Tri State Area
Makerspace at the Fulton School
Big Gutenberg Pt. 2 – Unboxing and repair
Our Prusa XL had been shipped to us from Czechia via FedEx, costing roughly $500 along with a $600 import tariff (are we great yet?), which unfortunately wasn’t enough money for FedEx to treat the obviously expensive package with any sort of care (having later heard from Mr. Waide that the boxes were practically dropped by the delivery driver). When the boxes arrived beat-up, I still had faith that the printer would be in good condition, of course, that later proved not to be the case…
When unboxing the printer I had noticed a few broken plastic pieces floating around inside the packaging, I soon saw a cable cover on one of the bottom corners of the printer was broken. I figured it wasn’t a big deal and I should easily be able to reprint the part. It wasn’t until I got the printer set up on the table that I noticed the severity of the damages.
The entire back panel of the printer had snapped off its brackets and fallen crooked into the frame, this panel is fairly crucial and is what the cables for the heatbed are attached to, along with the three power supplies and the PDU. I quickly went on with customer support about the issue, the conversation soon became one of the best customer support inquiries I have ever experienced.
The support representative walked me through troubleshooting steps to ensure that it was just the back panel that was crooked and not the rest of the CoreXY gantry. After finally reaching the conclusion that it (thankfully) was just the back panel, they offered the choice of sending the printer back for repair or sending out some spare parts and walking me through how to fix it myself, acknowledging that it would be another few weeks of waiting for the printer. I chose the latter, and since the major damage had only occurred to the 3D printed plastic parts I was able to print new ones off in a few hours. Since there were also damaged bolts and a bent grounding bracket, they offered to send me replacements for those as well. I declined, citing environmental/emissions as my reason, and that I could find enough spare M3 bolts lying around. They told me I could then just bend the grounding bracket back, and as long as I didn’t snap it, all would be well, and if so I could get away with any piece of steel in its place.
Since the issue was now resolved and I knew what all I had to do, I thanked the representative for their time and cooperation. In turn, they congratulated me on my willingness to leverage my right to repair and resolve the damage myself. As compensation for the troubles caused by the damages and a bonus for enthusiasm in DIY they gifted me a voucher for 1 Kg of free PETG filament. The also reached out for as many pictures of the damage to the packaging as we had, in order to see what failed and how to improve it (as this is, unfortunately, a fairly common issue for US-based Prusa users).
Big Gutenberg Pt. 1 – Prusa XL Introduction and Capabilities
During the summer of 2025, the Makerspace acquired the 5-toolhead version of the Prusa XL. The new printer allows us to go beyond what our Prusa MK3S/+ printers could do in terms of speed, reliability, print quality, and much more. This blog post will go into the specs and highlights of the new system.
For starters, unlike the MK3, which can only do multiple colors on different layers (without the MMU (AMS) addon), the Prusa XL can make use of its toolchanger design to swap toolheads mid-layer. Comparing a toolchanger to a multiplex system like the MMU is like comparing using one paintbrush to using many. If you want to do multiple colors on one brush, you need to wash the brush before and after every use, which adds time and waste. A toolchanger is like having multiple brushes for each color; you simply grab the one you need and put it away when you are done. This significantly increases the speed of color changes compared to systems like the MMU, which need to unload, retract, switch color, reload, and purge before they can print a new color. In contrast, a toolchanger wipes the nozzle, switches color, wipes again, and prints. This results in a time reduction from 1.5-2 minutes down to roughly 30 seconds and reduces purge waste by a significant amount as well. While a competing system from a company like BambuLab may be faster in terms of actual print speed, the time the XL saves on color changes more than makes up for its somewhat slower speed.
While Prusa’s MMU3 already significantly cuts down on waste compared to Bambu’s AMS, the XL takes it a step further with its mostly hollow wipe towers. The XL also has another advantage in that it can print with zero waste from material changes, assuming you have properly dried filament, which further decreases print time since it no longer needs to pass each nozzle over the wipe tower.
The Prusa XL’s toolchanger system also lets you take advantage of true multi-material, not just multi-color. This means you can print a PETG box with a flexible TPU hinge, a wheel with a solid hub and flexible TPU treads, PLA supports and interface layers for PETG (and vice versa), or have a carbon-fiber infused filament used for the walls of a print with its virgin counterpart as infill to save costs but keep the thermal benefits of CF. While this is possible on a multiplexer system, it greatly lengthens print time and waste since the nozzle needs to heat up to different temperatures to properly load and flush out old filaments.
