The printer has been named Anakin. After Anakin Skywalker. (Warning, this is a spoiler alert if you are one of the approximately, um, three people I know reading this blog who have never seen Star Wars...) As everyone else knows, Ani is cute, at first, and very smart. However, he becomes a rather petulant, spoiled brat at times...and that is as an adult....
Sounds a lot like our printer.
It does well on prints it likes, like the Captain's wheel which it has printed numerous times already. Or the cloud spinner for the fundraiser. The elliptical gears are another story.
However, when printing multiple piece prints, or those with small pieces, it throws little clotting temper tantrums at 67%, 84%, even 90%...and no filament comes out. This, naturally, ruins the entire print. Once, when unloading the filament to remove the clog, Anakin had the audacity to have the filament break off in an awkward place. I'm sure he thought it was funny as we had to relay messages across the media center from the circulation desk to the computer nook as we talked to tech support. But the force was with us...we have solutions if he tries that trick again.
Now that we are finally understanding 3D vocabulary like brims, rafts, infill and so forth, we are getting ready to move into the next realm of Anakin's talents: 3D scanning.
May the force be with us.
The infamous clots
Some of the "almost dones"
They look done, until you look at the thickness
(lack thereof)
An attempt at a gyroscope...two layers thick before Ani quit.
So do I get my spinner?
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