String trimmer (weed whacker) “line” is nearly the same thing as 3d printing “filament” (with some caveats). I’ve seen videos of people running weed whacker line through their 3d printer. It’s not particularly high quality material but it does indeed work. I’ve also seen videos of people printing from cut up 2 liter soda bottles. That’s pretty impressive I think! There’s nothing quite as clever as a dedicated 3d printing nerd. (I wanna’ be like them when I grow up.)
I’m glad they’re figuring all this stuff out. If society collapses and we all go Mad Max, there will be nerds scouring the wasteland for old weed whackers. They’ll gladly rescue the line to print… stuff.
The amusing part (to me) is that I have been soaking some string trimmer line to add water. This makes it more flexible (less brittle) for when I bash weeds. At the exact same time I’ve been running my filament dryer to remove water to make 3d filament about 10-14% relative humidity. That makes the prints more pristine.
Yes, such details are deep in the weeds. But they amuse me nonetheless.
I have a “fleet” of gas cans. I use them more than most people seem to use gas cans. I don’t know why. I’m always schlepping diesel, unleaded, saw mix, furnace fuel, etc… There’s always a good reason. What does everyone else do? Is there a two-stroke saw mix drone delivery service I don’t know about?
My gas cans are precious. Most are “pre-Californicated”; meaning they’re from back when you could pour fuel without messing with a spring loaded aberration that invariably spills fuel either on a hot muffler or my pantleg… presumably Gaia likes absolutely spilling liquid to avoid hypothetical vapor loss.
Trump made some warbling about kicking the EPA in the ass until us peasants could pour gas properly. I don’t know if it happened. I assume not. It’s a politician and the EPA so it’s safe to bet that the ratchet never stops tightening. We got legal weed and lost incandescent bulbs and high flow toilets. Who could have imagined the future would be like that?
All I know is that my cans are fine (Wedco brand mostly) but the caps and gaskets (and especially the fuel filler nozzles) are all beat to hell. I’m on the second generation of replacements for most accessory parts.
To buy all new cans would set me back a C note (or more!) and I don’t want to think about replacing useable cans with enshittified ones. Also it seems wasteful to toss a whole can over a 3 ounce cap. I’d rather refurbish what I’ve got.
Then it dawned on me I’m a big bad 3d printing homesteader nerd! Time to quit bitching and solve my own problems; whether I can blame them on the EPA or not!
I set out to print my own:
- Gas caps.
- Filler nozzles.
- Gaskets.
- Vent caps. (Vents are the thing that got Californicated.)
From my research PETG is adequate (even good) at resistance to solvents. Diesel is the thing I use most and it plays well with PETG. So that’s what I’m using.
Gaskets need to be flexible (squishy). The only solution is TPA. I have some TPA 95A, it’s very squishy. It can’t go through my printers AMS, but it’s ok if I set up an external feed. They say TPU is very good with diesel and gas too. My slicer says I’ll need $0.03 each to make as many gaskets as I want. How cool is that?
I’ll probably have to tinker and make sure the thread pitch of the caps is right. Nothing is right on the first try. But I think I can figure it out.
That’s challenge du jour. It might take a week to get around to it. Does that make it challenge de la semaine? I don’t know; I only speak languages for places with lots of air conditioning. 🙂
Wish me luck.