Modding aerogardens

Since the last time I checked, a new Aerogarden light extender rod popped up on Thingiverse.  My printer's broken right now (have the parts to fix it, just too lazy to do so), so I ordered it to be printed by a service.  It's supposed to show up in the next week or so.  I've already ordered the magic cable that would serve as an extension cord should the existing light cord turn up too short for the extension.

I'll be trying this out on my Extra Prime which is currently growing an Aji Lemon Drop plant.  It's supposed to be 3' tall, so I can test the notion.  Right now, the plant is in a pretty good growth spurt, so I may need the extender as soon as it shows up.

My first attempt is so-so.  The above model was adapted from a model I got online.  Trouble was that it was for an older machine, so I had to adapt it to the newer style.

I printed it, and tried it on an Extra.  Kind of works, but the rod fits the hood too loosely, so it kind of sags.

So, I got out my calipers and redesigned from scratch.



It's about six inches long, which is too long to print vertically in my machine.  Printing it horizontally will lose some structural strength, but it should work.

I have a mid-priced printer called a "Flashforge Dreamer."  It is a "dual extruder" printer, which means I can load it up with two different reels of plastic filament, which would let me print things in two colors (there are other, more technical uses for dual extruder, but I'm going to skip that here).

the picture in the previous post is the 3D Model I created on tinkercad.com and downloaded to my laptop.  The picture is of the "slicer" software.  Slicer software takes a 3D model and breaks it into horizontal slices.  Feed the results of that to the printer, and the extruder will trace out the horizontal slice leaving a thread of just melted filament.

You'll note in the picture above that both spools of filament are pink.  I like pink.  They're actually different kinds of plastic.  The one on the left, which I'm using today, is "PLA" which is the simplest plastic to print.  The one on the right is ABS (what they use to make Legos) and is a lot more difficult to deal with.  PLA tends to be a bit more brittle, whereas ABS is a bit more flexible

When I run the slicer on my model, I specify two main additions: a raft and supports.

The trickiest part of any 3D print is getting the first layer of the print to stick to the print bed.  You put down various types of high friction surface, then specify how hot the bed will be during printing.  ABS needs a print bed hot enough to boil water.  PLA about half that hot, and often doesn't need to be heated at all.

If the first layer doesn't stick, then most of the model doesn't stick, and it's ruined before it's even got started.  You're most likely to end up with a "hairball."

Two things can happen: one is that it doesn't stick.  The other is that it sticks way too well, which means it prints just fine, but when it's done, there's no way to get the stupid thing off the print bed without destroying its surface and maybe the model as well.

So today, I'm using the secret magic stickum.  One choice is coating the print bed with a glue stick, but I chose AquaNet Hair Spray.  Yes, you read that right.  It is absolutely magic.

So, I make a "raft" which is a few layers of woven plastic to give a really good surface for the model itself to adhere to.  It's fairly easily torn off the model when complete.

The other source of hairballs is when the printer tries to print in mid-air, for instance when the next layer is wider than the one beneath it.  This just doesn't work, so what you'll typically do is tell the slicer to create tree-like supports from the base of the raft to where you're going to want to print.  Generally, if the angle of the side is shallower than 45 degrees, you'll need supports.

Here's a shot of the model with supports and the raft added, with a cross-section of the thing to be printed:

Notice the raft and supports in light green.  Also notice that even though the thing was designed to be solid inside, in the name of saving filament, the slicer actually makes the interior a honeycomb structure.  This model will take 181 layers to print, largely because I made each layer rather coarse, and it's going to take 5 hours to print.  I just start these things up and go to bed.

Here's a video of part of the raft being printed:

<img alt="Video Preview" src="
onedrive.live.com/embed?cid=F2D4D1E8FC256C6B&resid=F2D4D1E8FC256C6B%21477200&authkey=AAXv6CQNi3LgStI" >

Not exactly fast, is it?

Here's another video of part of the device itself being printed on top of the raft and supports, about an hour into the print.  Barely recognizable.

[img alt="Video Preview" src="//storage.proboards.com/forum/images/bbcode/video-preview.png" video="
onedrive.live.com/embed?cid=F2D4D1E8FC256C6B&resid=F2D4D1E8FC256C6B%21477208&authkey=AJHTRfaeG3g_yiQ"]

Thanks for sharing! The videos are really neat.