Frankenlarger; or, the Modified 23/45

[Sal Santamaura]

Some answers:

...How important is wall projection? As mentioned, it's not really a happening thing with the current arrangement and I, myself, will basically never use it...but I may not be the only person that's using this kind of setup in the future. I have some ideas - move the shaft, create a locking bar, move the catchment latch, etc. - but unless that's a feature that a lot of people might want, I may not make it a huge priority right now...

Not at all important. The goal is small prints. No need for wall projection to do that.

...How much head/carriage travel is actually needed? Right now there's literally 29", which is over 30% more travel than the 45 chassis allows; that much travel might allow for additional chassis bracing at the top of the rails, albeit at the expense of overall height...

Whatever travel is required to make an 8x10 print from a 4x5 negative with a 150mm enlarging lens would be more than adequate. Plus a bit more to enable cropping.

...How important is a print-it-yourself version of the conversion parts? I'm a big fan of sharing info so that people can build things for themselves if they want to do so, but since any printed parts are increasingly looking like they'll be made out of filaments that have special requirements for printers (as of early 2025) this may not be a feasible thing for some folks...and since material choice absolutely drives the design, I have to think about this pretty early in the process. Also, there may be some parts that simply can't be printed at-home, so I have to think about that as well...

Not important at all. I don't have nor do I intend to obtain a 3-D printer.

...How important is back-conversion? Once the conversion parts are installed, how important is it to be able to remove them and use either the head or the chassis in their original configurations?...

Not at all important.

...Would you be willing to drill a couple of holes? Nothing major, obvious, difficult or otherwise-problematic; just a hole or two...

Yes.

...What am I not thinking about, here? What looks perfectly obvious that I'm not seeing, so far? Let me know if something stands out...

I have no idea.

 

[MTGseattle]

@Sal Santamaura I'm curious which small formats you are into that relegates a saunders 4500 series to the "unused" section of your house? I think it's been determined that the 4x5 mixing box will still let one print 35mm and certainly lens changing is easy enough.
for 16mm and under, I think there are some hurdles, and it is a big machine for small negatives.

 

[MTGseattle]

Seems that way, for sure. I love the extra-big-ass plates; it's possibly not where I would go with that process, but I definitely respect what he's doing with it.

I made progress on the 45 head situation today; I've discovered that you can mount nearly anything to anything else if you drill enough holes or use enough adhesive...but since I don't want to do any of either, options are limited. I think I have a mounting solution that's good enough for a rough draft, so I'm printing out the first piece of it tonight. If it proves feasible - and I'll post pictures tomorrow for critique and improvement suggestions - I'll start thinking harder on materials, hardware and the like; I want this to be a completely bolt-on conversion...or at least as close to that as is possible, within reason.

I also need to start making some solid decisions on the head that will go on this thing...and that's a whole new ball of wax.

Diy, modern source (Heiland, and who else?), existing used? so many choices. I think every brand had a head or light source at one point.

 

[MTGseattle]

So, I think I may be doing this backwards...

I was thinking about it yesterday/last night, and I realized that I don't have to use the factory 23 pivot shaft in its factory location; I could easily move that pivot point by placing the bulk of the mounting bracket on the carriage itself. In that scenario I could just use a single, small mounting dingus on the head, right at the top. You know; where it's supposed to mount.

Looking carefully at the 45H picture, one can see a bracket on the carriage; I'm not sure of the exact geometry, but it's very similar to what I was already thinking... except that I may try for something that maintains the pivot position where I have it, because that's kind of a nice place for it, overall. I can see that this might simplify construction and allow me to better use the structure of the carriage...so, to that end, I've decided to be smart: I found/ordered a reprint manual for the 45H and I'm going to see if I can glean any insight from Beseler directly. I won't really be able to replicate what they did on the 45H, but I may be able to either confirm or deny a revised proof of concept...and the revised concept that I'm working on is solid. It's simpler, with fewer custom parts, and more rigidity; that's an improvement all around.

I'll try to knock out some design work or prototypes here in the next few days, while I'm waiting on the manual...and on carbon filament as well. Ugh, reinventing the wheel is such a load.

