All posts by Brad

Choosing the List Price of My IngramSpark Paperback

Once you’ve written your self-published paperback book, how do you choose a list price for it? How much will you make per book? How will book returns affect how much you make? And what about the list price in different countries, with different currencies?

This post covers my attempt to answer those questions for myself, printing and distributing a paperback book through IngramSpark. Please come along for the ride!

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Putting Your eBook on Kindle Unlimited

We recently moved Linda’s eBook The Maiden Bride to Amazon’s Kindle Unlimited. This post covers what we learned.

Disclaimers: I’m not a lawyer; You should seek legal advice before pursuing the publication process I describe below. This post covers my personal experience at the time of posting; the process and Amazon’s Terms of Use will likely change over time.

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Printing an ABS Dishwasher Detergent Door

I recently needed to print a replacement door for the Whirlpool dishwasher’s detergent dispenser. This post details my adventure, which took three prints to get it right.

For the short version of the story, see All3DP’s brief page on how to stop ABS print warping. For the whole story, read on.

LATE UPDATE: Prusa’s excellent post on food safe printing basically says ABS = bad and that it’s really hard to make a safe 3D print regardless of the type of filament. In my opinion, you’re probably better off buying the Whirlpool replacement part rather than printing something that will harbor bacteria and fungi.

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Getting Started With 3D Printing

Designing a 3D Printable part using FreeCAD
Designing a 3D Printable part using FreeCAD

One of the things holding me back from 3D printing for so long was learning what tools I needed and how to use them. It’s relatively easy to print things once you have a design: Cults3D, Hubs, and many others (including your friends who have printers) can print your designs, your local library may have printers for you to use, or you can buy a printer for a few hundred dollars.

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Making A Filament Dryer from A Food Dehydrator

I’ve occasionally seen posts and videos about how to dry 3D printing filament using a food dehydrator, but never felt the need for one… until recently. I had a failed print that looked like wet filament was to blame, so I decided it was time to make my filament dryer. This post is about my experience – mostly good – with that dryer.

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Printing replacement parts for your Prusa 3D printer

I recently bought and assembled a Prusa i3 MK3 kit, and decided to prepare for printing emergencies by printing a full set of replacement parts as soon as the printer was working well.

I’d found, in using my other printer, that even high-quality printed parts do eventually delaminate under stress: after two years, that printer’s X and Y idler supports developed fractures. Because I couldn’t print the replacement parts (and because doing the replacement seemed daunting at the time), I wound up sending that printer to the factory for repairs.

I’ve also seen notes and videos from people recommending a set of replacement parts as a backup, in case you break a part while adjusting or doing maintenance on your printer. Having replacement parts on hand is also a good preparation for helping a 3D printing friend when their printer breaks.

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Extruder gear tension: the overlooked adjustment

I used to think that 3D Printer extruder tension – how much pressure the extruder hobbed gear exerts on the filament to move it forward – was a pretty forgiving thing. At one extreme, there’s “so loose the filament doesn’t feed” and on the other, there’s “so tight the extruder motor binds”. I thought everything in between was ok.

My assumption was confirmed each time I read advice on how to tune a misbehaving printer: people rarely mentioned extruder tension.

My recent fight to fix a bad print taught me that incorrect extruder tension can make a huge difference in your print quality after all.

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