Engineering Micro-Optimizers Anonymous: *clears throat* "My name is Tyler, and I'm a micro-optimizer," Everyone: "Hi, Tyler" Me: "I've been working on the same 2 projects for the last 8 and 11 years, respectively, and barely have anything done because of my disease, and refusal to accept it, and SEVERE scope creep"
"Thanks for sharing, Tyler. I think we've all been there. Let's recite THE PRINCIPLES, shall we? Good enough is GOOD ENOUGH! MAKE -- A -- LIST! Define dependencies! Close it out or close it down! Saying NO to yourself is LOVING yourself! ... Excellent, everybody. Who's next?"
A few words of wisdom from someone who works with their hands all day on small objects when you get panic hands take a break then a big breath then start again. Helps a ton. This is an awesome video and project!
Thank you! I thinking filming made the shakes worse than usual. And the joy of 5-minute epoxy is that you can't step away! (I should probably break down and get some slow-cure stuff to take the time pressure off!)
@@JayquanDeMarcusWashington Yeah, I try to block out my glueups for a 2-minute window, at least when the parts are strength-critical. Past there the 5-minute stuff I use starts getting noticeably "snotty". That said, I've yet to have an epoxy joint failure in my printed designs, even with the glueups that ran to 4-5 minutes. I figure it might be more forgiving than I give it credit for, but pretending it's not forgiving is the best way avoid to finding out the hard way :P
I've only had bed slingers and core-xy machines so this was a learning experience for me, delta printers are a whole other world of modding. This project is so interesting
Thank you, and I'm so glad you enjoyed! I fell down the extruder design rabbit hole some time last year because the whole space was a black box to me. I'm glad I learned what I did, but I'm also VERY ready to take a break and tackle other things for a while 🤣
Apparently some folks got bowden and direct drive working together. Standard bowden setup, and a tiny direct drive, because all you really need is to pick up the slack. Best of both worlds. Planning on upgrading my Prusa mini that way soon.
@@imthedentist Doesn't have a name hard to search for. Apparently really easy to install. Most driver boards have more than enough space for an extra motor. All you have to do is plug a direct drive-in and turn it on.
And now, by the wonder of the Streissand Effect, increasing efforts to limit the interest in a thing (proprietary part schematics), will be met with equally increasing efforts to access it. You've created a monster here, Dr. Frankenstein.
I know, I know. But (speaking from experience) I sleep a LOT better at night when I'm fending off requests for designs and not fielding questions from people building something I did release who got stuck halfway through and wasted a bunch of material and hardware and time because they were in over their heads and couldn't read instructions because the thing was really too complicated 🤣
I love the idea of using carbon rods for structural parts, amazing! I've done my own lightweight designs for the delta platform, I used water cooled hotends, air pumps for model cooling, an direct-remote extruder that isolates the weight of the motor integrated into the effector.
9:53 fitting music choice, sounds like a boss battle and the shaking confirms it is. 20:39 man, the speed at which it zips from one ear to the other is unreal...
Awesome design and idea to use a truss system to build up a extruder like this. As well as the drive shaft portion and keeping things seperate where possible. Gave me some inspiration for future projects!
Absolutely marvelous. I enjoyed seeing another engineer slightly modify their existing setup for little gain but watching that thing fly around was satisfying. Keep doing what you’re doing man!
Glad to see you’re still as obsessed as I am with 3D printing. I’ve just managed to get the 3DPrint Labs Swift S1 Glider fuselage section that was troubling me to print. It turns out you need Cura 4.8, a bunch of discrete settings and one in particular for the F_2.STL mid section. Called… Filter Tiny Gaps. Otherwise the mesh will not print. That and.. copy the 56MB G-CODE file to the memory card, as the serial port can’t dish out the data fast enough. I’m still on my Ender 3D Pro, but have upgraded it to silicone base bushes and a BL Touch and 32-bit board. It’s like a new printer now. Super quiet and totally dialled in. Santa says I can save towards a Bambu X1 Carbon, but then I won’t be able to do upgrades anymore!
This reminds me of the era of MTB in the 00's. Engineers went insane with crazy bike designs and parts. I guess they have all gathered in the 3D printing scene.
lol! Paintballing was actually my gateway drug in this regard, if you can believe it. Printing just enabled deeper, darker depths of engineering insanity...
Thanks! I've done a number of designs involving carbon fiber inserts before, so the printed cut guide was already part of my workflow. This was just, hmm, 4-5 times more pieces than the next most complex one, and I had to figure out some new tricks 🤣
I admire your dedication to getting this done, looks like a pita to build and yet so awesome and worth it in the end. Congrats on an amazing looking design!
i would be forever in your debt if I got my hands on the design files, not to actually use it but as a display piece and inspiration on my desk, it is so unique and cool looking I just couldn't help it
@@jamespray you would be surprised lol I have assembled some pretty horrific things. But I think I would definitely simplify the design and support structure as well as not use epoxy since it's not an actual working model
Such a cool project, I really hope your future ones go well too! I'm a huge fan of stuff like this. The CarbonShrike is awesome! Will hit the bell so I don't miss out. Cheers
It's a super-helpful development resource to know what things weigh. I have it tied to a list I've slowly compiled by putting every hardware item I buy on a scale
There is a thing called direct bowden extruder, in which the motor sits away from the gears that contact the filament and are connected by a flexible shaft (like the ones you'd use in drills). This way you can have the gears pretty close to the hotend but remove the weight from the motor, which is usually the heaviest part
You mean like the Nimble extruder I showed early in the video? 😉 I ran it for about a year, long ago, and sadly it's not as good in practice as it looks on paper. The problem is that the flex shafts produce strong periodic artifacting due to the bend, so they only work if you don't mind terrible print quality. An acquaintance of mine is working on a hard-shaft replacement for that (Dalias's "Semitruck") that is pretty interesting.
Thanks! It's probably a 6th- or 7th- generation design by now, with a good few years of iterating to isolate the gantry motion... and it probably needs another iteration or two to make the damping more tunable 😅 Never ends, does it?
