That thing where they download the networking component at startup is particularly nasty.
I know I mentioned this in another post elsewhere, but I wanted to share it here too. I found this pool skimmer grate on Makerworld and made it. It fit perfectly and works fantastic to keep our floating pool lights out of the skimmer. We had pool lights before and had to take them out because they kept going into the skimmer. That was 9 years ago. Same pool, same skimmer, but now we have new lights and they float happily along, bypassing the skimmer. It also keeps out the bats and birds, which we have also found in the skimmer.
And then I came across this held-held paint holder, which I really need since Iām painting the house. Climbing up on a ladder to do trim, I was using an old container that was hard to hold on to. This one can be held by either hand, has ridges for the roller (supposed to fit up to an 8ā roller, but I havenāt tried that, I just need it for a trim brush), a little lip to scrape the brush on, and even a little pour spout to empty it. Iāll be using it today! So excited! (Itās amazing how such simple things can make this old gal happy.
)
Iāve been printing using the Siraya Tech foaming TPU (and TPUesque filaments like PEBA which is AMAZING!) It lets you set the density/hardness by changing the temperature on the PEBA air Iāve been using 70-95A simply by adjusting print temperature. Unlike regular TPU PEBA has (IIRC nylon) in it to provide energy return (so not as good at damping like a gasket might need) but great for pads or something that needs to bounce back. It is very moisture sensitive and sometimes I print out of a dryer/drybox but also have printed day long prints just hung on one of the spool holders on my Prusa XL. Personally I never get (unless forced to) buy tiny-spools or even more annoying small samples without any spool. The XL lets you easily create custom spool holders of any size (any peg with a M5 clearance hole inside works great) and the regular ones extend to take 2+ KG spools which I frequently use.
As for runout, most modern multimaterial printers (I am assuming the AMS does this) will do āspool joiningā like Prusa does, where you load multiple extruders/tools as in the XL, Core1+INDX or Bambuās tool changer (or in the case of the Bambu AMS or Prusa MMU, different feeds) with spools of the identical filament and say (either in the slicer or printerās control panel) start with tool X and join Y if X runs out. I do this all the time for the 1/10th of a spool left over from some large print, or if I am doing a multi-day print while I am away it lets me have the security of any failure on tool X will simply park and swap over to tool Y and I will come home to a finished print (of course a tool dock failure wonāt as that causes the whole thing to stop since it has no idea what happened but those are extremely rare as it means either the tool failed to undock due to something blocking it or failed to redock due to something blocking it. Both require human intervention)
I saw this in person at Rapid+TCT, it was truly sci-fi, like the first time Iāve ever felt I was on Star Trek for real.
Iāve been using a dedicated Harbor Freight dehydrator for the past 10 years and have had great success. I store my filament about 10 rolls in a watertight container with a rechargeable closet desiccant pack (plug it in when the beads change color).
@henryhbk, the AMS does continue on from another spool if it runs out, but you have to have them in slots A and B. Iāve yet to print with my TPU, but itās just the 95A. I know I will definitely dry it before I use it. Iām even drying my PETG now before I use it, as Iāve been having trouble with it stringing and have had to stop prints, clean the nozzle, etc.
Hmmm, thinking about it now, could I have just paused the print instead of stopping it and done the cleaning? Would it have picked it back up where it left off? Of course, removing the nozzle, I turn the machine off, so I donāt know that pausing it would work.
@dwardio, Iāll have to look into a rechargeable desiccant pack. I dried some in my food dehydrator, but that was a pain. Iām thinking itās easier just to throw it out and buy new. But as Iāve mentioned before, Iām cheap, so Iāll continue to dry it! I have seen a desiccant dryer to print out that fits in the Sunlu dryer, so I may do that. But the rechargeable pack sounds very interesting indeed.
For many years I used the 3DPrintDry, which was a vegetable dryer with the name sanded off, but found it didnāt work as well with storage (they make external canisters I could use, basically Tupperware). Since then I have a 4-spool Creality SpacePi X4 (very nice) and a 4 spool Sunlu E2 which also can do annealing. Both of them are very high performance as far as drying even extremely high temperature polymers (the sunlu particularly as the annealing mode is like 110C which will fuse an entire spool of PLA if you accidentally set it!). I do print a fair amount of nylon (particularly Nylon G, K and CF) so those are extremely water sensitive since the layers bond by hydrogen bonding. PETG I do my spools when stringing starts. I had purchased the add-on dry boxes from prusa which while working excellently to keep things dry have a center post that doesnāt work for some (major) brands of filament spools mechanically (causing the edge of the spool to rub on the hygrometer housing leading to jams) and the Bambu spools Iāve been using (for a specific RAL color match to the Airbus cockpit color) is slightly wider than a prusament spool, so rubs on the housing causing jams. Now I just keep the HVAC set to keep the humidity mostly down in the house and it keeps PLA and PETG much longer with nothing around them (a week or 2) and at the rate Iām printing huge parts (did you know airliners are LARGE?) I donāt worry as much as the spool is empty before I have to worry about humidity! In the past 5 weeks I have used 8kg of filament (funny non-printing friends are always asking how I have time for that, I note itās not like Iām standing there, I press print and come back in a day or 2 - albeit with the periodic check of the camera to make sure it is in fact printing still)
I am excited about the new Prusa ColorMix (once it gets settled in), worth a couple of minutes even if you donāt have a Prusa printer to understand how all the various apps work from Bambu, Hueforge, etc. I had gotten hueforge at RMRRF but my brain simply isnāt getting it, despite watching the web tutorials, etc. I get what it is trying to do, just the whole mental model for color clustering thing makes my brain drool out my ears.
I canāt find the exact model I bought, but this is essentially the same:
https://www.homedepot.com/p/Eva-Dry-High-Capacity-6-8-oz-Mini-Dehumidifier-in-White-E-500/202847325
I was going to post about the ones Iāve been using, but it sounded familiar so first I checked the topic and Iāve already made two identical replies about how I store my filament. Ah, the joy of becoming eld.
Unrelated, Iāve spend the past week repairing my patio lights and switches, which always suffer from water ingress. For various reasons owing to bad professional installation and my own repeated repair attempts, nothing fits perfectly and Iām always fighting uneven gaskets and stripped screws. The combination of seeing this topic and having that frustration fresh in my mind made me realize I have all the tools to print some custom TPU parts that could solve the problem.
I showed earlier the pool skimmer filter I printed from MakerWorld. Well I private messaged the designer and asked if he could make it thinner so it wouldnāt stick out so far. He did, and sent me the file. He wasnāt sure if heād made the connectors fit for the two pieces, but it all fit perfectly. I sent him pictures. It works perfectly and doesnāt stick out as far. It works great at keeping the pool lights from getting stuck in the skimmer, and we wonāt have to worry about hitting it while weāre swimming.
Difference is sizes:

