Sometimes we get a bit nostalgic for the early days in Tog. We had our first tiny place in Arran Quay, a small three room office unit. We started running our first workshops and open days for the public there. We have changed a lot in the last nine plus years. To showcase the early space and show oof photos of when we were all much younger, we have created a photo collage of what we got upto in 2009. It was started way back during Science Hackday Dublin but only finished during our recent finishaton. You can now see it hanging on the wall in our space or view the individual photos on our gallery.
We are supporting the great Dublin Raspberry Pi Jam crew to put on their first jam. It will be hosted in the Science Gallery on Saturday August 11th from 12:30. Unfortunately as of now all tickets are sold out. You can join the waiting list on the main event page -> https://ti.to/dublin-raspberry-pi-jam/first-pi-jam
TOG is delighted to be accepted into Dublin Maker again in 2018. We are really excited to join the maker community from Ireland and the world to show off our projects and meet other makers and the public.
In 2014 Tog won a Lulzbot Taz 3, since then it has been used on and off and mostly off for the past 2 yrs. During this time, there was very little, if any maintenance carried out on the printer. As a result, it had become gunked up with the remains of previous prints. From shavings in the extruder to melted plastic stuck all over the nozzle and heat brake, it was pretty messy.
As I had recently ordered a Prusa i3 MK3 for myself, I thought it was as good an excuse to reintroduce myself to the nitty gritty of 3D printing – by restoring the Tog Lulzbot Taz 3.
The first issue was that because the Lulzbot Taz 3, or at least our version of it, had no endstop switches on one side of the Z Axis (they’re are actually only one for each axis, presumably only used for homing), it was incredibly easy to instruct the 3D Printer to break itself – and that’s precisely what had happened.
One of the Z-Axis followers had been broken into two while the X-Axis and Extruder assembly was being raised too high and hit into the main frame of the printer. This resulted in a broken part.
The emergency fix for this was to use zip ties to hold the follower together just long enough to print replacement parts (pictured right). We were actually incredibly lucky that this worked! If it hadn’t there would’ve been no way to fix this part without finding another 3D printer to produce the necessary part – but as it was, the temporary fix worked just long enough for us to do a few test prints and to print an actual working replacement part. Albeit in PLA which is not ideal, but it works!
Once the 3D Printer was back to being somewhat functional, I set to task to begin calibrating and cleaning and doing basic maintenance on it – something which has been sorely missing for the past 4 or so years of its operation.
The print bed had years worth of hair spray caked onto it, so a lot of time was spent scraping that off and wiping it clean with isopropyl alcohol (99%). Then doing basic tasks such as levelling the bed, re-homing the z-axis etc. After all that we printed some calibration prints
After a little tweaking, we measured that the prints were +/- within 5% of the expected outcome. So for a 20mm part, it could be anywhere between 19 and 21mm. This is far from ideal for mechanical fitting parts, but its a good start.
The next task on the docket was to clean up the hot-end. It had accrued quite a lot of grime over the years, so I set to task to cleaning it up. First I tried some acetone, which removed some of the lingering ABS plastic, but the PLA was completely untouched. After inspecting the nozzle, it became clear that it has been seriously worn out after years of use, so I was okay with being a little less delicate with it than I would ordinarily, so I used a wire wheel to clean and polish both the heat brake and the nozzle itself.
This July 7th TOG will be collaborating with guest Prof. Steve Potter and hosting a CNC wood milling workshop.
The event aims to introduce CNC wood-working and computer aided design (CAD) for beginners. It will cover the design and creation of items in free CAD software (Fusion 360) and the carving of those designs out of wood using the Handibot, a portable CNC router.
This event is open to both TOG members, and members of the public over 18 years of age,
Attendees will be required to bring a reasonably powered laptop and a 2-button wheel mouse (see f360spec), if not otherwise arranged.
Cost to members of the public is 25 EUR, including evening snacks/catering.
We used to have a space on a quiet lane near the back of Dublin Castle. Warehouse Unit C on Chancery lane was our place to call home from 2010 till 2015. It was a big step up for us moving from a small office unit on Arron Quay to a proper industrial style unit ( Check out this walk though of Tog 1.0 here) . We called it Tog 2.0 and moved in the summer of 2010. The unit had been empty for a number of years and had suffered extensive damage during the Big Freeze of 2010. The unit required a lot of repairs and renovations but we knew we could make it work and find the money to pay for a bigger space. Check out the video below by a very exited Robert Fitzsimons soon after we got the keys or our photos from our gallery.
It took us about a month to get the space ready to open to the public with members doing all the work including fixing the 12 leaks. You can read the blog post from the time here.
Over the years in Tog 2.0, we held 100’s of events and built many a project. Some of my personal favourites are the Security Saturday event and the Rubens Tube just to name a few. It was in this space that we fell in love with pizza ovens, a love that continues today with our 3rd version in use today at our open socials. Finally, one of the most important things to happen in Tog 2.0 was the start of our obsession with ducks. We have taken our love of ducks in many directions and places we would have not thought possible. Giant Ducks, painted ducks, photo shoots, plot them,taken in strays, even put them on our clothing.
Our time at Tog 2.0 came to an end with the owner of the building deciding they wanted to build on the site and not giving us a new long term lease. After a long search we found Tog 3.0 and moved in October 2015 which brought an end to Tog 2.0. The building once again was left vacant for a number of years with it only recently being knocked down.
Farewell Tog 2.0, you serviced us well for many years.
Now cracks a noble heart. Good-night sweet prince:
And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest!
