3D Printer Meetup! 3/10/24

This event is hosted by Eric Schupp

Location: 30 Echo Lake Road, Watertown CT, 06795

Time: 9:30AM to 6:00PM

Good day fellow Makers! January 14th CTH will be doing a 3d printing meet up. Starting at 9:30am and running till 6pm. We will be chatting about 3d printers and projects. Feel free to bring your own printers if you have questions, want to show off what you are working on, etc.

Don’t have a 3d printer? No problem, stop on in to ask about what 3d printing is and advice on where to start. Donations to support CTH doing these meet ups in the future, are welcome. See ya there! 

3D Printing: Not Just For Do-Dads Anymore PART 4 – GE Aurora Dryer Start Button Repair

3D Printers are the best! The appliance adventure I experienced today proves that statement.

My neighbor has a GE Aurora Clothes Dryer that ‘stopped working’. The reports were that the Start Button was becoming increasingly finicky. My gut reaction was that the physical switch was going bad. Well, in the end I was wrong about that, learned how not to design a dryer and gained even more appreciation for my 3D Printer. Continue reading

CTH 3DPW – AirWolf 3D Heated Bed Replacement

AW3D XLThe 27-May 3D Printer Workshop at CTH went well. Our new pal Josh brought in his older AirWolf 3D AW3D XL printer. This thing has a huge 200×300 mm heated build plate. However, the build plate was a PCB-style which flexed and warped when heating up. This gave an inconsistent print surface height.  If you’ve printed before, you know the height of the print surfaces has to be pretty darn consistent to get first-layer adhesion. Josh bought a replacement aluminum build plate, but unfortunately, the mounting holes were not the same! We can fix that… Continue reading

CTH 3DPW – Fixing an Afinia Heated Bed (Bed Not Heating)

Afinia Burned heated bed connector My beloved Afinia H-Series 3D Printer has not been working for several weeks. The bed would not heat up and the printer would not start printing because the bed was not up to temperature. I took the opportunity at the CTH 3D Printer Workshop to troubleshoot the Afinia. Well, I found the cause after a little disassembly. Do you see a problem here???? Continue reading

3D Printing: Not Just For Do-Dads Anymore PART 3 – WDTV

wdtv 3d printed bracketThere’s a new TV setup at the Bremster household. Flat screen on the wall with no visible wires. There’s one problem though, my WDTV media player. It’s small but still a tad too awkward to be precariously balanced on the top of the TV. Plus, the power, ethernet and HDMI cords sticking out the back don’t let the media player stay aligned with the TV. So what’s a dude to do? Design and 3D print a sweet bracket of course. Continue reading

How to Hob a Bolt (with a Tap & Milling Machine)

wade extruder diagramWith the Wade-style RepRap 3D Printer extruders, the part that actually drives the filament is a ‘hobbed bolt’. A hobbed bolt has a little toothed-groove around its circumference that grips the filament and drives it into the hot-end as the bolt is turned. There’s a few ways to make a hobbed bolt. We’ll show you one way here that utilizes a Tap and Milling Machine.

For a typical Wade-style extruder, an 8mm bolt is used. Since we want to cut the toothed groove completely around the bolt we need that bolt to rotate. What better way to do that than to mount it in a pair of bearings. Regular skate bearings (608zz) have 8mm inner diameters and are actually what are used to support the bolt in the Wade extruder. I designed up a quick 3D-printed bracket to hold a pair of bearings and provide some features for easy clamping in the Milling Machine’s vise.  Continue reading

3D Printing: Not Just For Do-Dads Anymore

SA-HT750 Speaker Stand CouplingA pet peeve of mine is all the do-dads and nicknacks printed with 3D Printers. Sure, it’s fun to get going with your printer quickly but I think the non-functional printed trinkets get way too much attention. So what’s a good use for 3D Printers then? How about fixing stuff around the house? One example is a window latch in my house broke. I could only imagine getting a replacement from the window company would be all but impossible. So, I took the broken pieces and designed a replacement. It’s been a couple years and that latch is still latching well. It cost me just a few minutes of time and I got it the same day. That’s a win-win. Continue reading

CT Hackerspace wins the 2014 “LulzBot Hackerspace Giveaway”

LulzBot-MiniMany members in our community recognize the full value in what open source can mean with a direct correlation to innovation. We are very excited to see that Lulzbot recognizes our commitment to open source by choosing CT Hackerspace as a winner to their 3D printer giveaway contest . We look forward to working with a community with innovation at the core of their “open” philosophy. The Lulzbot Mini 3D printer will be a great tool to have in pursuing future inventions and creations by both our members and our surrounding community.

UPDATE: Our printer worked right out of the box. The heated build platform and automatic bed probing works excellent. This printer is a real workhorse. Check out our dedicated Lulzbot work station, it’s always ready to rock and roll:

CTH Lulzbot