Transcript
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Announcer:
Welcome to the podcast, to be named later, where we explore the world of conversation at a time, sit back and enjoy. Here are your hosts, Chris and Kelly.

Kelly:
Hello everyone and welcome to another edition of the podcast to be named later, Chris my Co host is off, probably celebrating the weekend of college football for the 12 team playoff or something else out in California. I'm back. In snowy Wisconsin and talking with a different sort of accessibility guest this time instead of sports. Got with me. Someone who I've known name of for a long time. Judy Dixon. Who's an expert on Braille technology, and the combination therein. Off the air just before we started, I told Judy back when I was in journalism school, one of my first things, a professor told me was to be a good journalist. Didn't have to necessarily be an expert on. Something you just had to know who was and was kind of how I've always. I've known the name. Judy talked with her and worked with her on few projects from time to time. When I think about Braille and technology, she's always just one of those people that. I've come to reliably on what she says. Judy, welcome to the podcast.
Judy:
Thank you very much, Kelly. To be here.
Kelly:
Great. Before we dig into. I asked you to come talk about with this 3D printing. Can we jump back and maybe could you kind of give our listeners for those that aren't familiar with you a little bit of the rundown of your career? And how you became interested in technology, Braille and all the rest.
Judy:
OK, I can do that. My career describing it will be actually pretty short because I started working at the National Library Service for the Blind and now called Blind disabled. I started working there in 1981. And just retired in October of this year. So I worked there for 43 years and over the years when I started, we were using typewriters. We had no technology. Talking about players were record players and. We're just using cassette players then and over the years the technology evolved and I kind of evolved with it. Was very I got my first. Versa Bell in 1981 and CPM computer and then went on to DOS and Windows and all of that and just kind of went with technology. Was always. I always loved it and was very interested in it and. Was able to do a lot of work with technology while I worked at the National Library. Service.
Kelly:
You know, you mentioned 1981 and the cassette, I think it was the ORN. It always the training tapes always said the Orange C-76 cassette player. I think is one that I had or something like that. I remember using that a lot back in the day to read books. Of course.
Judy:
And we got all the way up to C80.
Kelly:
Oh, did they?
Judy:
Yes.
Kelly:
Of course, before that it was the big old record player and I remember the little truly floppy disks. There was floppy disks. Played at 8 Rpms, those flexible disks.
Judy:
That's true. Flexible disk, yes.
Kelly:
That was quite quite a thing. So. You've really been around a lot of the technologies and I guess close similar to me really where we did start on typewriters back in the day. Know I used to have to write all my work in Braille and then type it out. That was never much fun doing my math homework that way. Let me tell you. But.
Speaker
Um.
Kelly:
As I understand it, you know you're definitely still keeping up with technology. And first of all, congratulations on a great career and your retirement with NLS. A service I've used. I probably don't know since it was four or five years old. And it's really it's just amazing that it really has gone with the changes and my understanding Judy is. Of late, you've been dabbling in 3D printing.
Judy:
I. I got my first 3D printer about a year and a half ago and it's just been incredible. I'm. I'm loving it.
Kelly:
So could you kind of level set and give us kind of an overview before we get into some of the hows and what and that of what exactly is 3D printing?
Judy:
Well, there's three different kinds of 3D printers and, umm. There's ones called FDM used deposit modeling and those are the ones that print by having a roll of. They call it roll of plastic string. That goes through. An extruder and a nozzle and gets melted and then gets deposited layer by layer to build up the model. You are trying to build good for that in a minute, but another kind is SLA. And that's basically a risen. It prints using a liquid and it's very stinky and very messy and. I. I have not gotten an SLA printer. Probably won't. And then the third kind is SLS and it has a big VAT of powder and it uses lasers to solidify the powder in into a an object. And they're very expensive. People who buy home printers or hobbyist printers don't use SLS. So FDM is sorry.
Kelly:
Oh, sorry. Ahead.
Judy:
Fdm is the really the the easiest, the cheapest and makes very, very respectable models.
Kelly:
Before we get into the details and further you, you hinted at one thing right there when you said the cheapest. Just again to level set if someone is myself included, is intrigued by what they learn from you or other sources. And like any technology, I'm sure there's multiple price points. What would you say is kinda? Barrier to entry or the entry fee if you will the. This both initial kind of hey, I gotta go find a printer somewhere and then the filament or kind of ongoing cost. If you had an idea.
