After getting my ender 3 and having a couple of weeks practice with it, I started work on on my mfd project. After some time on tinkercad and a couple of failed prints
I then got some 12mm square microswitches
And it should all fit together like this
Now just to print the back of the mfd and wire it up using a Leo bodnar usb board
I am amazed by this,
couple of questions so excuse if the answer is painfully obvious,
the pic above shows the lines laid by the printer, it crosshatches in places like the centre and towards the edges it looks like it lays in less obvious overlapping crosses, is that the “printers” decision or something that is worked out in the CAD process.
also for the Square 3d holes for the switches, does the printer just lay in a solid line over and over again to build up the walls or is it constructed from the sides, how does it ensure the wall stays straight as layers are put on top? it looks like a good fit for your switches so it must be pretty accurate, i just wonder how it manages that
The crosshatch is a printer thing … It was set to lower quality .2mm per layer, for speed of print, so if I went for max quality of .12mm per layer the effect is less noticeable, but it’s still there ( and it would have gone from a 12 hours print to about 29 hours 
)
As for the accuracy of the vertical lines I am quite surprised myself
It’s actually the slicer that determines the pattern, the printer itself is “stupid” and only interprets commands that tell the head to move in what direction and what speed, and how much material to feed into the head. The slicer has all sorts of clever algorithms that divide up a model into the layers and figures out the best way to move the head, and add supports, patterns, and other clever tricks!
@tempusmurphy looking good!
in that case I need to look into Cura more … 
definitely! There’s a ton of options and days worth of studying to figure out how to set up everything!
this is the back of the MFD, ready in Tinkercad, a really easy piece of software, fairly user friendly, but a bit limited by its easy nature
Looks lovely!
Back plate printed… (13 hour print… even at standard quality setting)
Well done!
Wire it up and give it a go! 
It’s worth investing some options to reduce material used, you probably don’t need a solid backplate if you design a lattice structure for it! Saves you a lot of time and material!
There will be several changes for version 2 … the biggest of which is the mounting for the bodnar board will move from the back plate to the back of the front plate, mainly for ease of wiring
What display will you use and what controller will drive it?
Very cool, btw!
leo bodnar bb32 boards, I have 3 of them from my last building attempt, as for the display i havent put one in because i use VR and it would have been another drain on fps… I hope to use muscle memory for finding the buttons whilst in the HMD
That looks awesome @tempusmurphy. Very impressed. Are you happy with it? Any other changes you’d consider?
possibly redesign the bracket holding it on the desk to be a bit more stubstantial, apart from that it would just be small tweeks on the printing side 
Is the printer noisy? Possibly a stupid question but I’m interested anyway.
it is not silent … there are 4 stepper motors … but saying that … its not exactly loud.
