A RepRap Breeding Program

The InkShield

2011-09-22T21:59:00.000-07:00

I first introduced this shield in July at a Dorkbot Seattle meeting and have since made several revisions which I showed at Ignite Seattle/ ThingOut.

I have a Kickstarter project to gather backing to launch this product. That Kickstarter is now more than 200% funded with around 100 kits pre-sold and 8 days left. I think these shields will lead to many interesting projects.

The shield should also support being connected to most RepRap boards as it only needs 5 pins (ideally with 4 on a single port). I am still trying to wrap my mind around the best way to send print commands via g-codes. The biggest challenge I see is that g-code is vector data and inkjet data is raster data. I still think there are some interesting 3D applications including possible 3D powder printing.

This shield allows you to connect a HP C6602 inkjet cartridge to your Arduino turning it into a 96dpi print platform. It only uses 5 pins which can be jumper selected to avoid other shields. It is designed with a Arduino Mega footprint but fully supports both the Arduino and the Arduino Mega. It is designed with all through-hole components to make assembly easy even for beginners.
All source code (both hardware and software) will be fully Open Source and released when the initial production run is completed.

Continued IPR developments

2011-08-13T23:36:00.000-07:00

I have reprinted most of the parts of my prototype for various reasons. Some of them were just weak from poor print quality (My printer was acting up a few months ago when I printed most of them), others needed minor changes.

The original part is the grey one above and the new one is the white one below. I added a extra pulley to help the belt path.

I ordered 0.2mm pitch belt and pulleys, which are very nice.

I have also finished assembling a Sanguinololu set and mounted that to my plywood side.

I designed a smaller version of the Makerbot mechanical endstop which I plan to upload soon as well. My version is designed to support 3 or 4 wire connections. The boards were fabricated by the DorkbotPDX PCB service which makes very high quality purple PCBs.

I have some connectors and wire on order to finish wiring up my motors and should have a video of it moving by next weekend. The next steps will be to finalize my extruder and hotend plans and then it should be printing.

Integrated Parametric RepRap developments

2011-07-17T23:06:00.000-07:00

I finally have had time to start working on my IPR project again. I have a set of prototype parts printed out and have cut plywood sides and rods.

Although I already have several things I want to change I plan to assemble it as much as possible before making any changes. I expect to assemble it a few times before working out all the bugs. So far I like how it is coming together and think this is a good compromise between a Sell's Mendel and a Prusa Mendel (Although it has much more in common with the Sell's).

I bought some T-Rex 500 R/C helicopter gears that I was thinking of using for a new extruder design but I think the main gear may be larger than I want. I have some R/C car gears on the way that should be closer to the size of the stock Wade's gears (they may even work on a stock body).

There are more pictures on Flicker

A very big 3D printer

2011-07-07T21:46:00.000-07:00

My friends at Metrix Create: Space have just completed the first major step in yet another very cool project. They have converted an old CNC router table into a FDM 3D printer.
They are using a industrial shredder to convert old milk jugs into HDPE chips. They are then fed into a hopper and a drill and auger bit push them into a custom extruder heater body.

While most RepRap sized printers use a 0.5mm nozzle this printer is using a 6mm nozzle. This size is needed to have reasonable print speeds. They initially plan to print a boat (for a milk carton derby?) and are looking for feedback on what they should print next.

I think 3D scans of people printed life size could be very cool. Maybe this would be an interesting thing to print...

DIY Inkjet Printer

2011-05-17T17:47:00.000-07:00

This quarter at the UW we produced some documentation on the development of a DIY inkjet printer. This was partly in response to the fact that there are no DIY inkjet kits available. There was a kit available from Parallax however it is no longer made and the main book that was written to go with it is now out of print.

The goal of this project was to develop a low cost, open source inkjet printer utilizing standard inkjet technology, for personal use. This project was partly in response to the fact that there are no DIY inkjet kits available. There was a kit available from Parallax parallax.com/dl/docs/prod/robo/InkjetKitDocs-v1.0.pdf. This kit is no longer made and the book amazon.com/Inkjet-Applications-Matt-Gilliland/dp/0972015930 that was written to use that kit is now out of print.
The prototype design used a carriage assembly constructed from steel rods that were assembled using connectors that can be printed on an FDM machine. The entire carriage system is driven along the x-axis by a belt attached to a stepper motor. The print cartridge, taken from an HP point of sale printer, is driven along the y-axis by another stepper motor belt drive. The electronic controls use an Arduino Mega to run all of the printing systems.
The design resulted in a working prototype that fulfills all of the design constraints. The rod frame carriage design is lightweight, easy to assemble and easy to integrate with the other systems. The Arduino used in the electronics has a large library of resources available to perform things like LCD, SD card, and stepper control.
Areas where future work should be focused include making molds and casting printable parts to bring down the overall cost, developing host side software, and optimizing the speed.

The documentation is being released as a thing on Thingiverse, a photo album and a video.

