I designed and 3d printed this ptfe cutter with a measuring tool so i could cut short pieces of ptfe
for my prusa mini or if i want to do that luke hatfield trick on my creality machines.
But i wanted a two-color print so the numbers and lines are easier to see and i want to do
it on my ender 3 v2 with auto level so let me show you how i did it on today's Filament Friday
Filament Friday is brought to you every week by the generous donations
of these patreon supporters. Here's the original design. I created this in tinkercad. it was pretty
easy. just a bunch of blocks, one cylinder down the center, and then the numbers. I 3d
printed it at a 0.2 layer height. I could measure the ptfe tubing, cut it nicely,
but my biggest issue was it was hard to read the numbers. i decided to redesign it into two pieces
so i could do a two color print. i've showed two color prints using the pause at height plug-in
for cura and also the z-offset plug-in for cura. But this time i'm going to use something that's
already in cura. It's called remove empty first layers and it's part of my profiles.
you can check it or uncheck it so let me show you how to use this to make a two color print.
i'm also going to do something a little different. i'm going to use my ender 3 v2 with auto level
to do this print. To redesign it in tinkercad was pretty easy. i just made a copy of the original
then i took a hole block and made it 2.4 millimeters tall and another one that's lifted
2.4 millimeters and then i brought it into the two designs one on the right at the bottom one
on the left at the top. And when i group these together i'm going to end up with a bottom piece
that is 2.4 millimeters tall and a top piece that'll sits right on top of that.
So here's the two pieces that i'm going to print, one after the other.
The first step in cura is to choose my creality ender 3 auto level profile. this auto level
profile in machine settings has an m420 s1 command so it draws the auto level information from eeprom
rather than going through and probing every time i go to print. So this will be helpful when i do
the second print that this isn't going to run into the first print. The first part i'm going to print
is the lower section of the base and it drops into the middle of the bed. But i really don't want it
there because even with drawing from eeprom it still homes at the center using the auto level
sensor. It's small enough so i'm just going to move it forward and i'm going to put it to exactly
60 millimeters. That way i know how to line up the top piece when i'm ready to print that.
I am going to use my CHEP 0.2 profile with a 0.2 layer height 15% infill and it does have
the skirt enabled. I'll leave that alone. I sliced it, it's pretty quick. It says it's
only going to take 44 minutes. But let's look at the preview, how well do these numbers look,
and they look pretty good, so i'm happy with that. So let's print it.The first step is to run
auto-level from the menu. Once i do this it goes through a three by three probe or nine points and
then when it's done i'll save that to eprom. So it says do you want to save it to eprom, i click
confirm and now our auto level is in eeprom. I am going to put some glue down because there may be
time between these two prints and i don't want the bed to cool and the first print to pop off.
The first print went down nice and smooth the auto level was good so now let's focus on the top.
I want to bring it in like this so it's floating and i can drop it right on top of the other model
so i need to go into preferences and make sure that ensure models are kept apart is unchecked,
and automatically drop models to the build plate is also unchecked. With the base still
in the bed in cura i'm going to bring in the top section which drops down in the middle
and i want to lift this up and move it forward. So i'm going to lift it up to 2.4
millimeters and it'll stay there because of those preference settings that i did
in Cura. Now i'm going to set the y to 60 millimeters, it should drop right on top of
the base which it does. Now i can get rid of the base because i know everything's lined up
so just click on the base and delete it. Here's the piece floating in the air so now we can slice
this. I'm going to use the same profile but i'm going to make two changes. I'm going to get rid
of the skirt and second i'm going to search for empty first layers. Here it is; remove empty first
layers in my profile. It's checked and let me show you what that does. So if i sliced it with that
checked it ignores those first layers and puts the print right down on the bed. So you uncheck it and
it won't ignore that space and prints it floating in the air, which is what we want for this print.
Now because i started with the base print it's showing that name so i'm
going to change it to top so when i save it to the sd card it saves as a separate file.
So during that time the first print printed beautifully. It's still stuck to the bed
because of that glue. Now we can pull the white filament out and i'm going to use some red.
This is proto-pasta candy apple red and we're going to print this on top. So i run that file.
It's allowed to home right on the bed because we moved the print forward and now it's going
to lift 2.4 millimeters and start printing the red of the top print, right on top of the white.
And here it is all finished. That is definitely easier to read than a single color print.
So now let's test it out. If i just want a clean cut on the end of a long ptfe tube i can slide it
all the way through held at both ends and make the cut. And if i slide it out and take a close look
you can see we have a nice straight cut. For shorter pieces i put my blade in the slot where
i want it, in this case 46 millimeters, and then go to the other end and cut it. And this should
give me the length that i want so how accurate is it? 46.2. 0.2 millimeters off. Not too bad.
So if I ever need to replace that ptfe tube in the Prusa mini or on any of my machines
running the luke hatfield fix i can easily do it with this tool. I designed this to be a hundred
millimeters long which is actually handy. Probably should have made 120mm, but i'll show you why. It
printed out exactly 100 millimeters, so i can use this when i'm doing e-steps. So i can easily mark
the filament before i run it. So if i've made 120 it'll be perfect, but this still works. I can run
100 millimeters through and see if i'm accurate. I showed how to do that in a previous video. I'll
put links to all three files in the description below; the single color print and then the bottom
and the top files to do a two color print so you can try this on your 3d printer. If you like
what i'm doing here maybe check out some of the other videos that are popping up, and if nothing
else click on that CHEP logo and subscribe. I'll see you next time right here at Filament Friday