Judy:
Printers range from. You can get a 3D printer for 200. You know the the A decent home hobby a sprinter would would range somewhere between 200 and 1500, but a good a decent you can get decent printers in the the five $600.00 range. 200 ones are really tiny. So you're very limited by what you can print, and that's one of the things to consider. What they call them the 3D printer world build volume and that's expressed in three numbers. Xy. And you in 3D printers, almost everything is expressed in millimeters. So you become a metric person when you when you use 3D printing. And it's my my particular printer. The build volume is 235-230-5250, which is about 9 inches by 9 inches by 10 inches or so and. It's, you know, it's a decent size, it's not tiny. Not 3 or 4 inches, but it's not huge either as a. As a matter of fact, my next printer is going to be bigger.
Kelly:
Sir, you already you got you got your mind on a new printer already?
Judy:
I do. I just haven't picked it out yet.
Kelly:
So we'll delve into this a little bit step by step because sure, it's not quite as easy as I'm hoping, but. My understanding of the process is you have to either acquire or make a model of something and then get it printed.
Judy:
There's three steps to the process. You're right. The first. Is either get or make a. And there's plenty of models to get, and plenty of models to get for free. There's a great big site called Singoverse that has about 20 million models available. And then there's a lot of other sites, and there's even specific sites that have models that have been designed for, for visually impaired people. They'll have Braille labeling, and I downloaded when I was first starting, I downloaded a solar system that had. Had rail labels. It was very cool.
Kelly:
Well, do you remember any of those resources in particular?
Judy:
Have a long list. I could send you sometime.
Kelly:
Debbie great.
Judy:
There and. A couple of good good websites that have those kinds of list. So the second step though is is slicing and the slicing step that the models that you download or make yourself, and we'll talk about how a blind person can make their own models. But.
Speaker
Replay.
Judy:
The second step is slicing and slicing. Is getting when you when you download a model. An STL file. Forget what that stands for. Stereo something. And when? You you have to get that model ready for your printer and you have to tell your printer you know how many how big you want the layers to be, how much infill you want. How solid you want it to, because it's gonna. Can you can use a lot of filament if you make it 100% infill and fill it completely solid. And it will be. So you can specify how much infill, so for large I I just printed a model of the Provo. And it's it's. It's about 10 inches by 10 inches, and but I printed it with 10% infill so that it didn't. You know, whole rolls of filament. And so it's kind of a honeycomb inside. So you you this slicing software and most printers come with slicing software and the slicing software that came with mine is completely 100% inaccessible. And but there is an accessible slicing software called simplify 3D that works with dozens of popular printers. It's it's really. I mean is it? No, but it's very, very usable. It's really great. You can. So you have to slice it so the file that you get to send to your printer is ag code file. It's actually a text based file. You can look at it and bring it up in notepad. But it tells the printer everything it needs to know about how to print that font. And then the third rocess thirdart of it is printing. Which isn't as easy as it may seem, because in my case again the printing because the software's so inaccessible and and I can't print from simplify 3D. What I do my printer has. A port for a. Usbc flash drive. So I put one file at a time on a USB flash drive, put the, connect the flash drive to the printer, and then I have a template that I put on the. Touch screen and then I select.
Speaker
Abcd.
Judy:
And it starts print. And. So that's that's let's see a is start what? Would have. There's 4 four things I have to pick. On a. I'm going to grab my template here.
Kelly:
And while you're grabbing that, I assume that this would be the sort of thing that either a trusted friend, colleague.
Judy:
Yeah.
Kelly:
If someone uses a service like be my eyes or IRA, they might be able to help you sort these menus out for the first couple times.
Judy:
Yes, yes, I meet a friend of. Help me make this so a is start B is USB so I have to select the the you know flash drive and then C is file name and then and then D is. And it beeps when you when you press the but. 
Kelly:
So let's let's dive in a little bit further. You said the first part of this was acquisition. And getting the models and it sounds like that's fairly straightforward, presumably. The websites where you might get existing models are like anything all over the place when it comes to accessibility and your skills and familiarity with screen readers and dealing with various. Environments probably help shape the level of success you have at getting modern.
Judy:
All of that, yes, exactly right. But you can also make your own models and there is a text based CAD program called OpenSCAD. OPENSCAD, which is at OpenSCAD.org. And I am not a programmer, but I am learning to. I've I've now made. Dozens, possibly even hundreds of models using OpenSCAD, and I've gotten a lot of books about OpenSCAD. Loads of. It's an open source. Program and it's just amazing all the. I think whatever it is and I can print something, I can. I can print something for that. And I go and design it so. Just give you an example. I have some. Ring I'm I like to make cookies at Christmas time and. So I have.