You could completely ignore the pivot capability. I think another forum member alluded to this as well. have you checked out KHB Photographix? If nothing else, the website is a good resource and may have pictures of various parts/pieces.

There's also the Ollinger site:

Ollinger's Guide to Photographic Enlargers

A short guide to and description of various photographic enlargers.

www.jollinger.com

 

[Sundowner]

Some answers:

Thank you in advance for these; they really do help.

Not at all important. The goal is small prints. No need for wall projection to do that.

Same for me. That being said, I ran a calculation to see how large the system could theoretically print...and it's looking like it'll be somewhere around 20" by 25" if I keep everything in basically the same arrangement that currently exists with the first-version parts in place.

Whatever travel is required to make an 8x10 print from a 4x5 negative with a 150mm enlarging lens would be more than adequate. Plus a bit more to enable cropping.

That would probably be no more than 18" off the easel as a rough guess; I ran out of math doing the previous equation.

Not important at all. I don't have nor do I intend to obtain a 3-D printer.

Noted; it's not a tool that everyone has, or even needs.

Not at all important.

Well, hopefully it'll only take a few minutes, regardless, should anyone want to do it...but since the 45 will pretty much do whatever the 23C will do, I'm not sure why anyone would undo the conversion. But, my not being sure on that point probably just means that I'm not thinking of something that's perfectly obvious to others.

Yes.

Cool. Hopefully it won't be needed.

I have no idea.

Well definitely let me know when you catch something.

Diy, modern source (Heiland, and who else?), existing used? so many choices. I think every brand had a head or light source at one point.

I'll probably DIY an LED head for my own use, but I'm also trying to think in a larger envelope. Simplest would be a bulb and some diffusion material in the condenser head; most complex would be literally none of that....but the lure of being forevermore-lazy with my split printing is so very strong...

You could completely ignore the pivot capability. I think another forum member alluded to this as well.

Well, yes and no...

The pivot points on both the 23C and the 45 are used for adjusting the overall parallelism of the assembly, as well as wall projection. So, I could absolutely hard-mount the stage mounting bar to some kind of bracket and call it done, but if anything at all was out of alignment there'd be no fixing it. To prevent that problem, I need to maintain the adjustment capabilities on the stage mounting bar. The 23C has a bracket that holds the pivot shaft, and the mounting screws for said bracket offer some adjustability for side-to-side alignment. Conversely, on the 45, the main 3/8-16 mounting bolt actually handles a lot of that job by itself; since it's a single pivot point the entire condenser and negative stage assembly tends to hang mostly-vertically, even with no other attitude control in the mix.

Pictured: Such like as this here.

That 0.0-degree measurement is in reference to the table the enlarger is currently clamped-to, but it would be the same for any other surface...and I took that measurement with literally no pitch/yaw control of any sort being used. The two lower stages are just kind of hanging out, right there; they're mounted to the stock 23C pivot shaft with the PETG test mounts.

Anyways: to adjust and lock in the side-to-side alignment of those stages on the 45 chassis, you just loosen/adjust/tighten the two countersunk 8-32 screws located lower on the stage mounting bar, and to adjust alignment front-to-rear you just use the adjusting screw. It's a pretty trim little system, so I'm doing my best to maintain it despite scrapping literally every part of it.

Now, wall-projection is a different matter entirely. It was definitely a feature on the original narrow-chassis 45AF, and likely on the 45H as well; I've found some old literature confirming it, and which also seems to indicate that the aforementioned 8-32 screws had to be removed in order to accomplish it. An article on the 45AF from Modern Photography in 1959 states "And if you can't get a large enough print the normal way, it takes only a few seconds to loosen the two screws behind the lens stage and swing the entire enlarger into position for horizontal projection." The only two screws that it could be referencing - assuming a similar stage mounting bar - are the 8-32s that control parallelism; there aren't any others...and I mention this fact because from this one sentence it's clear that on the oldest of the 45 chassis there was a pivot point located somewhere around the top of the negative stage that was playing the exact same role as it is on my later MCRX head. It's been a dual-purpose mounting/adjusting arrangement from the beginning, I think.

