Meet the Makers Podcast #14 Multicolor 3D Prints On A Prusa MMU - With VS Customs Design

Welcome to Episode 14 of Meet the Makers! In this episode, we dive into the vibrant world of 3D printing with Tim from VS Customs Design. Join us as we explore the incredible capabilities of Tim's customized Prusa printer, equipped with the Multi-Material Upgrade (MMU) that enables 12-color 3D prints. Get ready to be amazed by the colorful arcade machine switch docks he creates.

Tim, a talented maker and 3D printing enthusiast hailing from Canada, shares his journey of customizing his Prusa printer to push the boundaries of creativity. Discover the challenges he faces in sourcing parts and materials, and gain insights into why he prefers open-source machines for their versatility and flexibility.

In this episode, we explore the fascinating world of multi-color 3D printing and the impressive results achieved with the Prusa MMU. Tim showcases his expertise in producing vibrant and intricate arcade machine switch docks, elevating the gaming experience with personalized and eye-catching designs.

Join us as we delve into the technical aspects of multi-color 3D printing, discussing the setup, calibration, and software considerations necessary for achieving stunning results. Tim shares valuable tips and tricks for those looking to explore the realm of 12-color 3D printing or customize their own Prusa printer.

Furthermore, we discuss the unique challenges and advantages of being a maker in Canada, including the difficulties of obtaining parts and materials. Tim provides valuable insights into navigating these challenges and shares his passion for building a thriving maker community in his region.

If you're a 3D printing enthusiast, a fan of arcade machines, or simply fascinated by the possibilities of multi-color 3D printing, join us for Meet the Makers #14 - 12 Color 3D Prints On A Prusa - with VS Customs Design. Immerse yourself in the world of vibrant creations, technical expertise, and the passion of a maker dedicated to pushing the boundaries of 3D printing.
.
.
Where to find Tim 
Website: https://vscustoms.ca/
Tiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/@vs_customs_design?lang=en
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@VSCustoms
.
.
Come be a guest on meet the makers: https://forms.gle/wTqzxqGpsu9hZ39F6
Follow misfit printing on TIktok: https://www.tiktok.com/@misfit_printing
.
.
Chapters 
Intro - 0:00
Unique 3D printing style - 1:00 
How to print 12 colors on a prusa 3D printer - 5:37 
Purge blocks 3d printing - 10:36 
3D printing filament stockpile - 11:42 
Color swap nightmares - 12:57 
How To Get the Perfect First Layer? - 17:50 
Troubleshooting 3D printers - 24:20 
Do You Need a Bambu labs 3D printer? - 24:43 
How to Order Filament in Canada - 28:02 
3D printing parts for Cars - 32:05 
Pushing Yourself to Do Something New - 42:38 

Transcript

 Hey everybody. Welcome back to Meet the Makers Today I have a super exciting guest in the 3D printing space. He's one of the most underrated 3D printers on TikTok. He has a super unique style for doing multicolor printing, and he is also a master in the RC space. I have Tim from VS. Customs. Tim, I am so excited to have you on here.

Thank you for coming onto the podcast today. I'm pumped to be here. I mean this, it looks like it's gonna be a good time. It will be, it will be. I know a lot of people were excited for, uh, you to come on here, so it's, it's gonna be enjoyable for everybody. Um, now  if anybody isn't familiar with your work, they have to pop over there first cuz you have a really, really unique style of printing.

If you're listening to the audio only version, I encourage you to come over to the video side of things on YouTube today so you can kind of get a preview. But, um, can you kind of just start out and maybe tell us a little bit? About how you got into the style of printing that you do, because it's not like anything that I've ever seen, uh, anyone else do before.

Uh, I got into it, um, by just, uh, I used to do rc uh, very big into it, and I started designing up RC truck stands actually. Something like that. Okay. And I want to put people's logos on it. So you know, different guys in rcs have different logos, different companies, whatever. And I was like, oh, okay. I should be able to do this, I should do this.

And I used to get companies permission to do their logos and, and, and all that. And I just kind of fell into it. And then I started looking and I'm like, oh, okay, I can do five colors. And I started maxing out at five colors and I'm like, okay, I've started designing stuff with seven and eight and nine, and I'm going, okay, this is getting kind of crazy.

So yeah, now I'm into 50 or 12 and I could use more. It's, uh, Just kind of expanded out. Yeah, you have some of the most colorful prints I ever saw. The first time I saw your video . I was like, there's some kinda editing happening here. This is, this couldn't possibly be what I think it is what I'm looking at.

But, uh, the more I started watching your content, you have. That the wild setup, I can't quite tell from your videos. Did you custom build the setup that you have or is it something that you purchased? How does that work? So there was a, a guy, he uploaded it on Thingiverse. It was an arcade style, uh, a box.

And I mean, it was a nice design. I just didn't like it. It was too squared off. It didn't look good. So I redrew and redesigned the whole thing. And I'm like, okay. He had, uh, just a switch logo on the side of it and I'm going, I can't do just a switch logo. It's gotta have some colors. So I started doing basic five color setups.

I did like Mario Brothers and Pokemon and stuff like that. And it was cool. I mean, not a lot of people were doing it, but I had to expand from there and now I'm getting into crazy graphics with it. So yeah, uh, I like your style a lot that you do. It's like, it's very whimsical.  When you're designing stuff for, uh, the prints that you do, I'm most people at achi, you know, they're using Blender, they're using Fusion 360. Are you using something like that or is it something different that you do to kind of make these like 2D slash 3D prints? It, it all depends. Um, so I have Fusion 360.

I use, I play around with Autodesk Inventor. Uh, no, not inventors, sorry. Adobe Illustrator. Okay. And, uh, and Photoshop. Mm-hmm. So sometimes I will make stuff up in Photoshop and, uh, you know, figure out my colors or strip colors away from graphics. Simple stuff. I can break down, strip graphic colors out of it, make it into an outline.

