Jerry Gomes: Welcome another episode of the CoExtrusion Podcast. wow, JJ. So we were thinking about podcast episodes, and the first thing that came actually, no, I I lied. This is a chat GPT. A Chat GPT prompt. What is your favorite thing that's not a thing about 3D printing? So what it what is your least favorite 3D printing technology that finally bit the dust? That's kind of the theory. That's kind of the the idea for this podcast. Cause there's a lot of old technology with 3D printers that needed to go. And we've probably touched on them on previous podcasts, but we've never had a podcast about ranting about the old terrible ways of 3D printing. JJ Shankles: Yeah. And for me at least the first thing that popped into my head is the old cartridge style heaters where it was a big block of aluminum and heaters on one side, the thermistors on the other side and the nozzles going passing through the middle. And I still have it on my Voron and I still have it on my Prusa Core One, 'cause they still use that technology. And it's so slow. When it takes two minutes to get your print your nozzle up to printing temperature. Jerry Gomes: Maybe more JJ Shankles: Maybe more. Like it's just the most like set it and then you're like I'm standing there thinking it'll take twenty seconds like it does on every other modern printer, but you're like, Wait, wait, wait, who I should I'm gonna go make coffee. I'm gonna I'll be back. Jerry Gomes: D Do you know that meme or not e- not even a meme? It's like when you're talking to your grandparents and they're like, back in my day JJ Shankles: Yeah. Jerry Gomes: Back in my day, I had to turn the 3D printer on and I had to go get lunch. By the time I was done with lunch, I could finally hit the print button. JJ Shankles: Preheating takes forever. And yeah. Jerry Gomes: Three like I mean no joke. I would go to my Ender I so on my Ender 2 I or not Ender 2 my Ender 3 V2s that's so I had multiple. I had four, three, ender three v twos. Whenever JJ Shankles: Mm. Jerry Gomes: I was I would turn all my printers on at once. I had a like I had the sequence to get to the preheat stage memorized in my head. I JJ Shankles: Mm. Yeah. Jerry Gomes: would turn the thing on, I'd wait for the slow, tedious boot process of the printer. I'd take that knob, I'd that prrr brr e and then and then it would pop up to the preheat stage and it would say PLA AVS as if I was printing AVS on my Endor 3, which I guess technically I have. But JJ Shankles: yeah. Yeah. Jerry Gomes: and Or it sends you to the page where you can choose the exact specific temperature to heat it to. But then you do that and then you w j just walk away. Come back when it's up to temperature. JJ Shankles: Yeah. Jerry Gomes: So much different. JJ Shankles: It's funny that other that's you reminded me of another feature that I used to dislike of every printer saying, yeah, we could print ABS It's like Yes, theoretically you can get hot enough to melt ABS to pass through the nozzle. That's not really printing ABS. Like Yeah, Jerry Gomes: Well, you can melt A VS. JJ Shankles: you can melt ABS. Cool. I think it's Jerry Gomes: Yeah. JJ Shankles: disingenuous for you to list that on your product page as like This a open air printer can print ABS. It's like But you can't though. Like Jerry Gomes: Do you know for my first Voron, I wanted to print JJ Shankles: Mm-hmm. Jerry Gomes: it in ABS because I did all the research, and printing an ABS was the best thing to do, which I think that's still the JJ Shankles: Mm. Jerry Gomes: most optimal. But I had to print my first Voron in ABS, and I had Ender 6s. Ender 6s. Partly enclosed 3D printer. Something that nobody I could I think would consider something that it like the whole thing was enclosed except the top where all of your heat escapes from it has doors double doors to open it up but you could you can click AVS JJ Shankles: It's the most like what? Jerry Gomes: and you can print AVS except all of your heat will escape so you have to cover the top I JJ Shankles: Yeah. Jerry Gomes: got I I went to the post office. Now I'm I'm admitting to an illegal behavior here because I got boxes free priority mail post office boxes on the box that JJ Shankles: Mm-hmm. Jerry Gomes: says not to be used for any purpose other than mailing through the post JJ Shankles: Mailing things. Jerry Gomes: office. But I took those boxes and I cut up and I formed them into a lid and I used that lid to go on top of over the Ender Six so now I could have a lid because I had walls on all of my sides except the top. Why JJ Shankles: Yeah. Jerry Gomes: why I they didn't even design it with the intent to ever release a lid. JJ Shankles: Yeah. Jerry Gomes: It wasn't even designed with that intent. JJ Shankles: It's like it's such a I would rather a lid than walls. Like, you know. Jerry Gomes: I mean, that would almost make more sense. JJ Shankles: Like a lid both keeps the dust off of it and probably would keep more heat in there than the walls being there. Like the walls stop maybe your cat from walking on it. But again, your cat's gonna jump in the top, like, I don't know. Jerry Gomes: Yeah. So you could print ABS on an Ender Six if you enclose the lid. How many times have you did you see on Reddit, like seven or eight or nine years ago, people saying that they took boxes, like JJ Shankles: Mm-hmm. Jerry Gomes: full size like refrigerator boxes, and they put them over their ender three, this way they could print ABS at JJ Shankles: Yeah. Jerry Gomes: like thirty millimeters per second. JJ Shankles: That's what I did with my AnyCubic Jerry Gomes: Mm maybe less. JJ Shankles: Mega S. I put a Jerry Gomes: And JJ Shankles: I made a it was again strapped some cardboard to it because it didn't have walls or top. So I made a front, top, and two sides basically of a cardboard box so I could cover it against the wall and have it just hot enough to print some Jerry Gomes: So not safe. JJ Shankles: bad ABS for this Voron. And I should rebuild it because yeah, a lot of these parts didn't come out great. Reprinted some of them. So this it's good enough to make a print working printer, which is impressive. Jerry Gomes: I swore to myself. When the Voron is printed I'll use the enclosed voron to print better parts for the I never did it. Because they were good enough. JJ Shankles: No, yeah. Yes, yeah. It's working and after you put that much work into it, the thought of taking it apart again is such like oof, I don't know if I wanna do that. Jerry Gomes: I know. Well to take it apart and replace components might require like significant disassembly. And it's like, well, I spent how much time getting this thing square? To JJ Shankles: Yeah. Jerry Gomes: get the frame square was like a nightmare. And it's a JJ Shankles: Yeah. Jerry Gomes: my Voron the one th the only Voron I ever built, I wanted to build more. The only one I ever actually JJ Shankles: Mm-hmm. Jerry Gomes: built was Voron Zero. Tiny, JJ Shankles: Yeah. Jerry Gomes: tiny frame, and it still was difficult to get square. You would think JJ Shankles: Yeah. Jerry Gomes: With a tiny machine it would be so much easier. JJ Shankles: Yeah. Mine I don't know if it's square. I think it's square. Square enough. Like Jerry Gomes: My well, when I first printed with mine, it was so not square that the top gantry, it would move smoothly for like the first fifty millimeters, JJ Shankles: Hm. Jerry Gomes: but then the the back half, it would be so like it would splay out like like a trapezoid and the bar JJ Shankles: Yeah. Jerry Gomes: would like the the crossbar on the x axis wouldn't be able to like actually push far JJ Shankles: Oof. Jerry Gomes: because it the other beams got too far away, so JJ Shankles: Yeah. Jerry Gomes: Yeah, too wide. So whenever I assembled I I used a square, right? JJ Shankles: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Jerry Gomes: It was square until it wasn't. JJ Shankles: Yeah. Jerry Gomes: And and then I did have to assemble it to resquare it up, but yeah. JJ Shankles: Yeah. I feel like it's one of those it would have been easier to do three or six months after doing it, but now it's been five years or so. And so to rethink of where these how the wiring even works of like where the plugs are run and relearning how the control board works, it's just like it's such a I Jerry Gomes: That'd be difficult. JJ Shankles: would have to figure it out. And I could do it. But I don't have to. I've got other printers. Like, yeah. Jerry Gomes: You you make a very good point there to get back to the original topic, the control board. I don't think anybody JJ Shankles: Yeah, control boards. Jerry Gomes: modernly is gonna know the pain of having an Ender 3 and you have to go modify it. And you're like, I have control board v4.3.1. And then you Google it and they're like, my under three has v four point three point seven. Mine has four point three point five. And you're like, It's an under three. Why is this one a different control board than this one and this one? And not only is it a different board, the pinouts are different. They're JJ Shankles: Yeah. Jerry Gomes: actually different. JJ Shankles: That the pinouts are different and the company doesn't release documentation for each one. So you're looking up consumer-made pinouts for it. So some awesome person out there had