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.
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