My 3D Printer

And now for something completely different - a 3d printed...

Fri, 15 Mar 2013 08:25:57 -0400

And now for something completely different - a 3d printed completely smooth temperature based color changing dildo. They also use an ABS vapor bath to smooth the finished model. I’m going to get an old fish tank or something to try a vapor bath of my own. I don’t want to be cooking acetone in my good cookware.

This is a nice electronics enclosure for Raspberry Pi. I had to...

Wed, 06 Mar 2013 07:50:20 -0500

This is a nice electronics enclosure for Raspberry Pi. I had to modify it a bit because it turns out the video out on my board is skewed at an angle so the normal model wouldn’t close right.

I ordered about 10lbs of different colors of plastic and I’ve been going crazy building stuff lately. Electronics enclosures for my arduino projects are a big thing.

I’ve also got a few dozen servos on order and I’m going to try to make some hexapod or multileg walkers and/or quadcopter. Not sure yet.

Just started experimenting with communicating with an Arduino via R/C transmitter. It’s working really cool so far. Can’t wait until I can start driving some motors remotely.

3D Printed Quad Copter Arms coming right up. The first four I...

Tue, 13 Mar 2012 20:35:43 -0400

3D Printed Quad Copter Arms coming right up.

The first four I figured out a good fit for the motor. Then I started to grow the shape out by adding a covered arm. The first few designs were too flexible / weak so I added more supports until eventully I have part number 8 that has a nice tight push fit, holes for set screws to hold the motor on both sides, hollow tube arm wtih vertical supports for strong z-axis.

The next step is to add figure out how to connect the arms to the base, and figure out how big the speed controllers are.

Next project - learn design

Tue, 28 Feb 2012 15:29:53 -0500

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 for me, but the whole multi-part vehicle designs are very difficult. I can see where blender or some other cad program would be much easier to work with now.

I’m taking apart some roombas and computers and looking very carefully at how they are put together. How they are strutured so that they CAN be put together, as well as taken apart. Learning about what kind of tolerances are required for snap fit parts, water tight and living hinges. Starting with simple machines and then I wil branch out from there.

Rebuilding the Prusa...

Mon, 20 Feb 2012 11:09:50 -0500

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.

Have 3D printer, will travel. Lately I really prefer the...

Wed, 15 Feb 2012 10:14:11 -0500

Have 3D printer, will travel.

Lately I really prefer the smaller footprint MakerGear Mosaic to the Prusa Mendel. It’s nice to be able to put the whole thing in a box and move it around for demos. It’s on my desk at work right now and working great while I code away beside it.

a busy night

Fri, 10 Feb 2012 22:58:28 -0500

a busy night

mocking up robot frame parts today…

Sun, 05 Feb 2012 13:56:47 -0500

mocking up robot frame parts today…

Faulty endstop switches and glass beds don’t mix well. ...

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 15:01:09 -0500

Faulty endstop switches and glass beds don’t mix well. The end stop switch isn’t just a pushbutton, it’s a pushbutton with a little arm over it. Sometimes (very rarely) the button gets stuck on the side and the level arm just bends instead of pushing the button down to make contact. The machine then keeps going down until the switch makes contact, you pull the plug or it physically rips itself apart.

I managed to get a little bit of the latter on this occasion. Time to look for another sacrificial picture frame for my print bed now.

Posting this for future reference and for anyone else who might...

Sun, 29 Jan 2012 23:36:48 -0500

Posting this for future reference and for anyone else who might have accidentally broken filament on a MakerGear Mosaic 3D printer below the extruder gear and is unable to get it out or put new filament in. You can’t pull the groovemount (black bottom part) of the extruder out, because the filament is still stuck up inside the white plastic pieces. You can’t push new filament in, because trying to push one piece of 1.75mm plastic with another end to end when one end is already broken and jagged just doesn’t work either.

