It’s Friday – BraQ Dragon – Cooling – Contempt
Been making good progress printing the parts needed for BraQ Dragon. If you check out my Instagram account you will see the photos of the prints. If you like what you see please follow as I will be uploading other prints and photos.
So far with the dragon I have printed 34 parts out of 42 (maybe 43, not totally sure). Currently as I write this post the print is printing the final 2 parts of the neck giving a total of 8 rather than Seven; Maybe they started counting from zero when naming the parts. Have about 2 large parts and small part which is the chest, the right upper wing and the lower jaw.
Progress of printing the dragon has been delayed for various reasons, machine breakdown needing replacement threaded rod, lack of cooling causing high spots upon the layers which then catch the 2nd nozzle (I have a duel extruder set-up) this causes the x-axis stepper to skip resulting in the next layer being too far over from the last. Original estimations on the amount of filament needed for this dragon was only 95 metres, I’m currently on my second 1kg reel (each reel is ~330 metres) which sort of show the amount of failed prints that I have encountered.
Upon reading this blog post http://www.desiquintans.com/coolingtests#thingstested and this one http://www.desiquintans.com/coolingtests2
I was able to learn a bit more about cooling down the filament as it comes out of the nozzle, as the filament I was using to print the dragon was proving that it held it’s heat well so that previous layers would be too soft for the next layer to sit upon correctly. One way to combat this overheating problem is to reduce the hot-end temperature and print speed. Only problem with this is increased print time and skipping extruder motor due to strain of pushing less than fluid filament though a small hole. The blog post also show some great designs of cooling ducts available to print via thingiverse. It also made the suggestion that using a blower type fan rather an axial fan provides better air pressure and flow. Which when you think about it the more pre-built machines have Centrifugal fans aka blowers rather axial fans.
Axial Fans
An axial fan is one in which the extracted air is pulled through the impeller, parallel to the shaft around which the blades rotate.
Centrifugal Fans
Centrifugal fans extract air at right angles to the intake of the fan, and spin the air outwards to the outlet by deflection and centrifugal force. The impeller rotates, causing air to enter the fan near the shaft and move perpendicularly from the shaft to the opening in the fan casing. This allows the fan to produce more pressure for a given air volume, and is thus able to ‘push’ the extracted air along much longer duct runs. Centrifugal fans are usually more expensive than axial fans.
http://www.extractorfanworld.co.uk/axial-fans-v-centrifugal-fans-61-c.asp
So after obtaining a 75mm x 35mm blower fan and printing a few items from thingiverse. I have been able to mount an improved cooling fan upon my printer. This been a great addition to my printer’s ability to produce good looking prints. It also allowed me to increase the hot-temperature back up to the correct temperature of 200 degrees C. which improved the flow of filament.

Contempt
This came about as this morning I was reading my twitter @3dprintandstuff feed and I came across this tweet which stated that copyright was doomed due to 3dprinting and that they provided a link to the nefertiti hack. So I tweeted back the only thing that’s is doomed about copyright is peoples understanding of it. The creator is prob dead as copyright lasts the life of the creator plus 70 years. To which the reply the irony is lost with you regarding my tweet I’m very anti-copyright & patents. I think 3D printing is great. I replied with “if I designed a print and it had a non-commercial licence attached to it. It would be better to ask me first before selling it with an agreement.”
They then replied asking what’s copyright? I replied it’s protection and law which looks out for the creator to protect their work. To which they replied “copyright and patents stifle innovation, harm creative ideas sharing and are hindrance to technological advancements” which I replied okay so I break into your house take all your stuff placed it on eBay, maybe sell some items. You are going to be pissed but then there is no respect or protection so there.
Might have chosen an bad example as theft is not the same as copyright infringement. I was trying to say that copyright gives protection against that and jail time with other. They saw it as a threat but I sated it was just an example.
Their response was oh that covered by the “don’t be a duck” internet rule. I was like WTF that would stand up in court, you would be charged with contempt. Their view was we don’t have copyright rules we have a “don’t be a duck” internet rule. This was also a new one for me as I have also heard this one “don’t be a dick” The previous one is even close to “don’t give a fcuk” What wonderful negatively we get from fellow humans when upon the internet and in IRL when things are misunderstood or not know about. I believe that he UK version of the copyright act together with Creative commons licences provides good protection of work when both parties abide by the rules set out in each of them.
It’s better to be more human, try to understand, stop being like a machine;
As the machine has less of an idea than the human controlling the machine
Till next time, have a good weekend.
Like this:
Like Loading...