Happy 4th ’23

Adverts – Celebrating Another Year

The lead on this Happy 4th of July ’23 was promising at first, with a resin vat cover printed on a Halot Sky Resin vat cover via an Ender 3 Max Neo taking over 6 hours. However, just over 5 hours after starting, we encountered numerous issues – lots of them! Firstly, we discovered missing hand screw (tension), misplaced tension belts (x and y axis belts), and PLA ooze covering over 40%  of the hot end/extruder. This was not a good look and definetly not a good start to the holiday. The amount of PLA filament or print material wasted was ridiculous. It was clear that we missed the disaster in the making, with filament spread out around the adhesion plate and beyond.

What A Mess

Thirdly, you could say I walked into a mess.  Or better yet,  the x-axis tension belt relieved itself of duty by removing itself from the printer head. Please see the pictures shared below, what a mess. Anyhow, we have the printer head back together, PLA cleaned off, tension belts applied. Next, and not captured below, we will replace the adhesion plate, tension screws, and restart the machine for calibration. Look for update posts here in the next day or two.

Finally, what is the purpose of the print? Well, from a work perspective, I wanted to get a cover on the Halot Sky (V1) Resin vat. So, the goal was to fix the resin vat and then shift over to the PLA filament testing.  Obviously, this didn’t happen as planned, as the test print took a turn for the worse, as did the work. All in all, the print was lost probably within the first couple of hours; by the looks of it, plate adhesion was the issue. The filament was to0 cold, or not hot enough to adhere to the plate and keep. Side note, ironing is off. The printer head assembly it self was dug into the plate; plowed into the print plate. There are scratch marks from the assembly failure. By the way, not a great sound, tension belts releasing and printer head/plate friction. Anyhow, the printer has been fixed and is working on a new print in process. More posts, more prints coming your way at a later date/time.

Before You Go

Let’s chat about some recent articles that you might be interested in viewing. Interested? If so, those of you out on the water, inlets, canals etc. fisherman alike, check out the West Marine – Adventurer Lifevest – class V inflatable. It’s lightweight, comfortable and no-nonsense when you need it most in the event of an emergency. Helpful to have around for the holiday week, weekend in and around Florida. Two, have back up batteries for your electronics, we recently picked up a few emergency batteries for the satellite phone by Inmarsat. And more importantly, a sous vide cooking station. I’ll be making some Brussels and bacon as a side dish for tomorrow’s festivities… if I clear away the mess above (we will get that sorted soon enough)! We’ve had a few articles on the sous vide over the years, cool little gadget for prepping meals… Speaking of, need to start the prep work for this years 4th celebration. 

With that, I’ll sign off here, this is Happy 4th ’23 for now. Next replace plate, hand screws, springs, restart/update firmware and calibration.