You need to unscrew the white plastic that surrounds the extruder gear, but leave the motor and motor mount alone. Specifically unscrew the THREE screws that go through the plastic into the front face of the motor itself. That would be the screw in the corner of the fan and the bottom two srews on either side of the extruder gear, just above the groovemount. Only loosen them enough to make sure they are no longer connected to the motor. Wiggle the front plastic extruder mount around and when you get it right it should pop off very easily. DO NOT FORCE IT or you could screw up the alignment of something and have lots of sad days ahead.

One you get the extruder mount off you should be able to use a tool and pull the plastic filament out. You may need to use an exacto knife to cut the filament just above the groovemount through the little hole you can see in the front. It helps if the hot end is a bit warm, but be careful not to burn yourself or set something on fire.

Once you get the plastic out, put it all back together and run a new filament through. Make sure the hot end is up to the right temp for the plastic you are using. Push the filament in and extrude for a while until you are sure the new filament is coming out. Repeat as needed if something didn’t work out. If all else fails jump on IRC and chat with the creator of your machine and he will try to help you make it all better. :-)

Filament stuck below the extruder gears on the mosaic. Trying...

Sun, 29 Jan 2012 12:52:25 -0500

Filament stuck below the extruder gears on the mosaic. Trying to figure out how to get it out of there.

Vibration causes the regular nuts to come loose too often so I...

Fri, 27 Jan 2012 09:28:55 -0500

Vibration causes the regular nuts to come loose too often so I added star shaped locking washers to most of my prusa reprap. I tightened it until the plastic started bending slightly. It worked great - solid as a rock now and it got a lot quieter too.

MakerGear Mosaic power usage

Tue, 24 Jan 2012 12:19:00 -0500

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 reached Heated, motors activated but not moving : cycled between 0.19 to 0.46 amps as hot end turned on / off Printing chess piece on unheated bed : cycled between 0.54 to 0.25 amps as heater cycled. Consistent over entire print.

The next part confused me a bit at first. Turning on the heated bed to 110C cranked things up to 1.66 to 1.34 amps. Hot end cycling. Once fully heated the power used kept dropping steadily. It is obvious now that once heated it took much less energy to maintain that temp. Putting the printer in a box would probably drastically reduce the power usage but in the middle of winter the heat from the machine feels pretty nice.

Now much later I realized I should have recorded watts not amps. I had to return the device but I managed to get a quick reading of printing ABS on a heated bed with temps of 190/110C. Initially cycled between 138 to 112 watts. After 20 minutes that dropped to between 120 to 96 watts. I had to return the kill-a-watt that night so I didn’t get a chance to observe how low the power would go before stabalizing. Perhaps another day if people are interested. :-)

Photo

Sat, 21 Jan 2012 16:51:48 -0500

GCode isn't meant to be shared...

Mon, 16 Jan 2012 07:14:26 -0500

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.

Mapping all the pins!

Fri, 23 Dec 2011 13:32:35 -0500

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.

We almost return to printing...

Fri, 23 Dec 2011 13:22:38 -0500

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.

Mosaic almost working

Wed, 07 Dec 2011 07:06:38 -0500

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 great now. Should be printing today,

The X axis on the Mosaic is together. Attaching the motor mount...

Wed, 26 Oct 2011 21:39:55 -0400

The X axis on the Mosaic is together. Attaching the motor mount to the linear rail introduced a lot of friction initially. It went from sliding almost effortlessly to barely moving. I thought it might be the belt on the pulley trying to turn the motor or something but I’ve learned by now to double check everything before moving on to the next step. I removed the belts from the pulley completely and the friction problem remained. It turned out to be the screws holding the white motor mount to the rail were somehow pushing down on something acting like brakes. I made sure it wasn’t too tight initially so I know the screws did not strip the slider holes. I loosened them just a bit until it slid freely again. Hopefully they are tight enough they won’t get looser while printing.

It is good enough for now. Picking up on the z axis next.

Drip, drip, drip?

Wed, 26 Oct 2011 21:26:47 -0400

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 really low… perhaps because I live so close to Lake Michigan? I will try putting the plastic into our dehydrator and see if I can go back to the dripless printing I used to emjoy. I could turn skirt off completely if I could just make sure the plastic at the tip is ready to go.