Smoothing PLA Prints with Dichloromethane

Let me start by saying use extreme caution when when using dichloromethane, it is exrtremely caustic and carcinogenic. It is primarily dangerous when vaporized, if you have a respirator use it. Read some more on it before you determine if it is worth it for you to smooth your PLA prints.

First gather all your materials, you will need:
1.At least 4 ounces of dichloromethane, (you can obtain this from Amazon)
2.A glass container, (it will melt any plastic container.)
3.Pliers
4.Non-rubber gloves (rubber gloves will melt.)
5.Clothing that covers all your body.
6.A funnel (you can use a plastic one, because it will only be exposed for a few seconds, which will not fully melt it)
7.Goggles (any will do)
8. Respirator(not required, but recommended)

Ok, now go outside. First fill you glass container half full with your dichloromethane. Second, place object in the container, if it is small enough use your pliers to put it in, if it is to big, just put it in with your hand, but be careful not to splash when you put it in. Next, wait for about 15 - 60 seconds, it depends on how good of a finish your want. Fifteen seconds will give objects with straight walls a nice finish, but with things that have slanted walls like a triangular prism or a sphere will need about 60 seconds to fully smooth. Now put your funnel inside the container that the dichloromethane orignaly came in, now pour your jar filled with dichloromethane and your object into the funnel. This will separate the object from the dichloromethane. Now take the funnel out of the container, and turn it upside down onto a clean paper towel. The object should come out onto the paper towel, then leave it outside to let all the dichloromethane evaporate.


Some extra info:
My first time doing this, I thought that if I put it in water right after it would clean it and get the dichloromethane residue off. It does not! It makes it look like a gold ball, with little holes.

If you do not have a respirator, I recommend not doing this in any weather above 40 degrees fahrenheit. Keep in mind that dichloromethane boils at just 104 degrees fahrenheit, and it is most dangerous when vaporized(It causes lung cancer).



Never do this inside, or vaporize it like your would for acetone and ABS.

Do this at your own, risk, do not blame me if you have a problem because of it.

Consumer 3d Printing, What Technology will be King

There are many different kinds of 3D printers, the main kinds being FDM, SLS, and SLA.  Throughout this article, I will evaluate which type will become dominant in the home, based on consumer criteria.

High-End Android becoming My printer and Me

This blog used to be called High-End Android, but last year, after a few months
of running it, I got bored of it and stopped.  Now, I have an english assignment, to create a blog, so I am redoing this blog, but under a different name and a different topic.  It will now be about 3d printing, news, reviews, and my opinions.  It will be a fun ride,  I hope you enjoy it.  Edits to turn it into a 3d printing site will take place throughout the week.

Why Google didn't announce a new nexus at google I/O

Were you disappointed with Google that they didn't annonce a new Nexus device at google I/O?  I definitely was.  After thinking about it for a while I have come up with an answer that makes sense.  Google has really taken the console approach with its Nexus tablets and smartphones.  They sell them at cost or even at a loss, then make money later when you use them, or buy games.  So why would they work tirelessly to create a new tablet when their old one is still up to par, and they don't make money selling a new one to you.

Motorola X phone : Why Are We Exited?

This a phone everyone is starting to get exited about, it is the Motorola X phone.  Lets go through the specs, wait there are no specs. I think the reason people are getting exited even though there are a lack of specs, is it will be the first Android phone made by Google.  You may have heard that Google acquired Motorola a while back, but has been hesitant to do anything with it until now.  There are plenty of rumors, so lets begin with those.  It is rumored to be released around June, that I find extremely likely because it will probably be unveiled at google I/O the May.  It will also be a non-nexus phone, I find that surprising because google could

Wikipad : Near Perfect Gaming Tablet

The current wikipad

This is the Wikipad, it looks pretty cool right.  It is one of my favorite Android tablet ever.  That might actually be pretty bias however because I love gaming and this is the only thing that it is meant to do.  You actually have a pretty nice Android tablet.  It is slightly faster than the Nexus 7 at 1.4 GHZ.  Which is .1 GHZ faster than the Nexus 7, and it has the same amount of ram.  Which is 1 GB of it.  So you get an awesome Android tablet.  Right now it is second best gaming SOC, behind the s4 pro.  That will all change within about 2 months when the come out along with the snapdragon 600 and the Octa.

