My first 3D project – “Disneyland is fun. This is not fun.”

Self-delusion. Crash.

The title is a quote from my daughter, when she was 5, in a canoe, in a river, in Hawaii. We were going to paddle up this river to a waterfall or some beautiful spot at the very least. My wife and I hadn’t been canoeing in ages and were having some issues going in s straight line and water kept sloshing in. My daughter was not very happy and then we got the …

Disneyland is fun. This is not fun.

– 5 year old Devon

This project is starting to not be fun. I’m not patient (I know this of myself and accept it) and I want to do other things! (Stamping feet, falling to the ground banging fists on the floor.)

After a few virtual attempts, I realized that plastic, especially PEGT is (I’m not sure I’m supposed to share this, the Illuminati might come after me) flexible. So, I thought, let’s use that property. And you can see what I came up with below.

I’ve had a lot of issues with the little 6mm threaded connectors breaking so I made it so I can mount different connectors on the back. This, as it turns out, was a good idea.

This morning I jumped up … OK, rolled … out of bed and to the printer. To get the print that I started way too late last night. It looked good. Better yet the mount flexed and didn’t break (more on this facepalm moment in a minute) and best yet the adjustable threaded connector worked and was snug! I was going to mount my camera without the help of duck tape and bailing wire!

I screwed it all together and learned that the ball joints aren’t as maneuverable as I had hoped. and I couldn’t get it into the right position. And then the 6mm threaded mounts started failing. They could hold the weight of the camera, but they were fragile and I broke a couple trying to tighten the cap which holds the ball in place. So much work … This isn’t fun anymore. Not the printing thing, I still dig that like a field archeologist in Egypt, this project. It’s just taking soooooo loooonnnnngggg and I am not known for being patient.

OK, enough self-pity.

I knew there was an issue with the ball joints. It was obvious with how many I broke and how many times I had to tweak little things. But I succumbed to that old and ever-present feature of the human psyche, self-delusion, and his good friend denial.

It’s OK as long as you can fix it

What’s the solution? The solution requires a definition of the problem, which is a crappy joint design. So, I need a better joint. I still want it to be flexible, meaning it has a wide range of motion. I still want it 100% printed, and I still want that leftover doughnut. I should be able to get 2 out of 3 which isn’t bad.

Although I really wanted the doughnut.

If you were looking for the solution, you’ll have to wait. I have to go to work and I haven’t thought this through. I jumped right on this post as soon as I knew this thing wasn’t going to work because it’s been a couple of days since I posted anything. And I needed a win. Successfully publishing a post with fewer than 10% of the words underlined by Grammarly is a win for me.

By the way a little unsolicited plug for Grammarly. I installed it because I needed a spell checker. Spelling is not one of my strengths, nor is grammar, nor sentence composition. But Grammarly is awesome. I love the feedback and it just works everywhere. It’s free to use, but there are advanced options for serious writers with a subscription.

Unplug…

Where was I? Right, I’ll figure something out. Probably a more traditional style hinge. The clamp, the camera mount, these work well. I also want to try to reuse the arms I printed, although they are tapped for the small 6mm screw. Anyway, I’m having thoughts (not just about that doughnut, although …) and ideas about how to do this. Maybe by tomorrow I’ll have something and can get on with the next project.

I didn’t forget

No, I didn’t forget about my comment on facepalming. Everyone loves a facepalm because it makes us feel better about ourselves. So, here’s my facepalm moment.

This is the first print of the webcam mount. What? Why are there 4 parts, you ask? Well, instead of printing it on its side, I printed it standing up. Yes, I did a preview of it in Cura, and yes I noticed all the support structure, and yes I selected save, uploaded it to Octoprint, and pressed print.

And that’s not it, there’s a small groove on the back where the mounting screw slides in. That was at the bottom and filled, with support which, well, to put it mildly, didn’t want to come out of its snug little space.

Facepalm 1.

I labeled the facepalms because there are more than 1. Although, as a rule, I get good adhesion, making the layers parallel to the direction of the force provides lots of little snap-away places for something meant to flex. The layers acted like perforations and when I tried to flex it to go over the camera it snapped.

Facepalm 2.

I’m sure with a little thought I could find some more. But, 2 is all you get today.

Happy printing…