@@jamespray with an active and precision device all by DIY thats good timing. Sure it can always be better but even just the idea of raising the mounting point to a central mass location is something most deltas don't do out of the box (if im not mistaken; corexy guy here). I'm sure in the next few years we will see that idea translated into some of the commercial models. Opening the files like Voron does might be a good route for this kind of thing depending on what you want to do with it; could speed up R&D but may lose a bit of control when the public touches it. Idk its a good idea overall
@@mrjed Most of my designs are so niche (and so designed in a mesh editor) that sharing the ideas, rather than the designs, like this is what I feel is most beneficial to the community. I am all for seeing these concepts copied and spread
New to your channel. When I first saw the thumbnail, I thought you were crazy and it would never work. But as I watched what you made, I'm super impressed with how much you understand performance extruders. I love how you used a carbon tube to extend the drive shaft, so no silly nibble flex shaft. You made a single gear extruder with 2 bearing tensioners, brilliant! That's great because the dual gear extruders cause VFAs, so you can avoid it while saving weight. Very similar to Prusa's latest extruder. I guess the only thing left is, can you get the extruder to hotend distance even shorter? It appears to be at least 50mm.
Thank you! Yeah, there was way more to this design than I could feasibly cover in detail, but I guess those who know, know I set out this year to self-educate about extruders and there is more I would like to get into with the BoomBox video... As for the filament path distance, yes, I have reduced it a bit from the setup shown (which was a bit of a hodgepodge due to fittings that would work with my Pico hot end), and currently I'm able to run about 0.055 PA versus the 0.09 I dialed with the initial setup. It works with a surprisingly short length of bending PTFE!
It looks like you can also drill out the center of the metal wheel and replace that with a flat carbon disc to keep the strength up while losing a bit of weight. Same with the worm drive where the center of that could probably be drilled out and if necessary replaced with later material to keep the stability of the gear itself up. I have some other thoughts as well regarding the complexity that might be minimized. If you're going to do another version, I would love to drop some ideas that might make it easier.
Great thoughts, thanks! I didn't have time to get into it in the video, but a big takeaway from the early design process was that compromising on the rotating components in ANY way led to extrusion quality problems, and I will always set quality above other requirements if there's any conflict. That's not to say there aren't lightening opportunities here, just that in lieu of a decent lathe / CNC setup I don't feel confident tackling them. I think if I were to take this design further, I'd explore bobbin-wound or forged CF approaches to see how the results compare (but for now I'm happy to use it as-is!).
This videos reminded me how much I enjoy making a printer perfect. The x1c was a blessing and a curse, don’t think I know how to tune a printer anymore
I loved watching every second of it. I get fixated on stuff too and I know how frustrating (but rewarding) can be. Would you consider sharing at least the printed-only design?
Insane assembly for weight saving. Good Job! And appreciate your protective measures cutting composites. I just don't understand why folks still swear by delta type printers.
I'd recommend some single blade nippers, like those used for Gunpla models, to help remove support material. It can just cut through instead of snapping.
Hey! Bestie! You likely can use a flexible shaft to drive such, making the motor be even further away. Look at RC boat flexible shaft for off the shelf parts. But its used in foredom shafts and whatnot, massive torque with zero backlash and a flexible system to drive such
I have tried a flex shaft with the Nimble in the past, and while it makes mounting and stuff much easier, extrusion quality goes out the window. Past a certain, very small amount of bend/misalignment, Flex shafts cause periodic over/under extrusion because they aren't equivalent to CV drives. As soon as I traced my horrific woodgrain to the flex shaft, that whole setup went in a box and I never looked back
Great work ! I’m new to your channel so I don’t know if you already thought of that, but what about using a belt to transmit the force instead of a rotating shaft ? Because you know belts are lightweight 😎 The motor and gearbox would be mounted at the center of the triangle formed by the 3 carriages of the linear rails The belt would go straight down to the extruder, with each of the two parts of the belt being enclosed in a separate CF tube, so that the belt doesn’t rub against itself The tubes would also counter the tension of the belt The motor assembly would have to be rigidly mounted if no bowden tube is allowed, so maybe a small length is advisable, as you did here I guess someone thought about it before me haha
I think it could work! It might need more hardware to work, though, so it'd be a question of whether the belt mass savings outweighed the extra bearings, etc. I vote you try it out 😋
Fantastically produced video, but I wish it came without the paradoxical effect of making me desperately want to design something with those carbon rods... Also, the little giggle at 19:30 as you said "Now, there was only one thing left to do (🤭), try it out," was 10/10
I generally don't get stressed, but i stressed out a lot seeing the assembly. And that is a totally new system to integrate carbon fibers to prints. Will definitely keep that in my while designing. Thanks for sharing this amazing process!
Thanks, and you're welcome! This structure ended up being super-complex because the arrangement of required load points (pivots, clamps, axle holes, etc.) and keepouts (rotating bits, etc.) made for a very awkward space to stick straight rods through. In simpler structures, a handful of CF inserts can make a basic print feel like a chunk of aluminum with a single glue-up session (or even without glue, as in my printer's outer effector "ring", which is a triangle of unglued 3mm CF rods to pin the arm joints). Plus, CF is about the same density as PLA, so you can replace plastic volume-for-volume and gain no appreciable mass while massively improving the strength and rigidity!
AMAZING! So glad it worked out!!!! The fishing expedition in your sink drain..... yeah, been there. and that trauma was relived. Thanks for the trip!!! LOL
I saw the carbon scaffold on the thumbnail and was hooked, that is an awesome design, I was 3D printing when Bowden came in as a fix to direct drive setups being far too heavy and causing artifacts in the print, the answer was always there "if it is too heavy make it lighter" the trouble was we were limited to heavy stepper motors! I have always been fascinated by Delta printers and I really need to get one, I recently bought an X1 Carbon and AMS and I am now missing tinkering with my other printers which is strange as I bought the X1 as not much tinkering is required or possible. I was amazed at the finished extruder, under 35g is outrageously light. Are there any good Delta build kits available? I would much rather build one than buy a ready built unit. +1 new Subscriber!
Thanks! I feel that deltas can make a great "blank canvas" for a certain type of person. There used to be more kits out there, but you can still get into a very robust all-metal kossel frame (like mine) with a bit of shopping at RobotDigg (see their aluminum kossel vertexes) and Misumi. (Just about the only negative (to my mind) of kossel is the lack of built-in double shear for the stepper shafts, but that's hardly a showstopper for most builds.) And the neat thing about designing your own delta motion system (though there are MANY out there to try) is that once you have a frame, there's really just the effector and carriages to worry about -- two unique parts! If you're delta-curious but don't want to start that low-level, Rolohaun is working on a mostly-printable delta design that should be a fun entry point to whet your appetite -- check out his discord for more info there.