Which came first, the chicken or the egg?

2011-04-19T22:01:00.000-07:00

At least for me it was the Egg first:

http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:7832

Then the Chick:

http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:7913

Then the Chick In Egg:

http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:7915

The McCormick Code - help the FBI

2011-04-06T20:57:00.001-07:00

The FBI currently is asking the public for help in deciphering these paper that were found on Ricky McCormick's dead body in 1999. I first read about this on PhysOrg and then read the FBI's original write-up. I felt that maybe I could crack the code but that the chances would be much better if a very large group of people worked together to solve it. Therefore I chose to start a wiki as a tool for collaborative work by anyone and everyone. It is my hope that this will allow us to help the FBI solve this decade old mystery.

This wiki site was started to have a central location to discuss and work on decoding the McCormick Code. I have setup a Forum and a Theories page to start. I would like to see a page setup for any theory that is come up with. From there it will evolve and grow.

If you think you can help or are just curious please visit, sign up, and help crack the code. If you have information and want to contact the FBI directly they have a dedicated tip line.

I know that this is a little off topic for a RepRap blog but I think the RepRap community could be a good resource to tap in solving this mystery.

A Clonedel transplant

2011-04-03T19:37:00.000-07:00

It seems that a year of printing parts, 16 offspring plus many other items, has had its toll on Willow.

I also noticed that the filament has not been feeding well resulting in very poor prints. Looking for the culprit led me to my idler. The original was cracked and when I was talking to Matt at Metrix Create: Space he suggested I replace it with a Clonedel idler.

There are more pictures of the transplant and the original idler here.

After breaking a tooth off my x pulley at the end of the year I broke another tooth off a few days ago. The broken tooth is actually the same one as before but on the other end.

This time I replaced it with a new one that was printed for me by Open3DP.

And finally I just noticed that my z end stop spring is cracked as well.

I am not sure how I want to fix that yet. But will probably go with a Prusa style clamp on the guide rod.

An Assembled Offspring

2011-03-28T20:05:00.000-07:00

I have not had reports back about most of the part sets that I have made, however here is a set, Prusa #4, that has been assembled and is already printing upgrades and things.

Gary, thank you for sharing your picture and I look forward to seeing more prints in the future.

A new species is born!

2011-03-15T00:01:00.000-07:00

We would like to share something we made:

Patrick Hannan, Jared Knutzen, Nicholas C Lewis, Joy Markham

AdderFab
ME495 - University of Washington
March 9, 2011
Open3DP

Stay tuned for more details...

Light Bar Assembly Instructions

2011-03-07T21:29:00.000-08:00

I am getting ready to sell a few of my new RepRap light bar kits and am providing assembly instructions here:

First verify you have all the parts:

The Red LEDs have a different resistor value than the rest. Ensure that this resistor stays with the Red LEDs.

Take the Red LEDs and resistor and bend the resistor leads to fit the holes on the PCB. The Red LEDs go in the spots marked "1" with the long LED leads going to the square shaped pads. The resistor goes in the spot marked "R1."

Solder them in place:

Repeat this for the remaining LEDs taking care to do them one color at a time to avoid mixing up the LEDs. They each have a number on the label that matches a number on the PCB.

On the opposite side of the board place the 5 pin right angle header

Then using the edge of a table or other flat object gently bend all the LEDs down to a 30-45° angle (The exact angle will depend on your carriage and hot end, so bend them to optimize the light on your print area.)

Mount it to your carriage connect the "G" pin to ground and the "1"-"4" pins to switched 12V (1 is Red, etc...).

More pictures here

Electronics setbacks, an 11th Prusa, & an OpenSCAD Workshop

2011-02-27T21:50:00.000-08:00

It has been a while since my last post. I have been rather busy this quarter with my senior capstone project (Stay tuned for more on that later...)

I recently had a minor setback with my printer when something happened to my motherboard. I am not sure exactly what occurred but it became unresponsive and I could not re-flash it. I was not sure what to do except either replace the board or at least the Atmega644p. I was saved by Mark Ganter at Open3DP who had some spare Gen3 boards that needed TLC. I was able to find one that was in better shape than mine and get printing again. I still bought a new Atmega644p chip and plan to try repairing my original board. As much for the learning experience as anything else (I also hate to throw away something that could be fixed.)

The picture is not too exciting as it is just a working motherboard..
I have now printed another complete Prusa (available on eMAKERshop) using the replacement board (the first picture is of this set).

I am teaching an OpenSCAD workshop at Metrix Create: Space on Sunday, March 27 from 2-4pm.

A Ceramic Tile Print Bed - Part 2

2011-01-29T23:35:00.000-08:00

I finally made time to pull off the old bed and drill the holes in the new tile. I always hate to mess with the printer unless it is broken, but I had waited long enough to find out how well the tile would work.

I had read some things about mounting the bed on only three points instead of four and thought that made sense. So I designed & printed a mount to attach to the froglet on the 180° side.

