Hairy Pea

I have had a few anonymous requests for a new post, so here is an object I made recently: -



It is a whistle downloaded from Thingiverse designed by Zaggo. It must be one of the most printed things on Thingiverse, and in a very short time after its posting. I think the reason it is so popular is that it is a functional item with a moving part (the pea) that is printed in situ. It is attached by one small point at its base and you detach it by pushing a scalpel through the slot.

It is very loud and annoys my wife every time I blow it!

The pea was initially very hairy because I get a lot of ooze with PLA. I had to pick the hairs off it through the slot, a bit tricky. I am currently working on a new extruder (when am I ever not?) with a much shorter melt zone to address this.

The reason I haven't posted for so long, apart from being on holiday in the Spanish Pyrenees, is that I have spent a long time thinking about the design of this one. It will also be super sturdy, so hopefully it will allow me to forget about extruders and move on to other things. I.e. new heads for HydraRaptor as it has spent too long having only two, so not living up to its name.

Key Things

Zach Smith and Bre Pettis have created a web site called Thingiverse, which is designed to make it easy for people to share digital designs of real objects. I have put most of the things I have designed for printing on a RepRap on there. I even created one especially for it, a key for reading utility meters :-





You can get these free from the utility companies, but not a quickly as you can RepRap one for a few pennies worth of plastic, and they are easily lost. The files can be found here :- www.thingiverse.com/thing:88.

I also keep a gallery of all the things I have made with HydraRaptor here: sites.google.com/site/nophead/Home/hydraraptor/ThingsMade. They all now have links back to Thingiverse for the files.

A lot of the objects on Thingiverse are for a laser cutter, but I downloaded this twisted star box designed by Marius Kintel and printed it.





One trick I have learnt is that you can shrink objects a little by heating them with a hot air gun. When I first made this the top was too tight, so I shrank the bottom a little with the heat gun. It is now a perfect fit. You have to be careful not to get it too hot, or it will sag.