Um, but I use a combination of all the programs and if I can't use all of them, I end up using just fusion and redraw on everything in line work.   I, uh, get stressed out if I have to make a box infusion, 

what, what does that process even look like when you're getting started with that? Uh, well, uh, so I take for instance, uh, The most current one I'm doing, which I've put a couple videos out, was the Ninja Turtles. Uh, yeah. You know, I had some people commenting just turn into an S vg. Uh, it is way too, too much to it to make it an S v G to, to break it down that fire.

So I basically lie it out on. The switch side in the picture and I use, you ever see that squiggly line tool? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I do. I use that and I literally just click and click draw and basically trace out all the lines. That's so interesting. Now, yeah. When you're, when you're tracing out all these individual pieces, do you have, I guess like do you kind of have a color version of what you're doing maybe to the side of you so that you know, like it's what I do.

Different colors together? No, no, it's, it's what I use right on it. So I put the actual photo. So just little photo is right on like, like for instance, when I did this, I infusion, it's right on there. So the picture's on there. So I can sit there and do the full black out outline and then I break it down from there.

So once I get black outlined on, then I start getting into each color and each shading of color that's inside it. Okay, so for instance, the Ninja Turtle one, when it was originally drawn, I had 17 colors and I had to figure out what to minus to make it down to 12 and still look proper. So, Yeah. Now, when you're going from something that's like digital, you have unlimited colors, does that kind of limit down what you've been able to, I guess, bring into a 3D printing space?

No. No. I, I figure out ways to work it. Uh, just work the design. That's the pleasure. Like if you work with an S V G, uh, like a lot of people say it, it's, you're constrained. You're constrained. You can't really change it a lot. Yeah, you can cut some of the lines out, but when it transfers over as an S V G, it's a double lined, sometimes triple lines.

Sometimes it's, it's wacky where when I freehand draw it, if I don't like something in the drawing or I need to minus it out, or the line's too small, I can make it wider. I can make it narrower. I can make it look like it's blended, so it makes it a little easier that way. Gotcha. Okay. Um, you make it sound very easy, but I know if I were to go in and do this, that this, it sounds like, uh, truly rocket science to me.

Yes. Um, yeah, I, I'm, it's honestly baffling to me how you ever figured out how to do this. Cause again, I, I don't, I truly, I think you're the only person doing this that I know of. I've never seen anybody else do this. I see, I see some guys doing similar to what I used to do. Um, you know, working with five colors, they do the odd logo or they'll do, um, yeah, uh, what's, I can't even think of.

Uh, I mean, they'll do the big mouse. Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, they'll do him and, and it's, it is basic shapes. Uh, I've really tried to step it up and going into shading and, and I, I had to get rid of the thought where if you're thinking of a drawing, you put black lines in between everything. Yeah, I had to get that outta my head.

I started getting rid of black lines and only using them for the basic shape, and everything else is color to color. So that just, it took me a while to get there. It's, it's easy, but it's not easy. Nothing about it sounds easy. I guess like as you're saying that, like, the thing that's I'm trying to wrap my brain around is, um, as I guess like the printers laying down the print, I know, I see your purge.

I don't know if purge tower would even be the right word. Like it's kinda like a purge strip that you have.

Yeah. Yes. What, uh, so that's all the purge color as it goes. Yeah. For I, for anybody who's listening to the audio version Oh, yeah. Who hasn't seen yours? It's like, it's like a rainbow spectrum in every one of those. So I guess as the printer is laying it down, like. Um, do you, is like deciding where it's doing these purges in the different colors?

Like is that a whole different process that you have to configure when you're slicing it up, or how does that part of that work? Yeah, so I can adjust how much it purges out per color, but you only have, when you're running the. Colors you only have so wide of a bill plate. Yeah. And, and, and so I have to play with how much it purges to make sure that white is white by the time it goes to print it.

And, and, and you know, and it's got rid of all red. Cuz if red came before. For it, it's gonna turn out to be pink. And the, a lot of people call it bleeding. Yeah. So I have worked long and hard on trying to get this figured out on good numbers to work with for purges. And so I don't have any bleeding. So it is a bit of a science.

Sometimes I gotta make it wider. I gotta make it narrower, I gotta squish it down over onto one side. It's, it can be a process fitting it into the print table. Yeah, no, I believe it. Um, I, I guess like when you started doing this, was it a lot of experimenting in terms of like, did you just like constantly, were you constantly just like laying down prints and being like, oh, blood on this part?

Oh, like I have to re-fire out how to do it, or, yeah. How was the beginning for you? I would, I would do prints and I would say, okay, this color's bleeding through, and I mean, as I say, you can still see some people's prints when they're doing multicolor, right? Where it changes to a black, there's a black, a darker line around it.

Yeah, well that's where I had to figure out how to get rid of that and, and it does take a lot of waste and a lot of printing and a lot of time it's, but once you get it figured out, it's like I can turn on any of my printers. I can slice it one try. And it's usually good to go. Wow, that's wild to me cuz Yeah, like you said, I, a lot of people now is, a lot of people are starting to get the bamboos and they're gonna, the EMS systems I see.

As they post those prints. It must, definitely, must be a learning curve with it cuz I'll see they kinda, like you said, have the, the stripes or the lines going through or it just not quite right with that color transition and yours, when I see them, they're just, So crisp and so, uh, it's all perfectly transitioned between the different colors.

And it looks like it, it looks like it is manufactured, I guess it is manufactured, but it looks like it's manufactured in like, uh, not the way that it's being manufactured, I guess is what I'm trying to say. Well, it, it, and that was my whole. Plan. When I started getting into doing more, uh, a graphic side of it all, I wanted it to look like it was a sticker.

Like somebody put a sticker on the side of it and you're like, oh, okay. That looks proper. It's got the proper colors it's got. And I'm like, but it doesn't, it's not a sticker. It doesn't Yeah. Come off. Yeah. And I, that's why it took me so long to get it dialed in. It's, yeah. Uh, I see, I see the people with the bamboos and, and I, they need to change.

I, I, I, you know, all the people that love the bamboo, Give it. I, I, it's a great machine. It's not for me, but it's a great machine. Um, I don't get the correlation on how it has such a big purge with the, the, the poop balls and the purge block. Yeah. On how there's such a bleed of color. It should be pretty straightforward.

