In this week’s special episode from the East Coast RepRap Festival 2019, Tom talks to Keith (as a non-representative of Proto-Pasta) about their ERRF highlight, how the terrorist attack in Halle seems to have used 3D printing to fabricate firearm parts and what we should (or can) do about it. Also, Proto-Pasta’s experiences in shipping a filament extruder all the way across the US and whether 3D printer manufacturers should be providing a functional machine to buyers!

On this special Podcast Episode Stefan visits a YouTube Creators Event in the UK and talk with his two fellow YouTube creator Tom Stanton and Ivan Miranda about cool gadgets they own and how they use their CNCs where 3D printing is not sufficient anymore.

Stefan talks about his recent trip to the UK where he visited E3D and the XYZSummit, a YouTube creators even. YouTube did it’s “thing” again by removing the verified status from most of their creators but shortly changed their mind again after lots of complaints from the community. LEGO has taken down lot’s of community designs from MyMiniFactory and Thingiverse. Tom and Stefan discuss how far 3D printers have come from the Sells Mendel and at which point both got into the hobby. They both talk about if a belt printer would be something for them to consider and what the advantages of a combined additive and substractive process might be.

It’s been a while! Now that Stefan is back from Japan, he and Tom can finally get back together for a new episode of The Meltzone Podcast – and there’s lots to catch up on!Continue reading

Stefan will soon be on a 3 week holiday trip to Japan and talks about his preparations in terms of camera equipment and Tom presents his latest 10-25mm f1.7 lens he recently bought. Both discuss if YouTube is a suitable platform for their podcast and if they should release their show as audio-only. Stefan made a discovery how STL files can become inaccurate if they are exported in the wrong coordinate system. Both talk in depth about the meaningfulness of topology optimization and lattice structure. Since Stefan recently received a Cetus3D Mk3 and is annoyed by it’s noise he asks Tom to explain if implementing silent stepper drivers is hard and expensive and why they didn’t become a standard in current-gen 3D printers.

Why are white goods getting more and more unreliable? What are the dangers of cloud software? How are these two successful YouTubers steering the YouTube algorithm?
We’ll answer that in this episode of the Meltzone podcast!
Also, news on non-planar slicing with a paper on “CurviSlicer”, questions on filament-based metal 3D printing, a free Solidworks version for makers and advances slicer tuning options for FDM.
Topic of the week: What are we actually using 3D printing for and are there even applications that make sense for “normal” people?

After 5 weeks of no PodCast together, there are a lot of things to chat about. Tom and Stefan talk a bit about recent Prague Maker Fair and the awesome spirit of it. Tom gave topology optimization a try and Stefan talks about how he could use his new 3D scanner to measure the strains in it during testing. Stefan got back to some filament tests and talks about his experience with part cooling and layer adhesion. The guys show their admiration for David Shoreys current work on 3D printing on diffraction grading sheets. They discuss why resin printing seems to be becoming so “popular” at the moment and if 3D printing camera gear is a viable option as shown with the Edelkrone Head.

After Maker Faire Prague, Prusa let Tom, 3D Printing Nerd and 3D Maker Noob have their studio for an hour to jam about recent 3D printing topics! In this episode, we talk about the demise of Maker Media, the creators of Make Magazine and licencors of Maker Faires – and what that means for the future of faires in general. In other news, a CR-10 caught fire and a Twitter user was caught advertising a 3D printer with photos stolen from several community members.
And for the “big” topic, we fantasize about the future of consumer / maker / “low end” 3D printers and what there even is left to improve. Which… gets a bit awkward.

### SHOW NOTES ###
3D Printing Nerd’s channel https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC_7aK9PpYTqt08ERh1MewlQ
3D Maker Noob’s channel https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC2Tc0TsvFxC83zF1w5x1PWQ
Maker Media ceases operation https://hackaday.com/2019/06/07/maker-media-ceases-operations/
CR-10 is lit https://www.reddit.com/r/3Dprinting/comments/bxxjsw/creality_printers_is_having_a_fire_sale/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app and https://m.facebook.com/?_rdr#!/groups/1642675669368828?view=permalink&id=2090505217919202&anchor_composer=false
“Felanfeli” stealing photos https://twitter.com/Barnacules/status/1138600958156369921?s=19 (and others)

The big topic this week: Is Kickstarter still what it used to be? What are the risks involved in backing crowdfunding campaigns? Tom and Stefan discuss their experiences with past crowfunding projects and try to make sense of today’s landscape on Kickstarter and Indiegogo.
In other quick topics: Stefan’s recap of hitting 100k subscribers on YouTube and his experiences of trying “Premieres”, Apple’s interesting new Pro lineup and a follow-up on keeping filament dry.

Tom and Stefan talk about PPE (Personal Protective Equipment), 3D printer nozzle wear and vapor smoothing. The news section covers the question if bio plastics are not as biodegradable as advertised and Prusas newest release of their slicer, now called PrusaSlicer. Both talk about the necessity of backlash compensation that Lulzbot just announced for their new printers. In the Topic Of The Week, they discuss Auto Bed Leveling and if it’s cleaner to just level the bed properly in the first place manually. Question cover, if you can over-dry your filaments and if and how you can print g-code that was pre-sliced for another nozzle diameter.