Late Updates

Sorry for the late updates, I haven't been updating this blog as much as I should, I have been throwing updates to the parts downloads themselves at http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:981105 and http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:990244

Check them out.

ROB-O Junior frame build

  And it begins......

  I picked up so series 10 aluminum extrusion from Amazon which is 1" x 1" square, I see a lot of people using series 15 or 20 (1.5" or 2") aluminum but after building my frame I have to say that they are mega overkill, I could stand on mine and not flex anything at all, maybe if I was going to make a printer twice the size.

  The t-slot aluminum is awesome to work with, it cuts pretty much like wood as it is a soft metal so it cut very nicely, they make nuts that fit into the slots and slide around and so you can position them anywhere along the channel but they are expensive $9 US for 25 and then $15 shipping which is outrageous so I used M5 nuts and bolts, I probably should have tried M6 but I couldn't find any at the hardware store and didn't want to buy 200 of something that I had to grind the edges off, all I could get at the hardware stores was 1/4" (grind it), M8 (way to big) and #8 screws (too small) so I went with something that I knew would grab but didn't need to be ground but they are too small to touch the sides and so would spin and would flop around in the channel so I printed some holders for the nuts, there were quite a few out there already but they all have the flats of the nuts parallel to the flats of the channel and they don't overlap that much so I could see over tightening the screws and it pulling out of the channel so I made some that the nut is turned so that it grabs as much of the channel as possible, I also rounded the edges for several reasons:

  1. Printers move faster along curves than they do corners.

  2. When printers do corners they can leave extra plastic as it pauses at the corners (on mine anyways)

  3. When printing without fans (I was using ABS as I have lots of it) the corners of things angled up REALLY start to angle up and if it comes to a point it will cause a bulge up at every corner.

  4. Less plastic made them print faster.

  I wanted some extra support in the corners of the brackets so I connected the tops then thought they would look better curved, then I was looking at it thinking "what a waste of plastic" and thought about cutting a triangle out but it wouldn't look very good and would give three sharp edges to crack at so I decided to cut circles out, it lessens the plastic used, is extremely strong, and looks pretty cool.

  I have a bunch of bad plastic from 3D Solutions, Hatchbox and others so I have been using it to print the parts then once R.J. is up and printing then I will reprint all the corners as it will be higher quality prints and in the colors I want, and may do them dual color, maybe black and silver, instead of wasting the plastic parts I have I will then give them to a colleague at work to build himself a printer then he can do the same and reprint them.

  Here are all the parts that I have cut or printed to make the frame and them being put together.

  The first corner applied.

  All put together.

Long overdue update

  I apologize for the silence the last few months, I have not been in a place where I could do much with the printer lately but I didn't let it go completely I have been designing replacement parts I have a new X carriage built and printed that should work nicely and have been working on the final version of the Y carriage/X carriage holder, I just made a few (I hope) final tweaks to it I just need to print them out now.

  I was going to rebuild the printers CoreXY mechanism and bought all the parts I needed to finally increase it's size to what it's final size was to be, a 2000 mm precision hardened steel shaft to cut to the right lengths, CoreXY plate water jet cut, aluminum bed (the middle of the plate), second head etc. but what if I got it all ripped apart and realized something was printed wrong and I doubt I would be able to get the old parts back together in a decent fashion to print again as it took me a week to get it to work last well time so I decided to buy some t-slot aluminum extrusion and make a frame out of it and put all the new parts into a second slightly smaller printer.

  I will use the "Bubblegum Printer" as I have been calling (held together with bubblegum and bailing wire) to make the smaller printer and then use the smaller printer to rebuild the larger printer.

  I have the aluminum and I SO wished I would have used it on the original printer, I wanted to but I couldn't find it at a decent price and so went with the L shaped angle aluminum and am so kicking myself, I finally found the extrusion for a decent price and it is cheaper than what I paid for the angle aluminum, ROB-O Printer is so wobbly without the sides, and I mean REALLY wobbly even with four rivets per corner two on each side and bracing, even with the sides it can still flex, I put the extrusion frame together and what a difference, it is rock solid and has no flex whatsoever it doesn't budge a fraction of a millimeter and is so nice and square, I used corner pieces I printed on ROB-O and will reprint them in the final color when it is up and printing as it will print SO much better.

