Jeremy Harris

The files I got were like this, with the little pegs square: The printer could have printed them as round pegs, just a matter of angling the piece up off the build plate and adding some supports. This stuff gets done in the slicer (Cura is one such product, I use the slicer that came bundled with the Photon). Most slicer programmes seem able to rotate parts, add supports, add a printing base, etc, either automatically or manually. The only slight downside of using supports is that they leave little marks on the print, rather like the sprue marks on an Airfix kit.

With a bit of luck you may be able to see the result tomorrow - managed to catch the post OK. Looks to me as if directly exporting the .stl file from AutoCAD works just fine.

It's a generic white UV curing resin, this stuff: https://technologyoutlet.co.uk/products/technologyoutlet-premium-3d-printer-resin?variant=12582237372528 I'm pretty sure it's an acrylic of some sort. When cured it seems to behave very much like Perspex. Should catch the post this afternoon, with luck.

They seem to have printed OK, just a small bit of "flash" where they were sat on the printer bed, but otherwise OK.

I agree with @PeterStarck. I roughly measured the amount of hot water used for a bit of simple hand washing up, and just a couple of plates, pans, cutlery etc after a meal for two was not far off the same as the dishwasher used on its eco cycle. I reckon we'd easily use more water per day hand washing up than we do using the dishwasher, although I find it hard to get out of the habit of washing a mug after I've used it, rather than stick it in the dishwasher and getting another one out...

If you send both, I can double check, but any .stl should work OK. It only takes a few seconds to load an .stl file into the slicer and see if it looks OK.

Brilliant! Like to know how you did it, as I tried a few tricks to try and get the file into FreeCAD without luck. .stl files from FreeCAD I know work fine, as I've printed a couple of dozen or so parts that way. I'll print it off in the morning, if all goes well.

You can buy Anycubic printers direct from Anycubic - they usually ship quickly from their EU warehouse: https://www.anycubic.com/ The Chiron is currently $399, so a bit cheaper than Amazon. I bought my Anycubic Photon directly from Anycubic, arrived within about 5 days, IIRC.

Gotcha, I was struggling to see how things went together. Does seem like a bit of squirty foam will fix any holes you find. These voids will be pretty well sealed up, though, and being relatively narrow may not be as bad as you think.

I'm having trouble visualising this (my fault, not at all familiar with the way Durisol blocks are made up). The problem seems to be that gap at the lower right, which is indicative of other, similar, gaps elsewhere. So, is it that the gap extends right through the wall, from the internal face to the external face? From the photo, it looks as if alternate courses of blocks are laid as stretcher bond, so the insulation blocks don't align. It also looks as if it's the wood/cement fibre bit that's missing, rather than the PIR foam bit (I may well have got that wrong). Any chance of a rough sketch to help understand what's going on?

Similar to what I did, but I did the PP drawings and sent the .dwg files to the TF supplier for detailed design. Worked well, as the TF supplier sent their detail design .dwg's back, I checked them, made a couple of minor amendments and then sent them back. Probably not an option for someone not used to working with CAD files, though, as it was very much a DIY approach. I did find this approach useful in many other ways, though, as I was able to produce detail drawings for BC easily, and also do specific drawings for things like the electrical installation, ventilation installation etc, using the master drawings that were being used for frame manufacture as the base.

Worth a try. I've found that drawing something up in AutoCAD, saving it as a .dxf, then importing it into FreeCAD, turning it into 3D and exporting it as a .stl works OK. Bit cumbersome, but it means I can work in a programme I'm familiar with for most of the stuff, then just tweak it in FreeCAD (which hasn't got a great user interface, but is open source).

Just tried it. The good news is that it managed to open and view your .sv$ file, I just renamed the file, changing the suffix to .dwg, and it opened up OK. I also managed to convert the .dwg to .dxf, and that worked fine, too. with the .dxf being viewable. The bad news is that I couldn't open the .dxf in FreeCAD, so wasn't able to export it as a .stl file... Love to know why Truview is a 1.8Gb download, too. Seems way OTT for a file viewer.

Our attenuation tank is buried. It's made up of 20 heavy duty crates, wrapped in permeable membrane and buried deep underneath our drive. Total capacity is a bit under 4,000 litres. I bought the heavy duty blue Aquacell crates cheaply from a ground works chap that had a yard full of them "left over from another job". Think I paid a fiver each for them, plus another £20 for delivery.

I tried changing the suffix to .dwg then converting it to .dxf, with the intention of opening it in FreeCAD so that it could be exported as a .stl file but for some reason that didn't work either. According to AutoDesk, all that should be needed to convert an autosave file to a .dwg should be to edit the suffix, but for some reason that doesn't seem to work. I can't open .dwg files in the newer format, unfortunately, as my copy of AutoCAD is an older one.

An injection moulded part inside one of our blinds broke a while ago. It wasn't available as a spare part, so we'd have had to buy a whole new assembly. I used the old part as a pattern, drew a new one up, beefed it up to try and stop it failing in future and printed it off. It's been working fine for a month or so now.

It is an interesting map. These are the details for our area, and I rather suspect they are not at all typical for the country as a whole:

I'll PM you.

Not sure if this is any help, but I did find off-the-shelf hydro brakes in the end (part way down this page): https://www.drainagesuperstore.co.uk/browse/underground-drainage/soakaway-crates.html Very expensive for what they are, I can only guess that they are not something that sells in high volume. You could get one fabricated from stainless plate for a lot less than those prices, although I'd guess there may well then be an issue with demonstrating compliance with the spec (I suspect it's the compliance testing that makes up a fair bit of the price). It does look as if there may be some cheaper options on that link above, though.

That'd be fine, ping me the .stl and I'll get it printed tomorrow.

The main challenge with picking the best time to fill a tank may be that the companies are a bit coy about prices. If they all made their prices clear, either per litre or per kWh, then it would be a lot easier to see when the best time to buy would be. When I was looking around to try and find prices a day or so ago, it seemed like hard work, as all the big suppliers wanted a name, address, email etc before they would reveal their prices. Seemed worse than electricity companies, and they can be pretty obscure when it comes to hiding their tariffs.

Yes, or a bit larger if you like. Ideally it needs to have a flat base, as that saves having to add a support layer where the part attaches to the base plate at the start of the print. A polo with a flat base, or something with a bit more shape to it if you like. To avoid supports it needs to be a shape that doesn't have any isolated areas when sliced, so that the bit that's already been printed can hold the next layer to be printed, if you get what I mean.

Yes, should be fine. My version of AutoCAD is older, and doesn't have this option... If you want to draw up something small (no wider than about 65mm) then I could do a test print for you to check.

That seems like a pretty good price; around here people seem to be paying a fair bit more than this. Maybe it's the famous North/South divide!

Not on the old house, no, as it was pretty clear that the air leakage performance, even after I'd spent days trying to improve it, was not great, and there didn't seem to be much point in paying for a test. The new house had an air test, which gave a reasonable result, under the PassivHaus limit, which was our target.