All of this being said: even though I'm not super-excited about wall-projecting anything, I did a lot of measuring and I realized that it's actually within the realm of possibility, even with the narrow 23C chassis. The main issue is that the 45 head has some adjustment/control levers/knobs that project too far outwards from the stage bodies to fit between the chassis rails; rearranging them would solve this issue. A custom shaft that relocates the upper negative stage adjustment knob to the right side of the head would fix 90% of the clearance problems, and if any remained - questionable, that - they would revolve around the stage opening lever; a different-shaped bar would solve that problem. So, it could be done...but I probably won't tackle it right now unless people chime in with torches and pitchforks.

have you checked out KHB Photographix? If nothing else, the website is a good resource and may have pictures of various parts/pieces. There's also the Ollinger site:

I have! I actually found the 45H manual on KHB's site this morning, so I paid them some monies, and whenever the manual actually arrives I'll be able to hopefully avoid re-inventing the wheel. The article I quoted was one that I found on a web search, but which I then found on Ollinger's site as well; should've looked there first. Thanks for suggesting them!

Also, in case anyone's wondered about it: the chassis stock of the 23C and the 45 are the exact same dimensions. That's an off-topic aside, but I thought I'd mention it.

 

[MattKing]

When you are considering maximum enlargement sizes, it can be important to consider any negative holders that force you to work with the image projected in a portrait (rather than landscape) orientation.
Many enlargers permit rotation of the negative carrier, but some don't. My LPL 7700 is an example of the latter. For that reason, the position base of the column restricts maximum enlargement size for 6x4.5 negatives, or any 35mm, 6x7 or 6x9 negative cropped to a portion of the negative where the short dimension becomes the long side of the image.

 

[Sal Santamaura]

@Sal Santamaura I'm curious which small formats you are into that relegates a saunders 4500 series to the "unused" section of your house? I think it's been determined that the 4x5 mixing box will still let one print 35mm and certainly lens changing is easy enough.
for 16mm and under, I think there are some hurdles, and it is a big machine for small negatives.

For nine years after I bought the 4500II, we lived in a townhouse. The fully assembled enlarger sat in a closet and, in my relative "youth," I effortlessly lifted the entire thing, including power supply and timer sitting on its baseboard, into one of the two large windowless bathrooms for printing sessions, replacing it in the closet when finished. Although occasionally shooting smaller formats, I primarily used 4x5.

Then, 30 years ago, we moved into a detached house that has but one small windowless bathroom without space to accommodate the 4500II. It is, however, able to fit the 23CIII, so I purchased one and began shooting medium format, with only an occasional 4x5 negative that would require the "overhead" of temporarily dragging out the Saunders and actually setting up on a box on the floor.

As a septuagenarian, I now find lifting even the three boxes in which the 4500II's components are stored more effort than I wish to expend. So formats don't relegate it to a closet, residence and age do. Hope springs eternal about moving to a more appropriate home, so I keep the Saunders ready for "someday."

 

[Sal Santamaura]

...Now, wall-projection is a different matter entirely. It was definitely a feature on the original narrow-chassis 45AF, and likely on the 45H as well; I've found some old literature confirming it, and which also seems to indicate that the aforementioned 8-32 screws had to be removed in order to accomplish it. An article on the 45AF from Modern Photography in 1959 states "And if you can't get a large enough print the normal way, it takes only a few seconds to loosen the two screws behind the lens stage and swing the entire enlarger into position for horizontal projection." The only two screws that it could be referencing - assuming a similar stage mounting bar - are the 8-32s that control parallelism; there aren't any others...and I mention this fact because from this one sentence it's clear that on the oldest of the 45 chassis there was a pivot point located somewhere around the top of the negative stage that was playing the exact same role as it is on my later MCRX head. It's been a dual-purpose mounting/adjusting arrangement from the beginning, I think...

I believe there were changes made in the 23CIII. On mine, one need only depress a lever to unlock the head and rotate it 90 degrees. This Greg Davis video on aligning the 23CIII might provide further insight:

 

[Melvin J Bramley]

Beseler enlargers do not travel well possibly because of their Bi plane inspired design!
I cursed my 45MX for years as I could not fathom why the focus stage was so stiff and jerky.
The problem was solved by trading an old Olympus point and shoot camera for an older Beseler 45.
I simply removed the light source and bellows an replaced it with the tapered bellows ass from the older machine.
My LPL 670VCCE now sits little used in part because of what Matt says about the orientation of negatives, particularly 645.

