Created a circular leg option for the Purge Table - with threads to hold the parts together.
Also created a rounded edge version of table top to go with it.
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Good progress made today - firstly - in order to help manual AMS cut and swaps a bit easier made a nice little add on - to park filament when not needed. Will upgrade all AMS’s with this as I will also be a useful way to store the more brittle filament to stop it snapping overnight (or when away for a while) inside the AMS.
Also did a first test of the ‘Teaching Tech’ Heat Press melting filament in to flat sheets method - need to get a better frame and put more in next time - but pretty pleased with first test.
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Had a little diversion while waiting for parts of ‘waste melting’ testing - printed out the BL marble run which is brilliant, plus now doing the Tourbillon.
Also made a start on a print queue management app (which ideally I think could be an addon to the slicer) - would really like a better way than plate naming to track in progress and completed prints - so started writing an app that processes the project 3mf files and gcode.3md files (if present) for prints a queue (which at present is just a folder on disk) - and extracts things like print completion status and predicted print times for each plate.
Should then be able to combine into the same queue the colour doesn’t matter files, plates and objects
Should hopefully then be useful for working out best plate to print next etc. - plus it may be better to track completion status in separate files within the app - rather than in the project 3mf files.
Screen print for first version attached.
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Made some further progress on queue manager.
Managed to analyse BS logs - and determine a way to track print starts automatically and link them back to the file and plate in the queuing system.
Can’t automatically determine successfully printed plates - but will try and do something with downloaded Timelapse’s triggering marking of successfully completed prints - will also mean Timelapse’s can be stored against the correct plates too which will be useful.
Needing to specify ‘latin-1’ encoding when reading the records.
Log records searched and used for tracking print starts from BS are those containing
- ‘load_projectfilename’ or ‘add_model_file_to_archive’ for collection of filename
- ‘on_send_print’ - to determine that a print has been sent.
- ‘export_plate_idx’ - after a print sent - for the plate number
For example plate 7 and 10 of this print currently in progress - and the printing of the two plates planned using the queue manager app, plus it also successfully picked up the fact that the prints of these too plates are now in progress (on 2 x X1Cs).
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Queuing system working really well so far - much easier to do big prints like this when you can quickly see the print times of each of the plates, the colours and which ones you have already done etc.
it picks up the log records of in progress prints pretty reliably. Also picking up of Timelapses working well too - although a bit less reliably as there isn’t an easy way to directly tie the Timelapse files to the prints - other than the fact that the timestamp within the video filename is within 5-10 minutes of the print send time - it must wait until all of the bed levelling stuff before it creates the files and sets the dates. Quite pleased that also managed to create thumbnails of the Timelapses with only about 4 lines of python.
Update - I think I have a more reliable way to match Timelapse’s to plates - which will hopefully also eliminate quite a few failed prints. By checking layers in the plate against frames in the Timelapse - from checking a few it looks like there is 1 frame per layer, plus about 40 - presumably for the start and end.
Will also be handy to have Timelapse’s organised and recorded against the actual print plates.
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Made some progress on melting waste into sheets too using the Teaching Tech method - although managed to break a blender in the process.
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Cut down sheets into nice regular rectangles using track saw, think they will work quite well of components of purge table or other objects - such as boxes or shelves. Or maybe just framed as modern art.
Created some new purge-brick shapes to allow the sheets to be added in.
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Print queue app coming along very nicely.
It can now reliably control Bambu Studio to open the correct file and position it at the plate being worked on.
Also added in ‘find Flush’ functionality and tracking of the flush objects selected for each multi colour plate.
The application holds a queue of:
- Normal multi plate files to print
- Multi colour files that could benefit from the flush-into objects
- A queue of potential flush-into plates of objects - with the ability for individual objects to be auto selected out of the plates
The only functionality left to do now is ticking off the shapes once they have been succesfully printed - plus allowing any failures / rejected shapes to be over ridden.
Will probably hold off on more development for a while and get back to some multi colour cruise ship modelling.
Arrange all in BS doesn’t do a particularly good job - so might have to work on something to do the placement automatically too.
After object moved around to make space for ship…
Finally flush predictions don’t completely match what BS ends up doing, so might have to have a closer look at how ‘flush-into’ works in detail - as my software assumes only one colour per flush-into object per layer.
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This thread needs its own YouTube channel and Wiki 
Great ingenuity
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Harvested a lot of Purge-table flush-into parts from the 4 or 5 failed attempts at getting the tiny little azipod (ships motor and propellor) parts pictured at the bottom right.
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Starting to build up quite a good collection of flat melted sheets. Melting each sheet twice seems to work best - so that in the 2nd pass you can fill in any internal gaps and fill out the edges.
Also tried an experiment melting some fairly thick parts - and they melted down quite well - should with a 2nd stage of melting be able to get this into a fairly good flat sheet too.
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Some more ship recycling
Testing out some larger parts - about 25mm thick
Extreme melting - around 75mm thick
After 50 secs
After 140 secs
After 10 mins
Will need a 2nd melt with a bit more material added to flatten it properly - but there seems to be pretty much no limit to how thick an object you can melt on one of these presses. Now need to dust off the CNC to try and make something useful out of the panels.
Also been experimenting with AI to create some better icons for my Queue manager software - like the sort of things it is coming out when you mention Bambu Lab
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Sheets after cutting on CNC look quite effective I think. Initially have done some fairly simple models - but look forward to creating some multi part objects nexts.
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how do you do this? what tools do you use
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The idea for the melted sheets came from the Teaching Tech YouTube channel https://youtu.be/0VibXPtIcxc and I believe originally from an organisation called preciousplastic.com
To melt the plastic purge waste, prime towers and small and quite large waste printed parts into sheets I used a heat press - this one from Amazon UK https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07SB2R3MB?psc=1&ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_product_details. It takes about 10mins at 200 degrees C to melt the plastic.
I used teflon sheets to stop the plastic from sticking to the press.
To cut out the shapes I used a CNC Router - I’ve got a self built one using the V1Engineering Mostly printed 3d printed CNC design. But I understand from the Teaching Tech YouTube channel that laser cutters also work pretty well on this sort of thin sheet.
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Created short video of squashing in action.
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A bit more explanation of the melting process.
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The Hydraulic Press Channel of 3d printing! 
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@Ukdavewood,
Your work on this topic is very impressive! As I was reading thru this thread I was trying to think of useful stuff that could be repeatedly and easily given away… How about golf tees and building blocks? Some of the purge towers already look like a tall stack of interlocking building blocks. The purge bucket looks like it could be full of Golf Tees instead of spirals of poop.
Would be awesome if @BambuLab could figure out a way to purge out usable golf tees or maybe fishing beads. Maybe that process would eliminate the need for a purge tower?
Agreed. I have tried a few different ways of making prime towers useful - by enclosing them for example in a ‘building block’ shape. I have also considered changing the shape of the prime tower slightly to have some interlocks on it.
Golf tees is a good idea for the off bed purge - however it is pretty difficult to form it into predictable objects. I think the ultimate solution could be having an extra mini build plate (or are of the main build plate) for the purge to be deposited on. That way small building blocks / golf tees etc. could be easily built up out of the purge and then flicked off.
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