Wow 
this is a really an update 
monster-mega post. I am curious- will take me a while to read + understand 
Thanx for sharing- will ask my questions then…
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In terms of pure word count, it’s only 1632 words short of my undergrad dissertation . But this is an update for multiple projects over multiple months.
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Woot woot 
in other words: your dissertation is completed?? You did it ??? That’s AWESOME 
What? No, I’ve done next to nothing for my dissertation . I was talking about my undergraduate dissertation, last year’s one. It’s been finished since last April.
I will need some time to work my way through it all. Patients 
I wasn’t expecting anyone to read it in the first place, I’m not that big an idiot. Although, I did think about littering it with questions that asked you to do specific things to show that you’ve read it. 
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You knew I would.
I just don’t go to the trouble and try to understand everything.
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Challenge accepted Gonna try my best when I’m on desktop again
Good luck, it took me almost an entire day to type it up, Word puts it at 9 pages without images.
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Not gonna lie, this post is impressive. It was too much to read in one sitting though, so I skimmed over it.
That looks pretty cool. So what can you specifically print with it?
Post a link when you’re done
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Anything that I design (or find the .STL/.gcode for) within reason and within the specified print volume.
Will do.
Mini update for today. I replaced Banshee’s front arms and put the black head shroud and silencers on the printer (I left out the PCB casing silencer as I couldn’t mount it well and it made no difference). I also replaced the FFC cable on the raspicam with a black one because I was getting weird purple noise, turns out the issue wasn’t the cable as the noise is still there.
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But you’d have to find the right material first, right?
The most common printing material is Polylactic Acid (PLA) which is actually made of mostly corn starch and is a plastic. There’s a ton of other materials out there, but PLA is the most common and easiest to work with that doesn’t require a hardcore printer head and bed to maintain extreme temps while printing.
Ah okay, makes sense. I hope you’ll keep finding practical use for it 
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So, finally done reading all.
Had I realised the last two parts were that much shorter, I could have been finished a long while ago. 
It was a good to follow read. Even so I probably didn’t understand everything. Probably? For sure! 
But I think, I did get the gist of it.
Even so, I’m not really get the actual concepts how a 3D printer works. Sure, I’ve heard of this before, and I see the results. But how is the making process?
Here, I had to laugh. Was impressed with the pic on your wall. Till I saw, it’s not your room.
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The most basic way to explain 3D printing is that it melts the material (filament) and lays it down in very fine lines, these lines cool rapidly and solidify, that allows them to be layered. You keep layering them until you get your model.
In terms of how you go from an idea to a finished product, you first have to design it in some sort of modelling software, you then have to save it as a stereolithography (.stl) file. That STL is then loaded into another piece of software called a slicer. The slicer does what it says. It slices your model into the layers that the printer needs to print. Here you can also adjust other parameters for the specific print such as print speed, nozzle and bed temperatures, etc… The slicer then outputs a G-Code (.gcode) file which is a file format that the printer will understand. Once you have your G-Code you just load it into your printer, set it going and hope you’ve calibrated your printer properly. lol
I always point people to this video, because it’s fairly short, yet entertaining and informative in terms of the very basics.
I said those were images I found on Google. lol
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Thanks for the explanation.
My son came in, while I watched the vid und showed me a house printing one. 
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Just wanted to post a quick update. Things have yet again been delayed by uni. My priorities for now are the battery tests and the housekeeping on my site. I hope to start those soon. Banshee is on hold for the forseeable future as I’m busy churning out visor frames, so won’t really be able to print anything else.
I got a new bed mat for the printer though, because the stock one died from repeated prints in the same spot. Ended up going for a spring steel sheet as opposed to another stock mat. The bottom surface is so much better than before, it’s so nice and smooth.
The ruined mat.
The new sheet.
Quality comparison (the coarse surface is from the stock mat).
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Niiice!! 
why not bringing the steel surface earlier? If it’s more suitable for the work… 
Because I was happy with the stock mat and didn’t want to pay extra for an upgrade that I didn’t technically need. The spring steel only gives a nicer bottom surface, and obviously it’s more durable, but that’s it.
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