Little tip when you’re so scared that your hands are shaking: take a deep breath, and hold it in your lungs, clear your mind, and remember that even on the clock with epoxy curing you have time, it might not be a lot, but being calm is more important
I think the design is beautiful and that counts for something. I'm wondering if you could have done the assembly process with slower epoxy or maybe even CA glue for less stress. I really enjoy DIY adventures where you must first write your own instructions
The setup shown (with the Pico hybrid hot end) is very hot end-limited and good for burst flow of about 20 cubic, but only ~12 sustained. I am testing something new and much better now, and the extruder is still not the limiting factor. More details will come out eventually, probably
Awesome project! Maybe get a DLP resin printer (like the Anycubic D2) and look at Voxeldance Tango Slicer. It has mathematical calculated supports structures. It also has honeycomb structure hollowing. This way you can make very precise parts or assembling supports. Just an idea. Hope it was worth mentioning.
Would be better if he got a GK2 or GK3 since the engineering resins require heating and 29x29x29microns is easily achievable on bone stock GKtwo with sub 0.01 accuracy.
My fiancée's a professional musician who has to have her hands under control in stressful situations. Some advice: Take a deep breath in, then let it out very slowly. Put a cold pack on the back of your neck. Splash cold water on your face to trigger the mammalian dive reflex (lower heart rate and stress response) I love the build. If it's not a stupid question, I've never used a delta printer, how do you ensure the distance between your new extruder head at the print nozzle stays constant? is it just a shorter Bowden tube between them? And if so how do you prevent the bend in that tube when the print head is close to the edges of the print bed from affecting your extrusion rate?
Thanks for the advice -- I'll have to try triggering the dive reflex next time! And no, not a stupid question. It is linked to the print head by a short bowden tube, yes, but I also sheath the bowden in Kevlar cable mesh anchored to the print head and extruder (bypassing the PTFE fittings). This is extremely effective at eliminating stretch from the equation. As for the bend, even at extreme bed edge, it's not as severe as one might imagine without testing (this was a big part of why the Nimble prototype ever existed). Maybe 15-20 degrees at most, measured from vertical, spread over 3-4cm of bowden tube. So far as I can tell, it has no appreciable impact on the extrusion rate. That's not to say it's perfect, but most of what I'd like to improve from here is in the overall mass and the damping/spring rate of the drive end and flying gantry ... it never ends!
Many epoxies have a minimum cure temp. While assembling an extruder in winter's chill might seem extreme, what works works. Maybe a local business has a walk in cooler you could take advantage of?
From flying fpv planes using cf spars I've found cutting carbon with a serated razor blade works the best. I jus used a dremel to add tiny teeth to the blades.
I feel like you could have used a belt with pulleys, and a carbon rod for stability to accomplish the same thing. Your design looks pretty cool though.
There're more ways to skin this cat, no question. The worm drive approach has much to recommend it from a packaging standpoint, though. Almost anything else I can think of would have to be less compact at the bottom (more shafts, bearings, pulley(s)) and more complex at the top (since it would need a reduction for strength, something the worm bakes in). I'd love to see others playing with different approaches, either way!
@@jamespray I guess that is why 3D printing is so fun... One idea sparks another, and the cycle continues. Your design is really unique and functional, so I'm sure it will inspire others to make their own unique designs.
I love the design, the mounting skills but also the reprap spirit... on a similar project like that, everything started more than 15 years ago... It looks solid... btw where can we see more details for that delta design? I would like to see it closer...
@@jamespray And instead of LW-PLA you can use nylon like resin and generative design in a resin printer that could be a few grams lighter. You don't really have any stress with the gluing because you could use a thermally curing adhesive and then just harden the whole thing completely in the oven. Then the nylon like resin could maybe gain strength again... assuming that the carbon rods are not damaged in the process or rather the glue sticks to the surface😅 PS: I love it when people overengineer things. You definitely have my subscription.
I work with composites everyday , dont put bare carbon fibre thin parts into isopropyl (and other solvents) , it degrade the resin and make part soft + even if it won't degrade it goes into pores and start to "lose" the bond between fibers and resin only short exposure on paper towel for small parts like that , nothing more ....it's probably softer than it could be right now but in same time can still be just fine (depend of resin)
IPA attacks the resin? Can't believe I haven't heard that before. I've mainly used it for wipedowns and cleaning, but I will be sure to pay attention to the exposure time in the future, and avoid outright soaking. Thanks!
@@jamespray its not that it "attacks the resin" its more that it interfere with bond and can start to make resin soft etc (mostly bonding) But its only issue in super thin parts especially if they were bonded under pressure (less resin more fibers = more pores) , you can see similar phenomenon if you 3d print petg on glass when petg will stick to the glass super hard without anything on it (like pva etc-pure glass) yet when you put a drop of isopropyl between glass and print ,it instantly "unglue" itself , same for hot glue , multiple types of adhesives etc It flow through pores like crazy and can make the bond start to loose because of that
@@ErtsenPlayGames Ah, okay! I wonder if that was part of what drove the CF band failure since that was 0.2mm thick (although I only ever wiped it with IPA, never soaked - I do mostly chalk that up to bend radius and poor DFA). Appreciate the insights, very interesting stuff!
Man, this looks like a pain in the ass, but a fun build, I knew delta printers are very beautiful machines, but the things you have to do to mod a persicion machine like that is remarkable.
I would definitely not say "have to do" applies to most of what I've done with this machine! A well-built delta (robust, rigid, preloaded in all the right places, etc.) is a joy and can be so much simpler than this; I'm trying to push the envelope (and evangelize the platform along the way), just seeing what happens when you really min-max specific design requirements.
A well-built delta (rigid, trued up, not too heavy, preloaded in all the right places, etc.) is a joy and can be so much simpler than this machine. Little of what I'm doing is fairly "have to do" stuff; I'm trying to push the envelope (and evangelize the platform along the way), which tends to look crazy in any context!
I guess you can cut down the weight of that carbon-fibre tube you use to hide the shaft. You do not need a solid one and may cut some fancy holes in it.
Haha i see alot of myself in your approach in a sense that i plan and prepare but when it comes down to it its just some weird morphosiys of organised chaos and pure drive..i love ..things work out :)
That's a great description, lol. Ride the chaos wave, paddle like heck when it inevitably rolls over you, and hopefully land on the beach with a big smile
Engineering Micro-Optimization: yeah totally, but for manufacturing is something to optimize for, so for me all that assembly would be a deal breaker. Really cool stuff tho!
