Dalek Spaceship - Remembrance of the Daleks

[russellsuthern]

Wow...
I really can't believe just how much work is going into this build!

It's going to look awesome when it's finished.


Regards,

Russell

[d33j r093r5]

... thanks for the kind words russell, much appreciated. I hope it looks like... well... how it's supposed to look, lol. I hope it lives up to everyone's expectations!

D.

[d33j r093r5]

... another quick update; Top Rear section of Module 1A is about to come off the printer, so I'll probably stop to photograph it mid-post and add it to this. Top Rear of 2 is about 70% complete. I had to stop it at 60% because it was about to run out of filament (as I feared). Fortunately, I found a little of the same shade of white left on an old spool in my filament box, which SHOULD (fingers crossed) take it to 100%. After that, I will probably have to switch to the light grey...   ah well...

... I trimmed down that protrudence on the Top Front of Module 2 that was interfering with the new geometry (see previous post)... I had a fairly handy tool for doing it too...








... normally there is a triangular sanding pad attached to this thing. Essentially what it does is vibrate, making it a handy vibration sander. With this attachment, it's like a vibrating knife / saw. I normally use it to cut holes in gyprock / plasterboard walls for making openings for wall plugs (I worked in IT / Networking / Administration for the better part of 20 years). Wasn't sure how it would go on the PLA, but thought it was worth a shot. Easier than sawing or cutting my way through...

... ok, give me a moment... the print just finished...

...

...

...

... ok I'm back... the latest piece...














... looks good. Next piece is already printing as well...

... anyway, I was talking about the vibrating saw, and I wasn't sure how it would go on the plastic. The issue I was envisaging is that the PLA does tend to melt, it starts to get tacky at around 60^oC, and I'm sure the blade would heat it more than that; wasn't looking forward to a sticky, hardened mess. Anyway, I gave it a shot...








... and it worked out well!...


      


... can't argue with those results...    ... sometimes things go right; it's nice when they do...


   


... awesome!

... I also stuck on some of the failed bits, just to see what it would look like, but since then that next piece has finished... so, I got some shots with that added instead...





   


... happy! Anyway, the final piece of Module 2 is at 75%; that will be ready for tomorrow morning, as will the final piece for Module 1A (currently at 1%). So, stuff to look forward to, and some serious assembly about to begin!

Cheers,

D.

[Davros Skaro]

WOW, this is really looking good, & taking shape well! Glad you got that bit of without too much trouble too.

Looking forward to the next up date & hope you have enough filament left to complete things.

Chris. 

[d33j r093r5]

... gonna be another busy day, so I'll attempt to be brief... (yah, good luck with that   )...

I was up until about 3am yesterday / today waiting for that final piece of Module 2 to finish. I found some leftover remnants of white filament amongst my large-ish stockpile from previous builds. I changed it over I think 3 times during the build (the last time when it was at 99%!) in order to make sure it didn't run out of filament. It was SUPPOSED to be all the same shade, but I think perhaps the  filament was a little too old, and the colour had faded or "gone off", so it was a bit darker, a bit more translucent, etc... it's not so obvious in the photos, and even not obvious unless you notice it, but it is quite distinct, and there is a clear delineation between where the old finished and the new began. It actually looks really cool, except that it's not supposed to look like that... I DID say I was going to be brief, didn't I...?














... it's actually less obvious when I hold it up to the light as when it's sitting on the table, but I think you can pick it up. Aside from that, the print is great. I attached it and took some photos. However, this morning the final piece of Module 1A came off the printer as well...














... looks great!   Actually, this piece had almost no artefacts left hanging on it at all, and required almost no clean up. The photos you're looking at are straight off the printer. Anyway, I assembled Module 1A...