I'm like, geez, that's a lot. Yeah. Well that's all I thought was interesting cuz when I watch people's, um, videos of the bamboo, they, you know, they'll have, like you said, it'll poop it outta the back and then they still have these giant blots that are coming off. And when I see your purge areas, it seems like you have like, what I consider a pretty minimal amount of purging going on your machine.

Well, uh, the smallest one, uh, usually is black when I'm purging. In a black, it's 50 millimeters. Okay. If I'm purging, if I'm purging white, uh, if I'm black, I'm probably 180 mils. 170 mils. Okay. So, I mean, that's still not a lot of purge line to get all that out. So I don't know how some of the, the machines need so much per, it's like, yeah, I'm straight, white and a hundred and.

75 millimeters. So it's, and then that's why these look like they're a lot of waste, but they're sense. They're, they're, they're not that much at all. Well, I thought it was funny cuz I was, I was before, uh, we hopped on here today. I was kinda going through your videos and I was checking out some of the comments and I saw people were like, oh, it's so much purge material.

And in my mind I was like, there's almost no purge material. It's like very minimal. But uh, you know, I get you always, there's always gonna be those. Salty people on the internet who have to be the Debbie Downer, but have you, I will say like the purge areas, I think that they're super cool. Like, I really like how they look.

Have you ever in the back of your mind, like, do you ever think of doing some kinda like project with them? I know that sounds kind of weird, but like a project with the purge areas? I was, I, I had some ideas for, uh, like, especially the ones that are, that are long and rectangular, I saying about cutting them up and doing like a, a resin key chain.

So surrounding it in like a clear resin? Yeah. You know, you drill a hole through it and you got. Cool little colorful key chain, that's all rainbow on the inside. And, but other than that, that I, I have no ideas. They kinda just collect or I toss 'em out or Interesting. I, uh, I, I don't know if this fits your aesthetic for your office, but I could see like maybe one wall just entirely being covered in, in just bad eye.

It might be a little trippy in there, but Yeah, I think it'd be kind of cool. Turn on the black light. All of a sudden it's glowing. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. For sure. Yeah. Um, now like I said, the purge lines are beautiful. Your prints are beautiful. When you're laying down a print, like I guess, do you keep a large supply of different colors on hand or do you tend to print with like the same 12 colors over and over?

Typically, obviously black and white's probably consistent, but like, What's, what does your film inventory look like? Uh, I'm probably somewhere 50 or 60 different colors. Okay. Wow. And, and I'm always adding more, like my recent order was what, eight new colors, just cuz I was like, oh, I need some black. And oh, oh, that's a cool yellow and that's cool purple.

And that'll work for this print. And that'll work this. So I end up amalgamating taking in a whole bunch of different colors to the point I have a vast palette. And the problem is, is I'll be going to do one design and I'm like, oh, I'm missing the color. I need to do an order. Oh no. So then I, next thing I know, it's a $300 order of filament.

Geez. I hear some people, they're like, oh man, I'd order a new roll of fill was $30. $300 is a little, uh, little bit of a topper film to swallow. Yeah. Well, they get free shipping at 125, so. Well, I figured. There you go. I'm like, I, I guess you're winning. Five. And I'm like, okay, well I just gotta keep going from there.

I mean, it's free shipping. It's, I'm saving money now. It would be crazy not to have a $300 order at this point. Yeah, it, yeah, it's a real issue now. Uh, one of the other things I was super curious about when I. There and seeing your setup for how the filament runs through there. It, it looks like it's, um, a lot of tubing that it goes through doing a filament swap on there.

Is it difficult to do it cuz it looks like it would be quite the process to swap out the colors. Uh, it's not bad. Uh, so on, on my five color, it's a little easier because it's just got, uh, basically, oh, you can see it behind me here. Oh yeah, yeah. I'll try to explain it. It's got some dry boxes and the tubes.

If I can point my finger in the right way, the tubes go across and then down and they go into a, what is a buffer? Okay. So when the filaments gotta back out of the nozzle and go back up, it needs somewhere to go. So it goes inside the buffer. But it, it's not that bad. It's literally just, it just slides through because the, the diameter inside is about two and a half mil.

So the one pull five fits through. So you just basically feed it through, pull it through, and then all of it's with quick couplers on it. So you can just unhook the hose. So once it comes to a certain part, you can just unhook it and then you can just pull it through that way and feed it through. Ok. So the 12 color takes a little bit more time cuz it's got two buffers plus two schools are air.

They're air buffered. They just kind of back feed into nowhere. But yeah, it, it, it can take probably, probably 15 minutes changing all 12 spools. Yeah, you must see really fast because I have to say, when I have to change, like my single spool over here, I'm like, you know what, maybe I'll just stay in that color because I, I'm not really trying to change out this.

We fulfillment right now. So I've, I've changed out spools If I'm running low on a color, um, because of the design I use, I can get away with doing one or two layers instead color. So mid print, because I have multiples I can pull out. Say this color green feed in a different green.

Oh, wow. That I, that say I don't like, or I have a whole spool or a couple spools, I feed it in. Yeah. And it'll fill that area in a different green, but you won't notice it on the design. Okay. Because it's green, but it's just different. So it, I do stuff that way to keep, you know, make colors last. And so I was changing modes pretty quick.

Interesting. I, uh, yeah, you and your color changes. That sounds per like my personal version of health. I'm being honest, but, uh, I guess it, I guess it's all part of the process. I guess that's why you have such unique results is, uh, is putting in that, that work on those color changes. But yeah, it's really interesting.

It's, uh, it's uh, I've realized it's a little different what I do flip it around and I'm like, it's gotta be pretty normal. I'll put some videos of what I'm doing. And people were like, that's crazy. I'm like, Is it? Yeah. Alright. Yeah, I have to, you know, I follow quite a fast 3D printers. I have to say I've, I've never quite seen something like your setup, even just, uh, I thought it was funny.