Kelly:
See deliver.
Judy:
I dare. And I have trouble keeping them from being all eaten. So I I have rings for the ends of my rolling pin. So it makes it easy to roll out. Even. And every year I can never remember the different thicknesses of a whole. Of rings. And so they're, they're all different thicknesses and they're marked in print on. But I never can remember what they are. So yesterday I made a vertical cylinder. And I put bra marks all the way up the cylinder so that I could store my rolling pin rings on this cylinder and with the sizes marked on it. So I know will remember year after year which size. Pin ring is.
Kelly:
So you did all this in this open SCAD program?
Judy:
Yep, Yep. I've gotten really into putting Braille on Braille on labels.
Speaker
And.
Kelly:
Tell us a little bit more about like. That like to like the whole process of doing that. Fascinated by. I didn't realize you could actually do that.
Judy:
Spec. You specify. Everything.
Speaker
In.
Judy:
Shapes so you. You know I want a cube and I want it to be, you know, and and openscat is very particular about braces and brackets and parentheses. And all of this stuff. And you're probably a programmer, so you know about these things. But you have to make sure that that all the right things are open and all the right things are closed. Anyway, you have cubes, cylinders, spheres. And and then you if you want to move to someplace, you know, you say I I want to make a cube and it's 50 by 50 by 50. You now have basically. A you know 2 inch cube. But then you want to put something on the. Of that cube. You you you use a translate command and you tell it. I want to translate to and and you send the you know Y axis to 50 and the Z axis to 50. You want to get on the, you know, top corner of it or wherever you want to go. You can go to the middle of it or or. And you, you and then you if you want to hollow something out, you use the difference command and then you say I have a cylinder that's 50 by 5550. But I want it to. A box. So I'm going to take out of it, you know. 8 by 48. And so you use a different to do that. So there's all these. Commands and you can really make anything and it's it's you can combine.
Kelly:
Judy, you talked a lot about the OpenSCAD program and a bunch of, you know, you got to be pretty accurate as far as punctuation and a bunch of other stuff. Things can go wrong. Sort of like reading it line by line, character by. Other tools and such that you can help to figure out what's going wrong.
Judy:
Yeah, there. Open Sked has a lot of keystrokes that let you do things, and it does. It will generate errors and there's fortunately a keystroke that says take me to my first error and it will do that, but sometimes you just can't figure out what's wrong. And when that happens, what I've done is cut and paste the whole thing and then plunk it into ChatGPT and say, can you tell me what's wrong with my open scad script? And it actually knows, and it will come back and say well. You don't. You need a closing bracket on line 28 or something and it'll tell me what's wrong.
Kelly:
So have you tried asking chat G2P to like, say hey, generate me an open scad picture of a file of either this picture or this from these words.
Judy:
And. Oh, my God. No I haven't. That's a great idea. I will try it.
Kelly:
Are you able to take some of these open or these models that you download and? Load them into this program or import them in any way.
Judy:
You actually. You actually can import them, but you can't read what their commands are. You can't bring them in and you can. You could. Let's say you wanted a Braille label on something. You could bring it in and an adapter able to it. But you can't change the extinct thing. You can add things to it, but you can't change. What it already is?
Kelly:
So, OK, and when you do make these Braille labels, are you able to do you have to say I want like a dot of this size or is there a way to say?
Judy:
Well, I I have a module that does that. So it the yes, but but that that is exactly how it started you. You specify the dot diameter and the dot the you know the spacing between the dots and so forth and and. But I had had a little help from a friend to create these various modules to do Braille.
Kelly:
Before we go. So you're already a warehouse of information. Do you know of good resources? Where people are either. You for example are. Have. Are you thinking about writing a book on this? Somebody else done this?
Judy:
I proposed a book to national bail press, but they are not interested because they say there's not going to be enough enough interest. But I don't whether there is or not. But I also created. A listserv. It's called 3D printing access. It's a group's IO list.
Kelly:
Spelled like we would assume from everything you just said.
Judy:
3D hyphen printing hyphen access.
Kelly:
I might be subscribed, so I'll have to check but.
Judy:
If you wanted. It's a real low traffic. Every so often there's a flurry because somebody has a question and then but people respond and people are very helpful on that list. But if you wanted to subscribe it's 3D printing access plus subscribe. At groups dot IO.