 

[Sundowner]

When you are considering maximum enlargement sizes, it can be important to consider any negative holders that force you to work with the image projected in a portrait (rather than landscape) orientation.

I don't think I have to worry about that in this case; the 45 carriers rotate pretty well. I think the Negaflat might not rotate well, though. I'll have to go grab it and check later.

Many enlargers permit rotation of the negative carrier, but some don't. My LPL 7700 is an example of the latter. For that reason, the position base of the column restricts maximum enlargement size for 6x4.5 negatives, or any 35mm, 6x7 or 6x9 negative cropped to a portion of the negative where the short dimension becomes the long side of the image.

It will be difficult for me to estimate whether or not there will be any impediment to the print area on the part of the column base, here...at least without modeling literally everything in Fusion. And honestly, I'm not that good with the program, yet.

As a septuagenarian, I now find lifting even the three boxes in which the 4500II's components are stored more effort than I wish to expend. So formats don't relegate it to a closet, residence and age do. Hope springs eternal about moving to a more appropriate home, so I keep the Saunders ready for "someday."

Yep, that'll do it.

I believe there were changes made in the 23CIII. On mine, one need only depress a lever to unlock the head and rotate it 90 degrees.

Yeah, the 23-series uses a different locking system for the head, and on mine there's actually no vertical lock at all: the entire head assembly just uses gravity for stability, and the lock only works for the horizontal arrangement. The catch is on the top rear of the cross carriage. On the 45H, there appears to be a catch/release on the left side of the cross-carriage, on the front.

Beseler enlargers do not travel well possibly because of their Bi plane inspired design!

I'm not exactly sure what you mean, there. Like, they can't be adjusted smoothly, or they physically can't be relocated without difficulty?

I cursed my 45MX for years as I could not fathom why the focus stage was so stiff and jerky.
The problem was solved by trading an old Olympus point and shoot camera for an older Beseler 45.
I simply removed the light source and bellows an replaced it with the tapered bellows ass from the older machine.

Sounds like something in one of the stage mounting bar bushings was unhappy.

Also...

Pictured: More things taking place.

I'm still pretty slow, but I'm making progress. Tonight, my main project is learning how to correctly join bodies within a component; once I understand that fundamental, I can make decisions about whether or not the main body of the conversion bracket is going to wrap over the top of the cross carriage and clip into place before being through-bolted. It would be kind of cool to do that, but I honestly don't know that it makes like any simpler; in fact, it may make things ridiculously difficult. So, we'll see.

 

[Sundowner]

So, my PETG-CF order got...well, unordered somehow, so I took that as a sign to learn how to work with ABS and polycarbonate. I already have the ABS filament for making parts for a very old and weird Toyota, so I'm test-printing a part this morning to see just how much I hate working with the stuff when dimensions and tolerances are somewhat critical. The polycarbonate will be here this afternoon, so after I learn this morning's humbling lesson I'll be able to determine how inept I am with printing intermediate-level filaments. Yay.

Also, I'm learning direct editing in Fusion; it's very helpful and more aligned with the way my brain naturally works, but I'm still figuring out best-practices for using the basic parametric modeling. Most of my design experience is with direct-edited models and diagrams, so sketching to create shapes within workspaces is kind of a new thing...but hey, it's fun, right? And I'm actually making progress on the conversion brackets.

Pictured: Hmmm...looks like a patent-pending monitor stand.

Actually, from this angle it really does look like a monitor stand...but that large black square in the background is an accurately-sized cross carriage for a Beseler 23C, and the grey strip in the foreground is the stage mounting bar for the 45-series. Everything in between doesn't yet exist, but it's starting to take shape nicely. The idea is essentially a pair of 3D-printed brackets - an upper pivot bracket and a lower base bracket - that are supporting two aluminum plates that act as the risers and structure for supporting the 45 head assembly at a useful location in reference to...well, everything else. An adjustment mechanism will eventually reside at the bottom of those plates, which will control front-to-rear alignment of the 45 bits. All of the fasteners in the 3D printed pieces will be sleeved to prevent over-compression, and I'll probably use truss-head machine screws as often as possible.