First edition:
Second edition:

And the lights just float byā¦.

I was very impressed with the designer responding so quickly. And although I had originally asked for a āflatā version, I donāt mind it sticking out just a tad. There had been some others that were flatter, but we didnāt like the size of the holes, and this shape worked really well for keeping not only the lights, but the pine needles and leaves out of the skimmer.
That is awesome that he customized it for you!
Yeah, I was impressed, and he did it quickly too. The cover is working fantastic, even for keeping the pine needles out, and we get a ton of those in the pool.
oh man, that would be a pain to clean up pine needles - so tedious!
Marc said the new cover makes it really easy to just swipe them up into his hand. Definitely worth printing that thing!
I need to keep this idea in mind to help me find inspiration for things I need here at home.
Iām finally getting on the bandwagon for gridfinity! Decided my kitchen drawers really needed a cleanup. First drawer done, working on the second drawer now - already have the bases made (takes 3 per drawer), and working on the first set of utensil holders. Needless to say, Iām hooked! Doing them on the 3D for the kitchen because I donāt want to mess with wood, but will definitely use the GF to make wood ones for all my craft drawers. ![]()
Before and after pics of the first drawer done. This also made me focus on the fact that I donāt need 20+ wooden spoons! I was going to make a slot for the scissors, but both of my pair are too tall to fit in the drawer if I put it in the gridfinity stuff.
this kind of stuff is exactly why my company got rid of all our bamboo labs printers (like 8-9 of them). itās way too much of a security risk. especially with our secure government contracts.
Whatās the security risk with the Bambu printers?
if you read the article that @evansd2 linked to, there are lots of security issues with their software tied to chinese laws. we canāt take any risks like that or we could lose government contracts.
Ah, I remember now. Thanks.