... and then assembled everything currently completed. The walls on this model are really thin, only 2mm (the thinnest walls I've ever made on anything) and the hole-boss extrusions are meatier than that. Trying to push the dowels in as an interference fit gives quite a bit of flex on those walls, so it's not as easy as just trying to push them in as on previous models; a lot of indirect percussion was needed to get em in. I actually split the floor of Module 3 because I applied to much pressure on it at one point. It didn't damage it to the point of non-usability. I think, given how thin these walls are that I may have to switch to small screw housings in the print, and use those tiny black screws used to build pc's... anyway...


   


... oooooh, shiny!   ... very happy with how this is looking...








... can't wait to get the panels on the sides...





... and a shot from the rear, because that looks cool as well...!

That's where we are... I haven't started the next print going yet, will get that going, and then attempt to make use of what's left of the day. See you at the next update...

D.

[Davros Skaro]

Far out, this is really getting on, so your filament supply of white must be near diminished. How long does it take to get a new roll, or you not bothered & just going to use the grey?

That two tone looks cool, but when you get the rest of it printed & assembled, you may not notice it with no light shining through it.

Those late nights must be burning you out, don't rust things, as you don't want any mistakes at this point in time. 

Chris.

[d33j r093r5]

Hey Chris, my late nights aren't actually as frequent as they seem. Night before last I was in bed by about 9pm, and the night before that 7.45pm. Printers are happy to work while I'm not looking at em! One of the great things about my method of producing models is that a good portion of the creation process is automated, and I build ease-of-assembly right into the models...

I'm in complete agreement about the two-tone piece. Actually, when it's assembled as is you barely notice it, as light has a much harder time of permeating...

As to my filament supply... yeeeeeeah, it's a little low. However, all things considered, there's actually not that much filament going into the models as they're hollow shells mostly. A 1kg spool of 1.75mm PLA filament has about 330m on the reel. approximately 25m goes into one of those quarter shells for each of Modules 1A, B, C, D and 3, and about 40m into each of the section 2 models. That's about 660m just for the shells, which is 2 full spools. That's about what I had, give or take, on the various spools I had lying around. It will be a close run thing, given the 2 messed up pieces, and that I don't know for certain exactly how much I started with. Oh, and that's not including the Rocket Support pieces or the panel adornments, which are technically supposed to be the same colour. More than likely, I will HAVE to switch over to the grey at some point, but hopefully I can get all the main module pieces out first...

D.

EDIT:

... to finish answering your question, to get new filament of the kind and colour that I'm currently using will take about a week from China, which isn't that long really. It's actually really cheap and nasty, the surface finish of it isn't great, and it doesn't print as nicely as filament I get from other sources, or even the same source! I would only buy more of it for consistency, which I'm not sure I would get; the variations in colour I have are all of the same white filament from the same source. So, in reality, there's nothing really preventing me from getting more, but if the end result is that it looks as hodge-podge in terms of colour as if I just use my own stock, and especially as it's not particularly good filament to use, I don't see the point in forking out any more money for it no matter how cheap it is...

[d33j r093r5]

Since my last post yesterday Module 1C has completed, and 1B started this morning... I'll take y'all through it...














... the bottom sections of C came off the printer around 9.30ish last night. Again, the prints coming off Printer 2 need very little clean up, if at all, while Printer 1 is leaving quite a few artefacts. There's probably an ooze setting somewhere that I can adjust, but I'll forget I've done it and how I did it and it will likely cause me bigger headaches later on. Either that, or something physical on the printer itself needs tweaking. This is very likely actually; Printer 2 WAS producing artefacts until I had all that difficulty with it, and ended up dismantling it and replacing some of the parts. I don't really feel that's necessary on Printer 1 unless it really starts to stuff up (if it ain't broke, don't fix it!). Anyway, the artefacts aren't a big issue, they're fairly minimal in size, and they come off easily enough...








... notice that these 2 pieces are the same shade? Yeah, the 2 spools I'm currently using obviously came from the same batch at the same time. Nice when there's some consistency...











