3D Print Figured Out (?) and Other Stuff

Jacob and I went to the Milwaukee Makerspace this afternoon.  I worked on several things.  Jacob played a lot on the pinball machine and was bored some of the time but I think he enjoys himself.

First of all, the Makerspace hosted an event called "Fix-It Milwaukee".  People were invited to bring broken stuff to the space and the Makers would try to fix them.  I was surprised about how many people were bringing in their things to get fixed.  It was really well attended.

My main goal today was to laser cut the acrylic for Anna's rabbit hutch.  I have a piece of acrylic that I can cut 10cm high rectangles out of.  The pieces will get attached to the insides of the hutch at the bottom.  The acrylic will keep the bedding (and poop) from getting kicked out of the hutch and all over the floor.  I made a drawing of a 24"x16# piece of acrylic.  Then, I drew rectangles in that piece.  I did all of this in Inkscape on my Ubuntu laptop.  I was told that I could then import the Inkscape document into Corel Draw.  Corel is what controls the 60 watt laser cutter at the 'space.  The reality is that Corel Draw does not work well with Inkscape documents.  I tried several things including saving the document as a PDF file and then trying to import that into Corel.  Nothing worked.  When I asked people who use the laser cutter how they make their documents, they all either have a paid for version of Corel or Adobe Publisher.  I need to figure out a better way.  All I want to do is cut out a rectangle.

I was able to make good progress 3D printing Tardis parts.  Dave Buggs helped me get the right settings for the base and sides.  I was able to successfully print the open base and the front door.  The settings I used were:

• infill: 30% 
• shells: 2
• layer height: .20 mm
• extruder temp: 235 degrees C
• build plate temp: 110 degrees C

Next time, I will try to re-print the sides.  If these print okay, I will have all the pieces printed.  I also bought a can of navy blue spray paint.

In between prints, I got some help with my rocket launcher from Dave Buggs and Bill Murray.  What we finally figured out is that when the button is pushed, the current is going to ground and not to the rocket.  I think I need to re-design the circuit slightly.  I did some research and came up with a new circuit design.  When I get time, I will re-do the wiring.  Hopefully, that will fix the problem.

Finally, there were some guys there talking about alternative energy.  They told me about a solar kit that Harbor Freight sells that would be good for experimenting.  That is a project for another day.  I'd like to install that on my shed and use the power a light and fan.