DFRobot 1602 LCD display mount

Part of recent Mecanum motion project required me to design and print a frame for the DFRobot 1602 LCD display as shown above. It is basically a right angle bracket that allows it to be mounted onto the frame.

I’ve uploaded the STL model to:

https://github.com/directorcia/ciaopslabs/blob/main/3dprint/mounts/DFRobot-1602-LCD-disp.stl

so you can grab a copy and print it out for yourself. If you don’t have access to a 3D printer then send me a donation via:

https://ko-fi.com/ciaops

to cover the postage at least and I’ll send you a print.

Paint mixer

One the problems I’ve recently solved with 3D printing was to create a simple paint mixer (shown above).

Basically it is a block with a few divots in it. This allows you to easily a small amount of paint in each divot. The advantage over a flat area is that the mixing process doesn’t spread the paint too broadly. This solved a problem for me when I am building my plastic models and need a small amount of colours mixed together.

The dimensions of the mixer are:

76.8 mm long

19 mm wide

4.8 mm deep

I’ve uploaded the STL model here:

https://github.com/directorcia/ciaopslabs/blob/main/3dprint/tools/Paintmixer.stl

so you can grab a copy and print it out for yourself. If you don’t have access to a 3D printer then send me a donation via:

https://ko-fi.com/ciaops

to cover the postage at least and I’ll send you a print.

Random blob prints

I am still trying to work out why I occasionally get these random blob prints! As you can see the model on the left works fine until towards the end when it goes all ‘blobby’ for some reason??

I have seen this before when attempting to print a cog, but I’ve never bothered to isolate it. In this case, the first print was fine, then second ended in a ‘blob’ and third print was fine. Exactly the same model, no change.

Now I will admit that when I was importing the model it did tell me there was an error and did I wanted that fixed. To which I naturally said “Sure”. Thus, I’m not sure if that is the source of the issues, but if it was a code error, why doesn’t it happen every time I wonder? More investigation it seems.

Luckily, I managed to print out two good columns to finish this model of a Tori gate as you can see above. It is still quite rough as I was testing using PETG this time instead of PLA. I also didn’t use any support and I probably should have looking at the resulting top beam. As always, there is refinement that will be required but I’m happy that I could get this printed without too much hassle.

The original model had the two columns printing together in the same model but that was slow and also created a ‘spiders web’ of filament between the columns. So I canned that and editing that part of the model using TinkerCAD and made a new model with only a single column I printed twice. Much better.

Happy to add this model to my collection and hopefully will get some time to do some refinement to it soon.