... and no dramas in getting the pieces attached either. It's good to have some counter-weight in place; the ship kept toppling over whenever I didn't have enough weight to keep it upright...

... I stuck on the discarded sections to see how it would look if it was finished. Took photos too. Would show you, but since Module C is completely finished, I may as well wait and show you the final photos and not spoil the surprise...! ... in the meantime...





... I'm on a BOAT!


... woke up this morning to the top 2 completed pieces of C...








... I actually let these run at full speed as I'm now fairly confident that it's not going to be an issue. The difference in print time is significant. At 70% full speed, these prints take on average about 10.5 hours. At full speed, it's about 7. On long batch runs, that's the difference between doing 4 prints and 6 prints in a day, 28 and 42 in a week. It adds up quickly...











... looks good. Module: Assemble!...





... feeling pretty good about this...


... except...


...ummmm...


... what??!?





...     whyyyyyyyy, is there a lip there? It's like the piece has printed too short! I was sure it had finished printing. Besides, both pieces fit together nicely, there wasn't any suggestion that anything was wrong at any point... what about the other side...?





... yah! It's there too! It couldn't be that BOTH printers ran out of filament at the SAME TIME during the print, and right at the end; that would be too freaky a coincidence! I checked anyway; both spools had a fair amount of filament left on the reel. And I reopened the completed module to check if there was anything I could see that was wrong there. Nope. So, the error must be in my model, I went back and checked. Sure enough, there it was on Module C only, the same lip I had ended up with (I forgot to take a screen shot I was so devastated I'd botched another print!). How did I make such a careless mistake? I updated all the modules at the same time; did I skip a step somewhere...? So I went back to the original part files, and I found it...





... this shows the outline of the original base sketch I used to extrude the basic shape of the modules. The dimensions here are updated for after I altered the wall thicknesses to better accommodate the heights of the Daleks and Sylvester to fit inside. Originally, those dimensions were 133 H x 70 W, with a 4mm wall thickness, as opposed to now being 133 H x 72.48 W with a 2mm wall thickness. Updating this propagates changes to the rest of the model and it rebuilds around those dimensions. You need to go through after and check that nothing else has been affected adversely by the change. There is one other dimension that's important that's not a part of this sketch...





... and that's this one. You'll notice that it's the same as the W dimension in the previous image (This is taken from Module A, BTW). Having those 2 dimensions the same means that those angles faces on the front and rear abut to each other at exactly 45^o. Of course, since the dimensions originally gave a W of 70, this dimension was originally 70 as well. Forget to update this one, and you lose that angle. The top sections of Module C were shorter, which is what you'd expect if that dimension was shorter... and, lo and behold...





... the sections of Module C at the top ARE shorter. In fact, they haven't been updated at all. Somehow I did ALL the other module sections, but not the top ones for Module C. So, it now looks like it's making a pouty face!  





... ok, it's not too bad, and the model WILL still work, so I don't actually need to re-print these pieces. Not that I was going to, I'm keen to finish, and the hull adornment panels will mostly hide that. It's only a couple of millimetres... frustrating though. I've corrected the models, so future prints (if and when they happen) won't have the error... besides...








... look, distraction! See, shiny, nothing wrong here!  





... and I think our Imperial friend is looking a lot happier in his new digs anyway...

... I still have some white filament left, but I did a quick calculation, and I would probably only get 2, maybe 3 module sections from the remainder, not enough for a full module. So, at this point I've switched over to the light grey...








... and started the bottom sections for Module 1B. Side by side...





... you might be hard pressed to see a great deal of difference. you can see it better without the filter of a camera lens, the one on the left is distinctly darker. It'll be close enough (     ) for initial purposes, and all the hull adornments will be in this colour, so it may be less noticeable. Actually if you want a good comparison, check out my http://tardisbuilders.com/index.php?topic=5689.0;all . I originally printed the console all in the same white I have been using for the Dalek Ship (my first printer build, and so not great), and then updated it and reprinted it in more realistic colours, which uses the light grey I've now switched to. It will give you some idea of the contrast to be expected on the ship...