You're like, oh, this real basic setup behind me. And for people who can't see it or are not familiar, you have these like 3D printed, uh, they're like dehydrator boxes, aren't they? Uh, you have like, yeah, yeah. They're dry boxes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So they, they got, uh, desicant inside it. Um, just to keep the, the schools dry, which I generally, I mean, it's kind of minute now because my 12 schools just hang on my wall and they'll hang there for days so, or weeks.

But I, I, at the time I was like, oh yeah, filming's gotta be dry. You gotta feed it through this. It's gotta keep it good. And I mean, it's a neat setup, but it was a lot of printing for those boxes that are kind of useless. You said you Well, I was wondering that, I think you're in au you're in Ottawa, right?

Yeah, Ottawa. Yeah. Yeah, I'm Canada. Yeah. Is it, uh, I'm originally from Buffalo, New York, so I'm not, like, originally wasn't too far away from there. It's, it can get pretty humid in Buffalo. Is it humid where you are? Oh yeah. Okay. Yeah, it's, it's probably 40, 40% humidity in here right now. Okay. Wow. And, uh, I, I mean, my prints don't have stringing, I don't have any problems.

I, as I said, they'll hang on my wall for two, three weeks. I don't, I do have a dryer. If I do find that a spool is super stringy, I'll stick it in the dryer for like, Four hours and take it out and put it in, keep printing. Interesting. Yeah, I, uh, I, I'm here in Arizona. I've only ever three printed in Arizona and my household humidity, if it's like 10%, I'm, I'm lucky.

I'm usually, uh, it's very dry here, so. I may never know when people are like, oh, you have to put it in a filament dryer. You have to put it in a dehydrator. I never know if it's like bullshit or not because I, my whole house is like a natural dehydrator. Well, I, you know, I've been on a, a lot of, uh, prusa boards and been being printed with a PRUs for a bunch of years.

I, I've. I've seen a lot of people complain about Stringiness and P l and the M M U on how much it sucks with with this. And that's why I got into the multicolor. And it originally was cuz everybody said it was terrible. I'm like, okay, I gotta buy one of these. So I bought one off a guy who said it's absolutely garbage, and I had it up and.

Printing in maybe a week. And as I said, I might have the odd stringing issue, but it's, and it's humid, like, I mean, I've had it probably 50 60 in here and Wow, it's, it can get bad. I mean, I try to, in the summertime I put the AC on, it kind of cuts down on it, but hey, I mean, I guess if it works, it works for you.

Right. I'm not having problems. It's, it is, it's working. Now the other thing for you, like this obviously is like pretty critical for the style that you print in, but I've noticed, uh, you have, although it looks like you might use a textured build plate, you have the flattest, some of this like most perfect first layers, uh, outta anybody I've seen use.

What's your secret there? Is it the machine, like are proof is just so amazing that that's what it is? Or how are you so good at getting that first layer? I won't, I won't say proofs are that good. I mean, proofs are that good and they're generally pretty straight, but I've. Set out, um, full build volume squares that I had done for first layer testing.

And I've actually gone through, because I was in the RC world, I have many different small washers of different thicknesses. Okay. Yeah. So I've gone through under the build plate and set it out that they're actually perfectly flat. Oh. And then because it has automatic. Level, it makes sure, again, that it's automatic leveling before every print.

So it does like a seven by seven by seven bed test. But I've also made sure that the bed is perfectly straight. That's interesting. I've never heard somebody, uh, use a method like you're the across the board, you're just set up is like that. I've never let somebody do this before, but it seems to work really well for you.

That's, uh, yeah, that's a really unique method for having a good first level, first layer on there. It's, it's the mechanic side of me. I'm a, I'm a mechanic by trade, so I'm like, okay, something's broken. I have to figure out how to fix it, how to make it work right, because I only wanna do it once. I don't wanna have to be continually fighting with it and changing this and changing that, and I'm like, no, I'll take it apart.

I'll fix it. I'll put these washers in here. And I, and I mean, I use my, my veer. I measured out, you know, what the deviation was at and I put the washer in there, screwed it down. I haven't touched it since. Wow. That's pretty cool. Like that, that orange one there started, uh, as a mark one, 1.75 perso. It was like threaded rod.

It was way back when. And it's now, it's probably my biggest workhorse in the multicolor setup.  It seems like you have, uh, no problems over there. So I guess keep going over here. Doing Now, uh, we've talked about this like a few times.

You've hinted at it. It sounds like you were really in the RC before. Did that kinda like have any inspiration to you getting into 3D printing or how did that, like whole timeline play out for you?

Well, you know, I, I never wanted a 3D print. Uh, so, and I got into RC because I used to do custom hot wheels. Okay. I used, I used to do custom painted and, and. Uh, won trophies and stuff like that at conventions for, for custom hot wheels. And I was like, oh, I want something I can play with. And Archie crawling was starting to get big.

Um, so I was like, I'll build a crawler. Well, one turned into two, turned into five, and then I started building crazy crawlers and I was putting on events and I was like, oh yeah. And it was made back in the day we used to make, uh, scale stuff outta styre. Mm-hmm. Okay. So plastic styre sit there and your hands would get all sticky and you're sanding.

You're like, yeah, this is gonna look cool. And it kinda looked cool. And yeah. And I was like, you know what? I'm gonna start designing. I'm gonna, I'm gonna learn. I was off work for about six months. I was, I had, uh, some medical issues going on and I was sitting at home and I'm like, I'm gonna learn how to draw a cad.

Forget it. I'm gonna do it. So I had used Autodesk inventor and I had this before my whole computer setup. I have now. I had a gateway all in one single screen. I mean, this thing was terrible. Yeah. And an Autodesk inventor barely worked. And I was like, ah, I'm gonna learn. And I learned how to draw on Cat and I used to get stuff printed at, um, Shapeways, I think it's called.

Hmm. Okay. So they do 3D printing, like nylon printing. Alright. So it's all laser centering and, and stuff was great except it costs so much money every time I wanted a part. So buddy of mine says to me, I got a 3D printer. You, uh, you have any interest in buying it? Man, I don't want a 3D printer. He goes, think about it.

