printed models. For example a cilynder base and a tube printed together, the tube will break too easily to hold a model, but after some heat treatment with this thing, and the base is strengthened with a 3d pen, its really sturdy.
Happy to see and listen to ypur videos' Great sense of humor. About the length, don't short them too much, also too long cause people to skip the last part. I guess that for 10-15min is a good lenght. Greetings from the Galilee
My opinion: 15 to 20 minutes sound good... I like the way you talk and describe like in this video. Keep up the good work and I hope your channel keep growing 👍
Good call splitting videos. Most people probably don't want to or don't have time to watch a 30 minute video and you have to appease the algorithm gods haha.
The whole vacuum bag and air tight storage container thing is overkill, unless you're planning on storing your filament longterm. Dehydrate the roll, put it in a large zip-loc with a container of silica beads, suck the air out from an open corner and then zip it shut. As long as the silica beads go in dry, it doesn't matter if there's vacuum - there's so little air flow that the beads will keep the roll dry until your next use. Much easier and less costly.
I just store my filament in a big box with a big silica gel container inside. When it saturates i just put it in microwave in a galss bowl to refresh it. Works for my PETG in Netanya.
I find that normal hair spray helps extremely well with bed adhesion, of course the bed gets all tacky and dirty, but your prints will never separate from the bed
@5:00 isopropyl will dissolve the alcohol but it isn’t necessarily all picked up by your rag. a lot of it remains on the plate, requiring dish soap and water to remove. this is well documented.
Isopropyl alcohol _is_ the alcohol itself. It's just a different chemical structure than the alcohol so many people think of that can be drunk. ;) When a bottle of IPA says it's 70% or 90%, that's the concentration of the alcohol in the solution. The remaining percentage is typically deionized water (which is actually not good for you to drink all on its own!)
The reason 70% isopropyl alcohol exists is to sanitize. The higher-level alcohols evaporate too quickly to be able to have the time to kill anything so you need some water in them to slow down the evaporation. Obviously we're not dealing with food so the higher-alcohol variants are fine. But if you already have 70%, it works just fine (and your bed will now be sanitized!).
A "burr" is commonly present in injection plastic pieces where there is a union in between the 2 negative molds, when releasing the final product, the seam where there was the union of the 2 molds leave a line, (the plastic wants to get out in the weakest point) it tends to be this union, and if plastic indeed get out, it leaves a "burr".
I've never really been a fan of those 'one size fits all' wrenches like you mentioned when talking about the thin wrench you use. Instead having worked as a mechanic for many years and having seen how those wrenches can eventually round off a nut or bolt head I often opt for a set of what were in the past referred to as 'ignition wrenches' (because they were pretty essential when working on points style ignition systems on older vehicles before electronic ignition systems became common), you can pick up a relatively decent yet inexpensive set for less than $20US on sites like amazon or even probably aliexpress or bangood or (and I hesitate to say this because I have heard many horror stories about the items purchased from them) maybe even temu. They may not offer as long of a reach as those wrenches like you mentioned do but the dedicated geometry of the ends certainly goes a long way towards keeping your nuts and bolts from being rounded off leaving you with having to invest in an extractor set or resort to using things like 'vise grip pliers' or 'channel locks' or even pipe wrenches to remove the nut or bolt so it can be completely replaced (unless it happens to be some kind of one-off specially machined fastener, in which case you might just be 'screwed', no pun intended, well only a little, lol).
Thank you for this video. the 15-20 minutes are a lot easier for me to get through but I would watch longer as long as you have the chapters still so nicely set. =]
I printed a mechanical demo object wich only held together at one cornor. but the blue gear was mounted in another corner by 2 round elements with a hole in it, I decidet to put some fillamen strings in this hole and used my 3D Pen to fix them on the model, so the object is less floppy and more stable.
I have great luck in easily keeping my filament dry. I bought a clear air-tight storage box and keep a rechargeable color changing silica dryer (the type you hang in a closet) in there. Now I keep open spools in the box, and the humidity stays around 27%-35%. A spool that's been on the printer for days dries quickly when I swap it for one in the box. It holds full size, mini, and sample spools (12 spools is my record). Plus, with no bags, it's easier to see what's available.
Regarding the space bags and electric pump- I have a small hand vacuum that I 3D printed an adapter for (obviously) that mates with the valve on the bags, all the air's gone in a couple seconds!
I use brake clean to clean my bed plate. It works on my pei and factory ender mat just a tiny bit on a towel but I like the microfiber towel. I'll try that.
When you started talking about alcohol and you made that comment about using it on your bed. I had temporarily forgotten that this video was about 3D printers... I was really really confused.
To clean my bed, especially to remove built up glue stick, I use mostly glass cleaner and a lint free cloth. As for filament storage and drying, I store my filament in an air tight box and have a tub of Damp Rid in that box. For drying the filament, if you don't want to shell out for a dedicated filament dryer, you can get one of those cheap round dehydrators and use it instead. Benefit of the dehydrator is that most can be run longer at a lower temperature.
Silica gel packages, I weigh them and write it on the package once it has been in the dryer for a few hours. You can easily measure how much water is in them. (need a sensitive electronic scale, I have one up to 200 g sensitive to 0.01 g)
Nice Video 👍🏻 I haven’t watched your second video on that topic but for this video i definitely miss a soldering iron, clamps in different sizes and a rotary multitool (dremel). Not a tool but as far as hardware goes, all kinds of screws and especially heat inserts are missing. And since you said you don’t know what a burr is: when you are milling through open edges it can create really thin razorsharp blade on the edge. To get rid of it and make the part safe to touch you cut that „blade“ with a deburring tool.
I used microfiber cloths instead of paper towel for a long time but ended up finding that it didn't absorb contaminants nearly as well. Switching to paper towel was a game changer. Hardly ever have to wash the build plate with dish soap anymore.
I found the bags for vacuum storage of filament were not that sturdy and ended up with holes in them from pushing them into places they were not meant to go. In the end, I bought a food vacuum sealing machine and use rolls of heavy-duty vacuum bags. They cut to size and are so cheap they are disposable. As the bags are made for cooking in boiling water, they are really strong. The only problem I have found is my wife nicking the machine to seal food in and leaving me out of rolls of bag plastic.😖😖😖
Printing surface for nylon. First use a borosilcate glass bed and heat it to 100C, print within an enclosure, I get my enclosure up to 40C (you can use the bed to do this but I have an additional chamber heater as well. 250C nozzle. Use glue stick on the glass, I use six layers (no really). Print slowly with no part cooling fan. I print Nylon-CF, but also strimmer cord that works well (I like the colours). I tend to print with a 0.6 nozzle because of the nature of the parts I'm printing, the printing times, because I'm printing slowly, and because though you can print PA-CF through a 0.4 nozzle 0.6 is better (to prevent clogging, also use a toughened steel nozzle, CF is abrasive to brass, though I do use a ruby brass nozzle with a S/S insert instead of the PTFE tube). My 3D printer is a Qidi X-Plus which is doing me good service.
Filament in the oven? Hard pass. A food dehydrator works great and has less risk of melting the whole roll. My oven only goes as low as 170°F but with how the temperature controls work, it's all but guaranteed the temperature will go higher as the heating element is on.
I prefer to use a ratchet undoing my nozzles. That way I can make sure I'm not tightening it by accident, as I always get confused when it's upside down. To insert a new nozzle, I use an Olsen tool that has a set torque limit and makes sure you don't overtighten.