... ok, current prints are at 10% and 14% respectively. Will update again when they're done...

D.

[Davros Skaro]

As to my filament supply... yeeeeeeah, it's a little low. However, all things considered, there's actually not that much filament going into the models as they're hollow shells mostly. A 1kg spool of 1.75mm PLA filament has about 330m on the reel. approximately 25m goes into one of those quarter shells for each of Modules 1A, B, C, D and 3, and about 40m into each of the section 2 models. That's about 660m just for the shells, which is 2 full spools. That's about what I had, give or take, on the various spools I had lying around. It will be a close run thing, given the 2 messed up pieces, and that I don't know for certain exactly how much I started with. Oh, and that's not including the Rocket Support pieces or the panel adornments, which are technically supposed to be the same colour. More than likely, I will HAVE to switch over to the grey at some point, but hopefully I can get all the main module pieces out first...

D.

Just a thought with the "rocket exhausts" these would look good if they were black (as in haven been blackened from the flames etc.) or a darker gray than the light one your about to use. That's if you have any of those colours.

Chris.

Edit. Oh this is really taking shape & looking great. 

[d33j r093r5]

Hi Chris, yup, the rocket flues WILL be in black. I have heaps of that... sorry, when I talk about the the rocket supports, they're those short, white, slightly conical shapes between each of the Module 1 sections and the rocket flues...


http://tardisbuilders.com/index.php?action=dlattach;k=-170;topic=8789.0;attach=185485;image


these pieces...

Again, thanks for the kind words, much appreciated...  

With regard to my last update, it seems I spoke a little too soon about Printer 1 and its problems. The print had got to about 18% before I stopped it, it was just making a mess of it, leaving lifted up corners from ooze, and melted sections the print was sagging into. I pulled the head completely apart and reassembled it after a good inspection and cleaning. Hopefully it will behave itself now...

Cheers,

D.

[d33j r093r5]

... where to start...?!    

Printer 1, for some bizarre reason, decided to start spitting out... well... rubbish. The edges of the prints kept curling upwards. I haven't had problems like that for ages. It usually comes as a result of blobbing, layers not laid down properly, not enough adhesion, bad quality filament, wrong diameter filament set, too fast speeds, etc, etc... long list of things to check :/

... suffice to say I went through everything. The only thing that seemed to work was slowing the print speed down to 50%. I still got some very MINOR curling though. At this stage I'm still not sure what to make of it...














... this is the failed print from yesterday (caught it early fortunately). You can see the top corners are starting to curl up, and the sides have a somewhat sagged, melted look. It might look minor at this stage, but experience has taught me that, by the time you get to the end of a print, this would just be an awful, unusable mess. I thought I had allowed for the error and corrected it this morning, but at about 3% completion I realised that I was going to have the same problem and stopped it again. I do have a print going on Printer 1 at the moment, but it's also running at 50%. Better than it not working at all...

... I also spoke a little soon about the artefacts being a minimal / minor problem. All of a sudden, my prints off printer 1 are filled with spider-webs!...





... this is the 1st print I ran at 50% speed yesterday that I took off the printer this morning. Fortunately, that all cleans right off without too much issue, but it's annoying just the same; especially as Printer 2 is printing with the same settings and filament just fine!...





... this is the second piece in the light grey to come off printer 2 running at 100% speed! No curling, no artefacts, no awful messes! I'm a bit stumped... anyway...

Getting back to the first piece that came off Printer 2 yesterday, similar story; no problems! The light grey is far superior filament to the white as well. Some shots of the finished print...








... you can probably already see the contrast in colours. Here's a better comparison...





... and here's a comparison of the print quality difference as well...








... the first image is the grey, the second the white. You can see easily from the surface finish which filament is superior / more consistent...