Been into 3D resin printing for a few months now, having fun pushing the limits. I got to thinking about AI, Finite Elements Analyses and how to use it to save weight yet make things stronger. Was thinking robots because those ugly subtractive machined bots offend me. It will be interesting when things like this can be printed as one part.
Interesting how easy having the drive shaft like that would be really useful for a pellet extruder 😂 I'm interested in knowing why you didn't go with some sort of "flexible" shaft
The Nimble I showed early in the video is intended to be a "remote direct drive" powered by a flex shaft, and I ran it that way for about a year, long ago. The problem with flex shafts is that they are not specc'd for the amount of bending such a setup requires, and they produce horrific periodic extrusion artifacting. Think woodgrain on steroids
I love the idea of a Delta printer, especially for a room with limited floor space like a dorm. But you know I have to go all the way with it, which means speed. From what I can tell your printer is based on the ANYCUBIC KOSSEL but that is no longer sold, what do you recommend as a basis for something similar to your carbon shrike, maybe not as extreme. would you recommend starting from scratch or modding an existing printer
Mine started as an Anycubic Kossel, true, but literally the entire original printer is back in the box except for the bed, some of the extrusions, and the screen mount bracket - I replaced it all piecemeal over the years. You can get into a REALLY solid frame with RobotDigg aluminum kossel vertexes (I used two sets of the 2020 ones for my AWD build, but if I had to start over, I would use the 2040 versions) and extrusions for whatever size floats your boat. From there, you'd just need the usual set of electronic items and extrusion system, a set of rails, and either design or find a motion system you like. If you don't want to scratch build one, kossels come up on places like Facebook marketplace and similar now and then (depending on where you live) and have often lived their lives quietly in closets so they're not in bad shape! Also: the Rolohaun discord is a great place to dive into delta stuff...
I'd think at that scale, you don't need to mess around with epoxy. If you design for glued joints anyway, which you did, it seems, super glue is plenty strong. For "lugged" joints, use low-viscosity super glue (and I mean stuff that really says "low viscosity" on the package, not your average dollar-store stuff), mount components dry and then just let it wick in* - makes things soo much easier and way less messy. Doesn't hurt to also have a bottle mid and high viscosity at hand, just for those in-case cases (filling/reinforcing stuff locally, quick'n'dirty instant laminates, yada yada yada). *) For good penetration, it helps if the hole is not a tight press fit all around, but has some gap or wicking structure (for example in no particular order: unround holes, prepping with a tap/screw, layer lines roughly along the hole's axis ... stuff like that). But generally speaking, the really thin stuff wicks pretty well.
Maybe 15 minute epoxy would calm your nerves lol Don't know much about Delta printers coming in but you explained the weight issue quite well. Looks great, nice design !
Engineering Micro-Optimizers Anonymous:
*clears throat* "My name is Tyler, and I'm a micro-optimizer,"
Everyone: "Hi, Tyler"
Me: "I've been working on the same 2 projects for the last 8 and 11 years, respectively, and barely have anything done because of my disease, and refusal to accept it, and SEVERE scope creep"
"Thanks for sharing, Tyler. I think we've all been there. Let's recite THE PRINCIPLES, shall we? Good enough is GOOD ENOUGH! MAKE -- A -- LIST! Define dependencies! Close it out or close it down! Saying NO to yourself is LOVING yourself! ... Excellent, everybody. Who's next?"
Random suggestion from YT: Check!
Better than expected: Check!
INSANE design and build : Check!
Same as well.
again same ^^
The video quality needs work 📹, the random music in the background is bad 🎵
James puts more effort into one single extruder than Creality does for entire printers lol
bruuuuutal
@@jamespray for real though, good work! I respect that you're saving so many people from themselves! Lol
A few words of wisdom from someone who works with their hands all day on small objects when you get panic hands take a break then a big breath then start again. Helps a ton. This is an awesome video and project!
Yeah when i was doing smd repairs i just went outside and took a big breath, worked wonders :)
Thank you! I thinking filming made the shakes worse than usual. And the joy of 5-minute epoxy is that you can't step away! (I should probably break down and get some slow-cure stuff to take the time pressure off!)
@@jamespray In my experience, 5 minute epoxy either gives you 2 minutes, or 20 minutes.. but never anywhere between. haha
@@JayquanDeMarcusWashington Yeah, I try to block out my glueups for a 2-minute window, at least when the parts are strength-critical. Past there the 5-minute stuff I use starts getting noticeably "snotty". That said, I've yet to have an epoxy joint failure in my printed designs, even with the glueups that ran to 4-5 minutes. I figure it might be more forgiving than I give it credit for, but pretending it's not forgiving is the best way avoid to finding out the hard way :P
What about a UV resin ? All the time in the world and when you’re happy just blast it with a light.
I've only had bed slingers and core-xy machines so this was a learning experience for me, delta printers are a whole other world of modding. This project is so interesting
They are a whole other world for sure, lol, but a fun one!
Extruder design is my happy place. This insanity brought me tremendous joy. Thank you and congratulations on successful assembly.
Thank you, and I'm so glad you enjoyed! I fell down the extruder design rabbit hole some time last year because the whole space was a black box to me. I'm glad I learned what I did, but I'm also VERY ready to take a break and tackle other things for a while 🤣
Apparently some folks got bowden and direct drive working together.
Standard bowden setup, and a tiny direct drive, because all you really need is to pick up the slack.
Best of both worlds. Planning on upgrading my Prusa mini that way soon.
Ooh that's Interesting. What's it called?
@@imthedentist Doesn't have a name hard to search for.
Apparently really easy to install. Most driver boards have more than enough space for an extra motor. All you have to do is plug a direct drive-in and turn it on.
I'd wondered about that, it seemed such an obvious solution when I was last looking that I assumed there had to be something I was missing
Absolutely insane build. The amount of detail in that design almost seems alien. I was holding my breath during the glue-up and support removal!
And now, by the wonder of the Streissand Effect, increasing efforts to limit the interest in a thing (proprietary part schematics), will be met with equally increasing efforts to access it.
You've created a monster here, Dr. Frankenstein.
I know, I know. But (speaking from experience) I sleep a LOT better at night when I'm fending off requests for designs and not fielding questions from people building something I did release who got stuck halfway through and wasted a bunch of material and hardware and time because they were in over their heads and couldn't read instructions because the thing was really too complicated 🤣
"I guess alligators don't care about that part" Such a wonderful idle thought.
