3D printing...

[JohnnyC]

I personally use Slic3r because it's pretty feature packed. Many of the issues that are the byproduct of the lack of features in the Makerbot software are easily correctible in Slic3r. That being said, it's not for beginners, and I'd recommend Cura to start out with until you have a solid understanding of settings, what issues are created and solved by adjusting various settings, etc. Slic3r has great compatibility with the OctoPI stuff, and as far as I know, Cura does not, but it's been a bit since I've worked with it so software revisions may have rectified that by now.

Something to remember, Makerbot doesn't use standard GCODE like other printers, it does some weird voodoo mumbo jumbo and operates on its own protocol. There are some tools that allow you to use the Octo stuff with it, but I'm not sure how easy or reliable they are. I've never bothered.

 

[victorzamora]

I just ordered a 3B+ with a fan integrated case. Sure, I could have printed one, but with two fans already integrated into it, I'll be spending almost as much to buy the fans as I did for the pre-made aluminum case. I've also ordered a Pi camera so I can take advantage of being able to see what's going on. I think that using the Cura Slicer plugin may actually make the MakerBot Replicator 2x usable.

It's incredible how cheap things can be made in bulk, isn't it? I've printed ONE case between the three (four?) Pis I've got, and I did it despite printing being more expensive and only did so due to lead time.

 

[tbone1004]

It's incredible how cheap things can be made in bulk, isn't it? I've printed ONE case between the three (four?) Pis I've got, and I did it despite printing being more expensive and only did so due to lead time.

hey! go back to work so we can leave sooner! Then we can go harass @The Chairman in person tonight!

 

[kelemvor]

ah - well I haven't had a good hair day since around 1989! Most of it has slid off the top and down the back...probably TMI...

I hadn't really looked at the 3d printing stuff due to cost expectations, but have now downloaded a couple free pieces of software and will be poking around at it. The library relatively near me seems to offer 3d printing services and I've started telling the wife we need a printer - maybe by christmas I can actually justify it. This is just what I needed another expensive hobby....

You can get into some of them super cheap now days. This one is only $160 on Amazon.

 

[victorzamora]

You can get into some of them super cheap now days. This one is only $160 on Amazon.

Holy cow, a Delta for $160? That's nuts!

For the uninitiated, Delta-printers have three arms that come down as opposed to simple X-Y-Z Cartesian traverse systems like most of us are familiar with from milling machines. Deltas are awesome for anything round.

 

[The Chairman]

New project: The 18650 Battery Box...

 

[emoreira]

New project: The 18650 Battery Box...

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[emoreira]

New project: The 18650 Battery Box...

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Fixed !

 

[The Chairman]

OK, I'm getting a bit frustrated with OctoPrint. I'm actually loading two RPis. One to act as a media server and the other to act as my print server. Since I'm still waiting on my Tornado, I did the media server first. I tried OSMC as suggested by @victorzamora, but I wasn't happy with the interface or the limits it put on the software ie no browser. I went with the latest iteration of Rasbian Stretch and installed Kodi via command line. Installing Magic Dragon took a bit more as they listed "http://" where it's actually "https:" I also installed a VPN and had everything working just fine... except my slow internet speed won't support streaming. Grrrr.

So, I started playing with OctoPrint a few days ago. Again, I'm running into issues with documentation... especially with them keeping it all consistent. Add in that I really haven't had to deal with Linux much since we went to AWS, and my unfamiliarity is making it tough. Like OSMC, I can burn an image of OcotPrint, so I tried that. I have a 7 inch screen for this, so I followed the directions to have it boot to the OctoPrint Desktop. It didn't work. I re-imaged a few times thinking I had missed a step, but still no joy. Talking with my peeps at Gainesville Hackerspace, it was suggested that I could install it onto Raspian as well, so why not? The steps are a bit more daunting, but it's all command line. This is where the consistency in documentation comes in. They went from just giving me the command to then showing the $ prompt with the command. "Command $: not found". When I rebooted, it wouldn't even boot up. Grrrrrrrrrrrr. So, I reflashed, messed up and have again reflashed. If anyone has a simple way to install Octopi so that I can use the desktop, please let me know.

Here is the method I'm using: Setting up OctoPrint on a Raspberry Pi running Raspbian

 

[victorzamora]

I did the media server first. I tried OSMC as suggested by @victorzamora, but I wasn't happy with the interface or the limits it put on the software ie no browser.

OSMC is a great media player platform. It's not a media server or anything else....but it's an extremely simple, competent media player. It's just not good for pretty much anything else, that's for sure!