version two point one and mapped out the pins for everything and made a beautiful diagram and you're like, mine is version three. How much can I use here to Jerry Gomes: Is it the same? JJ Shankles: Yeah? Jerry Gomes: Well, it gets worse because with Creality machines, they were generally available. Difficult JJ Shankles: Mm-hmm. Jerry Gomes: to find, but generally available. Go to some other machine, like a two trees machine. JJ Shankles: Yeah. Jerry Gomes: Good luck! JJ Shankles: Or yeah, I mean mine was an Any Cubic Mega and so it was this and mine was the Mega S. So it was different than the Mega and different Jerry Gomes: wow. JJ Shankles: than all of the Creality printers and I was seeing all these documentations of well on the Ender Three you just do this and I'm like, Well I don't have one 'cause I thought I'd be different and cool and get an Anycubic and Jerry Gomes: You realize you hated yourself now because you you wanted you now you want to tweak the board, but because you got something that was different, probably not better for it just just different. Is JJ Shankles: No. It just looks different. Yeah. Jerry Gomes: now you can't upgrade, right? Or you find out, man, there's no there's no like pin for me to plug a for me to plug a BL touch in on this one. JJ Shankles: Yeah. Jerry Gomes: Or it's or it's on the wrong side of the board and you need to extend your BL touch wires like I this much. JJ Shankles: Ha ha yes, yeah. Trying to route everything. Jerry Gomes: Or or yeah, so much or or what what what order is the BL touch pins? Because if you get an official BL touch, it's ground positive, or it's ground p plus then data minus data positive. But JJ Shankles: Mm-hmm. Jerry Gomes: if you get the the crowddy C R touch it's completely jumbled and mixed up. JJ Shankles: And I'm colorblind. And so when I routed mine, I was positive I had it correct. I was like, It's just not working. It's there's something wrong. Tried everything else because I was so certain of the colors. But then I was like, I had my wife, I was like, Bridget, can you look at these? And she was like, Well you got the brown the red or whatever it was. I thought it was red and it was brown or brown and it was red or something like that. And it was like, those colors are wrong And I'm like, Dang great. Jerry Gomes: what well I can't tell you how many printers I opened up or BL touches that I received from like different brands because a BL touch is JJ Shankles: Mm-hmm. Jerry Gomes: nothing more than like you they can make their own BL touch easy. It's not JJ Shankles: Yeah. Jerry Gomes: a complex piece of technology and they use they wouldn't even use the same color wires. So like in electronics, JJ Shankles: Yeah. Jerry Gomes: you can't all the color of the wire is like JJ Shankles: Mm-hmm. Jerry Gomes: you can't just definitively trust the color of the wire. JJ Shankles: Yeah. Jerry Gomes: But when a brand like when there's four common colors for every BL Touch that's ever existed and then I had a a machine, the something called the Thunder. I can't even remember what brand made it. something thunder. Anyway, some JJ Shankles: Yeah. Jerry Gomes: tiny brand. They they made their own BL Touch and they thought they were gonna be geniuses and they used four different wires of a c of colors that were completely unknown to JJ Shankles: Yeah. Jerry Gomes: What color is pink? Now, I don't know if it was actu I don't know if it was actually pink, but like JJ Shankles: it is pink. Yeah. But yeah, you know, you throw in a a blue and you're like, wait, wait, wait, wa we're going These aren't the same. Jerry Gomes: Which one which one is this? JJ Shankles: Let's if you're copying someone else's design, copy their colors. Like copy the wire coloring. Unless you had a great deal Jerry Gomes: At least JJ Shankles: on a million miles of blue wire, sure. Like Jerry Gomes: I at least do the consumer a service in that if they're gonna plug the wires in by color, which JJ Shankles: Mm-hmm. Jerry Gomes: with something as dumb simple as a BL touch, you should be able to do. You shouldn't JJ Shankles: Yeah. Jerry Gomes: actually need to know what the pins do. It sh JJ Shankles: No. Jerry Gomes: really should just be like color from color. At JJ Shankles: Yes, yeah. Jerry Gomes: least like help us that throw us a bone, right? JJ Shankles: Line up, plug it in. Jerry Gomes: Or say all along the same lines. Okay, now your firmware doesn't support BL Touch. JJ Shankles: Mm-hmm. Jerry Gomes: Now you have to go find the right firmware, download the firmware, flash the firmware on the printer, and for me, I need to figure out to actually enable it because your