I love the idea of using carbon rods for structural parts, amazing! I've done my own lightweight designs for the delta platform, I used water cooled hotends, air pumps for model cooling, an direct-remote extruder that isolates the weight of the motor integrated into the effector.
The gluing section was one of the most tense things I ever watched 😅. Enjoyed every part of the video.
He put 2$ parts together, that are even reprint-able.
@@REDxFROG aaaaaand?
$3 in CF and plastic, $400+ in labor (billed at my day job pay rate) ... materials are only ever a part of the story :P
The best part of everything we do is sharing ideas and working through the pains of it all on discord.
9:53 fitting music choice, sounds like a boss battle and the shaking confirms it is.
20:39 man, the speed at which it zips from one ear to the other is unreal...
Awesome design and idea to use a truss system to build up a extruder like this. As well as the drive shaft portion and keeping things seperate where possible.
Gave me some inspiration for future projects!
That looks absolutely ludicrous. Great work!
unbelievably awesome, your printer is making me drool. Your design skills are so impressive
Thank you!
Absolutely marvelous. I enjoyed seeing another engineer slightly modify their existing setup for little gain but watching that thing fly around was satisfying. Keep doing what you’re doing man!
Thanks so much!
Glad to see you’re still as obsessed as I am with 3D printing. I’ve just managed to get the 3DPrint Labs Swift S1 Glider fuselage section that was troubling me to print. It turns out you need Cura 4.8, a bunch of discrete settings and one in particular for the F_2.STL mid section. Called… Filter Tiny Gaps. Otherwise the mesh will not print. That and.. copy the 56MB G-CODE file to the memory card, as the serial port can’t dish out the data fast enough. I’m still on my Ender 3D Pro, but have upgraded it to silicone base bushes and a BL Touch and 32-bit board. It’s like a new printer now. Super quiet and totally dialled in. Santa says I can save towards a Bambu X1 Carbon, but then I won’t be able to do upgrades anymore!
Good to hear you're still going! And I'm glad you figured out that fuselage print, too. What a nightmare that was 🤣
This reminds me of the era of MTB in the 00's. Engineers went insane with crazy bike designs and parts. I guess they have all gathered in the 3D printing scene.
lol! Paintballing was actually my gateway drug in this regard, if you can believe it. Printing just enabled deeper, darker depths of engineering insanity...
I find sometimes the small thing focus jitters can be “redirected” to your feet or other parts of your body to reduce the shake.
That's really interesting! I'll have to try that out!
Amazing project!
I'm especially impressed with your scaffold/print-support/drill-guide/assembly-guide bit & cut-guide print.
Thanks! I've done a number of designs involving carbon fiber inserts before, so the printed cut guide was already part of my workflow. This was just, hmm, 4-5 times more pieces than the next most complex one, and I had to figure out some new tricks 🤣
@@jamesprayThat's awesome! I'm definitely going to keep your CF insert tricks in mind for future projects.
I admire your dedication to getting this done, looks like a pita to build and yet so awesome and worth it in the end. Congrats on an amazing looking design!
By far the most beautiful part I have ever seen on a 3d printer
Honesty this is the best extruder I have ever seen, AWESOME!
i would be forever in your debt if I got my hands on the design files, not to actually use it but as a display piece and inspiration on my desk, it is so unique and cool looking I just couldn't help it
I don't think you would feel that way by the time you finished 🤣 But I'll think about posting it sometime LOL
@@jamespray you would be surprised lol I have assembled some pretty horrific things. But I think I would definitely simplify the design and support structure as well as not use epoxy since it's not an actual working model
i love this, the pacing, the processes shown, really really nice!
Thank you! It was over 5 hours of footage originally and I worked pretty hard on the cut, so that's nice to hear 😄
Such a cool project, I really hope your future ones go well too! I'm a huge fan of stuff like this. The CarbonShrike is awesome! Will hit the bell so I don't miss out. Cheers
Thanks, and welcome aboard!
I am totally going to put that excel chart for mass percentage per parts idea in the back of my mind for safe keeping.
It's a super-helpful development resource to know what things weigh. I have it tied to a list I've slowly compiled by putting every hardware item I buy on a scale
There is a thing called direct bowden extruder, in which the motor sits away from the gears that contact the filament and are connected by a flexible shaft (like the ones you'd use in drills). This way you can have the gears pretty close to the hotend but remove the weight from the motor, which is usually the heaviest part
You mean like the Nimble extruder I showed early in the video? 😉 I ran it for about a year, long ago, and sadly it's not as good in practice as it looks on paper. The problem is that the flex shafts produce strong periodic artifacting due to the bend, so they only work if you don't mind terrible print quality. An acquaintance of mine is working on a hard-shaft replacement for that (Dalias's "Semitruck") that is pretty interesting.
Actually wow; genius idea here with the flying mount
Thanks! It's probably a 6th- or 7th- generation design by now, with a good few years of iterating to isolate the gantry motion... and it probably needs another iteration or two to make the damping more tunable 😅 Never ends, does it?
@@jamespray with an active and precision device all by DIY thats good timing. Sure it can always be better but even just the idea of raising the mounting point to a central mass location is something most deltas don't do out of the box (if im not mistaken; corexy guy here). I'm sure in the next few years we will see that idea translated into some of the commercial models. Opening the files like Voron does might be a good route for this kind of thing depending on what you want to do with it; could speed up R&D but may lose a bit of control when the public touches it. Idk its a good idea overall
@@mrjed Most of my designs are so niche (and so designed in a mesh editor) that sharing the ideas, rather than the designs, like this is what I feel is most beneficial to the community. I am all for seeing these concepts copied and spread
New to your channel. When I first saw the thumbnail, I thought you were crazy and it would never work. But as I watched what you made, I'm super impressed with how much you understand performance extruders. I love how you used a carbon tube to extend the drive shaft, so no silly nibble flex shaft. You made a single gear extruder with 2 bearing tensioners, brilliant! That's great because the dual gear extruders cause VFAs, so you can avoid it while saving weight. Very similar to Prusa's latest extruder.
I guess the only thing left is, can you get the extruder to hotend distance even shorter? It appears to be at least 50mm.
