The leadup to the holidays has meant lots of deadlines and work at school. One consistent project is 3D printing. Right now our primary STEM teacher is printing cookie cutters the students designed in either Tinkercad or Blox3D. They're turning out great and it's forced me to get our fourth Monoprice printer up and running.
It had developed a bad clog which meant I had to disassemble the hotend and clean it all out. While doing that the PTFE bowden tube that carries the filament slipped out of it's coupling. It's a non-standard part since it's a cheap printer so I had to 3D print a part that fastened to the housing -- I then looped a ziptie through it clamping down the bowden tube so it didn't slip out of it's coupling again. It's moved a bit since then but I just push it back in and hope the friction fitting holds it.
The demand on the 3D printers has also prompted me to complete the build on our Creality Ender 3 printer. We had gotten it with the Monoprice ones for larger prints (it has a bed size of 220 mm x 220mm x 250mm). I'm going to load it with ABS and use it for more durable/large prints. Unfortunately I've noticed a slight inconsistency of the bed level; it's a bit higher in the center. I'm not sure if it's the actual bed or the Buildtak surface that gets clamped on top.
