Miscellaneous 3D Printing

While at the Makerspace, I 3D printed a couple of objects (or at least attempted to).  The Makerbot was being very temperamental tonight.  I had to take it apart to remove a piece of filament that was stuck on the filament input from a previous print.  It also kept losing connection to the PC.  I would reboot the PC and it would print for a few minutes and then just stop.  Also, the computer in the 3D printing area would not write to an SD card.  I had to use my trusty Linux laptop to write the gcode for the prints to an SD card.  Finally, I think there was something wrong with the filament.  It just would not extrude consistently.  I did get stuff printed but the pieces were rough.

The first thing I printed is a small piece to hold a 3.5mm hard drive for an Xbox 360 S.  I am hoping to find a cheap or free hard drive that we can install in my son's Xbox.  (If you have one you don't want anymore, let me know.)  This piece would hold the drive in place.  I found the design for the hard drive case on Thingiverse.

The next thing I tried to print was a small case for a Raspberry Pi.  I found this design on Thingiverse as well.  For some reason, it did not turn out at all like it was supposed to.  The picture below shows how the print is supposed to look.

This is what actually printed.  I did not get any errors and the printer says the job finished completely. Not sure what happened.  The actual print did not have any walls.  Oh well.  I'll try a different design next time.

#raspberrypi, #3dprinting, #xbox360, #milwaukeemakerspace, #makerbot

Fixed Some Entertainment Devices

Recently, I worked on some broken devices and got them back to working condition (more-or-less). 

First of all, I fixed a Toshiba 32“ HD LCD television that my in-laws were going to throw out.  I was able to find the owner's manual and service manual on the internet.  The service manual had troubleshooting steps that were very easy to follow.  Using my trusty multimeter, I was able to determine that the tv had a bad circuit board (p/n STW37T VTV-3707 REV:1).

Back to the internet.  I had no luck looking for the part on normal reseller pages.  Eventually, I found a used circuit board on e-bay.  I bought it and installed it in the television in about 20 minutes.  Now, the tv works great. We have tested it as a TV, hooked it up to a VCR, connected it to an HD device, and a PC. Right now, the TV is a monitor for our Xbox and kids PC. All of the inputs are working.

Speaking of Xboxes, I worked on two broken ones this weekend. One of the xboxes would not read any DVDs. I took the DVD drive apart and cleaned the laser lens and the mirror. It still does not read all DVDs but it does read some. This xbox has a Thompson brand DVD drive. That is the most unreliable brand according to the Internet. 

The DVD drive on other Xbox would not open at all. I found some videos on YouTube about how to fix this problem. Basically, there is a small rubber belt on a pulley and gear near the front of the player. Apparently, the pulley and belt get dirty.  This is the most common reason the drive will not open.  Fixing the problem is simple (once you get the drive open).  After taking off the belt, I cleaned the pulley with alcohol.  Then, I cleaned the belt with soap and water and reassembled everything.  The drive opens and closes just fine now.