... and running at 50% seems to be doing the trick for the prints on Printer 1...





... like I said, that print came off the bed this morning, along with the second print from Printer 2. Some shots post clean up (essentially of the Printer 1 print; the Printer 2 prints really don't need any!)...





... there is still some evidence of a bit of curling from Printer 1...





... but this is barely noticeable, so it passes... anyway, I assembled all the bits and added em to the model...























... Printer 2 is currently at 27% of the last piece for this Module, Printer 1 has just barely reached 1% of the First for the final module (mind you, I had to stop and restart it to be fair)...

... ok, lots to do, will post again when I have a mo' and there's something to report...  

Cheers,

D.

[d33j r093r5]

... quick last update before bed...

... seems to be the day for it; the eff up fairy has visited several times today!   Printer 2 decided to stop extruding filament while I wasn't watching, and kept on it's merry course, probably for about half an hour before I noticed. I was envisaging clogged nozzles, and jammed motors. Nothing so prosaic: it was a new spool of filament, and when the reels have a slightly larger central drum, the filament is wound pretty much to the extent of the outer flange. Sometimes (actually, frequently) in this scenario, the filament jumps off the spool and coils around the spool holder. So, after a certain number of revolutions, the reel just won't spin anymore and gets jammed. One of two things happens in this circumstance. Either the filament snaps, and nothing gets fed through / gets printed, or it doesn't snap and nothing gets fed through / gets printed, but it happens sooner. I had to start from scratch!!!     ... *le sigh*. Printer 1 not so long ago required a change of spool as well, and it was essentially the same situation. To make sure it doesn't happen, I sacrificed the first 5m of filament off the reel. Bit annoyed about that, but better 5m wasted than 20 odd metres wasted when it fails, plus the extra 5m I will need to sacrifice anyway because it's jammed itself so tightly that I need to cut it off to free it!

Speaking of Printer 1, it's behaving itself, more or less; still making spider-webs, but printing nicely otherwise, and at about 75%. That will be ready to come off the bed when I get up tomorrow...

Even though I had to restart Printer 2, it's still finished it's print well before Printer 1, but that's because it's currently printing at twice the speed! The final piece of Module B came off the bed a short while ago...











... and hence why I'm posting now, rather than leaving it until morning. Wanted to share NOW!  


       


... all errors, imperfections, mish-mash colour schemes, and re-prints aside, this is really starting to look the business, even if I do say so myself...

... the current module piece that Printer 1 is working on will be the last it does. I'm going to give it an easier task and just print flat things, fairly certain it can handle those at normal speeds. Printer 2 will finish the remainder of the Module parts from tomorrow. There are only 2 more to go, so it makes sense; it would be able to complete 2 in the time it's taking Printer 1 to do 1 anyway...

... until tomorrow; G'night!

D.

[d33j r093r5]

I continue to be plagued by a certain fairy who hasn't seemingly taken the hint. It's not all bad news though; I'll start from the beginning. Woke up this morning to this...








... the print run has obviously finished, but the print itself isn't (this is Printer 1 btw)! Has it also tangled at the rear like Printer 2? Did my careful planning fail to avoid what I was hoping to avoid...? Well, there wasn't any tangle at the back at all. That means the issue is in the print head. This was confirmed when I tried to load/unload filament through the motor extruder. It wasn't budging. So I stripped it down... aaaaand found this...











      now I have absolutely NO idea what would have caused this to happen, although I have some suspicions. I'll get back to that. In the meantime, the only thing to do with this is strip the whole thing down and clean it out. Dreading it, coz inevitably it means heating up the nozzle to try and loosen / melt any melted filament stuck where it shouldn't be... cut a long story short, completely stripping it was just the ticket, the filament actually came untangled fairly easily once I had done that. There was still a largish section of filament stuck in the plastic piping leading into the nozzle, so that wasn't budging. Fortunately, there was a small bit of filament sticking out the end. I was able to get away with letting it sit in boiling water for a minute or so to soften it up, and then using needle-noses to wiggle it free. Came out nice and cleanly too. Made my life a lot simpler. Got the printer up and running again. You may recall I was going to do the last 2 pieces of Module D on Printer 2. Well, as a result of this mishap, that's now going to be the last 3 pieces!  