Thank you! Yeah, there was way more to this design than I could feasibly cover in detail, but I guess those who know, know I set out this year to self-educate about extruders and there is more I would like to get into with the BoomBox video... As for the filament path distance, yes, I have reduced it a bit from the setup shown (which was a bit of a hodgepodge due to fittings that would work with my Pico hot end), and currently I'm able to run about 0.055 PA versus the 0.09 I dialed with the initial setup. It works with a surprisingly short length of bending PTFE!
Bravo! Incredible engineering work here
It looks like you can also drill out the center of the metal wheel and replace that with a flat carbon disc to keep the strength up while losing a bit of weight. Same with the worm drive where the center of that could probably be drilled out and if necessary replaced with later material to keep the stability of the gear itself up. I have some other thoughts as well regarding the complexity that might be minimized. If you're going to do another version, I would love to drop some ideas that might make it easier.
Great thoughts, thanks! I didn't have time to get into it in the video, but a big takeaway from the early design process was that compromising on the rotating components in ANY way led to extrusion quality problems, and I will always set quality above other requirements if there's any conflict. That's not to say there aren't lightening opportunities here, just that in lieu of a decent lathe / CNC setup I don't feel confident tackling them. I think if I were to take this design further, I'd explore bobbin-wound or forged CF approaches to see how the results compare (but for now I'm happy to use it as-is!).
This videos reminded me how much I enjoy making a printer perfect. The x1c was a blessing and a curse, don’t think I know how to tune a printer anymore
I would be VERY bored with a printer that "just worked", lol!
@@jamespray might have to see if ive still got it XD
Love the random blast beat at 0:53
Me too! (I don't know if I'm allowed, but it made me giggle when I was editing anyway )
Man, that was amazing. Once again inspiring me with amazing and practical ideas. You rock.
YOU ROCK!!! PROUD OF YOUR WORK!!!
Shucks, thanks!
Delta Daddy is back!
I love finding the entire rolo discord in these comments 😂
@@Walnut3D We are all big fans!
bro should try to add a spring from the effector to the center point of the tower carrigaes
I loved watching every second of it.
I get fixated on stuff too and I know how frustrating (but rewarding) can be.
Would you consider sharing at least the printed-only design?
LOL your intro says it all. I feel like we’ve been pushing the limits with our deltas. Not that we need to. Filament can’t keep up…
Beautiful work! I've never had any interest in delta printers, but this was still a joy to watch.
Subbed!
Welcome aboard! Glad you liked it. I'm trying to get more delta content out there, not least because they're just fun to watch, lol.
Insane assembly for weight saving. Good Job! And appreciate your protective measures cutting composites. I just don't understand why folks still swear by delta type printers.
Was watching this as a thumb nail, had to click on it to like and comment. Insane execution. Mad props.
Thanks so much, appreciate it!
I'd recommend some single blade nippers, like those used for Gunpla models, to help remove support material. It can just cut through instead of snapping.
Hey! Bestie! You likely can use a flexible shaft to drive such, making the motor be even further away. Look at RC boat flexible shaft for off the shelf parts. But its used in foredom shafts and whatnot, massive torque with zero backlash and a flexible system to drive such
I have tried a flex shaft with the Nimble in the past, and while it makes mounting and stuff much easier, extrusion quality goes out the window. Past a certain, very small amount of bend/misalignment, Flex shafts cause periodic over/under extrusion because they aren't equivalent to CV drives. As soon as I traced my horrific woodgrain to the flex shaft, that whole setup went in a box and I never looked back
Great work !
I’m new to your channel so I don’t know if you already thought of that, but what about using a belt to transmit the force instead of a rotating shaft ?
Because you know belts are lightweight 😎
The motor and gearbox would be mounted at the center of the triangle formed by the 3 carriages of the linear rails
The belt would go straight down to the extruder, with each of the two parts of the belt being enclosed in a separate CF tube, so that the belt doesn’t rub against itself
The tubes would also counter the tension of the belt
The motor assembly would have to be rigidly mounted if no bowden tube is allowed, so maybe a small length is advisable, as you did here
I guess someone thought about it before me haha
I think it could work! It might need more hardware to work, though, so it'd be a question of whether the belt mass savings outweighed the extra bearings, etc. I vote you try it out 😋
Fantastically produced video, but I wish it came without the paradoxical effect of making me desperately want to design something with those carbon rods...
Also, the little giggle at 19:30 as you said "Now, there was only one thing left to do (🤭), try it out," was 10/10
I generally don't get stressed, but i stressed out a lot seeing the assembly. And that is a totally new system to integrate carbon fibers to prints. Will definitely keep that in my while designing. Thanks for sharing this amazing process!
Thanks, and you're welcome! This structure ended up being super-complex because the arrangement of required load points (pivots, clamps, axle holes, etc.) and keepouts (rotating bits, etc.) made for a very awkward space to stick straight rods through. In simpler structures, a handful of CF inserts can make a basic print feel like a chunk of aluminum with a single glue-up session (or even without glue, as in my printer's outer effector "ring", which is a triangle of unglued 3mm CF rods to pin the arm joints). Plus, CF is about the same density as PLA, so you can replace plastic volume-for-volume and gain no appreciable mass while massively improving the strength and rigidity!
7:07 thats how my hands behave when i do literally anything lol
keep the good work up xD
AMAZING!
So glad it worked out!!!! The fishing expedition in your sink drain..... yeah, been there. and that trauma was relived. Thanks for the trip!!!
LOL
🤣
I saw the carbon scaffold on the thumbnail and was hooked, that is an awesome design, I was 3D printing when Bowden came in as a fix to direct drive setups being far too heavy and causing artifacts in the print, the answer was always there "if it is too heavy make it lighter" the trouble was we were limited to heavy stepper motors!
I have always been fascinated by Delta printers and I really need to get one, I recently bought an X1 Carbon and AMS and I am now missing tinkering with my other printers which is strange as I bought the X1 as not much tinkering is required or possible.
I was amazed at the finished extruder, under 35g is outrageously light.
Are there any good Delta build kits available? I would much rather build one than buy a ready built unit.
+1 new Subscriber!
Thanks! I feel that deltas can make a great "blank canvas" for a certain type of person. There used to be more kits out there, but you can still get into a very robust all-metal kossel frame (like mine) with a bit of shopping at RobotDigg (see their aluminum kossel vertexes) and Misumi. (Just about the only negative (to my mind) of kossel is the lack of built-in double shear for the stepper shafts, but that's hardly a showstopper for most builds.) And the neat thing about designing your own delta motion system (though there are MANY out there to try) is that once you have a frame, there's really just the effector and carriages to worry about -- two unique parts! If you're delta-curious but don't want to start that low-level, Rolohaun is working on a mostly-printable delta design that should be a fun entry point to whet your appetite -- check out his discord for more info there.