I then removed the bed and springs.

I decided that I could gain some height by cutting off the screws on the y carriage.

After blocking all the electronics I cut one screw off. I then decided that the amount of metal debris created was risky and removed the carriage to cut the remaining screws.
After cutting the screws off I drilled holes to mount the new support.

I then marked the first two hole on the tile and drilled them (under water).

I then used the first two holes to locate the third

This last hole had a small amount of chip out on the top surface since I drilled it from the back. Most of this was removed when I drilled the countersink.

I then temporarily mounted the tile so I could mark and then drill the purge hole (at 0,0)

Finally, with the assistance of some tape, I mounted the bed using new springs.

I gained almost 12mm of height:

I am printing on it right now and it is working beautifully and is overall a very good success.

My only concerns are that the springs I am using are not quite as stiff as think I would like and I added some weight (about 13oz from where I was).

New light bar PCBs

2011-01-22T21:16:00.000-08:00

After making my last light bar I had a few people ask me about buying one. So I fixed the issues I had with my first iteration of the PCB and had 3 more made using DorkbotPDX's PCB service. These boards are much nicer than the one from BatchPCB and they came faster as well (it is also cheaper if you need 3 of each board).

It should now fit on a standard Mendel carriage, Rhys-Jones multi-material carriage, and a Prusa carriage.

I love the purple solder mask and the silkscreen detail it very nice. I plan to assemble one of them to check that the changes I made to the PCB work as expected. After that I will have a production run made and have kits available to purchase.

A Ceramic Tile Print Bed

2011-01-12T19:18:00.000-08:00

I was using a piece of polycarbonate that was to thin and was allowing parts to warp by lifting the PC sheet slightly. When thinking about stable, flat surfaces I realized ceramic tile could be a nice surface. So I went to my local home improvement store and bought a 6"x6" tile and tried it both plain and with blue tape on it. PLA did not stick to it alone but with the tape it works very well. It is very flat and stable, with the only downside I can see being that it is a little on the heavy side.

After proving to myself that it would work I thought about options for mounting a larger tile and tested drilling and countersinking holes in a scrap piece of tile I had.

This also looks like it will work very nicely. My next step was to get a larger tile. The only problem here is that the Mendel print bed is not a standard tile size. However my local home improvement store will cut tile you buy there for free, at least small quantities, so I had them cut a 12" tile down to 9.5"x9.5" (which is a little bigger than the stock bed).

My next step is to drill the mounting holes, remove the wooden bed and mount my new tile bed. I am also thinking about adjusting the spring mount configuration to get a little more Z room and make the bed easily removable.

I may also do some testing with heating the tile as I think it would heat nicely as well.

Willow Gets Some Dental Work

2010-12-31T11:35:00.000-08:00

I started noticing that my round holes were not quite round, so I checked my belts and determined that the X belt was a little looser than I would like. I tightened it and started printing again only to discover a horrible noise and the x motor binding and skipping. It happened at a few points across the bed but ran fine between them. I looked around for the problem, what did I mess up by tightening the belt?

It turns out all I did was make an existing problem worse. The x-axis pulley had lost a tooth. For the looks of the hole where it use to be it had been gone for awhile. (Also note the wear on the teeth from the belt...)

Which explains some other strange x-axis noise I could not place. Lesson learned "Listen to your bot!" if there is a strange noise look around more and look under things.

The easiest way to fix this, and keep my nice pulley, was to remove the pulley, flip it over, and put it back on. Easier said than done...

Once I started looking at it closer I realized why the tooth broke.

Four of the teeth are completely hollow. I am not sure what infill settings we used when printing the gears. But the 4 that are are 45° from the infill direction have none in them.
I then became concerned about my other pulleys. I checked and they all have the hollow teeth but Z and Y both have all of them still. But I will have to keep an eye on them.

How to reinforce the pulley so that it won't break again?
It turns out the holes were big enough that some of my waste PLA (0.5mm) would slip down into them.

So I cut 4 pieces, mixed up some epoxy and glued them in.

Here you can see the reinforcement PLA inside the teeth.

I then pressed the pulley back on with a bar clamp.

I then reinstalled it on Willow and re-tightened the belt.

Back in business and printing again. The x-axis is quieter now, which brings my back to "Listen to your bot!" if there is a strange noise look around and look under things.

A final thing to note is even professionally printed pulleys will eventually wear out.

Willow gets a new light

2010-12-23T20:44:00.000-08:00

I had a light I made using perf board that fit on the old x carriage.

Unfortunately it would not fit on my new x carriage, so I designed a board with KiCad and had it made using BatchPCB.

The idea being to have 4 different sets of 3 LEDs. I chose White, Orange, Green, and UV.

The UV is very cool with the Ultimachine Blue PLA.

I originally designed it to have the LEDs wired in parallel but after getting the boards I realized that was a bad way to drive the LEDs so I changed the board by breaking a few traces and adding a few jumpers.