To combat the issue of different plastics not sticking to each other, Prusaslicer uses a feature derived from Orcaslicer (which in itself is a port from Ultimaker Cura. Oh, the beauty of Open Source!) called “Beam Interlocking”, which prints alternating lines of each material to create an interlocking cross-hatch pattern that securely locks the two materials together.
Another perk of the Prusa XL’s toolchanger system is that you don’t have to constantly change nozzles whenever you want to print at a different diameter or flow rate. Since each toolhead is capable of having an independently sized nozzle. Meaning that you can have a 0.6mm nozzle on one tool, a hardened 0.4mm on another, a 0.4mm high-flow nozzle on a third, and a 0.25mm nozzle all at the same time! You can even combine different nozzle diameters for different parts of the print, with 0.6 being used for infill, and 0.25 being used for rounded top layers. Though the most useful part of having multiple toolheads so far has definitely been no longer having to swap filaments all the time before printing, which is especially useful for remote print jobs, since you no longer have to manually swap from black PETG to blue PLA and can instead just pick whatever nozzle already has what you want loaded. Prusa has a great feature to go along with this called “spool-join” where the printer will automatically switch toolheads if you run out of filament mid-print, meaning that the Prusa XL can print up to 10 Kg of filament in a single go!
Furthermore, Prusa’s Nextruder design allows for easier nozzle changes and hotend swaps with an integrated nozzle heatbreak while still being compatible with older V6 nozzles from the MK3S. The Nextruder also features a built-in loadcell sensor that is used to perform automatic first-layer calibration and can also be used to detect filament jams and extruder skips. You can read more about the Nextruder here.
It’s not just the extruder system that sets the XL apart, though. The Prusa XL significantly improves print speed over our MK3S/+, with features like Input-shaping and Phase Stepping, along with its CoreXY kinematics. It can print at up to 350 mm/s with minimal print artifacts and vibration, and is significantly quieter than the MK3. The printer even comes preloaded with a 12-minute Bonkers Benchy (minus the heatup time, of course)! It also features many more quality of life improvements over the older printers, including a 3.5″ multicolor touchscreen and a unique segmented heatbed that splits one large bed into 16 smaller ones. This heatbed design allows the printer to minimize (the bed) warping from thermal expansion and only heat the active print area.
We also purchased the Prusa XL Enclosure, allowing the machine to print in an atmospherically stable environment with a built-in HEPA filter for use with plastics like ABS and other carbon fiber reinforced filaments.
Since we got the 5-tool version of the Prusa XL, it may seem like we have a fully maxed-out printer, but that actually is not the case. Prusa Research has mentioned future non-FDM (3D printing) toolheads for the Prusa XL, with Josef Prusa even posting a sneak peek video online. Meaning our Prusa XL may soon become more than just a 3D printer, with potential abilities including vinyl cutting, pen plotting, and pick-and-place capabilities.
Shark Murals
Making a Slim Style Pen
I made a pen on the Lathe that took me about 5 hours.
First I got three pieces of wood, two of which were dark Walnut and one piece was Canary? The solid piece of Walnut was 6 cm by 1.5 cm by 1.5 cm. The two smaller pieces 3 cm by 1.5 cm by 1.5 cm. The two smaller pieces of wood were glued together using Cyanoacrylate Adhesive that took about 35 minutes to cure.
After that dried I drilled holes in the wood. I found the center of both the pieces of wood on the side that is 1.5 cm by 1.5 cm, by drawing two diagonal lines from corner to corner. Where the two lines met that was the center. Afterwords I took a pieces of wood to the drill press and drilled a hole that is 0.7 cm in diameter. Next, I glued a brass tube into both wood pieces and waited another 35 minutes for it to dry. When all the glue was dry I went back to the drill press once more and changed from the 0.7 cm drill bit to the Pen reamer. The Pen reamer does two jobs at once, first it clears out any glue in the brass tube, second it cuts down the block of wood down to the size of the brass tube that is 5.25 cm.
Finally after about an hour fifteen minutes I finally could put both blocks of wood on the mandrill and put the mandrill on the Lathe to shape the pen body. Once I screwed the mandrill on the Lathe I turned on the Lathe to the lowest speed and gradually sped it up to be a little over 1000 revolutions per second (RPM). The first tool I used was the Rougher with a square carbide bit. I used the Rougher to smooth the outside so it would not be a rectangle. After I rounded it I used the Finisher with a circular carbide bit to add the grip to the solid Walnut piece. The two tone piece was round. The third tool I used was Beader to bead the pieces on the edges. Lastly I pressed the pen together.
My pen!