  The X and Y carriage designs I have made are so rock solid and have zero play, zilch, none yet glide very smoothly, I had worked them out and printed the final X carriage (I hope) and some test Y carriages in may but have not had time to come back to them until now.

  I am going to call the new printer ROB-O Junior until/unless I can come up with a better name, I am horrid at names. ;-) It will have a build area of 9" x 9" x 15" tall, of course that can change as I build it as it is a work in progress, watch for build posts.

The Sapphire Rose

Could it really be the Bhelliom? I wish...
The design of the rose was by  PROCOPRINT3D at thingiverse.com he did an awesome job.

A Man that loves a Woman gives her a rose, a Geek that loves a Woman MAKES her a rose.

And with a little clear coat:

Lit up.

Jewelry Tree

I made Heather a jewelry tree last night, I wanted to link the model and give credit to the person that designed it but for the life of me I cannot find it on thingiverse.com now, the zip file was called "Tree of love" but I cant seem to find it.

Sanding glass

  I have been having a hard time getting things to stick on the glass, I was getting tired of using glue sticks, when it did work it made it almost impossible to get the part back off.

  I read that sandblasted glass beds work really well but I had no sandblaster to use on the glass so I had an idea of sandpaper and it worked well it took a bit of elbow grease, I should have broken out my palm sander and may do that for the other panes.

  The parts stick now, and how, if the glass is hot I cannot remove the PLA plastic at all, I tried... but as soon as it cools off the plastic pops itself off just like ABS does (ABS massively shrinks when cool PLA doesn't) I have not tried printing ABS on it yet but I bet it sticks just as well, whats more is that the printed part is still as smooth as glass even though the surface has been sanded, the scratches are so fine that the plastic does not pick it up.

Extending the bed

  I finally have the longer shaft to extend the bed, I bought a 60" long 12mm shaft and cut it into three peices.

  I got the old bed apart and found my issue with my bed never going to the same spot when I tell it to go to the 0 position, the right bearing had over a 1/4" slop in it, it was really bad, the guide shaft was really flopping around bad so I replaced it with one that I bought for the front corner for when I expand the bed size. 

  I put everything back together and when it would move up or down the left side would jam and skip (slam violently back level) as it moved up and down, I figured it was misaligned so I designed some new parts that will hold the shafts level with each other, I tried to print it out and it completely went wrong so much so that it jammed itself so bad that the power supply shut down.

  I was having a hard time dealing with some other stuff so I just shut it down for a few days, when I brought it back online and went to readjust the left guide shaft I could hardly move the left shaft, I really had to fight it to get it out of the bearing, when I finally got it out the bearing steely balls went everywhere, the bearing was destroyed so I had to replace the left bearing as well.

  I am glad I have been buying the parts I need to upgrade here and there so I had them on hand.

  The aluminium casing that holds the bearing is supposed to be universal so I thought I would slide a new bearing into the casing and be happy.... nope the hole in the casing is just a little smaller than the standard bearing size, figures, cheap Chinese made crap. That's what I get for trying to save a buck.

  At the same time I decided to put a bandaid on the current bed, the heated bed is just a thin fiberglass circuit board with a heating element pattern etched into it, since it flexes so much it is hard to level the bed so I saw a pain pallet at Harbor Freight for around eight dollars that was plenty big enough so I cut the rounded part off, cut a spot for the wires etc, got it under the circuit board and all was happy for a day or two until.... 

  I had to drill two holes through the heated bed to mount onto the wooden base as the wooden base isn't quite long enough and it was really close to the main power traces on each side of the board, I had no problem but the washers under the screws had ended up wearing through the epoxy on the board with all the bed adjustment I had been doing and it was now making contact with the main power traces on the bed, add a metal plate underneath that the screws go through and it created a short that every time I went to heat the bed would shut down the power supply, when I figured it out I put some non conductive material under the washers (cardboard) and it is good to go and is happy again.

  I now have the printer up and running after a week of it being non functional for a week and I am now able to print something 20" tall so I am happy with that.

  I think my next steps will be to replace the XY carriage and then replace the bed with the full size heated aluminum bed.

  

  More later.