A Holiday Prusa Mendel

2010-12-18T12:36:00.000-08:00

I found http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:5002 and the novelty of this holiday remix of the Prusa Mendel was enough for me to try printing one. Kliment is making a holiday themed build plate for each day starting on December 2nd and ending on the 24th. You can print one plate each day and will have a Prusa by Christmas.

I have pictures of all the parts I have so far here.

I like the simplicity of the Prusa but am taking a slightly different approach to RepRap simplification with my Integrated Parametric RepRap (more on that soon).

More Plastic, a Fourth offspring, and an update to IPR

2010-12-05T21:15:00.000-08:00

I used the money I made selling my first three Mendels to buy more PLA from Ultimachine. I bought 2 rolls each of Green, Blue, White, Silver, and Black. Someone that I met at Metrix: Create Space is buying one roll of the Green from me.

Willow is happily restocked with plastic and the Green was used to finish a fourth Mendel set that will be listed on eBay in the morning.

I also made some progress on my Integrated Parametric RepRap work and posted a new version of the OpenSCAD files on Thingiverse.

First pre-release of Integrated Parametric RepRap

2010-11-28T20:25:00.000-08:00

I just uploaded the first pre-release of my Integrated Parametric RepRap OpenSCAD files. Currently it does not make anything printable but what it does do is "build" a parametric frame based on the settings in the DNA file.

The core files contain the following:
IPR_DNA: All constants and calculations, the constants define all the possible things that make a specific robot unique. (ranging from desired build space to fastener and bearing sizes)
IPR_func: All "standard" modules, such as motor mounts, bearing mounts, hardware models, etc... currently this file "builds" the main frame out of the hardware specified in the IPR_DNA file.

The following pictures show the frame with a 100x100, 150x150, & 200x200 build space with normal Mendel sized hardware (including a NEMA17 Z motor on the left).


100x100

150x150


200x200

This picture shows a 300x300 build space with larger hardware (608 guide bearings and 12mm rod).

300x300

This should give you an idea of the flexibility I am building into this design.

I plan to keep ALL constants and calculated values in the DNA file and everything else in a few files that call the DNA and func files.

Here are my current rules:

If it is a constant it lives in the DNA file.
If it is a calculation that effects parts (not positional calculations but dimensional ones) it lives in the DNA file.
If it is a module that anything else needs to call it lives in the func file.

The goal is to eliminate redundancy and simplify the whole process of generating a robots files.

For more information visit the main documentation at:
reprap.org/wiki/Integrated_Parametric_RepRap

More Hollow Prints

2010-11-24T22:11:00.000-08:00

After last week I am, at least temporarily, hooked on hollow prints. So I downloaded MakeHuman and did some experiments with making my own human forms. I then printed a male and a female.

After examining them I determined it would work better if I printed them upside-down. So I re-trimmed the files and printed them again with very nice results (the above pictures are of the upside-down prints). I have uploaded these to Thingiverse (male and female) and hope others are inspired to create more human forms to print.

I also printed a large hollow version of a 3D scan of my face.

Be sure to check out more pictures on Flicker.

My Attempt at a Hollow Woman Print

2010-11-20T21:41:00.000-08:00

After seeing a picture from Erik de Bruijn of the pink panther woman printed on an UltiMaker with no infill I thought I would try that and see how it turned out. Here it is:

Mine is not as smooth as Erik's as it has pause points that leave little blobs... It is still a very cool print.

3rd Mendel Set for Sale & More About Moustaches

2010-11-14T13:17:00.000-08:00

Willow has recently completed it's third complete set of Mendel parts! This set was printed using mostly Blue Translucent, UV Happy, UltiMachine PLA. I did run out of that PLA before finishing the extruder and a few of the y bar clamps, so the those are printed in the Natural PLA.

They are on eBay currently and close on Nov 18, 2010 at 5:56:54 PST. I have cleaned them up some but have not reamed the holes. They come with a certificate of lineage (for anyone tracking that) suitable for framing. Check out the eBay listing for more information.

I also have a collection of items on etsy that I am selling to help support Movember. During the month of November I am donating 100% of the sale price of all of these items to the Movember Foundation. Some of these items were 3D printed on Willow. If you want to see my slow growing moustache updates or donate money directly to Movember you should visit my MoSpace Page.

Movember Moustaches

2010-11-07T00:28:00.000-07:00

I took a small detour from Mendel reproduction to explore printing Moustaches (I am participating in Movember). I first made a design that works very well for a larger Moustache but started to behave strangely in RepSnapper as I scaled it down. The slices would start getting too small and the part would have huge steps.

So I tweaked my design and made a second version that worked a little better (more rounded points and slightly better geometry). RepSnapper still had problems with strange layers with this version.

I ultimately made a third version with simpler geometry. This version worked very well for small Mo's (2nd-3rd image below) but RepSnapper did something even stranger on the versions with holes for a necklace cord or key chain (top two).