... as for Printer 2...








... it behaved itself overnight. Nice!...














... progress has slowed, but it continues nevertheless. Getting a better look at that failed print from Printer 1...











... you can see it stopped printing right near the end, and that the piece isn't usable! If they fail right at the start, fine, nothing too much wasted (except a bit of time). If they fail right at the very end it can also still be fine, if enough of it has printed. But to fail right before the point where you have a usable piece is a real kick in the teeth...  

... anyway, Printer 2 didn't want to load up filament properly this morning either. I had to strip it down as well to clear whatever was jamming it. Wasn't expecting to find anything to bad in there; the print finished successfully after all...





... a few strands and a small clump stuck to the spindle feeder. No biggie. I doubt whether this caused the issue in Printer 1; this kind of excess in the extruder only happens at the end of prints when the feeder is retracting the filament, and you get clumps of semi melted gloop coming back into the feeder from the hot-end. If it had been an issue, I would have known it at the very start of the print the previous day... anyway, while I was cleaning this out, I got Printer 1 going with the next job: Printing panel adornments, I started with these...


http://tardisbuilders.com/index.php?action=dlattach;k=-170;topic=8789.0;attach=185481;image


... one to start with to be exact, and a half hour later, I had this to show for it...








... awesome, worked as well as I could have hoped for. Unfortunately (I'm saying that a lot lately!), the back of it is really thin. Like, REALLY thin. I kind of "tore" it taking it off the print bed. I think it will still be usable though, but I realised that it was probably going to be better for these to print bare-back directly on the glass. As it cools, there will be different thermal expansion / contraction coefficients in play, and the panels will almost slide off the bed once it's cooled. The adhesion is just waaaaay too good to keep printing them on the blue tape... anyway, take a look...  


   


... sweet! I thought hanging around to change em every half an hour was a bit of a bugger though, so in addition to printing directly on glass, I also decided to print em in bulk...








... you can see lots of artefacts on these, they actually clean up fairly nicely (as you'll see )... and to show you how thin these are...





... you can see through them! Actually, they don't even need to be help up to the light, I was able to see the floor in a darker corridor through it! This might be beneficial when it comes time to stick them to the modules; that they're thin means they're flexible, and given the comparatively large surface morphology of the modules, the flexibility of these will mean I can still get quite a lot of contact surface area...








... clean up alright don't they?  

ok... here's some more bad news. Just as I was starting to type this up, Printer 2 suddenly went "bang"; not like as in something blew up, like the gantry rammed into the side of the case. I had a look and something like that must have happened, because the head was now printing waaaaaay off centre. The printer was essentially extruding into thin air, offset by half the print size. I have no idea why it did that, but it effectively ruined the print; there's no way on my printers to re-zero the X and Y axes mid-print (which is silly if you ask me; being able to return to a known origin so you can recall your last position is a staple of any kind of commercial CNC manufacturing operation. I DID buy very, very cheap printers though     )...

... so... here's the failed print from Printer 2...








... look familiar...? It should...





... here it is, side by side with the failed print of Printer 1 from this morning. The same piece off printer 1  from this morning. Stuffed up in almost exactly the same spot on the same piece from Printer 1 from this morning, at 92% completion! Maybe this piece is cursed?     ... yeeeeah, not buying that either. If it was a problem with the print file / model file, then it would have errored in exactly the same spot, and cause the same reaction on both printers. This is just a really, really, REALLY unlucky coincidence. An annoying one too... so, I've once AGAIN started the bottom front section of Module 1D on Printer 2; we'll see what happens...