Kelly:
Would you say overall I mean? You know, there's a lot of different levels of how well things work. Work great. Some if you really work at it, you can get it to work. Where, where would you overall put this? Hmm. Like, do you find yourself having a lot of success or frustration or both?
Judy:
Well. Yeah, it's one of those things that when I first started. I did have a lot of frustration. I mean, there's a there's, I mean sighted people talk about having trouble with 3D printing their their models not sticking. And and it's a big issue. They have all one of the biggest conversations in on the the general. 3D printing list is about you know how to keep your models from sliding around on the on the build plate, and it's not a problem that I've had so. That's. Are you talking about using Hairspray to spray your build plate to keep the models from sliding around? Never even had to do that. But they also talk about printing spaghetti, and one of the one of the things you learn as a blind person is how the sounds that it makes because it makes a lot of different sounds and you quickly learn when you hear. A particular. Oh, the printer is not happy. It is not printing correctly and I would say you know when I first started probably one out of every 05 maybe prints would not be successful and now it's probably not even one out of 100 prints or not 6. So I and I'm and I can't absolutely tell you what's changed because it it's who knows. But but yeah, I mean mostly it works. What? What? The other issue is I'll print something I'll I'll make it an open scan and one of the problems for us and and I've tried various. Solutions to this because in open scad there's all kinds of views and I've tried using AI. I've tried. Just printing. I'm an optician. From way back. So I've tried, you know, printing and looking at it with the opticon. Tried printing it on swell. I've tried all kinds of ways to tell what what the model looks like without having to print it to find out. And none of those ways has been even vaguely successful. It's you. Just you know it's it's that three-dimensional object on A2 dimensional piece of paper problem.
Kelly:
Yep, just so folks know who may not be familiar with the term opticon, which I'm a user of that device myself. Learned it when I was seven years old. It stands for and Judy, you can correct. I say optical to tactile converter and it was a device that was came out in the probably early 70s. To the best of my knowledge, hasn't been manufactured in probably more than close to.
Judy:
85 it stopped at 8085, yes.
Kelly:
85 is. And basically it you take a camera. And you run that camera over, print the camera's little bit longer than.
Judy:
Here's the sound.
Kelly:
Thank you. Good old clique and what? That the camera's probably a couple inches long and maybe a inch wide. It's pretty small.
Speaker
Yeah.
Kelly:
It's got 2 little rollers and then some lights. And a little slide around the top that adjusts the magnification. The camera takes the pictures and sends it down a wire to this box like device. Where you insert your hand and you put typically, at least for me, it was my left hand.
Judy:
I think it pretty much isn't for everybody. Unless they, yeah.
Kelly:
I think it. I think it'd be pretty hard to do it the other actually.
Judy:
It'd be almost well the way they've designed it. I did hear. You could special order a right-handed optic out, but you had to be a person who like, only had a right hand or something to get it.
Kelly:
And then on your finger, is this a ray? Called a vibral tactile array. And that noise that you heard was actually the pins vibrating, if I remember correctly, I used to know all this because.
Judy:
44.
Kelly:
That's what I. It's 144 pins. And it's it's actually unfortunate that. In my opinion that the device didn't catch on as widely as it could. I wouldn't have been able to get through college. Example I know for me without an opticon.
Judy:
Well, I can tell you I think of all the technology in my life. Rail displays, computers, you name it. The optical I mean, if my house was burning down, I would grab my optical. I mean it's it's. It's the most useful thing that I have and I just don't know how. I mean. I I feel very sad that that. People that it didn't succeed and and that there hasn't been. There were. Efforts that I'm aware of that where the National Science Foundation funded a new opticon and all three efforts. Ended in camera based scanning solutions that were not at all an. I mean I I think that that the developers didn't get what exactly the opticon does. And it's it's, you know, the human is the intelligence with the optika because, you know, we're looking at a tactile image of the print on the page. But I can understand fonts. I can understand characters that. There might not be a Braille equivalent of. You know, even or. Diagrams and patterns and you know you can look at your tie patterns and. Things like that. And so my husband and I are both optical users. And we have several opticians around the house, and it's a device that I use every single day.
Kelly:
In full transparency, I have not used mine as much. I do not because I have two opticons here and for various reasons they only run for about 5 minutes and then I've got to turn them off.
Judy:
Ah, you can get them fixed.