The geometry is just chopped at the hole.

I took the STLs into MeshLab and did some smoothing and face re-simplification and was able to get something that did not have sharp corners and prints well in RepSnapper (even with the holes - see bottom two images above). It is probably time to start learning how to use something more robust than RepSnapper (like Skienforge...)

Second Set of Mendel Parts on eBay

2010-10-30T09:40:00.000-07:00

Willow has recently completed it's second complete set of Mendel parts! This set was printed using Blue Translucent, UV Happy, UltiMachine PLA.

They are on eBay currently at a $76.00 bid and close on Nov 01, 2010 at 08:06:10 PDT. I have cleaned them up some but have not reamed the holes. They come with a certificate of lineage (for anyone tracking that) suitable for framing. Check out the eBay listing for more information.

Makerbot Halloween Contest Winning Entry!

2010-10-27T21:27:00.000-07:00

Just a quick shout out to my co-winner in the Makerbot Halloween contest PaSuTX with the very cool Bat Mobile. My winning entry was my parametric spider web design.

I look forward to getting my glow-in-the-dark ABS and want to thank all the fine folks at Makerbot for the cool contest.

Leaking Heaters...

2010-10-23T10:06:00.000-07:00

My current heater was working very well extruding PLA at 230C, which seems a little high but the parts are coming out nicely. It had started leaking like many of the others I have seen with PTFE insulators.

Then it finally plugged up... I tried cleaning it out without disassembling it, but this did not work.
I then disassembled the hotend to find the plug and remove it. During this I discovered that the wood retainer I had been using was starting to char away.

So I began work on a new design that I had been thinking about for a while. This is based on the BfB hotend that many people like but can be built with only a drill press, hacksaw, rotary tool (Dremel), and belt sander (I plan to post directions soon).

I also found an excellent source for bootlace ferrules.

You can buy these at craft stores in the jewelery section. They are designed for crimping necklace cords and this bag cost $2.99.

So far I have done hand push tests and can easily push filament at 165°C.

Now I have to change out my x carriage for larger one (http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3594, which I already printed before my failure).

Black Light PLA - Call-out for Pictures

2010-10-10T13:20:00.000-07:00

I have been playing with UltiMachine's UV glowing PLA for a while now and have made a variety of things. Here are some pictures:

and the picture that was such a hit back in June:

Now that I have completed my first Mendel set, I think that next set I print and sell will be made from this PLA (A UV Glowing Mendel will be very cool...)

I even have a Moai necklace made with it for sale on etsy.

Are other people printing with this PLA?

Are there pictures?

Please leave comments with links

Willow's First Complete Mendel Offspring!

2010-10-03T20:02:00.000-07:00

Willow has recently completed it's first complete set of Mendel parts! It looks to have taken about 30 hrs to print (plus my load/unload time) and consumed just under 2 lb of UltiMachine Natural PLA.

They are on eBay starting with a $49.99 opening bid. I have cleaned them up some but have not reamed the holes. They come with a certificate of lineage (for anyone tracking that) suitable for framing. Check out the eBay listing for more information.

A Failed Experiment with Kraft Paper

2010-09-21T21:26:00.000-07:00

After seeing the new Makerbot ABP I was curious about build surfaces. One that I thought might work was Kraft paper. It has a similar surface to painters tape is very cheap and could possible allow for a ABP type conveyor. So I taped some down to my build board and tried printing.

The results with a small part were very good, although the paper seemed to lift up where it was not taped down.

I then tried larger parts where the results were probably usable, however they were VERY warped (although the pictures do not show it very well)...

Still Running Strong

2010-09-15T21:36:00.000-07:00

I am still running strong and have started printing Mendel parts again. I have been using RepSnapper from the beginning and have been very happy with it. Although there are a few cases where it will crash while slicing (usually because of strange geometry, but I have not determined exactly why.)

I have not decided what I will do with my set of Mendel parts once they are printed but I am about 75% complete on a full set of parts.

Printing with PLA again!!!

2010-09-10T22:28:00.000-07:00

Clear PLA illuminated with a red laser

More progress was made today when I managed to find settings to print again in PLA. I had to turn the temperature up to 220°C (which I thought I tried before to no avail...).

After getting the temperature tuned in I adjusted the feed speed, material width, & layer thickness.

And I am back to results close to what I had before the heater failure...

Printing Again!!!

2010-09-08T21:59:00.000-07:00

Now that my brothers wedding is over and I have caught up on things that fell to the side, I have had some time to start printing again. Since I was having some trouble with PLA before and some luck with ABS I thought I would work with the ABS for a while and see how things were working before trying to figure the PLA out. The part I tested on was something I have been thinking about since I got my new Droid X. The speaker is on the back and it does not carry the sound to the front very well, also I thought it would be nice to have a stand for it. So I designed a dual purpose stand/sound director. (my first useful, non-reprap related, design.)

