Fall Kick-Off Ylab News Backlog : 3D Printing

Last week, we provided updates 1, 2 and 3 on the City of Richmond Hill’s DDO activities over the spring and summer. Ylab helped out with all of them, but those were not our core maker activities.

Our makers quietly been up to all kinds of things in our basement lair. We’re now taking the time to catch up and update everyone on some of the more interesting projects.

Reliable 3D Printing. Finally.

We got our hands on a Qidi 3D printer earlier in the year. It’s a very flexible unit, with dual extruders capable of handling PLA, ABS and the related support filaments. But it was kind under-used as we worked out how to operate it reliably with PLA and ABS filaments, and with separate support material for the complex jobs.

After much trial and error, software tests, and burning through plastic like a trophy wife on shopping day (ed: we can’t take credit for that cheap line), we were confident enough to hold our first 3D printer certification class and let people at it.

The verdict: it’s a quality, super-reliable printer.

Our first real user was making some robotics parts out of ABS. Test passed, but it was a relatively short print job.

Another member is doing some consumer product re-design (we can’t talk about it), and ran a complex job with lots of support. 4 hour print time. It came out flawless.

The ylab member Craig of Halloween Electric Chair frame gave it a real challenge for his next project. 14-hour overnight job.

No problems. No jams. All good.

It’s a big step up in quality and reliability from the earlier units our members generously loaned us to get started.

Stay tuned for our next certification class, or just come in and we’ll give you a hand to get your project done.