You can just do prototypes of what you're sending up to Shapeways. Make sure it's good so you don't have to order it. I'm like, yeah, fine, I'll buy it. And that was, that was the proof of Mark one. Wow. And, uh, had a small little glass build plate on it. No auto level. I had to learn how to level it all the time.

And, uh, so I started that and the prints were terrible. I'm like, oh my God, this thing is horrible. I start looking online. Prusa had an upgrade. There's two, 2.5. I'm like, oh, it's like $500. Holy. I ordered it. I'm like, I need it. And I now do less RC and I do more printing. Because I'm like, oh no, this is, this is way funner.

I used to make all the scale stuff, truck stuff and, and, and all, all different stuff, light bars. Um, and, uh, I fell in love, I think more with printing and designing than I did anything else. But I always shift hobbies. I'm always moving around. Yeah. I'm, uh, I'm right there with you. I'm a hobby jumper by, uh, trade.

That's my thing for hobby jumping. But, uh, you know, I had, I had a very similar ex, well actually it's not, not similar at all, but kind of similar experience to you in getting, uh, interested in 3D printing. I. Had got it originally, I, uh, had like a small house plant shop. At the time I thought I was gonna make plant pots and kinda like you, I was like, well, I'm not really interested in 3D printing, but I'll just get one and like I'll just make stuff with it.

And then, well that's forward six months. And now here we are, now we're on a podcast together about giving printing. So obviously I can see how that went. But uh, yeah. Yeah, it's uh, it seems to capture the hearts of people. A lot of people I know have similar stories where they were like, ah, I'll try one on a whim.

And now they're just like super deep into the hobby. Well, yeah, I think I'm six years in now. And all of my printers are PRUs. I, it's not, I'm a prusa fanboy. It's just they work and I know how to make them work, so I stuck with it. It's, it's gotta, the OCD guys are like, oh, get an ender, get this, get, I'm like, yeah, you know, the ones I got work, I, I know how to make them work and I know how to fix 'em.

Yeah. So I'll stick with that. So, hey. No, I'm, uh, I'm right there with you. I mean, I, I hear amazing things about Prosa people who have them. Like you said, there's a lot of fanboy for the proof this, but, uh, I started on an under, and don't get me wrong, I'm ready to upgrade off of my under. I'm the snap maker back there too.

But I learned, like I, when I first got prank, That fucking thing broke every god damn day. Like every day I was in there repairing it, upgrading it. And the thing is, I got so comfortable with it now that it doesn't matter what happens to that printer. Like I could tear that thing apart and put it back together in 15 minutes.

And I'm a big advocate for like, if it, you know, if you're familiar with it and it works, like yeah, just do it. So yeah, I uh, I can see how you kind of like, you know, stick with what you like. Well, . When you know what to do, it, it, it, yeah. You know, when you know how to fix it, your failure rate goes down.

Yeah. I can, I can have, like for instance, I was doing a live today actually just stop now, but, uh, uh, I had a load failure on my multicolor setup up. Mm-hmm. Well, I was able to come home, fix the multi load, hit Rezum way goes. So if you don't know, you're like, oh, what did I do? How do I fix this? And you wasted filament, right?

So, yeah, I know when I first got eye printed, it felt like I was spending hours every day, like troubleshooting it and fixing things and not, it was such simple things where now it would be a two minute repair for me, but I just, I didn't know at the time, I had no idea what I was doing. So I would spend out, I would spend half my day trying to do something stupid, like swapping outta wires, swapping outta nozzle, something like that.

So, Yeah, it's, uh, I can relate to what you're saying there of being able to do it faster now. We touched on bamboos a little bit earlier, and I know you were like, uh, it's not the machine for me. When they first came out and they were super fast, they were multicolor, and I guess like for, I came, I've only been printing for six months, so like, at least for me, when I came into it, it kind of seemed like the first hobby machine that was really like, built for multicolor, did the.

Thought ever crossed your mind of like, maybe I'll get one. Like was it ever enticing to you? So, uh, yes. I, I, I'll admit it. Uh, I almost sold the black and purple one there to buy a bamboo, and I was like, oh yeah, you know, it's cool. And then I started looking into it more. And you know, some guys it doesn't matter to, but for me, open source is a big thing.

I'm up here in Canada. So if I have my printer down and I can't get a part from a local Canadian place in two days, um, what's the point of it? Especially when I'm trying to sell designs and prints. Yeah. Then I'm down a printer. So now what am I gonna do? I'm gonna go out and spend $1,400 and go buy another pera cuz I need my machine running.

It's, it's, I, I didn't like the exclusivity of it and I mean, I get it and I get the market it fits and I, and I. I don't want people to take what I'm, what my views as a, a bad thing, but I feel like the Bamboo was a good market printer for people who like enders. Mm-hmm. Uh, it was a good replacement to change up that kind of market.

The people that are generally. Into, uh, prs are generally going to build and, and are into tinkering with AUSA because there's, there's also two different kinds of people who run prs. Um, they're more inclined to build a boron and, okay. Yeah. And, and that's more of, if I want something that's big, something that's fast, I'm gonna build a boron and Okay.

For me, the. Benefits of a Bamboo is the sa same print size as my, my Prusa. So the only advantage I have is speed. Yeah, speed ain't gonna cut it for me. Uh, it's gotta be more. And I want, I want to build a three 50 voor on that can do 10 colors. So now I can print bigger and colors again. So, That was, I, it's a, it's a good product, uh, longevity.

I do, I, I'm curious to see how long it does and how well it does in the market and how long they can keep with supplying people. Cuz it is maybe a year in, I could be wrong, it could be less than that, but it is a nice, good product, but, It's just not for, for this guy. You seem, you seem to have a little more of like \ a specific need, I'd say probably than your average 3D printer.

Well, all mine are modified, like this one is, is heavily modified. The purple and black one. It's uh, it's got a 20 by 40 frame on it. It's got an upgraded Dragon Hot end. It's got a, it runs a, an skr. Um, BTT board, so it's 32 bit board versus Perus eight bit. So I learned how to do VS code and play around with Marlin and, and do all that stuff.

