Dccbobg

I bought an Anycubic Photon via Amazon.co.uk. It looks a really well designed piece of kit. Unboxing and setting up is easy and away it went with the first print, as provided by the comapny on their usb stick. Unfortunately it didn’t complete as half the lcd screen (which masks the UV light source) went on the blink. The print quality was superb. Amazon have a fantastic return policy, collected from the door and ten minutes later notification of my refund. So impressed, thinking maybe an odd dud was to be expected, I ordered another. Similar story, tried three prints and each had a defect caused by problems with the LCD screen. Gutted, I also returned the second machine. I note that currently (May 2018) Amazon no longer stock this printer and there does not seem to be an obvious UK source. My question to those who have one... have they proved reliable in use? I have three FDM printers, but the Anycubic Photon can produce prints of tiny objects which FDM can’t do. I would risk trying another if Amazon stock them again, but a faulty one from EU or China might be difficult to return. An alternative may be the Wanhao Duplicator 7plus. Anyone experience of these? Bob

I have used Mylar successfully on my 35W HPC CO2 laser for fine detail. Bought from supplier who sells it for airbrush stencils. Varying thicknesses. For the finest detail, and to help stop it melting into a rounded edge, try cutting on low power and doing several (2 or 3) passes. Not home at present but will try to post a photo of example next week. Bob PS. I have just done a search on Amazon.co.uk for ‘mylar sheet’ and there are loads of options to buy, both thickness and quantity.

I have successfully used E.M.A. Plastic Weld on PLA from Rigid Ink. This melts and 'welds' the parts together just like it does on styrene. Interestingly some PLAs respond better to it than others. A 5-minute 2-part Epoxy also works well.

I use Sketchup Make 2017 on a fast computer with 256Gb solid state drive and it can take up to a minute to resize complex drawings. You get the message (not responding) top left. Just leave it for a while. Resizing in Sketchup is easy, simply draw a line of 100units with the pencil tool, switch to the tape measure tool and measure the line - you get 100 in the dimensions box. Now simply type the size required before touching any other keys (eg. 50 for half size, 200 for double the size) and press Return. Answer yes to the 're-size all model' question and your drawing re-sizes. Do this with a group or component open and you can re-size just that item.