Lots of interesting topics this time! Tesla is apparently using last-minute 3D printed parts in the first Model Ys they delivered; Adrian Bowyer is proposing a novel print removal system; and the US Army has been working on a non-homogeneous 3D printing filament.
But Stefan and Tom haven’t been idle, either and have been working on the Toolchanger and on finally getting an old CNC working. All that and more in this episode of The Meltzone Podcast!

Notes and timestamps:
3:50 Getting married in special times

13:42 Tom’s Sienci CNC adventures

21:24 Stefan’s experience with the E3D toolchanger & discussion on the Creality CR-6 SE
https://e3d-online.com/tc-ms
https://creality.com/cr-6-se-3d-printer-crowdfunding-on-6th-may-p00296p1.html
33:17 Correction on SeeMeCNC’s efforts of injection molding faceshield frames
https://twitter.com/SeeMeCNC/status/1244760010514739200?s=19
35:10 Adrian Bowyer’s print ejector concept
https://3dprintingindustry.com/news/adrian-bowyer-releases-proposal-for-continuous-unattended-3d-printing-system-171135/
46:20 Tesla is patching production Model Y with FDM 3D printed parts
https://insideevs.com/news/410927/tesla-3d-printing-fix-model-y-hvac/amp/
https://www.fabbaloo.com/blog/2020/4/21/the-very-good-reason-3d-printed-parts-were-found-in-the-tesla-model-y
51:00 FabLab Munich’s open-source metal 3D printer (FabMX)
https://www.heise.de/make/meldung/FabMX-Open-Source-Projekt-will-einen-Metall-3D-Drucker-entwickeln-4700614.html
58:08 US Army’s reinforced 3D printing filament
https://newatlas.com/multi-polymer-3d-printer-filament/
Full paper: █████████████████████████████████████████
1:04:10 Brook Drumm is back on his feet
https://www.patreon.com/posts/bankruptcy-new-36365339
1:08:52 PTFE 3D printing by 3M
https://www.3m.com/3M/en_US/design-and-specialty-materials-us/3d-printing/
1:19:40 Questions

It’s The Meltzone Lockdown edition! Tom is running out of home improvement store goods while Stefan is holding himself over with VR and finally building his E3D Toolchanger.
We’re also talking about printing faceshields and other PPE and how getting organized is really important right now.
Also, Makerbot is supposedly opening up their Method 3D printer to filaments from other manufacturers.
In the questions, we cover filament diameter conversions, building a new printed CNC and Autodesk’s patent on non-planar slicing.

On this content packed episode, Tom and Stefan talk about their recent live streaming efforts, VR, the newly added FFF slicer in Fusion360 and why Stefan thinks it’s a challenge to add gears to his new plastics shredder. There are currently a lot of efforts being done to use 3D printing for medical equipment due to the current Corona pandemic. Both discuss the positive and negative sides of those and why there also can be a danger in printing medical supplies. There is a “new Thingiverse” but is it better than the old one? Tom and Stefan try to answer viewer/listener questions on high power lasers in SLA printers, the right material for 3D printed CNCs, if E3D really performs quality control, if Fusion360 might implement non-planar slicing, trouble with white filament, under-water curing and their favorite thread profiles for 3D printed parts.

Update: After the blanket travel ban from Europe, MRRF has officially been canceled / postponed. In this episode, we talk about Stefan’s new Toolchanger, more use cases for LW-PLA and our (back then still relevant) plans for MRRF 2020!

Tom and Stefan talk about the upcoming events that they’ll attend including Malta Maker Fair and MRRF2020. Both recently released a material testing video and discuss if resin prints are really isotropic and why lattice or porous structures performs the way they do. Tom got kicked from the Amazon.com affiliate program and explains how that happened. Stefan got a new Pellet Extruder and expresses his first experience with it. Both talk about the impact of the Chorona Virus on the China and the 3D printing industry. The Makerbot Classroom Sketch was unveiled recently – is it worth $1800? Questions cover copyright on Thingiverse uploads, ceramic hotend liners, dimensional issues of high prints an the Dragon Hotend.

Flashforge first cloned Makerbot – and now it looks like Makerbot are selling Flashforge’s machines? That and a discussion on the (non) availability of the Elegoo Mars Pro, our take on Linus’ “I’ve been thinking about retiring” stream and our pros and cons to using “servos” on 3D printers in this episode of The Meltzone!

Tom and Stefan are back from their holiday break and meet up in the “real” CNC Kitchen. They talk about current projects like Stefans work on Colorfabbs Light Weight PLA (LW-PLA). Both discuss the recent problems with the Hermera Extruder and how E3D is handling it. The topic of the week covers the differences between Teflon-lined hotends and full metal hotends, where the differences are and that the latter isn’t always the best choice. Questions cover the differences between PETG and ABS as well as printer advice and it’s better to buy a machine or to build one from scratch. At last both talk about the harmful fumes of additive manufacturing and how to pre-vent them.

Is Prusa turning on the open-source community by requiring you to physically damaging the Mini’s board to run custom firmware? That’s our big topic of the week! Well, technically, topic of the bi-week? Stefan has been working on a surprisingly simple and universal variable infill algorithm while Tom has been trying to combine the advantages of filament and resin printing. In other new, Marlin 2.0 has finally come out of beta and the E3D “not a Hermes” has started shipping! We talk about our experiences with both of them. And we also got some good info from you all in the comments from the last episode – there’s lots of interest and some corrections on metal 3D printing.

Tom and Stefan have been at Formnext 2019 the week before and talk about their impressions.The news cover the current state of Lulzbot and also that Generative Design for Fusion360 is currently available for free. Podimo, a German startup wants to be the Netflix of Podcasts. Both discuss if they like their business model and if the even want to be listen in the Podimo app. Tom got into RC flying, talks about his first experiences and both discuss 3D printed airplanes and also Colorfabbs new Light Weight PLA. Listener questions cover bulletproof 3D prints, home metal 3D printing and why Youtubers only review Chinese printers.

It’s finally a normal episode with Stefan & Tom again! We talk about our experiences with travelling to shows and what we enjoy doing when our calendars are not stuffed with events. Tom uses an E3D Supervolcano for the first time and gets different findings to what Stefan has seen in other high-speed printing setups. Also, there’s been a lot of stuff going wrong lately: Lulzbot seems to be going out of business, the UK is creating even more uncertainty by delaying Brexit and impacting UK manufacturers like E3D, NordVPN is screwing up and an Original Prusa MK3 has caught on fire. Good times!