And so I, they're, all of them run bare X ends. So they got a little bit more room, they have better cooling. Everyone's modified. So Okay. If I can't, if I can't mod it, I'm like, nah. Yeah, not for you. I can't do it. Yeah. I gotta be able to mod everything. That's, uh, it's interesting that you say that. Like, I, I like to your point that you were saying there's like different flavors of proofs of people.

Um, you sound like you're the type of person who just like in, is it, would I be correct in saying like, you enjoy tinkering, like as part of the hobby? Oh, is that like part the fun for you? Yeah. I'm like, oh, what's this cool part? What's this cool part? Yeah. What can I upgrade? Oh, that's a new design. Let's try that out.

Yeah, I'm definitely tinkering. Yeah. Now, uh, like to kind of rewind back to something you said a little earlier, you were talking about being up in Canada. Maybe it did, I like misunderstand, but is it harder to get 3D printing parts, uh, like where you are not open source stuff. Uh, but like for instance, bamboo, I gotta order from Bamboo.

Well, I think the only place is to order is down in the US So I have to pay shipping from the us, which is usually insane. Uh, customs if I'm ordering over $20. So what I order a hot end, I'm paying customs, uhhmm, and, and the way duty works here is if it goes by u p s or FedEx, they charge you. The tax on it plus a $20 fee because they looked at it and decided to charge you the tax on it.

So I'm like, okay, so I bought a a $30 part and I'm paying $30 for shipping and $30 for duty. I'm like, I didn't save any money. I'm 60 bucks in on a, on a $20 part or $30 part. Right. Or 90 bucks in on a 30 part. Sorry. But it cost, effective wise, I need to be able to have a printer I can tinker with and get locally.

Gotcha. That. Well, that makes a lot of sense you talking through that. Do you have any, a lot, a lot, a lot of themes in there. A lot of hidden fees. Yeah. Um, do you have like a microcenter or anything like that up by you? Like where do you typically go to get your stuff online? Okay. Yeah. Everything I, realistically, I live, uh, outside of Ottawa in the Ottawa Valley, in the middle of nowhere.

My, my, okay. Neighbors across the road are cows. Um, So, I mean, in the city I could go to, uh, this place called Canada Computers. They carry some filament there. It's kind of hit and miss. But, uh, no, most of my stuff's online and I got order from Toronto. So it's, it's usually a day or two to come to me from there.

So, Hmm. Okay. That's where the, that's where the big filament orders get a stock up while you can, that's, so that probably sucks then though. So like, if, like, let's say that you're, you know, gonna lay down on print and you run out of block, you gotta wait a couple days on. It's not like, it's not safety delivery.

I know. No, I don't, I don't run out of block. I have, I think I have six schools of black, and when I get down to two, I'm making ament order. It's, it's like, no, no, it's gotta be there. And I panic because sometimes there's only a certain, uh, Filaments, uh, black. I run. It's gotta be PLA plus. Um, it just, I find that if I get any kind of value or eco or any kind of the cheap stuff, the super cheap stuff, yeah.

I get stringing and, and it's just terrible. So I found a, a block that works. Um, luckily enough I found it by two different places cuz the one place I usually go to is forever sold out right now. Oh no. So I start hitting up this other place and that was the recent place I just bought all my stuff from and they got it.

I'm like, yeah, yeah, bring, bring me the black, bring me, get me some money. I need it. So interesting. Now, when like you're running a 12 color setup, do you run into problems that, like you said, you run p plus for your black. Do you run like normal p and I guess like are you able to adjust the settings per color channel?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I can adjust, I can adjust flow rate, I can adjust temperatures. Okay. I can adjust every, because the way uh, Prusa Slicer works is each color. Is a different extruder. Mm. Okay. So it treats, it treats every color as a different extruder. So, um, if I needed to run, uh, black at, you know, 200 degrees and I had to run the next color red at two 10, well I can adjust it and the nozzle will heat up to two 10.

Well, it's purging. So you can play with it that way. The only time I usually have an issue, uh, with filament is if it gets chalky. I was trying to run a, oh, um, a green that was a recycled filament, but it kept leaving little pieces in the, uh, the color change. So then it would read that, oh, the, the filament wasn't extracted.

There's still filming stuck in it. So then it would pause the machine and does the whole thing. So I do have to watch that. Uh, I've tried to run woods on muddy multicolor. That doesn't work either. It gets, uh, it, it really does not like doing wood film and changing it like that. It, it usually messes it up.

 I've never run wood film myself, but it sounds like no machine likes wood filament. I've heard like multiple horror stories of people running wood filament. I can run it on the, the black one. Uh, the black purple machine. Um, Cause it's got a dragon hot end, high flow dragon hot end.

And because it's a single color, I just crank it right up hot and it just spits it. It smells great. It smells like I'm cutting wood in here. Oh yeah. It's like straight cutting wood. I'm like, oh yeah, I could, yeah, I, I could use that filament all day long. It's a great smell. That's how I feel about laser and grieving.

I love laser and grieving what? It makes my entire house smell like a campfire. It's amazing. Oh yeah. Okay. That would smell good. Now it sounds like you have this whole system, like it's very dialed in. It sounds like you really just, you have your system down. It has there, is there any story or like any situation that comes to mind of like some kind of like catastrophic failure or just real big problem that has happened when doing these prints?

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. I've, I've come in and, uh, that one right there, the, the, sorry, the block and orange one. It. Uh, I came in one day and I, I don't know if the nozzle was loose and it had just squirted out plastic everywhere. It was all engulfed. It ripped all the wires out of the hot end. I'm like, oh my God.

And it said, finish print. And I'm like, finish print. Like there was plastic. Everywhere. But luckily enough, I have, I keep, for instance, the wires, uh, the, the, uh, thermo and the, and the, the temperature it all in, in the house. Now I have a bunch of them. Okay. But it, uh, yeah, it was a mess. I, I just cranked it up to about 290 degrees and I just let the plastic.