Kelly:
And I probably. Have to look into that further because when I was actually just thinking about this the other day and I like all the new technology in the AI and all of that is amazing. And we could talk about that maybe if we have time but. I think if you learned an opticon, I know that just in my head it is still the foundation of. Lot of what I understand about. The visual world came from using an optical. And it's yeah, it really is unfortunate, but.
Judy:
So I I I mean I print I print a check and I go to and I and I print it out upstairs on my printer. I carry it. I don't know why I don't have a pen upstairs, but I have a pen downstairs, so I carry the check downstairs and I go to sign it and I and I've been walking around the house and things happen. Just check up and down. It right side up. I don't know. And so I just grab the opticon and look at it to see whether it's right side up or upside down. I can sign it in. Right place and. I, you know, would a scanner do that? Not the scanners are too. They'll read it, whether it's upside down or right side up. So I mean I just I. There's so many things, so many little things I do in a day that I don't know how I would even do it without an optic.
Kelly:
It could be a whole another discussion. Sometime I it's if I was just thinking about this because I actually back in the day. I mean, I learned to read some people's handwriting.
Judy:
Yeah, I I. Oh, yes, yes, I did that too.
Kelly:
So that was pretty amazing. So back to the 3D printing.
Judy:
So anyway we.
Kelly:
You said.
Judy:
We can't tell with open scad the only way to tell how your model is going to look is to print and. There have been plenty of times when I've printed my model. No, that's not quite right. I want it to be a little different, so I go and fix it and print it again. And and it don't. Doesn't take. I mean the the Provo Marriott took 22 hours to print, but that's the that's the. Biggest thing I've ever printed, most things that I print make you know between maybe an hour or half hour. Two hours like that.
Kelly:
So how did you get the model for the Marriott? Or did you make that?
Judy:
I didn't. I didn't make it. It's quite complex. There's an organization in Ohio called C3D. SE E3. D.org. And it's really. This young woman started it and it's been running now for four or five years and actually c3d.org is a great resource because. They do have a resource page of a lot of places where you can get models and get more information about 3D printing, but they also will make they have a lot of models that they'll send to blind people for free just for informational purposes. Things like the. Of liberty. Great. Just so people might want to know what they look like, but they'll also make models on request. And I asked them to do it because it was. It was definitely beyond my skills, and because they can make them from photographs.
Kelly:
And do they have? I was actually gonna ask about that very sort of thing. Like is it a non profit? They take donations.
Judy:
It is a. It is a nonprofit.
Kelly:
They charge.
Judy:
It they don't charge, they take donations at. It is a non profit.
Kelly:
So let's say hypothetically I'm a big and you would know more about this perhaps. How are 3D models versus another solution for things like?
Judy:
Maps well. Well, let's take touch Mapper for example. So you can you can get the San Francisco Lighthouse to, you know, send you a map of an intersection, and they they charge for it. You can. You know, if you have your own. Swell paper and and, you know, machine to do that you can download from touchmath. Aer those same maps and output them with rail or print labels. But the but what you get are streets. You know lines and then you and you get labels and. But if you take touch Mapper also has a facility to create an STL file, a 3D printable file. And when you do that, you don't get any labels, but you get streets that winter lines and you get building and the buildings are even the right shape. They're not all. Building they're only like half inch. Call, but they're. I mean, we did our street and and you know, I got all the different houses on the street. You can tell which ones are big houses and which ones are smaller houses and and the street. Our street actually has. A minor curve in it, and you can even see that on this map and. And it's very, very. It's, you know, you do get a richer experience with the 3D printed map versus just a just a line drawing.
Kelly:
So you talked about. Phil, Phil and other things and maybe someone's done this, but I don't think so. Ever. For years, I've never done anything about it other than think about it. And I wonder. I asked you before we started recording. If you were into sports and you said no, which is fine. I do enjoy sports from time to time. Well, actually, for more than from time to time. But one of the things I always had this idea. Making a book. And when a person hits a home run in baseball, they say, hey, touch the mall, right? The person ran to all the base. I thought it'd be cool to make a book of kind of if you will. The top down view. Of. Sports stadium. Where you can feel both kind of the playing field, especially in baseball where fields and the the fields themselves are different shapes, a little bit and they all have around the edge, what they call a warning track. Different spaces. Do you think this is the sort of thing that? A 3D model would be good at.