slicer needs to enable the BL Touch to actually probe the bed. JJ Shankles: Yes, yeah. You had to like put in your custom Jerry Gomes: How do I know that it JJ Shankles: G code in there and to know which pins it was calling to do the Jerry Gomes: huh. JJ Shankles: goodness, yeah. And yeah, the whole flashing Marlin, because creating your own compiling your own Marlin firmware was really difficult. I think I did it once just to try it out and I was like, that's a lot. Jerry Gomes: I never did that. Never. JJ Shankles: And I might not have. I maybe this is a dream that I had of how like it's been s years. And the but yeah, you were just going off of what other people had compiled. Be like, Hey, here's my firmware that enables the BL Touch using this wiring c Jerry Gomes: Just hoping for the best. JJ Shankles: combination and you're like, I hope you did it right. I hope you didn't mess anything up. I'm trusting you, like Jerry Gomes: I can't tell you how many times I plugged wires into my 3D printing boards. Honest to goodness, not knowing if I was about to fry something. Well, JJ Shankles: Yeah. Jerry Gomes: if I plugged this in wrong, if I plug like hour into the data positive on my BL Touch, am I about to fry the JJ Shankles: Mm-hmm. Jerry Gomes: BL Touch? We'll see. Or JJ Shankles: We'll see. Jerry Gomes: no, it's blinking red. It doesn't seem to be working correctly. It's like the slow JJ Shankles: Yeah. Jerry Gomes: blink, and like I must have done something wrong here. I feel like I've used every single possible combination of four wires JJ Shankles: Mm. Jerry Gomes: and none of them actually activated it. JJ Shankles: Yeah. Jerry Gomes: Also, none of them fried it, by the way. But that's that's another that's another topic for debate, but JJ Shankles: Yeah. so yeah, Marlin is very outdated and we're so glad. Clipper makes it so easy. We're in Jerry Gomes: It's true. JJ Shankles: Fluid you go into printer dot config and you can add components. You can add an LED by just adding in that component, change how it Jerry Gomes: So easy. JJ Shankles: works, and push save and save and restart. And then it's like boom, that LED is configured and working entirely on your printer now. A new Jerry Gomes: So easy. So JJ Shankles: component, a new feature, a new fan you've added, and it's comp Jerry Gomes: You still need to know your pinouts on your board, but JJ Shankles: Mm-hmm. Jerry Gomes: brands have I can't believe I'm actually saying this, but brands have gotten a lot better at like standardizing their hardware because I would be willing to bet if I opened up both my K1Cs they'd have the same boards on the inside. JJ Shankles: Mm-hmm. Jerry Gomes: I think Crowdy got bit one too many times with releasing hardware that wasn't compatible or or JJ Shankles: Mm-hmm. Jerry Gomes: hardware that was difficult to trace. so yeah. JJ Shankles: I th I think it becomes harder on them to 'cause then you have to keep if you have five versions of boards on this printer, you have to have five versions of firmware that you have to keep updated and keep available for like, if I buy a new version two board for this printer, I have to need new firmware for version two that's not compatible with version three. Jerry Gomes: Yeah. That's actually really that's actually really funny that you say that. So like what was the purpose of all these versions of boards? Is it because they didn't w when they sourced their hardware components, they didn't buy like a hundred thousand of these resistors kind of thing, so they ran out and they needed to just redesign the board? Or like because there was not additional functionality. If you got an under JJ Shankles: No, Jerry Gomes: three. JJ Shankles: yeah. Jerry Gomes: You've got an under three, right? Like functionality was the same. JJ Shankles: And updates weren't even really a thing. Like up it wasn't like this, you're gonna get like on new printers, every month you'll get a new you turn Jerry Gomes: That's true too. JJ Shankles: on a printer that hasn't been on and it's like, new firmware update. Like that was not a thing on those early printers. Jerry Gomes: That is true too. JJ Shankles: Maybe one update in the entire life of a printer. Maybe. Yeah. Yeah. but yeah, those r Jerry Gomes: Maybe maybe? Like probably not. That's a that's so true, right? JJ Shankles: revisions were probably a cost savings. Like of if they ran out of one component and could get it for a cheaper price, but they'd be cheaper to redesign the board. That's the only reason I could think of for them to do that much work. Yeah. Jerry Gomes: That's that's wild that it's cheaper to redesign the board than to just source