Melt off and started wiping it off. I'm like, I just hate it. So I've had, I've had my fair share of catastrophic failures. I've had, I've had filament come out and jamming belts and, oh, oh God, sounds terrible. And, and I, I leave, I'll, I, I'm out of the house for. Well, 7:00 AM till I get home at six o'clock at night, so I'll start a print.

Oh, wow. And I don't have cameras on it. I don't do anything. It just cross your fingers. Yeah. Yeah. I get home and I'm like, worked. It's so.

Yeah., man, I hearing you talk about it, it's, it's really something to me. I don't know. It's, uh, I've just, I've never, I'm, again, I've said this 15 times, I've just never quite seen something like this. When, uh, I know that you have a shop online,  when people are ordering from you, do people even know that it's 3D printed?

Because honestly, like if I just saw your product, I don't know that I would know that it was 3D printed. Uh, I think so. I, for the most part, um, I have people contact me all the time. Uh, a lot of, I do a lot of custom, custom stuff more than anything. Okay. And the website is, is nice. Um, it's, uh, It is not the way I wanted to go.

I mean, I had Etsy before, but yeah, I, I'm still talking with them, but they ain't giving me it back. But, uh, no, I, not a lot of the time people are talking to me and, and we go back and forth before purchase. A lot of other people have seen my stuff cuz I do automotive parts, uh, as well. Yeah. Uh, so there's a whole automotive community that I'm part of and they pass around my information and guys all know it's all 3D printed.

So for. Now the automotive parts that you do, are they, um, mostly like for like interior automotive stuff, or is it like actual, like physical, uh, parts for like the car itself? What, what do you typically do in that room? So, uh, I, one of my videos show that I have a 91 Civic, so, Now on my car I have, uh, a Japanese front end.

The unfortunate with having a Japanese front end is the headlights aren't readily available here in, in Canada or North America for that part. So I created a little, um, I call it a conversion kit, but it's a little adapter you put in there and you can now get rid of the headlight that they sell and you can just put a 9,008 l e d bulb in there.

Okay. And it just clips in. So I, I 3D printed it and it, I've had it on my car for two years now. Hasn't melted it's carbon. P a Okay. So it's tried and true. Um, the other stuff is, uh, stuff like this, it, it's an actual like plugin. For the harness, but they're, they're not available anymore. Oh, okay. So a lot of the old, um, civic clusters, uh, guys would just take 'em outta cars, unclip it in Japan and, and sell it.

The problem was, is nobody can get their hands on the plugs for that cluster anymore. So now you have nice, expensive cluster, but no, no way to wire it. Gotcha. So I designed up the clips so that now you can pin it just like a factory wire and plug it right in. So I do stuff interesting. More like that. And now those are resin printed, kind of, they just help hold up a little better because it's the heat on the dash and stuff.

But yeah, I play around with what I'm printing. It's just more of conversion or pieces to help out. I've done some harness ends for guys and stuff that's just not produced anymore. Yeah, I, uh, I didn't even think about that, but probably like for people who are, um, just like, you know, reworking older cars, it's.

I have to wait till there's probably a big market for that, like across the board, not just Hondas, but everything across the board of uh, right. Parts that probably like aren't in production anymore. Aren't in existence. , is that like a whole market, I guess, in 3D printing for people who do that type of stuff?

There? There is, there's a, there's a lot of people that design up some cool stuff out of 3D printing. I've even seen guys getting into doing, uh, front bumpers, full, wide body kits. They'll Wow. They'll print it out in pieces, glue it all together, and they'll use that as their mold. Okay, so there, there is a big market for 3D printing in the automotive side of things.

Yeah, it's, it's kind of crazy. I've dabbled in it a little bit, but, once you start playing around with it more, you, you realize, oh, okay, there's a lot of people doing this. And you realize, like for instance, stuff I do, I've sold hundreds of these headlight conversions to people all over the world, and I'm like, How did nobody think of this?

Like my, yeah, this, this car is 30 years old. Man. This has been a problem forever and nobody's thought of this, and, and some guys are like, well, why didn't you go with this headlight bulb? Or that? I'm like, this one just worked. It's, it's, yeah, I went with what was easiest. So, yeah, no, I think there's a, I think there's a market for it.

You just gotta figure out your niche and what you want to do. Yeah, I wouldn't, I wouldn't, I wouldn't start designing stuff for an Audi, cuz I, I don't know Audis, I don't, but yeah, it's, uh, I, it's definitely one of those things. I think that like driven by having a need for the problem, I think is a really good way to approach it.

I, it's something I never would've thought. My dad actually just, um, picked up a new Jeep this week and he got, it was like his, he's always had a company car. It was the first car that he's purchased himself in like 30 years. So he was super jazzed about it. And as soon as he got in, he's like, Man, the turn signal is like kind of short on this thing.

It would be great if you could 3D print something that be the turn signal longer, but like you would never, unless you were driving that car and you were in the car and you were sitting there using it, you would never think like, oh, I bet somebody needs a longer turn signal. So it's, uh, yeah, I'm, I have to imagine like a lot of the parts are getting developed or things like that are probably just along those lines of, uh, when you realize it's a problem.

In my car, for instance, there's no cup holders. Oh. And, and the big joke in the, the, uh, in the EF Honda community is you jam your coffee in between the, uh, parking brake handle in the seat. Yeah. Yeah. It's just jammed in there. That's a cupholder. Well, some guys have designed up. Pieces that can go on your center or, or on your middle console, that kind of wrap over it.

Okay. And you have cup holders on it now, or you pull out your, the ashtray. You remove the ashtray, yeah. And it's a cup holder. So guys have gone into that kind of extent of, of designing. Interesting. It's very interesting. Um, now, I don't know if you, if you've seen it, it's been floating around by TikTok recently, but there was, uh, I think it was a Father Stone duo.

