A Simple Start

It's been too darned cold in the unheated conservatory to consider 3D printing until today.
I have a small collection of business cards which usually end up in an untidy pile on the desk.
Then I keep knocking and scattering them on the floor.
I had been looking for a simple idea for my first 'from scratch' 3D design.
Previously I had only used designs downloaded from various sites.
A little box to keep the cards tidy seemed like a good place to start.

First task was to come to terms with v0.18 of FreeCAD to design the box.
Essentially it is made starting with two solid cubes.
One is enlarged to make the outside walls of the box.
The second is made slightly smaller to make the inside walls.
The small one is fitted inside the larger one and the program told to cut out the smaller one.
This makes the hollow box to hold the cards.



The idea was to save that as a .stl file for the next process but FreeCAD refused to do that.
Fortunately there are lots of export choices so I tried saving it as a .obj file.
That worked.

Next I loaded the .obj file in Ultimaker Cura and told it to slice the design to make the instructions needed by the 3D printer. It will instruct the printer what to do on each 0.2mm layer.

 

That was saved as a .gcode file and transferred to the 3D printer on an SD card.
Reel of grey PLA filament loaded.
Finally the long wait as the printer strutted its stuff to create the box.






It took 3 hrs 16 minutes to print.

 

 

Job done.

Thrushes

I have heard a Mistle Thrush singing most mornings for several days but haven't spotted it as yet.

At tea time today this Song Thrush did make a short appearance in the garden just beyond mine:





It appeared to be singing but I couldn't hear it above the noise from the microwave cooker.
Just as I decided to try moving the camera outside it flew away. I swear they can read my mind.

Springing Up

The Winter Pansies are looking more than a bit bedraggled after recent cold snaps, gale force winds and persistent rain. Fortunately their place is being taken over by the first of the Spring flowering bulbs - the dwarf Iris:





Also on the way to flowering are some Hyacinth bulbs and Ipheion Rolf Fiedler Starflower bulbs.

Blustery Sunrise

The one thing a photo lacks is atmospheric sound.
On this morning's walkabout we had to lean into the gusts of wind as it moaned and howled through the trees and around the buildings.



I was going to move to a more open, less cluttered, space to take the Sunrise.
In the end I stayed in the lee of the Co-op store and took the photo across the village crossroads.

Catching Up

The Snowdrops





and the Winter Aconite



in the village churchyard have only recently started to open up.

Snow Time

Our first real snow shower this year.
February is usually the month we get our share.
Rain and sleet overnight now frozen to make the lane a skating rink.
Not a problem when I wear my old shoes fitted with snow/ice spikes.

Spiky Winter Pansies

The baskets of Winter flowering Pansies were looking a bit under the weather yesterday morning.



It had remained foggy or thick mist most of the day with the temperature struggling to get up to 0C

It surprised me when the frost on the Summer House roof melted but immediately re-froze as icicles:



We had a few flurries of snow last night but most had melted by this morning. The Pansy flowers have perked up and are back to a nice display of Winter colour. No sign of icicles with the temperature now at 2C.