Here you can see the inlet hole for the sound (lower left)

A test print to check the fit on the phone (you can see the sound path)

24min 40sec to print


My first test print (slot for phone was too small and I had a de-lamination toward the bottom)

As you can see I am currently printing very well with ABS. I could tune it in a little better but I am pleased with the results (especially with no heated bed...)

I think I may print a few more parts with ABS then go back to PLA and see if I can work out the bugs.

Some Old School Fabrication and a Parts Delivery

2010-08-20T22:53:00.000-07:00

As I have mentioned before, my brothers wedding is coming up next Saturday and I am making the dress, kilts, and belt buckles. Here are some pictures of the progress so far. (and more over here)

(The design was drawn by me and embroidered by my mom)


(Preparing the skirt to be hemmed)

(Serging the hem before sewing on the horse-hair braid and turning up the final hem)

The dress is almost done and I am going to start my kilt tomorrow (My brother and his friend are making thier own). It will be a busy week...

On RepRap related news I recently received an order from MacMaster-Carr and once the wedding is over I hope to get back to debugging and building some new heater designs using my new drill press.

(1/4" brass threaded rod, acorn nuts, tee nuts, 5/8" PTFE, and ceramic insulation)

(6' each of 1/4" PTFE and 5/8" aluminum)

My New Pocket Computer... (Another Birthday Present)

2010-08-10T21:33:00.000-07:00

My wife gave me an amazing new phone for my birthday (which is tomorrow)... a Droid X.

This phone is very impressive and is faster than an old tablet PC I have, which brings up a great question "Will someone please port OpenSCAD to Android?" That would be cool... and right along the lines of a recent Open3DP post.

My New Subtractive Manufacturing Tool

2010-08-04T21:30:00.000-07:00

An early birthday present to myself... :-)

Now to order some parts from McMaster-Carr and try making some new nozzles (I have some ideas but a hand drill is not accurate enough).

Mixed Emotions....

2010-07-29T20:58:00.000-07:00

After several nozzle failures I have a design that seems very robust and made several acceptable prints.

But then more trouble...

Most of the PLA prints have decent shells but the infill is spotty at best. The extrusion seems to just slow and stop then start again. I tried some ABS I had and that seemed to extruded a little better but the layers did not stick. I think that is a setting issue but I have not tried adjusting that yet.

As far as the PLA goes I have now tried turning up the heat, down the heat, oiling the filament, manual feeding, adjusting the tension on the Wade's extruder, adjusting the current... But no luck after the initial success. The one good thing is that the new nozzle design has not fallen apart and seems very strong.

I have some more ABS so I plan to try adjusting the settings and seeing if I can get the ABS to extrude consistently. (Although I hate the smell and the warping issues with ABS, but I will live with them to diagnose my problem.)

Happy Printer!!! :-)

2010-07-22T21:53:00.000-07:00

I received two more tips after my last post, the first was to try turning up the heat and the second was to turn down the extruder current.

I am not sure about the temperature as I WAS printing fine around 180°C before and I had tried turning it up some (to around 190°C). But I thought why not try.

The current on the extruder however I had been messing with just before I started having problems a while back. I did not think that having the current to high would cause problems with extruding, but just might make my stepper run too hot.

So I turned up the heat to 210°C and turned the current back down to as low as I could and still have the stepper turn.

And it prints!!! (here are a few pictures of one of my favorite test parts, the "y_bar_clamp_10off")

Maybe not quite as well as before my problems, but I have also messed with all my speeds and feeds in my efforts to fix things so I probably need to tune them back in for the new nozzle.

Thank you for your helpful suggestions Buzz & Tony.

Willow is still sad :-(

2010-07-21T21:49:00.000-07:00

The extruder skips and seems to have a lot of back pressure (no matter what nozzle combo I put on).
I guess it is time to get some help from my friends at Metrix Create: Space, but maybe not until the end of august, after my brothers wedding (since I am making the dress and a kilt...) :-(

Continued extruder problems...

2010-07-14T20:18:00.000-07:00

I cleaned all the parts up and rebuilt my extruder. I even drilled the brass a little deeper to minimize back pressure.

I also was careful to ensure that the heater wire was not to close to the thermistor and I placed the pipe clamp lower on the PTFE.

Once I had it wrapped I used a high quality contact thermometer to check the brass temperature. The computer and the thermometer matched at both the tip and the base of the brass.

I then proceeded to hook it to the extruder and try to extrude PLA. It still seemed to have a lot of back pressure. I read some online and discovered some people have been using oil to lubricate the filament. I tried this and it seemed to help, so I started a test print only to have the brass pushed out of the PTFE again...

I may have damaged the PTFE to much the first time it slipped out. I have discovered a few things and have some plans for going forward.

Wade's Extruder can easily put out more torque than the heater can handle.
I was somewhat lucky with my first heater.
I need to be much more careful testing heaters to ensure I don't continue pushing with excess pressure.
I want to get PTFE and brass rod so I can make more parts myself.