another 13 picofarin capacitor or well whatever, right? Like it's cheaper to JJ Shankles: Yeah, yeah. Whatever tiny components. Jerry Gomes: redesign the whole board. That's JJ Shankles: Yeah. Jerry Gomes: actually like so much against like commercial electronic productivity. Like that just is so far and away, like disconnected from reality of what you should be doing. You should JJ Shankles: Mm-hmm. Jerry Gomes: be doing what is happening now. If you buy this machine, this is what it is. JJ Shankles: Yes, yeah. Jerry Gomes: Doesn't matter which one, right? And and with if you wanna change it, change it with the K three plus, right? Change JJ Shankles: Mm. Yeah. Jerry Gomes: it with the K four. That's man. JJ Shankles: And if they do source resistors from different places, they're equiv functionally equivalent resistors. And it doesn't matter if this was made by this factory or that factory. Jerry Gomes: Yeah. JJ Shankles: The board is functionally identical. Board to board it's the same. Jerry Gomes: It's gotta be some like much larger component that couldn't be sourced because they didn't they they interestingly, like I mean the Ender 3 has to be one of the most sold printers of all time and JJ Shankles: Mm. Yes, yeah. Jerry Gomes: so like I could understand how they wouldn't have recognized, we need to have a million sixteen pin whatevers, but like Eventually you'd JJ Shankles: Or if they Jerry Gomes: think they'd realize like, Hey, we gotta start buying these things in incredible bulks bulk orders. Yeah. JJ Shankles: Yeah. Or if they just couldn't get enough of the processor those little whatever processors. And when you're making a Jerry Gomes: Motor drivers. JJ Shankles: so many a million boards, if we could save ten cents per board, or you know, whatever it is kinda can add up in a way. Jerry Gomes: I wonder Well that that that's getting that's getting too deep into the weeds there. I was gonna say I wonder if like JJ Shankles: It's deep diving. Yeah, yeah, yeah. back to Jerry Gomes: they saved so much money by doing stuff like that that it actually allowed them to like progress 3D printing technology, but that's a whole I got one for ya. JJ Shankles: Mm. Yeah, yeah. Yes. Jerry Gomes: Glass build plates. JJ Shankles: Oof. Those were rough. Jerry Gomes: Dude, just put your glass build plate in the freezer if you can't get your 3D print off of it. It'll pop off like a charm. How many JJ Shankles: Yeah. Man, I feel like those were such like they it were y worked until it didn't type thing of like on a new printer, those textured black textured glass plates, borosilicate, whatever that's what it was. Jerry Gomes: Borosilicate or whatever. JJ Shankles: like you get a new one and it would just work and you'd be like, I don't know what other people are complaining about. Like glass bill plates are great, my first printer. For a long time I was like, This print this works great. Didn't even need glue stick. Until that surface starts to wear out and then it's like, Okay, I could put some glue stick on and it still works fine And Jerry Gomes: Okay. JJ Shankles: then you print I don't know T P U and it sticks it fuses itself to that build plate and Jerry Gomes: E or if you print something like this on a JJ Shankles: Mm-hmm. Jerry Gomes: glass build plate, the surface area is only very little. But if you print something like this on a glass build plate and you have this much surface area, dude, JJ Shankles: Yeah. Jerry Gomes: I pr actually funny enough, I think it's this right here. I this was unplanned. You can actually see maybe this is a tissue box holder. We're JJ Shankles: Yeah. Jerry Gomes: not gonna say where it's mod what it's modeled after, but JJ Shankles: Yeah. Jerry Gomes: this you can see the surface on the bottom was JJ Shankles: Ooh. Jerry Gomes: printed just like wow, it's like actually it's interesting, printed like this on JJ Shankles: Yeah. Jerry Gomes: an FL Sun S1 FL Sun SR speed speed, whatever whatever it was, and JJ Shankles: Okay, yeah, yeah. One of their deltas, yeah. Jerry Gomes: This welded itself so hard. This was the It's funny that I brought that up. This was the d single most difficult thing I've ever had to get off of a glass build plate. I was JJ Shankles: Yeah. Jerry Gomes: using one of those spatulas, and I was like, oof, putting all my weight into getting this thing off would never JJ Shankles: Yeah. Jerry Gomes: come off. I thought I was gonna break the print. Of course, JJ Shankles: Yeah. Jerry Gomes: you can just pop it in the freezer, it'll come off. I tried that, didn't work. It was like JJ Shankles: Yeah, doesn't work. Jerry Gomes: It was it was stuck. JJ Shankles: Yeah. Of