Little tip when you’re so scared that your hands are shaking: take a deep breath, and hold it in your lungs, clear your mind, and remember that even on the clock with epoxy curing you have time, it might not be a lot, but being calm is more important
problem is most people use a 5 min epoxy when there´s really no need to, 24h epoxy is much stronger and you have 5+ hours of manipulation
very cool! love how it looks and that it looks that way for function!
i could imagine saving weight by making the torque tube into a lattice or at the least giving it speedholes
I think the design is beautiful and that counts for something. I'm wondering if you could have done the assembly process with slower epoxy or maybe even CA glue for less stress. I really enjoy DIY adventures where you must first write your own instructions
Ive never been this nervous in watching a technical related video
especially de-scaffolding part
That's cra-ah-zay! I love it!
🤪
I’m just missing the maximum capable volumetric flow 🤔
The setup shown (with the Pico hybrid hot end) is very hot end-limited and good for burst flow of about 20 cubic, but only ~12 sustained. I am testing something new and much better now, and the extruder is still not the limiting factor. More details will come out eventually, probably
I love this new yt algorithms: I already find a ton of small good channels
Superb work as always!
Great video. 1st one. will be checking out your other builds.
Awesome project! Maybe get a DLP resin printer (like the Anycubic D2) and look at Voxeldance Tango Slicer. It has mathematical calculated supports structures. It also has honeycomb structure hollowing.
This way you can make very precise parts or assembling supports. Just an idea. Hope it was worth mentioning.
Would be better if he got a GK2 or GK3 since the engineering resins require heating and 29x29x29microns is easily achievable on bone stock GKtwo with sub 0.01 accuracy.
Recommend using some hobby side cutters for the scaffold.. the different wire cutters part was hard to watch
Definitely a tool I need to get! I have some nippers for modelmaking but they're a little too nice/delicate for chewing through thick PLA...
Really cool extruder, it looks like a Ducati Monster!
I can see that, yeah!
I feel your pain. My hands shake like that when I’m doing stuff too.
Next time look into dissolvable support's for pla (using something like the Bambu lab ams) also amazing build! Keep it up
My fiancée's a professional musician who has to have her hands under control in stressful situations. Some advice:
Take a deep breath in, then let it out very slowly.
Put a cold pack on the back of your neck.
Splash cold water on your face to trigger the mammalian dive reflex (lower heart rate and stress response)
I love the build. If it's not a stupid question, I've never used a delta printer, how do you ensure the distance between your new extruder head at the print nozzle stays constant? is it just a shorter Bowden tube between them? And if so how do you prevent the bend in that tube when the print head is close to the edges of the print bed from affecting your extrusion rate?
Thanks for the advice -- I'll have to try triggering the dive reflex next time! And no, not a stupid question. It is linked to the print head by a short bowden tube, yes, but I also sheath the bowden in Kevlar cable mesh anchored to the print head and extruder (bypassing the PTFE fittings). This is extremely effective at eliminating stretch from the equation. As for the bend, even at extreme bed edge, it's not as severe as one might imagine without testing (this was a big part of why the Nimble prototype ever existed). Maybe 15-20 degrees at most, measured from vertical, spread over 3-4cm of bowden tube. So far as I can tell, it has no appreciable impact on the extrusion rate. That's not to say it's perfect, but most of what I'd like to improve from here is in the overall mass and the damping/spring rate of the drive end and flying gantry ... it never ends!
Many epoxies have a minimum cure temp. While assembling an extruder in winter's chill might seem extreme, what works works. Maybe a local business has a walk in cooler you could take advantage of?
Interesting idea! As long as it doesn't affect final bond strength, our garage is a walk-in cooler for at least 5 months a year...
From flying fpv planes using cf spars I've found cutting carbon with a serated razor blade works the best. I jus used a dremel to add tiny teeth to the blades.
I feel like you could have used a belt with pulleys, and a carbon rod for stability to accomplish the same thing. Your design looks pretty cool though.
There're more ways to skin this cat, no question. The worm drive approach has much to recommend it from a packaging standpoint, though. Almost anything else I can think of would have to be less compact at the bottom (more shafts, bearings, pulley(s)) and more complex at the top (since it would need a reduction for strength, something the worm bakes in). I'd love to see others playing with different approaches, either way!
@@jamespray I guess that is why 3D printing is so fun... One idea sparks another, and the cycle continues. Your design is really unique and functional, so I'm sure it will inspire others to make their own unique designs.
This is very impressive, well done
I love the design, the mounting skills but also the reprap spirit... on a similar project like that, everything started more than 15 years ago... It looks solid... btw where can we see more details for that delta design? I would like to see it closer...
I have a build log on Annex Discord -- come on down!
@@jamespray amazing I'm already there...
@@hernancurras If you back up to the beginning I think you'll find all the details you could possibly wish ... if not too many
You should get a cuticle scissors stainless for the PLA to cut and maybe an LW-PLA 😅if stability allows it😅
LW-PLA would probably be too weak without making it look like a sumo-extruder, but cuticle scissors are a great idea!
@@jamespray And instead of LW-PLA you can use nylon like resin and generative design in a resin printer that could be a few grams lighter. You don't really have any stress with the gluing because you could use a thermally curing adhesive and then just harden the whole thing completely in the oven. Then the nylon like resin could maybe gain strength again... assuming that the carbon rods are not damaged in the process or rather the glue sticks to the surface😅
PS: I love it when people overengineer things. You definitely have my subscription.
Im glad to see someone as shakey as i am
Mad man! did all of this with his bingo bongo cad software. crazy
I work with composites everyday , dont put bare carbon fibre thin parts into isopropyl (and other solvents) , it degrade the resin and make part soft + even if it won't degrade it goes into pores and start to "lose" the bond between fibers and resin
only short exposure on paper towel for small parts like that , nothing more ....it's probably softer than it could be right now but in same time can still be just fine (depend of resin)
IPA attacks the resin? Can't believe I haven't heard that before. I've mainly used it for wipedowns and cleaning, but I will be sure to pay attention to the exposure time in the future, and avoid outright soaking. Thanks!
