So wow...it has been 3 weeks again. Time goes by so fast. I have been trying to keep up on homework, and seriously haven't done much crafting recently. I worked a bit on Bob. I got some orange lights so I can put one in him to make him glow orange. Works great. Just need to figure out how to make a pedestal for him that will hold the light, and how to get the light to turn off anf on. Because they did not come with an on/off switch. Either they are on or they are burned out. There is a little slot though, so I am considering figuring out some kind of plastic lever thingy that pulls out and pushes in. I haven't put much of my brain power to it yet, though.

I also need to work more on Talleg and on the Janitor cosplay. I just feel like right now I am up to my eyeballs in everything, and nothing is getting done as well as I want. I am feeling frustrated and overwhelmed and stupid and brain dead. I will work through it. I always do. But one of these days I will figure it out and be rolling once more.

I will do better. I promise. Next week there will be an actual post thingymabob.

Here is a picture of Bob thus far to tide you over. He is going to look so cool when he is completed.

So this week I have been working on homework and getting my life back in order. I haven't done much creative-wise. This last week, however, I started a new project. I have decided that Bob's Skull needs to go from the book version to the TV version. That means etching runes on it.

So I looked around and found some pics of the skull prop.

And I found some pics of a Bob that someone else made.

At first I was going to draw all the markings on it then carve them out with an Exacto knife. I found that as I worked I was wiping out the marks I made. Also, the knife was hard to control. I thought about using my soldering tool, but the plastic fumes would be toxic and I don't have a well ventilated area in which to work.

So I took look along the intertubewebs, and found some cheap Dremel bits that are for carving and cutting. I decided to try that.

They work ok. The results are less than stellar, but I am figuring I need to do some cleaning up and finishing. There may be a better way to do this, but at this point I need to work with the tools I have on hand. So I did the first cuts with the Dremel, then clean it up with smoe needle files I bought for a different project a while back. The plan then is to insert an orange LED light into it and the lines and runes will glow orange, like the skull is supposed to do when Bob is called.

I don't have the orange light yet. I am waiting for it to come from Amazon. But in the mean time I did some tests to see if my idea was a viable one. Result...it works! So I will continue as I am. Then I will make a blakc or grey wash to rub into the lines. Once the light is here I will take pics and post them here. I think Bob is going to turn out great. :)

I am not really happy about the dot in the middle. that was already on the plastic skull when I bought it. I did not buy it for this purpose, so I did not take that into consideration when I was shopping. But it is from the dollar store, so I will make do. I will maybe try filling it with air dry clay or something.

So school term is over. I did 16 credits in just over 4 weeks. Whew. I never ever want to have to do that again. I don't know if I could pull that outta my ass a second time. Now is time to start a new one. One of these days I will be done. For now, though, I am taking a few days as a breather, then back to work. Next I gotta go pass my Comptia A+ exam. I am sure i can do it. I just need to do it.

I haven't really worked on anything new yet. However I did do something I think you might find interesting. My friend has had an XYZ Da Vinci jr. 1.0 3d printer for a couple of years now. It has decided to crap out on him. He asked me if I wanted to try to get it working again. After a "Hell yeah!" (because I love tinkering) he brought it over and I started researching possible causes. Troubleshooting this printer is similar to troubleshooting computer issues, so I did the most obvious things first. Was it plugged in? Was it turned on? Did it have a file to print? So I turned it on. Looked fine. I took the little nozzle declogger and pushed it through a couple of times. Not clogged. So I set it to try one of the standard print jobs already loaded onto the machine.

It printed like 2 inches of the base, then nothing came out of the extruder nozzle. It was still moving like it was extruding, but it wasn't. So I canceled the print job and decided to go further into the extruder. Really give it a cleaning. Maybe there was a clog deeper than my declogging tool could reach.

This is what I found inside of the extruder casing:

In case you don't know what you are looking at....that is PLA melted and hardened to the OUTSIDE of the extruder nozzle, INSIDE the casing. Yup, I started to attempt to chip away at it, but it was so hardened I could only get some away from the nozzle. It was stuck on there tight, and I worry that if I try any futher it would ruin the nozzle and/or the mini circuit board that is in there.

That is not what is supposed to happen.


While I am unsure the exact cause of this, I have a hypothesis. When I removed the spool of filament, parts of it broke off easily. Just chipped away till way back on the spool. That is also not supposed to happen. This friend got a bad patch from XYZ. Because in this model there is a chip in the spool that allows it to be used. If you get off brand the chip is absent and it won't work. My theory is that it was flaking off inside the extruder and got hot and make this mess. Who knows how many times my friend tried using it that way, adding more and more material until we got here.

However if he had done regular maintenance he might have found this sooner. Might have been avoided, might not. But now, definitely the only options are getting a new exdtruder ($70) or getting a new printer.

You are supposed to do a maintenance check every 200 hours. You should be cleaning the nozzle every other print job. The problem with this model is they advertise it as being low maintenance, which my friend thought meant he didn't need to do anything. Granted, there are newer models available now. This is an older printer. They have been seeling them for at least 3 years. It is possible they fixed any issues like this, or added some kind of sensor system.

But there you go. Nasty mess. I will leave you with more pics of the mess, and come back in a week when I have more progress on my projects to report.