My 3D Printer: Archive

3 tags

Mar 15th

6 notes

4 tags

Mar 6th

2 notes

Mar 14th

2 notes

Next project - learn design

After many months and two 3d printers I can comfortably say I am very good at printing 3d objects, but I totally suck at DESIGNING said objects. I’m a programmer by trade, so my tool of choice is OpenSCAD. I can kick out shapes and objects pretty easily, but as my ideas become more complicated and require multiple pieces I find it a very poor tool for me mentally. Single shapes are easy...

Feb 28th

Rebuilding the Prusa...

After a good run I think the Prusa is getting a tear down. The triangle frame concept is nice, but I’m going to try some aluminum t-slot stuff and see how that works. Keeping it calibrated with all the driving it around demoing I do is getting too much time to maintain.

Feb 20th

Feb 15th

1 note

Feb 11th

mocking up robot frame parts today…

Feb 5th

Feb 1st

Jan 30th

Jan 29th

Jan 27th

MakerGear Mosaic power usage

I thought this was going to be attached to the mosaic image I posted earlier but I guess I screwed something up and lost it. My awesome library has killawatt power measurement devices for loan. I wanted to know how much power it takes to run the printer so I took some measurements. Initial Power on with cooling fan only : 0.07 amps Heating up hot end only to 190C : 0.36 until temp...

Jan 24th

1 note

Jan 21st

1 note

GCode isn't meant to be shared...

I keep forgetting that Mosaic doesn’t have end stops. Combined with the smaller print area I keep sending trying to send the print head where it can’t go. It just takes so long to slice some models it’s frustrating to have to do it once per machine. Still once it gets going it’s a sweet machine. I might add end stops myself later.

Jan 16th

Mapping all the pins!

I’m using RAMPS 1.4 for Mosaic and have IDEAs on other stuff to maybe work on. Except how many pins are there left to work with? I don’t know, so I’m mapping out the pins in the Sprinter firmware to see what is left. It looks like a surprising amount of the firmware is actually dealing with the SD card stuff which is optional. Neat stuff in there.

Dec 23rd

We almost return to printing...

Finally finished moving into the new house. The kids have a week or two off for xmas break so I get to be home all week. Now that we’re not living in boxes anymore I can maybe make some belated Christmas bulb to hang on the tree.

Dec 23rd

Mosaic almost working

The Z axis was having trouble going up so I had to adjust the pololu stepper driver to deliver a bit more current. A small twist of the screwdriver later and now it moves up and down without problem, although there is a high pitched whine now. X axis belt was also a bit loose. Clicking 1mm left or right would cause 1 move, 1 slip, 1 move, 1 slip. Tightened the belt and it’s all working...

Dec 7th

1 note

Oct 27th

Drip, drip, drip?

I just mentioned how the new transparent PLA doesn’t drip at all. For the first week or so that was true. Now it’s starting to get all runny and leak out between prints. This makes me wonder about moisture absorbtion. I’ve read about it and I know that plastic can absorb moisture from the air. My basement is at about 40% humidity right now. Even in the winter it rarely gets...

Oct 27th

How easy should your axis move?

This caused me a lot of confusion at first. I didn’t know how to even ask the question. How easy should the bed move on the rails. The best answer is it should move as easily as possible. After seeing the Mosaic compared to the Mendel I would now say you should at minimum try to get the bed to slide on it’s own just by tilting the frame, and should be able to push it easily with your...

Oct 27th

1 note

5 tags