What are you making ⚒️ / 3D printing 🖨

That has been my experience with a friend’s SLA UV resin machine. But most of the time, things just get welded to the bed. And that reminds me that I should get myself a Saturn and a flexible build surface for it.

Off my ender 6

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I’ve been building a big battery pack for a while now and just got it mostly completed. The brackets that hold the BMS and the fuse holder were printed on my Ender 3 Pro.

For those wondering what the Raspberry Pi is for.

I’m using it and a Teensy 2.0 to gather data from the BMS. The data immediately gets shoved into a database so I can put it into Grafana. This was a proof test running a 1000W inverter with two 500W halogen work lights plugged into it. As you can probably see in the screenshot it ran a nearly 90A load for 15 minutes before I turned one of the work lights off. The Fuse, buss bars, and cables all got very warm and managed to get to 150f(65c) by the time I reduced the load to a mere 500W. All in all it was more successful than my last fuse setup which was sub-optimal and poped after 12 minutes.

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Was talking with @Backpackingvet a while ago about maybe making a real, functional, and live silver bullet

Because I’m a nerd and a gun nut who likes weird ammo

I looked into it for a minute thinking I could just use a standard lead mold, but silver has to high of a shrinkage rate for that to work well

So I wrote off the idea…

Starting to play with the idea of lost-pla casting, or a 2 piece mold formed from a printed positive

3D printing would allow me to factor in material shrinkage rate… and kind fun also… get a bit artistic

I’m fairly bad at art, and only moderately capable of 3D modeling… so best I could manage so far

But I like the idea of like Celtic knot, or some kind of flowing organic swirl… and then using something like rub and buff on it to darken (or lighten :thinking:) the engraved lines

For the sake of ease, I might talk to a jewelry store or something, they often use lost-print casting for super small and custom rings and stuff

Maybe I can have them cast for me to save a lot of hassle…. Probably going to cost more than the hassle it saves me though

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You might consider precious metal clay. It has a set shrinkage rate, you make the object (a bit larger than needed) as though it was modelling clay and when it is fired it shrinks and ends up as a metal object.

Some of it can be fired with a blow torch and crucible.

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Just saying, my offer stands.

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What am I going to do in the coming werewolf/vampire apocalypse? Throw it by hand like some kind of savage? No no no lol

The pew pew seed, must be able to be pew pew’d

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It’s pretty much mostly shaped like a bullet. Just shave and shape it, and load it up

Just for the sake of discussion. Do you suppose it would work if you took a regular copper clad bullet and gave it a 100% pure silver coating? If I remember right it should be the silver in the heart that kills the werewolf right?

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I’ll need a werewolf…. For scientific purposes

…probably a bunch if we want statistical significance

(And this is how the werewolf apocalypse began)

To be clear, I’m probably making things harder than I need to sure… but I want it to seem or feel genuine to generic lore… again mostly for lulz because I’m a nerd

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Instead of casting your bullet, why not turn it on a lathe? That way you’d get exact control over final dimensions and shape.

Also, consult a gun nut before you get too far. If the silver won’t let the rifling cut grooves in it or something weird, you could have a bad bad day.

There are plenty of bullets that are far harder, solid turned copper, steel jacket etc

It mostly effects barrel life first, but something tells me I’m not going to shoot enough silver to do squat

this bullet will also be significantly lighter

It’s probably going to be a pretty inefficient loading since I’m not going to put gas checks, and limited engagement surfaces… probably a non aggressive powder charge also

I mostly just want it to be able to go bang, that’s enough for me

Lathe IS an option, I’ve only avoided it for 2 reasons so far,

  1. I don’t have a lathe :sweat_smile:

  2. It would hurt to see silver chips go everywhere…
    (Sure it’s not actually worth much… and it might be recoverable-ish… just feels hurtful)

  3. There’s just something satisfying about the idea of casting?

If I really wanted, I could probably get a bullet mold made with shrinkage rate in mind, and be able to make a LOT of them but that’s probably more than I want to spend for a few lulz

… actually that might be a fairly reasonable approach…. 100-150$… for a good and reusable option

I could make a few extra to recoop my costs…. I wouldn’t sell directly because FFL stuff… but I could sell some to a buddy of mine who runs a very successful and… “interesting” ammo company

Sounds like a lot, but considering molding supplies and effort to do lost-casting… might be reasonable

Edit… again…

Bler, apparently there are even more ways silver is a pain in regards to casting… spru insulation and stuff

So back to either a one-off casting by myself, or have someone lathe it for me… I’d still likely need to get the silver into round bar of approximate dimensions… so that’s still possibly casting work… :weary:… stupid fixation is going to be a pain

APMEX for when you’re ready.

They have lots of options besides shot. Just thought that’d be easiest to measure out for melting.

Ive been making a few accessories for my “new” 1936 south bend …
finally printed a dial holder (not my design on this one).

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I absolutely love the idea of 3D printing things for old lathes. Using additive manufacturing to upgrade subtractive manufacturing.

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I look forward to 3D extruders added to the head of a 5 axis mill… the actual mechanics are probably child’s play…. The slicing software is probably crazy complicated

I don’t think that doing so would give you any advantages over having a 5 axis mill and a high end 3D printer. If you can afford the mill, you might as well buy a nice printer…

And that reminds me that I should get myself an SLS printer…

Mixing old and new is always fun :yum:
Next is installing the tacho and getting a proper tool post (the lantern post are awful…) So I can make more pulley …
After that, it’s probably gonna be time for a DRO :sweat_smile:

Maybe switching to DC/variable speed at some point?