There's no provision for the 23C's head-tilt-latchy-thingy, and that's mostly because it's in the way of using the four conveniently-located mounting holes that are pre-located on the 23C-II's cross carriage. I have no idea if they exist in the same place on a 23C-III, because I don't have one of those...and when I say that, I actually mean "I don't have one, but I'll probably find out about those mounting holes in the next couple of days because I seem to have accidentally bought a 23C-III from the local public/government surplus auction, so I actually do have one and the entire first part of this sentence was a complete lie, because I make really great decisions."



Okay, I really didn't need another enlarger, but I wanted to see what differences exist in the 23C-III carriage...and discovering that information was well worth the $38.96 that I paid for the this one. Also, no, that's not a typo: it was less than $40, all taxes and fees included...so that was last night's "Shut up and take my money!" moment. I think it's surplus from a school, somewhere, so it's probably in far worse shape than the pictures indicate, but as long as it has a cross-carriage - and it does - it's useful for the dimensional information alone. I can always part it out, or restore it and sell it later on, or just keep the important bits for spares for my own stuff; it won't go to waste.

So, yeah...that's where we are this morning: coffee is being consumed, designs are being refined, filament is being shipped, the entire garage smells like hot ABS, and I've finally found a reason to learn how to anodize things. So...fun times? All rights reserved? Copyright, Plan B, 2025?

 

[Sundowner]

As an aside for any moderators that happen to be watching: has anyone reported a loss of functionality on the mobile site, or random errors when posting?

To explain: update posts have been really difficult for the last few days, because I suddenly have no access to text-editing tools in the mobile browser. Furthermore, I've been getting consent errors when writing posts: it's like I can't get certain responses or text to upload and post because certain words seem to be prohibiting it. I have to go back through what I've written, line by line, using the preview function until I find the word or phrase that's causing the error: so far, the word "from" seems to be the most common trigger, although "flex" and "can" caused it yesterday. It's rather bizarre...and very time consuming.

So, yeah... what's amiss, here? Are my snarled ABS prints from this morning causing all of my browsers to go sideways as well?

 

[MattKing]

I've copied the previous post to the thread about the recent server migration, found here: https://www.photrio.com/forum/threa...r-any-issues-let-us-know.211287/#post-2865037

 

[Sundowner]

I've copied the previous post to the thread about the recent server migration, found here: https://www.photrio.com/forum/threa...r-any-issues-let-us-know.211287/#post-2865037

Thanks for doing that; I'll edit the previous post.

Meanwhile...

Pictured: Meanwhile.

It's rough, and it's ugly, and that bushing needs a better finish on it as well, but Holy Smurfing Moses that thing is strong...and it's just an ABS print. I'm excited to see what polycarbonate can do, now.

 

[Sundowner]

So, yeah...polycarbonate...about that...,

Damn.

I definitely need to adjust my print settings, but even a quick test run shows that it's way stronger than PETG...and I can say the same for the ABS that I printed yesterday. The ABS flexes a tiny bit more than the PC - especially after the PC is annealed properly - but once that aluminum sleeve is installed in either, they don't flex unless you put a clamp across the body and start torquing it down. Even in that never-gonna-happen situation the flex in the pivot brackets is minimal; a 20-lb. Beseler head shouldn't be an issue for either material...so I'd call this a really good proof of concept and materials test.

One significant difference between the two is the overall finish; ABS is far less reflective than the PC.

Pictured: Let's call it Hot Rod Black.

That's ABS on the top, and PC on the bottom. Different print settings, for sure, but I can fix that up later on...but I'm not sure that it even matters; reflectivity-wise, neither is a problem. I think the current settings for ABS are definitely better than the PC settings, but again: either would function well for this particular bracket. The appearance is more about just that: the appearance.

Also, I just noticed how cruddy that set of screws and nuts is; I need to fix that.