They recently 3D printed like the frame of a la, or not the frame, but the, uh, body of a Lamborghini. Have you seen that floating around? Yeah. Yeah, I did. Yeah. That's pretty, uh, you know what, I, it's a slick car. I wouldn't imagine doing it in p a, , I, uh, believe it was Joel who was doing an interview with him, and I thought, I, I, he said that, he's like, oh, it printed in p l a.

And I was like, there's no way it's printed in p a, but, uh, p a i, I had a piece around here. The p l a was outside for about two minutes, and, uh, I don't even know where it went. I, it was black. I left it out and it just, banana. Yeah. And I'm like, okay, that was printed for a car and that's clearly not going inside it anymore.

Print a whole Lamborghini in it. I just, wow. Yeah, when I heard that, I was like, oh, that must, I was like, he must have mis smoked. There's no way that they printed that ble. But, uh, yeah, I don't know. It might be a, the landlord's getting a, a body restyle I guess, pretty soon. The first day goes out when it's sunny out.

Yeah, I, I'd be a little bit scared there. Yeah, yeah, for sure um, now, do you ever see yourself, um, kind of blending like those two hobbies together? It sounds like you do a little bit now, but like maybe getting back into RC stuff and doing more of that with 3D printing or, uh, do you see those as kinda like two separate things for you?

No, I'm, uh, I'm unfortunately slowly stepping more out of rcs. Uh, I've, as I said before, I was a mechanic for, for many years and. I had managed the store for a few years and I went back into mechanics for a year and I hit a dark spot and I just, I couldn't do it for a living. I, I can't turn wrenches, so I'm back managing a place now and I'm getting into building my own car.

So I have my Civic, I'm working on, I have a, a friend Civic I'm working on. I'm helping a. 30 by 40 shop outside my house. So I have a, a fox body Mustang in there right now that we're gonna be working on. And I just bought today a, a 54 Chevy truck. I'm gonna, oh, wow. So my next project is, I'm moving now out of our rcs but into bigger, bigger cars ever.

Like, you're doing a 54 Chevy. I'm like, yeah, I, I really want an old school. Air bagged on the ground, 54 Chev, all patinaed out, just cruising around. So I'm, I, I could see me moving, uh, keeping, uh, printing as, you know, the artistic side and the, and the fun side. And automotive will stay.

Automotive and, and I mean, I might do the odd piece here and there for, for my needs. And it's the same thing actually that I did with. Um, rcs, I only designed stuff that I wanted for myself, and then I just offered it to people. It was never, I never got into this to, to start designing, to design for everybody else.

And I was like, oh, no, I, I had a need. I designed it. I filled my need. Do you want it to, so that's what made me wanna get into this. Like, need me kind of share it. But no, I, I don't know if I'm gonna do too much more with rcs. It's, I did it for nine years. 10 years. I think. I big stuff now. I feel like people, normally they go the opposite direction.

I feel like they start big and after time they're like, I need to scale down. This is getting a little big, but a little out of control. But I guess you went the opposite direction. That's kind of cool

well, and, and I mean, I, I collect Hot Wheels. That's another pro problem of mine. I mean, I, you've seen some of my videos. I have Hot Wheels generally everywhere. Yeah, that's one I've been. I don't know, 30 years collecting those, so, wow. Yeah. It's, it, I, some hobbies, I change some I've kept for a long time, but I just, I don't know.

I, I, people use this word a lot, but I find some stuff, it gets stale at times and yeah, I need to change it up. I'm like, okay, so I feel bigger cars might be less stale. I mean, at the end of the day, I can sell a car. If it's built and it's done nice, I can sell it. It's worth money now it's. But at least I, at the end, I, I, I built it myself.

I like the one I'm getting, it's getting pulled out of a bush, so it's not like a running driving 54 shev. It's literally coming to me as a shell and I've gotta do a lot of work to it. So that's, uh, that, that sounds exciting and terrifying all at the same time. But I guess if there's anybody who's, uh, gonna be the person to take on that project, it sounds like that's, uh, that might be the project.

For you. I, I have issues. Yeah. Yeah. I, I, I, I like challenges, so Yeah. No, it's, it's my kinda, my kinda thing keeps my mind going. I always wanna learn new stuff and keep moving forward, so that's very cool. Um, well, I guess the final question I'll leave us here with. It sounds like you across your hobbies, like you're a tinkerer, you're, I, I consider what you do.

Very innovative. I think it's very unique. I don't think a lot of people do it. I guess for somebody maybe who is looking to step a little bit out of their shell looking to try something new, do you have advice for. I guess pushing yourself to do projects like this and pushing yourself to maybe do something that a lot of people aren't doing.

I, I say, you know, in my, the way I think about it is, um, just don't be nervous. Just sit down and, and, and if you have an idea, keep playing around with it. I mean, I, I started with Inventor. I moved into Fusion 360. I built a whole computer to move into 360. I just, I have an idea and I'm like, okay, I need to get this down and I need to figure out how to do it.

Somebody has done this somewhere. At some point I need to figure out how to do it. That's it. So don't be scared, I mean, Are you gonna have flaws? Are you gonna have mistakes? Is there gonna be learning curves? A hundred percent. But you just keep working at it. And if you have a goal of, of what you have in your mind.

My, my whole goal of designing started out because nobody offered a curved RC light bar. That was it. I'm like, nobody offers it. I'm like, I gotta design it. And that was my first ever project, which turned out to be a massive project, but it, it, it taught me to just keep trying. Same with graphics. I mean, uh, I, I will figure out how to do it and I will figure out how to make it look good and, and have fun doing it.

That's awesome. Well, Tim, I appreciate you so much taking time outta your busy day to come on here. Talk to us and share, uh, so much of your knowledge of all the crazy things that you have going on for people who, for whatever reason are not following you yet. Can you tell people where they can find your projects online?

Uh, currently the best place is, uh, right on TikTok under Vs. Customs 3D Design. Um, I do post some stuff still on Instagram. Under Vs. Customs. Um, but I would say, yeah, TikTok talk's where I, I'm, I'm posting a lot of stuff. Uh, a great community there. Lots of people to talk to, so check it out there. Awesome.

Well, thank you so much again for coming on and that Budd that is Meet the Makers.