@@jamespray its not that it "attacks the resin" its more that it interfere with bond and can start to make resin soft etc (mostly bonding)
But its only issue in super thin parts especially if they were bonded under pressure (less resin more fibers = more pores) , you can see similar phenomenon if you 3d print petg on glass when petg will stick to the glass super hard without anything on it (like pva etc-pure glass) yet when you put a drop of isopropyl between glass and print ,it instantly "unglue" itself , same for hot glue , multiple types of adhesives etc
It flow through pores like crazy and can make the bond start to loose because of that
@@ErtsenPlayGames Ah, okay! I wonder if that was part of what drove the CF band failure since that was 0.2mm thick (although I only ever wiped it with IPA, never soaked - I do mostly chalk that up to bend radius and poor DFA). Appreciate the insights, very interesting stuff!
Incredible work!
That actually looks insanely cool
Thanks!
First youtuber with banger background music
oh my god i almost got panic attack just from watchung. You got balls of steels. Good job mate.
Glad you didn't, definitely don't want to stress anybody out THAT much! Cheers!
Should I be doing this on min??? 😂 good job colphaer what a gem.
Haha, thanks, but no, absolutely do not do this on Min! I would slap a BMG Bowden on there, should be more than enough for the application 😋
Wow. Very awesome build, and fun to watch. Might consider holding the text on the screen a bit longer for us slow readers. Thanks for the vid
Thanks for the feedback! It's tough to balance pacing with cramming in everything I'd like to communicate, sometimes. Or most of the times
"Forsooth!" Oh my goodness, I've missed being immersed in the makerspace community circles
Strewth!
Side note, that's the craziest delta printer I've ever seen
Thanks! There're a good few crazy deltas out there, if you dig hard enough ... it's a fun playground!
Just a random side note: stuff like this should always be open sourced because of the time invested into it
Man, this looks like a pain in the ass, but a fun build, I knew delta printers are very beautiful machines, but the things you have to do to mod a persicion machine like that is remarkable.
I would definitely not say "have to do" applies to most of what I've done with this machine! A well-built delta (robust, rigid, preloaded in all the right places, etc.) is a joy and can be so much simpler than this; I'm trying to push the envelope (and evangelize the platform along the way), just seeing what happens when you really min-max specific design requirements.
A well-built delta (rigid, trued up, not too heavy, preloaded in all the right places, etc.) is a joy and can be so much simpler than this machine. Little of what I'm doing is fairly "have to do" stuff; I'm trying to push the envelope (and evangelize the platform along the way), which tends to look crazy in any context!
I guess you can cut down the weight of that carbon-fibre tube you use to hide the shaft. You do not need a solid one and may cut some fancy holes in it.
made me glad to have a bondtech on my core xy printer, thanks
Haha i see alot of myself in your approach in a sense that i plan and prepare but when it comes down to it its just some weird morphosiys of organised chaos and pure drive..i love ..things work out :)
That's a great description, lol. Ride the chaos wave, paddle like heck when it inevitably rolls over you, and hopefully land on the beach with a big smile
@@jamespray ayyy my man... superb work you do...cheers
You absolute madman. I love it.
Engineering Micro-Optimization: yeah totally, but for manufacturing is something to optimize for, so for me all that assembly would be a deal breaker.
Really cool stuff tho!
Wouldn't it save even more weight to print it with a lower density filament like ABS? It would be ~85% the weight of PLA at the same volume
Been into 3D resin printing for a few months now, having fun pushing the limits. I got to thinking about AI, Finite Elements Analyses and how to use it to save weight yet make things stronger. Was thinking robots because those ugly subtractive machined bots offend me. It will be interesting when things like this can be printed as one part.
Interesting how easy having the drive shaft like that would be really useful for a pellet extruder 😂 I'm interested in knowing why you didn't go with some sort of "flexible" shaft
The Nimble I showed early in the video is intended to be a "remote direct drive" powered by a flex shaft, and I ran it that way for about a year, long ago. The problem with flex shafts is that they are not specc'd for the amount of bending such a setup requires, and they produce horrific periodic extrusion artifacting. Think woodgrain on steroids
I love the idea of a Delta printer, especially for a room with limited floor space like a dorm. But you know I have to go all the way with it, which means speed. From what I can tell your printer is based on the ANYCUBIC KOSSEL but that is no longer sold, what do you recommend as a basis for something similar to your carbon shrike, maybe not as extreme. would you recommend starting from scratch or modding an existing printer
Mine started as an Anycubic Kossel, true, but literally the entire original printer is back in the box except for the bed, some of the extrusions, and the screen mount bracket - I replaced it all piecemeal over the years. You can get into a REALLY solid frame with RobotDigg aluminum kossel vertexes (I used two sets of the 2020 ones for my AWD build, but if I had to start over, I would use the 2040 versions) and extrusions for whatever size floats your boat. From there, you'd just need the usual set of electronic items and extrusion system, a set of rails, and either design or find a motion system you like. If you don't want to scratch build one, kossels come up on places like Facebook marketplace and similar now and then (depending on where you live) and have often lived their lives quietly in closets so they're not in bad shape! Also: the Rolohaun discord is a great place to dive into delta stuff...
I'd think at that scale, you don't need to mess around with epoxy. If you design for glued joints anyway, which you did, it seems, super glue is plenty strong. For "lugged" joints, use low-viscosity super glue (and I mean stuff that really says "low viscosity" on the package, not your average dollar-store stuff), mount components dry and then just let it wick in* - makes things soo much easier and way less messy. Doesn't hurt to also have a bottle mid and high viscosity at hand, just for those in-case cases (filling/reinforcing stuff locally, quick'n'dirty instant laminates, yada yada yada).
*) For good penetration, it helps if the hole is not a tight press fit all around, but has some gap or wicking structure (for example in no particular order: unround holes, prepping with a tap/screw, layer lines roughly along the hole's axis ... stuff like that). But generally speaking, the really thin stuff wicks pretty well.
could you maybe use a laser system or something to measure the feed rate near the nozzle? so you can use a Bowden. that would make it much lighter?
Closed-loop extrusion with a toolhead filament sensor would be amazing, just way outside my core competencies. I'd love to see someone figure it out!
Insane indeed! WOW! Great Job!
Thanks!!
Maybe 15 minute epoxy would calm your nerves lol Don't know much about Delta printers coming in but you explained the weight issue quite well. Looks great, nice design !
I think you're right about sourcing some 15-minute stuff ... it would make life so much easier! Glad the delta coverage was helpful, too :)