 

[MTGseattle]

For nine years after I bought the 4500II, we lived in a townhouse. The fully assembled enlarger sat in a closet and, in my relative "youth," I effortlessly lifted the entire thing, including power supply and timer sitting on its baseboard, into one of the two large windowless bathrooms for printing sessions, replacing it in the closet when finished. Although occasionally shooting smaller formats, I primarily used 4x5.

Then, 30 years ago, we moved into a detached house that has but one small windowless bathroom without space to accommodate the 4500II. It is, however, able to fit the 23CIII, so I purchased one and began shooting medium format, with only an occasional 4x5 negative that would require the "overhead" of temporarily dragging out the Saunders and actually setting up on a box on the floor.

As a septuagenarian, I now find lifting even the three boxes in which the 4500II's components are stored more effort than I wish to expend. So formats don't relegate it to a closet, residence and age do. Hope springs eternal about moving to a more appropriate home, so I keep the Saunders ready for "someday."

Understood.

 

[MTGseattle]

I did a brief tour through the Prusa website (I have a client whose son has the Prusa mini), I did the little questionnaire, and it landed me right at the $1k Prusa mk4. Sigh.

 

[Sundowner]

I did a brief tour through the Prusa website (I have a client whose son has the Prusa mini), I did the little questionnaire, and it landed me right at the $1k Prusa mk4. Sigh.

Yep, that's their flagship model right now; supposedly the S variant is even better...but I have a Mk4 that I bought on ridiculous sale and I'm happy with what it can do. I don't like the fact that it'll basically be obsolete within a few years, but that's the nature of evolving tech...and at least Prusa makes their systems upgradable over time.

Printers are a big investment in money and time and they have a ton of associated costs, but that doesn't mean they aren't a worthwhile investment...if you want to print things. For most people, they're going to be more of an investment than a return; I happen to enjoy designing and building things, so for me it's a nice tool to have. I honestly don't think I'll ever really monetize it, but one never knows; maybe there are a bunch of people out there that need 45 conversion parts and adjustable lens boards that actually work, and what-not.

 

[Sundowner]

It may not look like much, but things are progressing.

Pictured: "The dingus is quite simple, really..."

That's the first real draft of the redesigned carriage bracket; it's a 14-hour print at these settings, and I'll probably run out of ABS halfway through with the way things have been going lately. That being said, I need to see how much it flexes, warps, distorts and otherwise self-destructs during the printing process before I put too much more work into the design...so even though it's probably not going to be useful as a true testbed, it's still good progress towards a full-scale mockup. In addition to testing the overall likelihood of failure, I can also test:

• Surface finish and overall appearance.
• Rigidity of the part when bolted to the carriage.
• Overall material performance; maybe ABS will work!
• Fastener and sleeve fitment.
• Interference with other areas/operations on the assembly.

So, yeah...sometime in the wee hours of the morning, this will either finish and start cooling down, or turn into a 255-degree pile of plastic-flavored disaster, requiring serious levels of cleanup inside the enclosure. I'm going to do my best to not worry about how it's turning out, so I guess we're testing that as well. Meanwhile, in other areas there is absolutely nothing happening. At all.

Pictured: Nope, nothing whatsoever. Not a single thing...

...and I would never lie about that kind of thing, of course. Not even just once.

 

[Sundowner]

Pictured: Wait...it actually worked?

Actually, no...it didn't. Turns out that every time I looked in the printer last night and said "Why is the filament so shiny..?" I should have realized that I was using black PETG instead of ABS, because of course I was. The rolls look almost identical, and I didn't double-check the material...so I grabbed the wrong one, and that mistake is entirely on me.

That being said: dimensionally, it's very close to size after cooling down and there's basically zero warpage despite my having printed PETG on ABS settings. I'm not sure if the ABS will print equally well, but we'll find out sometime in the morning because I have a slightly-revised version of this already in process: I gave all of the mounting holes a very slight radius to help ease the entry of a reamer, which is proving kind of necessary on these vertically-oriented holes. That radius also helps with overall appearance, not that any of those areas will be visible when the bracket is fully installed...but that's the kind of thing that keeps me up at night.