Judy:
Yes, definitely. As a matter of fact, I know there are. I another another interest of mine is tactile models of buildings and monuments and so forth. And I actually. Got interested in an organization called the Souvenir Building Collectors Society. And these are people who worry about, like what it's made of and who made it. I didn't care about that at all. Only cared about. Could I understand it and what did it look like? But I've been to several of their conventions over the years. And I there they also have stadiums all and and and they they in in tactile models. So I'm sure you could find 3D printable stadiums of of of all of them and and older and ones that don't exist anymore. And all that kind of thing.
Kelly:
That fascinating as well. You know, I was fortunate. When I went to school, I was. The teacher when I went to school and I started in kindergarten, I went half a day into quote, you know, regular old kindergarten. And then that was in the morning. The afternoon I. They were just starting to quote mainstream. People in Wisconsin, and what's called mainstreaming then or? And I was actually the first student of someone who had just finished college. I've lost touch with. I wish you know, sometimes in life you have people that had a big influence, but you were so young you don't really appreciate it. I know my mom used to keep in touch with this lady. Her name was person was Miss Oxberger and then it became Mrs. Sankin. But. She taught me something that that's why I'm also intrigued by 3D models because I don't know where she got the resources to do it. But we had these huge. Boxes and boxes full of toys. And when we read stories, you know, they mentioned an alligator. She'd go get an alligator from the toy box. Or a garbage. Or a fire truck, or a space or a rocket. And that's still something that I do today, you know, trying to find models of things 'cause I want to know what they're like. And I think like for her, I'm. Buildings and all of that are always. So you give me a couple things, new things to think about here already.
Judy:
Yeah, I'm sure there's there's a website called yeggi. It's a search like a search engine for STL files. And I'm just looking for stadiums. There's a Bush stadium.
Kelly:
Well, if anybody from the National broad press ever comes across this podcast episode, please Rethink your decision. I mean, I know you all do great work. And you have to figure out your resources but. I think this is an area of. Untapped potential. For people to be able to feel the world AI descriptions and such are wonderful. Mean. I'm still intrigued and fascinated by those. But there's nothing quite like being able to feel something in my mind.
Judy:
Well, I kind of agree.
Kelly:
Oh. Let me ask this so. Of the successes you've had and what would you say is the most interesting thing you yourself have? You know, printed.
Judy:
Oh. That's so. I'm a very I'm a very practical. I I print things to make my life easier. I print things to provide me with information I have not. I mean, a lot of people are interested in printing, you know, art objects and. Statues and and my husband likes to print model cars. I have no interest in. So so I I'm I'm you know I have a a Sonos move a speaker and it's a touch speaker so. I created. A 3D printed rim to fit on top of it. To go around it so that I could mark where the volume up, volume down, play pause and all those things were. So I can just touch the rim, run my finger around it, then find the right place on the touch screen without without having to look around on. Touch screen and make things happen that I didn't want to happen. So I mean, that's a cool thing and it's very useful and it works great. But that's the kind of thing that I print. I've designed a lot of measuring devices measuring cups with Braille on the inside. Where God intended Braille to be, and it's it's a. You know really, really handy. And so I'm just. I'm making tools and devices and things like that.
Kelly:
You might not know the answer to this, but there's filament and such. And when you print 3D models, when I was researching a little bit about some of this, I'll see that they talk about people painting their models and stuff afterwards.
Judy:
Yes.
Kelly:
You know what color models come out?
Judy:
Because there's OK, here's 11 issue with buying a 3D printer. Most 3D printers only have one. Extruder. And so you buy your filament in colors that comes in, you know, all all prime primary colors. White, grey, pink, blue, purple, things like that. But your spool is all one color and then and then when you print it, your thing is all one color. That's why people paint them. Because, you know, it'll come out whatever color you of element you had. And there's different kinds of filaments. I haven't experimented a lot with. There's filament that that has like, you know, wood shavings in it and feels like wood, they say or metal in it. I I think that. Your success rate goes down significantly when you start. Playing around with different different kinds of filament that it's there's a lot of warning that go with them and a lot of complication. You know, filament with glitter in it. But the other thing is that you can't print anything that. Where a part of the object is over. So or or very much of it at all is over over air. So it's you have to have what is called support and 3D simplify. D is very good at this. It'll say. Your model needs supports and then there it has a function where it will auto generate the support so it it's going to print, you know imagine like little legs or little little. Things to hold it.
Kelly:
Up to a. Over the Grand Canyon, for example, wouldn't work so well.
