The Afinia printer continues to glitch out when finishing prints, sometimes. If it was every time it would be easy to continue printing. I could watch it end and just shut it down. But I printed four pieces today, and three printed fine, and the last one glitched out. Before I caught it, it had pushed down onto the fine fingers of my latest piece, breaking some of them, and even popping the head cover off the printer head assembly.

Afinia promises a new version of the software that fixes this glitch, but I’ve been waiting several days since they said it would be up “probably today, maybe tomorrow”, and I still don’t have it.

The Print Shop is Closed until I can rely on the printer finishing properly.

On the plus side, I now have at least a test version of all of the main central body pieces of my TB3 rocket printed, and it now stands on its own, at over 15″ in height. And the interlocking fingers and black vanes slide into each other very nicely.

The piece that just broke has to be printed again anyway, because I redesigned the base after I started printing. I also have some more minor changes to make to make it easier to pull off the rafting.

The black and yellow vane pieces were redesigned after I printed them today, so they, too, will be reprinted, when I can.

Also, I think there are too many vanes going around the waist of the rocket. There are now 21 (one every 15 degrees, but with 3 gaps for the main fins.)

I think I’ll change it to 15, one every 20 degrees. It will thicken the body fingers, and I could even thicken the vanes themselves if I have to.

I think I’m going to be a bit upset until I can be sure the printer prints and ends the print jobs properly – every time.