I have also made a simple test fixture to hook heaters to and push filament through by hand and see what I can do to reduce back pressure.

I hope to be printing again soon...

Good News, Bad News...

2010-07-07T22:51:00.000-07:00

I will start with the bad news. I broke my new nozzle. :-(

I am not sure what I am doing wrong. I wrapped it once hooked it up and it seemed to not be heating up very well. When I took it apart and looked at it I realized that I had wrapped the nichrome too close to the tip. I was directly heating the thermistor, and managed to crack the glass bead. :-(

You can see how close to the tip I wrapped the wire in this picture.

I then re-wrapped the heater with the nichrome more in the middle. And once again tested pushing the PLA through by hand first. It had some back pressure but I could push it through. So I hooked it up to the extruder and tried running it. It seemed to have some trouble (like it was not hot enough) so I turned the heat up from 180 to 190 and the filament started coming out like it did with my first nozzle (before it had failed). Then disaster... the nozzle slid out right before my eyes... it just slid all the way out, even with the pipe clamp on the PLA. Looking at the threads of the brass one can see that they are filled with PLA...

I guess I will have to try again. But it will probably be a few days as my schedule is getting a little full...

Now for the good news. (actually two bits of good news :-)
First my black-light post was picked up on Fabbaloo and Make: Online. Very cool :-)

Second I designed a wiring block for my Mendel that makes wiring the extruder to the boards much easier. Which has turned out to be a good thing since I have had to rewire several times and still may have several more...

As you can see it just press fits on the three screws closest to my boards. The coat hanger supports and guides the wires to the x carriage end. The idea being that the wires will ALWAYS be out of the way that way. I caught my stepper wires on my spool holder before... which can't happen with this setup.
You will notice that there is a 9 position terminal block, 4 are for the stepper, 2 for the heater, 2 for thermistor, and the last is just a spare ground. I also ran a 6 conductor ribbon cable for LEDs (five circuits with one ground). These are connected to the pins at the front and back: 2 circuits front, 2 back, and a third both front and back. Watch for some lighting in the near future...

I have not posted formal directions but someone could make one from these pictures. Once Willow is running again I may write up some directions.

Extruder Heater Problems...

2010-06-28T18:47:00.000-07:00

I had my first major problem with my extruder. I had been having strange flow problems. As I tried to diagnose this I noticed that I had some PLA leakage and then suddenly my nozzle was jamming into my build plate!! Upon closer examination the nozzle had slipped out about 0.25"!!!

The polyimide tape was wrapped right up to the insulator before.

This picture clearly shows the threads that are white (from the teflon tape) that have jumped out.
After taking it all apart there was a large blob of PLA stuck in the insulator.

I was never very happy with how close the nichrome had to be to the insulator and have read several articles about alternative methods of holding the heater to the nozzle. So I thought I would try an alternative with a T-nut and a brace. Here are some pictures of this experiment.

I needed some sort of plate at the extruder to hold the screws to the plate by the heater. So I made this adapter plate that also turned my extruder. Because my insulator/nozzle combination was already marginally long enough I made a short extension from wood.

I then bolted it all together and re-wrapped the heater and tried it out. I had concerns about the heat-sink that the aluminum plate created. These concerns I believe were warranted as the plate got quiet hot. I was able to get the nozzle hot enough to manually push the filament through but had trouble trying to push it through with the extruder.

I still am not happy with how short the heater section is and do not like how hot the plate and the screws up to the extruder get. So rather than continue to struggle with this design I bought a new nozzle set (from reifsnyderb) and am going back to a more traditional design for now.

For now I am out of commission but hope to have it all back together soon and start printing again.

More pictures...

2010-06-23T20:07:00.000-07:00

I have been printing a lot of different things to tune my printer...

Glowing PLA...

2010-06-16T22:14:00.000-07:00

After receiving my PLA from UltiMachine on Monday I put the natural roll on and did some test prints. I was saving the blue translucent until after adjusting the machine a little more. For some reason I thought "I wonder if either of these PLAs glows under black-light?" So I dug out a black-light and tried, nothing from the natural but look what the blue does...

This is very cool and as far as I know previously undocumented. Here are some more pictures:

Also check out my video of this print on YouTube. And if you like fluorescent materials you should go buy some of this very cool PLA.

Plastic on my porch!!!

2010-06-14T17:26:00.000-07:00

So far the materials I have used are some Makerbot ABS (Black and White), some UltiMachine PLA (Green), and some New Zealand (from Vik Olliver) PLA (red) from Metrix Create: Space. I prefer the PLA to the ABS as it warps less and smells much better. So I decided to order more PLA from UltiMachine. I ordered 5 lbs of Natural and 5 lbs of Blue Translucent. I also ordered some nichrome, polyimide tape, and a few thermistors. (for spare parts...)

Here is my un-boxing...

SURPRISE!!! they sent a sample piece (about 14 feet of each) of black and silver PLA...