Judy:
Something. Right. Unless you had support, so then you can you can. You have to break them away and then you have to then sand your model so that you know you break when you break it away. It leaves little. And peace, you know, splinters, rough parts and so forth. So then you have to sand it to smooth it out. Well, another way of dealing with this problem is they have water filament. Soluble. So you print you. I want you to print my my. Model from SPOOL A and take my. Support from spool B. So if you had a printer that had two extruders, you can run two different filaments. These supports are soluble, so all you do is throw. Home in a pan of warm water. When you get done and the support dissolves and goes away. And that's I don't have a printer that can do that. And that's my my next printer. Only is it going to be bigger, it's going to have two extruders so that I can use soluble supports and I don't have to break them off and sand them. And that will significantly expand the kinds of things I can print.
Kelly:
So you talked about that and this happens to anybody. You can print string if you will, like when things don't go right. Oh yes, any big. Hopefully you find them somewhat humorous now, but catastrophes when you got started. Maybe that happened even yesterday that you want to share.
Judy:
No, that. I mean, the worst is that you, when you think you've printed something and then you go and find a, you know, big pile of spaghetti on your on your printer and you see you don't have. And and but it I the other thing I have learned. Is and that's another thing about buying a. There's some printers that come with enclosure, so it it's closed up and. And it and it's. Some people in the 3D printing world think it's a kind of marketing gimmick to make people think that it's a better printer because it's enclosed and the heat will be even. My printer is not enclosed and and so I can actually. I've learned how to touch it. It's printing. And and that was at first I as I was learning how to touch it, I didn't quite know how to do. So the as the as the printing head would move, it would hit my hand hard enough that my hand hit the print and I would dislodge it in mid print. And this did not work. But now I've I've learned. Exactly how to touch. So I can tell what it's doing. It's printing.
Kelly:
And when this is done? Because of how this all works, you have to let the model sit for a little while or.
Judy:
No. Actually, there's sometimes if I touch it really quick, I can knock off a Braille dot. But I mean, we're talking about seconds that because you can, you can take it off. The bill the on the on the printer is a build late and this is a magnetic. Magnetic sheet, not aluminum, because it's magnetic and so you when the when the print finishes you you can pick up the sheet and the sheet is slightly flexible and it has a texture to it. Is what keeps your. Model from sliding around and as soon as you bend that even slightly, the model pops off and and and you got it. You don't have to let it cool or anything.
Kelly:
If you had to describe the feeling of your models just like, are they? Like, do they feel smooth like plastic? Are they rough?
Judy:
They they feel smooth like plastic. When all is going well, they. You can feel the little ring in it. By the layers you can. You can feel that and and then you can set how many you can make. Really the default is 2. Millimeters for layer height, but I like to rint with .1 just because I like a finer grained and a a finer textured print. It makes it take longer, but, but that's the only that's the only downside.
Kelly:
Back in the day, I used to sit with a Versa point Braille printer in an automaker office, and I had to print a lot of documents for one of my jobs. And anybody who's ever been around Braille printer knows those things can be really loud. How loud or quiet, and I'm probably depends on the printer printer, but.
Judy:
It's it's not as it's not. I'm sure it does depend on the printer and I've only had one, but it's not as loud as an embosser it makes different. It makes all kinds of. It it I mean the embosser is kind of one noise. And and I mean, but we can tell what the embosser is doing too when it's, you know, spitting out a half a blank page or when it's. You know, railing short things or or when it's only railing on one side of the page. Mean you learn the sound of your boss, or you know what it's doing. The same thing with the 3D printer. Can tell when it's printing a solid layer versus when it's when it's printing an infill, you can tell. Then this my printer also has an app and the app is actually better than its software because I can actually look at the app and see how many layers has it printed and how many does it have to go. And so I can tell what it's doing then, but it the printer has fans and the fans will it. It's kind of like a computer the fans will will run and run faster and slower depending on the need.
Kelly:
Got a lot of stuff going on here, you know, extruding this filament and all this. What kind of maintenance are both and such? Is there is this messy?
Judy:
It's not messy. Sometimes the the. Sometimes the when you print spaghetti, you know the little bits and pieces of filament will will be around. But in general in general it's not messy. The because the filament all stays together and the filaments on a roll that's above the printer printer just pulls it down. But I have had to. I've replaced the nozzles a couple of times. And I've. I have had to replace the entire. They call it the hot end. The whole part of it that heats up. And and it was really fun because I did it with a friend. Oh, we tell about a lot of printers can connect my wife. I my printer can has a camera and the these cameras are designed. For like sighted people who are sitting in their kitchen and want to see how their printer's doing and they can just look at it on their phone and see it print, you know, see see it. What it's doing and and know when it's finished. I've been in. Who looks at my printer like, you know, could you? Could you look at this thing and see it's doing something weird? Don't what it's. Is it OK? And and so he can actually look at it. And so it's it's very, it's very cool. To be able to do that so the Wi-Fi also lets me look at it with with the app which is, which is really handy.