The Most Useless Android Handheld A.K.A Project Shield

Riptide GP 2 on shield

So, if your here your have probably heard about project shield.  It is a gaming portable made by Nvidia.  It is the first device to have the amazing Tegra 4 chip.  For more on Tegra for click on the link in purple.  So anyway Tegra 4 can handle 4k video, offer console quality graphics, and is amazingly fast.  Project shield which was announced at the same time as Tegra 4, and they said it would be the first Tegra 4 device.  It is pretty feature packed, it can access steam, play games from your high-end Nvidia gaming pc. It also runs on Android. So, my final thoughts turn to why they made it?

HTC One vs Galaxy s4 : What Should You Buy, Part one

Two of the best upcoming smartphones are the HTC One and the s4, both of these are great, but unlike a game in elementary school there is a winner.

Battle One : Screen
Both of these screens are amazing, Samsung is using its Super AMOLED HD display which from my experience works really well in direct sunlight.  Also the colors are very brilliant and have great a more vivid look to it.  It has a PPI of 441.  HTC is going with a Super LCD screen, this from reports looks much more natural with pictures. It will not end up looking as well i sunlight. It has a slightly higher PPI of 461.  The s4 has a 5 inch screen while the HTC One has a 4.7 so you really won't notice the different in size.

The Dark Knight Rises Android Game Review

Let me start by saying this is my favorite Android game of all time.  It has rich and amazing graphics, I mean seriously these graphics are amazing, they make everything else look like a N64.  I thought Riptide GP had good graphics, but this puts those graphics to shame. These visuals are just so amazing.  It is in between ps3 and ps2 quality graphics, probably leaning a little closer to ps3.  

Wait For the Nexus 7 2 or Nexus 7 HD, and Here's Why

The Nexus 7 is the best 7 inch tablet around.  It is fast, has tons of features, has tons of games, and it will always be update with the current reason on Android.  Now after complementing it, I am going to go into a completely different direction, and say don't buy it, well, not yet anyway.  Ok we've covered the basics, of this awesome tablet, but don't buy it yet.  The Nexus 7 2 or Nexus 7 HD will be coming out fairly soon.  Here are three reasons not to buy it not.

The new Nexus 7 will likely have many new features that the Nexus 7 is lacking.  Like it might have a micro HDMI port.  That was many people's bigge

Nexus 5 "leak": Amazing or Untrue

Supposedly the new phone

    LG has "leaked" some pretty exiting news, if you choose to believe it.  It is for their next Nexus brand flagship device the Nexus 5.  It is rumored to pack some pretty impressive features, pretty impressive is an understatement, this phone is amazing.  It is rumored to pack a 16 megapixel camera, twice the current flagship standard of eight. Did I mention that this is capable of recording 4k. It could have a 5.2 inch nearly 4k display with an OLED display, yeah that is the same stuff that is in the high dollar tv's.  It will have 3 GB of ram, that is a GB more than the highest-end Android phones.
   

Note 3 to be 6.3 inches?

A possible prototype of the note 3

Samsungs Gamepad

  The next note may feature a whopping 6.3 inch screen.  Rumors have been floating around for this size screen for a while now.  Others say it could be 5.8 inch screen, Samsung appears to be making a gamepad that will fit a 6.3 inch screen.   There are no phone that big, and the smallest tablets are around 7 inches. So this makes you think what it could be for,  it seems like it would be for the next note.  I believe that 6.3 inches is way to big however, how would you fit that in you pocket? That it nearly the size of a full sized tablet?  Who would buy this 5.5 inches is big enough for a smart phone in my opinion.  Do you thing a 6.3 inch screen is to big?

Headflat : The Most Ridiculous Android Accessorie.

I was doing my normal look over kickstarter, and I saw this.  My first impression was are you serious, I'm supposed to wear this stupid thing on my head.  I would be extraordinarily embarrassed to wear this thing in public.  See that thing with the Y on the end, yeah you put your phone in that and put that on your head.  Then I though, that what if I was on a long flight, because that would kind of work for that.  Looking down at the little table for that long would kind of hurt your neck.  Then you come to the problem of caring this around, it does not compact and it is about 2 feet long.  So if you have limited space in your carry-on, you can't use it on a plane.  So are you going to ride a bus with this on your head, no you would look stupid.