... as to what happened with Printer 1 and why the filament decided to play ring-a rosie inside the spindle area, I noticed today as Printer 1 was working that the front fan on top of the heat exchanger wasn't really working properly; it needed a few nudges to get going, and was then really sluggish. It's possible that during the print last night, the fan seized and stopped, causing the rest of the print head to get hot. Filament may have melted inside the spindle area and just started to clag up the interior rather than feeding through. That's my best guess anyway...

... the annoying thing about these print heads is that, while a lot of the bits are reasonably modular, the fans are not! It would be simple enough to have a plug attached so you could swap them out if something happens to one. But no, these are wired and bundled aaaallllll the way back to the main controller / PCB. So, I'd either need to cut the wires and attach another fan using some solder and heat-shrink (something that I'm not particularly experienced at), or swap out the whole head assembly for a new one. That's about $150.00 investment and a 1-2 week wait from China (I've used all my spares). I'm going to press on in the same manner I have been doing today; short run prints for Printer 1 until I can fix the problem properly...

... also about 20 minutes ago, the next lot of panels finished on Printer 1. I found printing 6 of them was a little hit and miss in terms of the quality, so I reduced it to 3 at a time. One more batch like that, and these panels (I call them Roundel Panels... y'know... coz they have roundels on em ) will be done. Just 3 more sets to go after that...

... ok, probably talked your ears off for long enough now... will post again after the next significant prints are done...!

D.

[Davros Skaro]

I personally don't mind the explanations of how you are doing things & how things go wrong & what you need to do to fix them. This could help someone in the future who may decide to print their own & they have similar problems, sssoooo, ......keep going with it & hope you don't have too many more gremlins coming in & messing things up.

On a side note, could there be dust in the fan bearings? & can you get to them & maybe brush/blow them out to get rid of it. Dust tends to get in any where there are fans, just look in you pc sometime at the fans in there. Hope this may help you.

Still loving the progress on this & those panel adornments/Roundel Panels look great too.
Chris.

[d33j r093r5]

Hey Chris, dust is a problem, actually mainly from tiny filament particles. They actually collect in the heat exchangers as a result of the movement of air from the fans. The heat exchangers are right on top of the filament feeder, which probably does "grind" some of the particles off, so it makes sense. I do blow the fans out regularly to keep them clear, but they are VERY fine particles, so quite a few probably do get into the fans inner workings. They're really small, very basic fans though; there's no obvious way to take em apart because they're not really designed to be. I probably could, but it would be messy, and I don't envisage them going back together easily. These are really cheap and nasty bits of hardware, you'd pick up a bag of 5 of these from Jaycars for something like $3. Hence, when one fails you just replace it. That still leaves me with the same initial problem of cutting the old one off and affixing a new one. Mind you, if I attach a bunch of them to plugs, and terminate the cable ends in another plug, then I could just hot-swap them out, and not have to always purchase an entire new head every time I lose a fan. I think that may be the way forward on this...

... I just try and include everything that happens; partly because it serves as a how to do it / how NOT to do it / how it probably should have been done, not just for other people but for myself as well! I have a terrible short term memory problem (that's a long story) so when it comes time to doing this again (if ever) there's a handy go-to for me as well... . And, also in part because that's just how it goes. That's the story of how we got from there to here. It's more interesting than just a nuts and bolts explanation (I think, anyway), and usually end up learning more from the problems that arise than from when everything just goes smoothly. I also just want to be honest about it. Nobody's perfect...

... was going to post an update this morning too, but seeing as how I don't really have anything new to report there isn't much point. The same print failed again last night, in exactly the same spot in exactly the same way. I took some photos I'll post later. I'm trying some experiments this morning to see if it's my printer or my print-file (the file which contains all the G-code). Will update when I know more. Oh, and printer 1 finished more of those Roundel Panels; they're done now. Moving onto the Door Panels...

D.