Kelly:
What would you say, if anything, it sounds like you've, you know, found. A lot of the end to end experience you've made, it made it work. Is there? Something that you're like if the industry. Could do this one or this. It would make my life that much easier, kind of like. Where where's the? Oh, if we ignore like, hey, you gotta learn this all how it works and all that the startup learning, if you will is there are other things that you'd like to see the industry like kind of address that would. You know, eliminate some of the frustrations or challenges that you experience now that you're a veteran with the technology. Well, it's.
Judy:
Sure, would be nice if the manufacturers software wasn't so inaccessible. It would be nice if the touchscreen talk. I can look at the touch screen with with, you know, like seeing AI or something and find out what all it says. And you know if if if point in what is it point in? Of apple.
Kelly:
They're.
Judy:
Point and shoot or something. Some point in point in something.
Speaker
Yeah.
Judy:
If it worked better, it could be kind of a cool thing to use to access the touchscreen. I think most 3D printers have touch screens and I don't know a lot about other printers that I don't have them. A friend suggested that I get this one and having a 3D printing buddy is a is A is a great idea. So. So that's that having and and there's a lot of you know make make, make spaces and so forth in towns, a lot of libraries have them and you know it's probably not too hard to find. People to help.
Kelly:
You've mentioned your printer several times. Would you be comfortable sharing the model that you have?
Judy:
Oh, sure. It's an anchor. M5. It's actually on sale right now. Christmas is on sale for like $350.00 I when I bought it, it was about 5:50.
Kelly:
Really.
Judy:
So it's not not a terribly expensive. And it's it's I've been so happy with it. Just great. And and then filament, you can buy filament on Amazon for like $15 a roll and a roll is like a kilo of filament and. And you can print a lot. I mean, the Provo Marriott took like more than half a roll, but most things I mean, I can probably you know when I'm printing smaller things I can print you know probably 50 things. The Roll of film.
Kelly:
What's the are you printing anything right now? What's the next thing you're gonna print?
Judy:
I don't. I finished my rolling pin ring project. I've I made a whole bunch of. I have to like. Do things with printed forms, printing, dealing with printed form. This is one of those areas that I have never found good technology to deal with it, so I mostly opted. So I've made a whole bunch of little things to like, check boxes of one for doing my initials, one for doing the date, one for doing so. Have all these little, little tiny flat templates. For filling in forms, I finished that project. I haven't. I'm sure I'll think of something. I'm just turning the printer. Just it's going to beep when it it comes on and it OK that's it's beeping when it that that means it's ready and then I could I could do do a little.
Kelly:
There.
Judy:
The. It's. I don't think you can even hear. It's the fan is running, but it doesn't really make too much noise when it's not pretty.
Kelly:
So. Of my questions whether I always like to say is, you know I've, I've asked you kind of a lot of questions here. But I'm by no means an expert, so other things I haven't asked you about that you're like, wow, if I'm gonna talk about this, people should know this. Consider this open season to whatever else you think. People should know.
Judy:
Well, I think I've mostly thrown those in as we've gone along. I think it's AI think it's a very cool and very viable hobby for blind people and and you know, we need a little help from now. From time to time, yeah, probably. But will you need a lot of help? No, not necessarily. So it's. Know it's something that you can do reasonably independently.
Kelly:
Well, that's. Hey, Judy, I really appreciate your time and thoughtfulness and detailed explanation. One of the fun things I guess about, you know, trying to do a podcast from time to time here is I get to ask the questions about things that interest me if I can find somebody and. But this for me personally and hopefully for others, has been an area that I've been curious about. Know some people have been on the cutting edge, such as yourself. I just haven't really delved further. I've got a lot of other things that I poke around at both professionally and personally, but. I suspect in 2025 for me. 3D printer may be in the offing and dabbling more so. Appreciate your level of knowledge and your sharing of your time.
Judy:
Sure, no problem. Happy to do it.
Kelly:
To thank everyone for listening to this episode of the podcast to be named later.