Exynos Octa VS Snapdragon 800 VS Tegra 4 GPU's

The batte of the soc's, there are three prominent players right now, exynos octa, the Snapdragon 800, and Tegra 4.  Let the battle begin!

GPU's

 The first thing we are going to go through is GPU historically Tegra has been the strongest play in this field, because they have an alliance with game developers.  They are also very good a physically producing a really good GPU,  Tegra 2 can still play most games on the market, and that was from nearly two years ago.  Tegra two had eight GPU's within its self, Tegra three steps that number up to 12, and Tegra four has 72, yes you heard it right 72.  The cores from Tegra 3 and 4 were both clocked at about 500 mhz for each core. So it theoretically could offer 6 times Tegra 3's graphics.   Let's put that into Xbox 360 terms, it has a three core clocked at about 500 mhz. Tegra Four will be equivalent to the Xbox 360 in terms of GPU, because Xbox can use as much power as it wants and get as hot as it wants, here is where mobile GPU's are limited.
   

LG Optimus G: One of the Best Android's

LG Optimus G: One of the Best Android's

This is my first Article under the new High End, under $100 section.  So lets begin, this is a picture of the LG Optimus G, it is an Android phone that came out around four months ago.  It runs on Android 4.0 and it should get 4.1 within the next few month.  Before we get to what I think of it lets run through the specs, it runs on a quad core 1.5 ghz snapdragon s4 pro.  This is the same soc that the nexus 4 runs off of.  It is currently the fastest Android phone.  Once the HTC One or the Samsung Galaxy s4 comes out it will be beat, but for now it is the fastest. The HTC One will pack the same GPU because the GPU in this is amazing.  It has 2 GB  It has a 13 megapixel camera which is the same as the new s4, and three times more than the HTC One.  The screen is the same PPI near the same as the Iphone, but nearly an inch larger, with a 4.7 inch screen.  It is very vanilla Android nothing really special except for a copy cat version of the s3's "While you look at it the screen stays on feature"  It's in this but called wise screen. 
 

Samsung Galaxy s4 : Best Software, Few Things New in Hardware

      The Galaxy s4 possibly the most hyped phone ever, besides the predictable iphone.  Does it support all the hype?  Ok, lets begin,  the galaxy s4 has some pretty awesome software features, like smart scrolling, ( this as you move you eyes down the screen, it scrolls text for you) air view( basically you hover your finger barely off the screen it offers the menus of what is there) smart pause(if you play a video and you look away it pauses it)  All of these combine to create an amazing software experience, and all these are on top of the amazing galaxy s3's features.
   

Moga Review : The Best Controller, But Not Good Enough

      The picture here is of the Moga controller for Android.  It is actually pretty a pretty nice little unit.  Folded up it is smaller than a Samsung Galaxy s3, so it fits in your pocket pretty nicely.  It uses bluetooth and connects to every Android phone over Android 2.3 which represents nearly 80% of all Android devices.  The unit feels pretty solid my hands rarely feel cramped and I have fairly large hands, however my middle finger was having trouble finding a really comfortable place.   My favorite part is that your phone clips into the controller and it feels pretty balanced.
 

Ouya : Out-dated before released

   This is my first article on High End Android.  So the picture here is of an upcoming console called Ouya.  It is an Android based console that is set to come out to early backers in April (the backers were from Kickstarter) The new console was funded back in August of 2012, back then I was actually pretty exited about it.  My thoughts of it have changed however,  for one reason only it is outdated.  It runs on the Tegra 3 soc, that was ok in mid 2012. Today however, we expect more from a phone let alone a game console. My phone has a snapdragon s4 pro and it is nearly twice as fast, and a much better GPU.  The Tegra 4 is also just around the corner and will blow everything out of the water.
   

Hi, this is High End Android.  I'll be giving you your daily dose of exiting Android news.  I'll have your news on phones, games, and all things Android.