However..
There are those days when that doesn't happen. I have an entire bin of spare parts just in case something goes south. I haven't yet printed a spare set of printer parts (yes, you can do that) but it's on the list.
Today was one of those days when it didn't happen.
The overnight prints finished just fine. I took those off the printers and was my normal less-than-graceful self. I hit the shelf that stores about twelve rolls of filament. Twelve rolls at one kilo each. Turns out I hadn't secured the shelf brackets properly and the whole thing came down.
My head got a bit of a bump from the shelf but nothing serious. Because I was leaning over the shelf mostly fell on my back to little effect. But now let's take stock of the damage.
- The power supply for one of the print servers was broken
- One side of a filament holder was broken
- The metal tin holding small tools and nozzles was dented beyond repair
- The other printer had a part broken
- One side of the cover of a print server was knocked off
- A metal mesh cup for various tools was squashed a bit
Overall this doesn't sound too bad, right? A broken part is probably the worst but the rest is minor or can be replaced?
It took both printers out of commission. The one without the broken part needed to be fully calibrated again (note - I replaced a screw that had fallen out of the bed frame so that may have messed with the alignment too) and I couldn't print the replacement part until then.
After FIRMLY hammering the shelf brackets into place and putting the filament back I assessed the damage and decided I didn't want to deal with it at the moment. I needed a new power supply anyway so it was off to the computer store. That would be a nice break. I got that and some replacement filament I had been considering anyway.
When I got home I took advantage of the situation to more properly deal with the power cords. I have a UPS but it was just sitting on the floor as a temporary measure. I decided to wall mount it. I measured several times. I put the wall anchors and screws in. I had them in the wrong place. The UPS fits nicely sitting behind the printers, across the tables. So that's where it is.
Again taking advantage of the situation I did some minor repairs I had been putting off. One of the cable bundles wasn't quite secured well enough so I redid that. And the screws for print server case that had gotten bopped weren't long enough, which is why the cover fell off so easily. Longer screws were used.
I used a replacement for the broken filament holder and got that in place. Note - print another replacement. Then I went through the four step process of calibrating the printer again. It takes some time and by the last step you're dealing in fractions of millimeters. But it's done.
Now I'm printing the parts I need to fix the other printer. Once that's done I'll run the four step calibration on that since I'm sure at least one roll of filament bounced off that print bed. When that's done I'll have both printers running again.
What's left? Reprinting the filament holder piece I pulled from spares. And that's about it. Overall it could have been much, much worse. I was very lucky that more of the rolls of filament didn't hit the printers. Bent rods and broken controller boards could have happened. But they didn't and it's a series of minor but necessary steps to get them both working again.
This is the side of 3D printing that a lot of people don't understand. It's not a matter of plugging it in, running a wizard, and printing. There's a lot of futzing that goes with getting the printer ready to go and then keeping it running. I'm not one of those people who tears down their printer and rebuilds it in a different color just for fun. Yes. There are people like that. But there's still more or less constant tweaking to be done, improvements to be made, and generally wondering if you're going to get a print or have the hot end encased in a blob of hardened plastic.
Technically I lost a day of printing because of this. Not even technically. I lost a day's worth of time I could have been printing. I'm not under any hard deadlines so this day isn't going to cost me anything. But I realized how much I dislike having the printers sit idle. There's always something I could be printing and not being able to do it rather than not doing it by choice is very frustrating.
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