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Monoprice Mini Delta Printer

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Monoprice Mini Delta Printer Back in mid-May, I stumbled across a $160 3D printer on Indiegogo. It was being made by Monoprice and was a neat little Delta style printer.  I had never worked with a Delta style printer before and I had high confidence that Monoprice would deliver something, maybe even something decent.  I thought about it for a few days then pulled the trigger and backed the project. Fast forward 4 months and the printer finally arrived and on schedule. After printing a litter of the "Good luck cat" (commonly known as Maneki-neko) prints, for which the gcode was supplied on the included micro SD card, I decided to run a few tests. Maneki-neko test prints on display in the office of our company's Crazy Cat Lady. Long prints: The early recipients complained of frequent lockups and shifting layers, so I printed a much larger cat, of course.  The one on the SD card takes one hour and fifteen minutes to print.  My large cat print took eight hou...

Eleksmaker 3500mW 350nM UV Laser

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Eleksmaker 3500mW 350nM UV Laser I recently purchased this "3.5 Watt" laser from Banggood during one of their sales.  I figured for $50, what the hell. Being the geek I am, I figured I'd analyze the build construction and performance. Without further adieu, here are my initial findings. Laser Controller: Of course, it arrived in a cardboard box with no packing material. The driver module and Laser module were laying against each other so the two connectors got mangled and the electrolytic cap behind them got badly scuffed/scraped.  Not sure if I trust the cap (not sure I would if it were undamaged either) due to this damage. The solder appears to be lead solder, but it never said is was ROHS compliant anyway. The quality of the soldering is surprisingly good with nice filets and very little voiding at the bottom solder pads. Laser Module: The laser comes with a visible purple targeting laser which is active when the UV laser is not on.  I am not sur...