Author: ezradharris

Recently I found an online 3d modeling program called TinkerCad. I found Tinkercad through fusion 360 (which my brother Gideon uses), which is a more complex 3D design program by Autodesk. TinkerCad is fun because it is super simple, but it’s also different from most other programs. For example, you can use one shape to cut into another shape to form whatever you want. But most other programs are different because you merge together objects instead of cutting and slicing at an object. Some schools also use Tinkercad because you can create Tinkercad classrooms. I haven’t been to a Tinkercad class before, but that would be interesting to try out. Tinkercad also has an app on the app store for iPad, on the iPad, you can use AR (Don’t know what AR is? Click here for more info about a similar AR app) to see you 3D objects placed down on tables, chairs, etc. (my Tinkercad profile) 

Yesterday I was looking at a list of 3D filament types. Here is a list of 16 different types of filament: 

(Please note: not all of these filament types work for my printer, and that there are more types of filament than listed below)

1. ABS Filament 
2. PLA Filament 
3. PET Filament 
4. PETT Filament 
5. Nylon Filament 
6. PVA Filament 
7. Sandstone Filament 
8. Wood Filament 
9. Metal Filament 
10. HIPS Filament 
11. Magnetic Iron Filament 
12. Conductive Filament 




13. Carbon Fiber Filament 
14. TPE Filament 
15. Glow in the Dark Filament
16. Amphora Filament 

I didn’t realize that you could print wood filament. That sounded interesting to me, so I looked it up on Amazon. I read some of the reviews. Apparently, when you are 3D printing wood filament, it actually smells like wood, which is surprising because the filament is created out of such small recycled wood bits. It is mainly made out of PLA with which I have already been printing. But there is a difference from printing pure PLA versus printing with the wood filament. People say you have to use a bigger nozzle to print wood because it might clog up (don’t know what a nozzle is? Click here for more info). But I did find a youtube video by CHEP that explained how you could avoid having to install a different nozzle when using Wood filament: 

A while back I was looking at upgrades that I could 3D print for my ender-3 printer. I had found a couple of youtube videos on that but this one is the one I liked most: 

1. The first upgrade I printed was a fan cover for one of the fans, it took about five hours to print! Which I had not expected to take that long, but when it finished it fit perfectly on, here is a picture I took: 

2. The next upgrade I printed was a cable clip, the cables on the 3D printer were getting messy and I saw this cable upgrade so I printed it. Actually, before I printed that cable clip design I had printed a different design I saw on Thingiverse, but when it had finished printing I tried to clip it on but It was too big for the Ender-3 rail. That was when I found a different one on Thingiverse that fit the ender-3 rail. here is a picture I took: 

3. The last (actually first) upgrade I printed was an extruder nob, now this one was really helpful because before I had this I had to push the filament myself, but with the extruder nob, I could easily move the filament in and out by turning the nob. When I had printed it, it actually didn’t fit on but my brother Gideon had a file to make the hole bigger so that the nob could fit on. Here is a picture I took: 

A couple of days ago SpaceX and Nasa sent a space rocket called Dragon to the ISS (International Space Station). It was the first commercial rocket that was sent to the ISS, and it had been nine years since an American rocket was launched from America and it was flown with American pilots. The crew was Robert Behnken and Douglas Hurley. It was exciting watching the live rocket launch countdown video on Saturday, it had originally been planned to launch on Wednesday but the weather wasn’t looking good so they canceled that launch and postponed it to Saturday. What was really cool is the number of viewers watching the live stream, as Wikipedia said: “The live stream was watched online by 3 million people on NASA feeds,^[13] and the SpaceX feed peaked at 4.1 million viewers. NASA estimated roughly 10 million people watched on various online platforms, approximately 150,000 people gathered on Florida’s space coast^[14] in addition to an unknown number watching on television.paste wiki page amount of viewers“. More about the launch Here.

By NASA – https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-to-provide-coverage-of-spacex-commercial-crew-test-flight-with-astronauts, Public Domain, Link