Today I am working on a pen here are all the things i did!
- I had to use a ruler and draw kind of straight lines from corner to corner with a ruler to determine the middle so I could drill a hole through the two planks.
- Then I used the pen kit that Doc gave me I took out the two brass tubes in it I used super glue to cover the brass tubes in glue I put the brass tubes in the holes in the middle of the planks.
- It was supposed to be a 30 minute wait but it kept being sticky every time I pick it up so I had to postpone it ’till after lunch.
- after that we used the drill to drill through the out side a bit then I used the lathe to make the rest of the outside a bit more thin first I used the rougher to make it thin then I used the finisher to make it a bit more smoother then I sanded it just to smooth it more i used a vacuum and a mask so I would not breathe in the wood dust.
- Then I used some clean finish so could finish it off then all i have to do now is wait!
- Okay! It was worth the wait! All i had to do was remove the pen parts from the lathe and boom! All i have to do now is get all the parts and use the pen press!
- Okay! I got the pen pieces and i used the pen press and pressed the pieces together and its done!
- okay this is the moment of truth I grabbed a piece of paper and… it worked! i am so happy any way that is the end of my blog post so goodbye!
led lights
These are my LED lights it was my first makerspace project.The soldering went pretty well when I got the hang of it, what didin’t go so well was ataching the wires to the terminal block.If I were to do it again I would put much less solder on the end of the wires.
Bob in a Box
I 3d printed Bob. First I started printing a Lego figure with a clear type of filament that is PLA. After that I painted it with some acrylic paint. To make the box I put Bob in I used the laser cutter on some transparent acrylic. It was bigger than a normal Lego but it was cool. I am putting together a bigger one about 3x the size but I had to print the head, body, and then legs because the legs came off mid print. Why I printed it? Because I wanted to. Plus I didn’t know what else to do.
November Ajax the Antweight Robot (part 3 codering)
this week of Makerspace Summer camp I coded my arduinos on arduino cloud.
here’s some of the code I made.
RF24 radio(2, 4); // Replace with CE, CSN pins on robot
const byte address[6] = “00001”;
int AIN1 = 6;
int AIN2 = 7;
int PWMA = 5;
int BIN1 = 9;
int BIN2 = 10;
int PWMB = 11;
int STBY = 8;
void setup() {
Serial.begin(9600);
radio.begin();
radio.setPALevel(RF24_PA_LOW);
radio.openReadingPipe(0, address);
radio.startListening();
pinMode(AIN1, OUTPUT);
pinMode(AIN2, OUTPUT);
pinMode(PWMA, OUTPUT);
pinMode(BIN1, OUTPUT);
pinMode(BIN2, OUTPUT);
pinMode(PWMB, OUTPUT);
pinMode(STBY, OUTPUT);
digitalWrite(STBY, HIGH); // Enable motor driver
}
void loop() {
if (radio.available()) {
int speeds[2];
radio.read(&speeds, sizeof(speeds));int left = speeds[0]; int right = speeds[1]; // Debug print Serial.print(“Received! Left: “); Serial.print(left); Serial.print(” | Right: “); Serial.println(right); setMotor(left, AIN1, AIN2, PWMA); setMotor(right, BIN1, BIN2, PWMB);
}
}
void setMotor(int speed, int IN1, int IN2, int PWM) {
bool reverse = false;
if (speed < 0) {
reverse = true;
speed = -speed;
}
speed = constrain(speed, 0, 255);
analogWrite(PWM, speed);
digitalWrite(IN1, !reverse);
digitalWrite(IN2, reverse);
}
This was to test the signal between the controller and the robot.
Makerspace Summercamp 2025
This summer my main goal was to help Oliver create a robot! After a little while I got bored of helping Oliver so I began fooling around with Harold. We made a few fake Pokemon cards and a few 3d models. One day Oliver had the idea to play a game of capture the flag but sadly my team lost. Later that day I learned how to spray paint planets! I made three planets and experimented on making different colored backgrounds. Harold and I also spray painted a plant!
3D Map Project: Street
- Laser cut the map piece, with the street outline.
- Paint it Gray. (White to Black 3:1)
- Let it dry.
- Add details such as: crosswalks, pavement, with color pencils.
- Laser cut construction paper into sidewalk shapes.
- Check if it fits as a sidewalk.
- Paint it with (White to Black 4:1)
- Let it dry.
- Once dried, use super glue and glue on to the piece.
What you need: Patient, Laser cutter, Corel, White and Black Paint, Brush, Colored Pencils (Yellow, White)
For More Details, Images, Click HERE.
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