like, yeah, it's such a it'll work until it doesn't type thing. And so many people on online commenting like, I've never had that problem. It's like, cool, well, I Jerry Gomes: You need JJ Shankles: don't know what you did, cause it was fine for a hundred prints, and then one time maybe the build plate was too clean. That was another one I found with new ones of those. Roughing it up with your the oils on your hand. helped for the prints release because like a new borosilicate glass plate was way too good. Jerry Gomes: Yeah, it's too much. JJ Shankles: It was way too strong. And it would fuse with your PLA and you'd just break prints trying to get them off. Jerry Gomes: Yeah. What about what about the I I had it in in my head. I just come I've completely lost it. yeah. The people on Reddit, right? The people on Reddit that would send picture that would post pictures of their of their glass build plate with like craters on them because JJ Shankles: Yeah. Jerry Gomes: a part stuck so much. this goes both ways. But JJ Shankles: They shattered a chunk out of it. Yeah. Jerry Gomes: In this case, a part stuck so much that when they tried to rip it off, it just pulled the glass off with delaminated the glass with it. JJ Shankles: Yeah. Jerry Gomes: Or then, as you say, eventually it just wears out and it stops working. It's like you print something, it's perfect, just fine. You click the print button to print it again, and a single bead of plastic just refuses to stick to it. Like JJ Shankles: Mm-hmm. Jerry Gomes: there's nothing you can do. It won't stick. JJ Shankles: Yeah. You clean it, you get glue stick. Jerry Gomes: Try glue stick, add more squish, use hairspray, put painter's tape on it. Dude, that ain't sticking at all. Like JJ Shankles: Yeah. Jerry Gomes: w they're they're just like they have minds of their own. JJ Shankles: Mm-hmm. Jerry Gomes: The glass build plate was That was the glass build plate is probably my number one most hated thing about printers JJ Shankles: Mm-hmm. Jerry Gomes: pre bamboo. JJ Shankles: Pre bamboo, yeah. Jerry Gomes: I would say pre bamboo era, but even pre bamboo era they did start to migrate towards flexible PEI plates. JJ Shankles: Yes, yeah. Jerry Gomes: But there I I think there were still printers that used glass plates around then, which JJ Shankles: Yeah. Jerry Gomes: it can't be cheaper. There's no way. There's not a shot. JJ Shankles: No, yeah. A sheet of glass and shipping it, trying to keep it safe. The other feature that's close to the build plate are the bed leveling wheels that are underneath the build plate. Jerry Gomes: Ugh gosh. Why did you bring that up? JJ Shankles: It might be even worse than whatever surface you're trying to print on. Because Jerry Gomes: my gosh. JJ Shankles: before your BL touch, before your mesh bed leveling, you only have four or on smaller printers, sometimes it's only three. My Voron only has three wheels to try to level the plane here. And you're leveling a non-flat surface. So f those four points being level doesn't mean your whole build plate is level. So I remember leveling to the middle. So on my inny cubic before I put a BL touch on there. It was very much like a okay, this is the build volume. This is how much I can actually use like Jerry Gomes: Golly, that that that's that's bad, right? The way those the way those worked, not only not only when you tighten those screws, it literally pulls at like if you have this is your bed, you like JJ Shankles: Mm-hmm. Jerry Gomes: when this is not a good example, but like it will literally pull that part of the bed down JJ Shankles: Mm-hmm. Jerry Gomes: as you s as you tighten those screws, it just like forces so It pulls at the corners. So you're you're not even like necessarily perfectly flattening the surface. And you you can JJ Shankles: Mm-hmm. Jerry Gomes: accidentally, if you have those screws tightened in the wrong way, you can actually make it worse. Because you can intention or you can mistakenly add a warp or a bow into the bed. And it's like JJ Shankles: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Jerry Gomes: Dude, this is buttery smooth first layer for two inches in the middle. JJ Shankles: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Jerry Gomes: And then as the nozzle moves to the edge, you're like, dude, there is like no kidding, like a half or a centimeter gap. Like how how? JJ Shankles: five millimeters at the edge. At the corn especially right where the wheels are tight are bending and out of level. And it's yeah, it's cool. I can use Jerry Gomes: man. JJ Shankles: four inches in the middle of this build plate. And then even worse on large printers