solarbird | Mar. 15th, 2023

Projects is a bit of a stretch. Items? Eh, whatevs, there’s two of ’em.

One! If you drill into plastics regularly and acrylic in particular even semi-regularly GET YOURSELF SOME GODDAMN ACRYLIC POINT BITS holy shit they are so much better than anything else I mean it. They’re a speciality item but 9000% worth it and I say that after drilling all of 11 holes while screwing the silicone foot gasket onto my 3D printer’s semi-enclosure. So much better and easier. I was good at using regular bits and I still say: so worth it.

a package of acrylic-tip drill bits, with 60° point tips made by ftm in california, behind my printer’s transparent enclosure wall

Two! is that it’s incredibly nice (and fairly rare which makes it nicer when it happens) when you find you need a simple part around the house and you design it and print the design and it prints right the first time and fits perfectly and you’re done just like that. I mean damn. Sure, it’s only a semi-cosmetic part for a venetian blind, but it’s still replacing a broken part for a venetian blind and these things are big and replacing them wouldn’t be real cheap – and they’re fine otherwise, so why would you?

Not when you can print replacement parts, anyway.