Also: I have some bushing/spacer stock on the way, because I want to use compression-limiters wherever possible in this. Likewise, the prototypes of the aluminum risers are in-process as well. I did a quick calculation on whether or not it made sense to make all of those parts entirely in-house, and it really doesn't. The expensive parts of the finish-out - countersinks, chamfers, threading, etc. - are best handled here, where I can really take my time and make sure that they're perfect, but it's both more cost-effective and accurate to have the overall shapes cut by a CNC laser.

For now, it's time to go pick up a few fasteners and do a quick test-fit to see how this thing is actually going to look when placed on the carriage...and then wait for 17 hours while the printer does a second prototype that's hopefully being made from a more-appropriate material. At least I checked, this time.

 

[ic-racer]

Pictured: Wait...it actually worked?

View attachment 389381

Very nice parts. I'm curious how you are making these.

 

[Sundowner]

Very nice parts. I'm curious how you are making these.

What would you like to know? I'm happy to explain or clarify wherever needed.

 

[Sundowner]

ABS prototype is done; my print settings definitely needs some tuning for surface finish, but aside from that....

Pictured: It's not so terrible.

That back corner got a little weird; I think I just need more heat in the enclosure to avoid that issue. Layers look pretty good, though, so I don't have any structural concerns at this point. I did a test-fit with some 6061 - the same pieces are visible in the picture of the accidentally-PETG model, above - and they were slightly tighter in the mounting slots than I expected; that's likely just due to part shrinkage post-printing. I may be able to fix that as well with a simple setting adjustment, but if all else fails I can just redesign it with a marginally-bigger tolerance and let it cool down into place. We'll find out soon enough; the bushing material and risers should be here in a day or six. Until then, I'm going to work on unpacking the 23C-III that I picked up this morning, and which seems to have come with an RC-2100 print dryer, for some reason.

 

[ic-racer]

What would you like to know? I'm happy to explain or clarify wherever needed.

Like how do you construct it? I'm trying to learn Freecad. So are you using mesh, sketch, part, path, points?? The only thing I have ever created was just a modificaton of an existing STL file.
3d printing is no issue for me, I can get that done in multiple locations for free or very little so no need ever for a printer. Kind of like the 1980s when I shot slide film. I had access to an E6 machine, so I never needed one myself

 

[Sundowner]

This is unrelated to the above, but I did get my other 23C-II unpacked today. Among other things, it has an Aristo cold light up above the filter drawer, which was fun to accomplish.

Pictured: Other things.

I have the weirdest stuff laying around...but yeah: I really didn't need a third chassis apart from wanting to look at the carriage to see whether or not the otherwise-useless rectangle of convenient mounting holes is in the same place as they are on my II-XL chassis. Spoiler: they seem to be...so I guess I have a lot of extra bits and pieces for 23's laying around, now. I'll find something to do with them, though.

Like how do you construct it?

I used the free version of Fusion360 to begin with, but I since I have a lot of modeling projects to work on - it's, like, an ever-growing list - I upgraded to the standard license a few days ago while it was on a 50%-off sale. Still expensive, but I wanted to really learn the software.

I'm trying to learn Freecad. So are you using mesh, sketch, part, path, points?? The only thing I have ever created was just a modificaton of an existing STL file.

I haven't used FreeCad, but this was mostly done via simple sketch/extrusion and basic part creation...and lots of backing-up and reworking things, because I'm not very good at thinking the way Fusion wants me to think.

3d printing is no issue for me, I can get that done in multiple locations for free or very little so no need ever for a printer. Kind of like the 1980s when I shot slide film. I had access to an E6 machine, so I never needed one myself

That's really fortunate; most of the places I looked for 3D printing services were pricey, which was one of the reasons that I wanted to just have my own small machine. The other reason was for things exactly like this: I think of things that I want to build, and by having the printer I can now more effectively create them. That being said: if you don't need to own one in order to reap the benefits, then so much the better. One less tool is not a bad thing.

By the way, if anyone is interested: I'm pretty sure I can recreate that 8140 power elevator from the remains of a Beseler 45 elevation motor. Or, I could just make a better one entirely. Maybe. Let's get some other things done first.