where it's just a well it was more on a large printer you had a larger sweet spot in the middle, it seemed like on f f from my experience Jerry Gomes: Yeah. JJ Shankles: of the time. And so it was like cool, having a three hundred millimeter build volume, which is another funny thing I thought recently of how that was a big printer. Like I remember the first Jerry Gomes: Yeah. JJ Shankles: We Do Big printer that was like three hundred millimeters. This is huge, three hundred millimeters in every dimension. And it's like, that's a K two Pro. Like I have Jerry Gomes: Yeah. JJ Shankles: so many printers larger than that now. Just sitting around. Yeah. Jerry Gomes: Do you know the problem there was due to manufacturing tolerances? Because those aluminum JJ Shankles: Mm-hmm. Jerry Gomes: plates, all of your printers still to this day have an aluminum plate that is under the magnet that your PEI plate sits to sits on. JJ Shankles: Mm-hmm. Jerry Gomes: And the aluminum plates, when they're milled, they're milled so thin and the and I don't know the exact reason, but presumably those plates heat up and because they're so thin, they get micro bows and warps in them. That's why that's why you would have unlevel surfaces. That also actually might be why we used glass build plates, 'cause you could you could put a flat glass plate on an on a bowed warped like aluminum JJ Shankles: Piece of metal. Jerry Gomes: metal and it's maybe a little flatter. Still JJ Shankles: Yeah. Jerry Gomes: a pain in the neck. But I would assume pretty heavily that when 3D printing started to take off, some some manufacturer was like, if I just do a good job at milling these plates flat, I can sell to everyone. I'm assuming JJ Shankles: Yeah. Jerry Gomes: that's probably what fixed the issue because now not only do we not have screws, JJ Shankles: Mm-hmm. Jerry Gomes: we have the there's like screws don't even exist on modern printers. So Obviously we have good bed leveling probes and technology, but sometimes technology can't outbeat the fact that you're just physically busted, like warped kind of thing. JJ Shankles: Mm-hmm. Jerry Gomes: But presumably they're not even warped anymore, or not significantly. JJ Shankles: Yeah. Or I think the those screws on the bottom of the build plate just add an extra layer of mistakes in there versus like just rigid mount it all the way down and then bed mesh level. And it doesn't really matter if it's off or warped. I feel like that's one I don't fully understand when people complain Jerry Gomes: Mm. JJ Shankles: about, this new printer, the mesh is not flat It's like, so like Jerry Gomes: It's still printed. JJ Shankles: It still prints across the entire build volume because your mesh is gonna solve you. Yeah, it saves you and you can print the entire build volume, which is crazy. Like it's crazy to be able to edge to edge print on pretty much every printer out there. Jerry Gomes: That's actually that that really is wild when you think about it because back a long time ago, one of the torture tests of a 3D printer was one flat sheet on the whole bed. And JJ Shankles: Yeah. Jerry Gomes: it needs to print perfectly with no waviness. It needs to all the all the the lines need to fuse together so it's not like all of it needs to be one sheet. JJ Shankles: Yeah. Jerry Gomes: And that was a torture test. Nowadays Yeah. It was. There would JJ Shankles: And that was impossible. That was impossible on mo like I didn't start doing that till like the K ones came out. Like yeah. Jerry Gomes: Exactly. Nowadays probably the two hundred dollar Crality High could almost certainly could pass that with flying colors. JJ Shankles: yeah, no, I've done it on the Sparkex and it prints beautifully like across the entire build plate. Works great. Jerry Gomes: Yeah. Man. Well, if this just goes to show you how far through like we probably touched on a lot of these small topics throughout other podcast episodes, but like we thought it seemed like a good a good topic and it 3D printing has come a long way, I feel like. It's if you compare a modern printer to a printer from eight or nine years ago, every single thing is different. And we didn't even touch on everything, I don't think. JJ Shankles: Yes, yeah. Let us know in the comments what we missed. What was your biggest headache that we either missed Jerry Gomes: Mm-hmm. JJ Shankles: or haven't dealt with? So yeah, let us Jerry Gomes: Hmm. JJ Shankles: know in the comments down below. Jerry Gomes: Yeah. We post every Friday. Make sure to like and subscribe so you can see when we post next. And we'll see you in the next one. Yep. Bye. JJ Shankles: See you in the next one. Bye.