July 2020 UFO Contents

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Thank You to this month’s sponsors, contributors, and companies who didn’t try to shoot our UFO’s out of the sky for using their product in this month’s box.

   H and H 3D Plastics 

We’ve reached 2 years!!!

It doesn’t even feel that long, time has definitely flown by. When I started out, I wasn’t even sure that it was a good idea or if it would last - we’ve been through some ups and downs for sure! I want to thank each and every one of you - those who have been here from the beginning, those who are new, and all of you in between - THANK YOU SO MUCH for all of your support and for sticking with me through it all. This next year I’m going to try to find more filament companies to work with, revisit some past companies that haven’t been in the boxes in a while, and probably provide some of the more popular accessories that people liked back before I had too many subscribers.

Our first anniversary I included a project that required a lot of soldering - the UFO Lamp - I figured I’d keep with that tradition lol - I hope y’all have been practicing for the 4x4 LED Cube!
As for the accessory, in the very first UFO I provided Captubes cutters, so for this anniversary box I’ve provided 1 meter of actual Capricorn PTFE - either XS or TL.

Also - I know I know, there are 2 oranges! Slice Engineering contacted me after I had already ordered the HQA - So I hope it’s okay!

Finally, you’ll find a bottle cap with ALL CAPS FOR JIMMY, for those who don’t know, JIMMY passed away in June, and was known for talking in ALL CAPS in live streams. He is definitely missed by a lot of us. Rest in Peace Brother.

 

Congrats to William W.
for winning the July 2020 Mothership Box!

This month's Mothership prize is a Gear v2 3D Printer from Zyltech!

SWAG & CODES

This month UFOs contained:

  • Bottle Cap: ALL CAPS FOR JIMMY
  • Alien3D 2 Year Anniversary Sticker
  • Capricorn Sticker

Note: There was supposed to be a treat in the UFO, however due to the quantities ordered they couldn't fulfill it in time and instead of delaying the UFO, I'll put 2 treats in next month =P

UFO Subscribers & 1 Month you should see codes below, be sure you are signed in.

Please login to view codes if you received this months UFO.

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Filament Samples

All filament samples are at least 20 meters in length (actually more, I increased the length to eat up the extra filament being left behind on the rolls)

HH 3D Plastics

PETG: Ice Blue

Extrusion Temp: 235 to 245C
Bed Temp: 0-68C

Visit HH 3D Plastics
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GreenGate3D / Slice Engineering

Recycled PETG - Slice Engineering Orange

Extrusion Temp: 205 to 245C
Bed Temp: 60 to 90C
Speed (mm/s): 45-90

Shop Slice Engineering
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Greengate3D

Pink Grapefruit - Recycled PETG
Extrusion Temp: 205 to 245C
Bed Temp: 60 to 90C
Speed (mm/s): 45-90

Visit Greengate3D
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HQA

PLA+ : Orange

Extrusion Temp: 195 to 215C
Bed Temp: 0-60C

Visit HQA
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Bonus Accessory!

1 Meter Captube TL or XS

As mentioned, Capricorn was in my very first UFO - as I gave the PTFE tube cutter as the accessory. I thought it would be perfect to include them in the anniversary box, but with actual Captubes.

Shop Capricorn
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Bonus Project!

4x4 LED Cube

4x4 LED Cube

I've really been fascinated by the LED Cubes, and hadn't built one yet, I searched around and found the instructions at https://www.viralsciencecreativity.com/post/arduino-led-cube-4x4x4 were the easiest to wire it up as some other instructions out there really complicate it lol. The instructional video on the site doesn't have verbal audio instructions, so I'm going to make a companion video once I can find my soldering iron *facepalm* - clean they say lol.

In your UFO you will find the following:

  • 64 LEDs (hopefully more, I counted them by weighting 70 LEDs then matched that weight for all of the kits)
  • 4 x 100ohm resistors
  • 20 Male to Female Jumper Wires
  • 1 x Solderless Breadboard
  • 1 x Nano with USB power cord

Anywho, one big change I've made to the project, which in my opinion makes it a LOT easier, is the solderless breadboard. If you mount the Nano to the breadboard as shown in the picture to the right (or below on mobile) it will make wiring a lot easier. There is a center line on the breadboard that the Nano should straddle, that way all of the pins are accessible where on the the A0 - A7, GND, VIN have 4 holes visible, and the Digital side, D2-D12, has 1 row visible (see below).

The Base Case linked to below, I figured why reinvent the wheel if someone else already designed one? While I didn't include a power switch or potentiometer, like this case has, it still works good.

View Instructions
Base Case
Helper Jig

Then you want to take your resistors, cutting 1 end to about 1/4", and connect the nano pins as follows:

A7 to Breadboard 11
A6 to Breadboard 12
A5 to Breadboard 13
A4 to Breadboard 14

(See picture)

These will now act as the 4 wires that go to each tier in the cube, using the male end of the wires on the breadboard side, and then snipping the ends off the female side to solder to the cross bars on each tier (more pics coming, but you can see the cross bars in the center of each tier in the instructional video on the linked page.

When you then edit the Arduino code provided at the link above, you'll want to change A3, A2, A1, A0 to A7,A6,A5,A4

You'll also want to change in the column array in the code, the A5 and A4 to A0 and A1. The rest of the wires will plug in as in the instructions, 13 - 0. For those who don't know TX is 1 and RX is 0. Male ends go into the breadboard, female ends plug in the the bottom tier LED columns, so there are 16 columns to plug in to.

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Comments 8

  1. Cool project!

    Is the base case supposed to be printed at 100%? It’s considerably larger than the helper jig and the LEDs don’t line up, but scaling either print seems to throw things off.

    1. Post
      Author

      The cover has the holes for the LED wire columns and should fit on the case. The jig is just a helper to solder the wires… are you still having issues? Someone mentioned to me they resized them to 80% as they had a small build volume and just shortened the LED leads.

  2. Anyone get the code to pass verification after changing A3, A2, A1, A0 to A7, A6, A5, A4 and A5, A4 to A0, A1? I get the error “‘A7’ was not declared in this scope”. I am not very experienced with Arduino.

    1. Post
      Author

      1. Semi Success!!!! Most of the bottom two rows work, nothing from the top two though. 🙁 Probably my soldering job. I am going to buy some more LEDs and try again. Also, would like to get the on/off switch to work, just not sure how to wire it. Oh well, will figure it out. My redesign for the box seems to work well, so that’s a plus.

        1. Post
          Author

          Doh! If a row isn’t working, probably either a) a bulb is reversed or b) there’s a broken connection.
          As for a power switch, basically just cut either a power wire or a ground wire and put each end on a switch prong. Basically it just breaks or connects the flow of electricity.

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