They packaged the nichrome, polyimide tape, and thermistors very well in a inner envelope to protect them (complete with cardboard around the nichrome and thermistors). Overall I am very pleased so far. Now to start printing with my new plastic...

A wordless wednesday post

2010-06-09T21:30:00.000-07:00

For more visit my flicker page.

My Mendel Build (Main Frame)

2010-06-05T11:53:00.000-07:00

Returning to some of the final build steps, I will now talk a little about the main frame.
For the frame rods I used all nylocks instead of the non-nylocks that the directions called for. The main challenge here was running them on, which was accomplished with the assistance of a power drill.

The rod was chucked up in the drill and the nut started on the end. Then with a box wrench on the nut the drill was spun to drive the nut on. The final adjustments were done by hand, but all the nuts were run close to there final places first.

The major change, besides the nylocks, was using Vik's "Footed Parametric Frame Vertex" The other change visible here is the modified z-axis lead screw bases I have already talked about.

Since I had changed some of the dimensions I determined the best way to locate the lead screw bases was by marking the center and lining that up with the center of the opening.

I then verified that both frames lined up and were flat.

I then assembled the cross bars. The one thing I would do more carefully next time would be to measure the locations of the nuts more carefully for the initial setting with the drill. I did not get them as close as I could have which made more work later.
Then I assembled the bulk of the frame.

Next came the X-axis assembly.

And the lead screws.

The lead screws, bearing rods and x-axis all must go in at the same time.

Next came the y-axis bearing rods.

I used a m4x20 bolt to help check for alignment.

Next I installed the optostops.

And finally the y-axis carriage.

The main change here was that I moved the belt splice to the bottom, for easier access. Also note the square rubber feet on the bottom of the frame vertex, and the diagonal pair of screws in the y-axis bearings instead of the four suggested.

Next time will be about Wade's extruder and the electronics.

IT'S ALIVE!!!

2010-05-30T16:12:00.000-07:00

I have fallen a little behind in posting the build. So I am skipping the final assembly posts for now to let you all know that it is alive and printing.

It was officially alive Friday night (May 28, 2010) here is a picture of it's first extrusion.

It had a minor issue with jammed extrusion nozzle so after some minor surgery it was working again.

Not a perfect part, but still a part.

I then took it down to Metrix Create: Space on Saturday night for "MakerBot Night." The very helpful people who were there were able to help me fix my firmware and adjust some other settings to get better results.

More adjustments and tweaks are needed but it is printing...

The thing on top is an experimental spool holder. I will post the files for it on thingiverse soon.

And it has a name now, Willow. If you are curious why do a web search for "blue and white willow."

I will get the final assembly posts up soon.

My Mendel Build (Y & Z-axis)

2010-05-30T15:41:00.000-07:00

The Y-axis is basicaly stock. The only real changes I made were reorienting a bolt in the motor mount.

The directions say that the one closest to the motor goes the other way.

The 360° bearing parts are a little challenging to get the washers in next to the bearings.

I ended up with three washers on each side of the center bearings on the 360° bearings and five washers on either side in the 180° bearings.

The only other change to the Y-axis was the wooden plate. I cut this using a scroll saw, so I simplified the periphery. I also eliminated the build plate notch and drip board. In this picture you can see wooden y belt clamps. I did not end up using them and will go into more detail about that when I get the the assembly section. The other thing to not is that I only have two bolts in each bearing assembly. I have left it with only two but moved one to the diagonal (inside).

Next came the Z-axis. This had major changes. The tensioner was removed and the motor mount was combined with the lead screw base.

This was done by modifying Vik's OpenSCAD version of the lead screw base. The other side just gets a lead screw base.

Finally I assembled the lead screws. The change here was to use the different pulleys that have the integrated pulley washers. I also used nylocks instead of the normal nuts called out.

Next time I will talk about the frame and final assembly.

My Mendel Build (X-axis)

2010-05-23T13:35:00.000-07:00

My build began with the X-axis. The first part of that was the carriage.

This still has the non-counter-bored bolt holes for the bearings on the bottom. It was determined that there was no good reason to change them at this time.
The major change from the RepRap sites directions was not putting extra washers above the bearings. The directions suggest putting 5 washers there. I believe this may be to allow for a bolt that is not threaded far enough. Then the upper carriage was assembled.

The other change to both of these parts was the horizontal bearing screws. The directions say to use socket head screws from the outside with non-nylock nuts trapped in the carriage. This was changed because we had surplus m4x20 hex bolts.
The four bolts at angles are long and one of them interfere with the extruder. So they were trimmed using a rotary cut off wheel.

After the carriage I assembled the Idler bracket.

This has two main changes. First there is a third m4x40 bolt that is supposed to be in the middle. This seems unnecessary and is difficult to install, so I excluded it. Second the bolts that hold the bearings on are supposed to be m4x16, however they were too short so I used more of the extra m4x20 hex head bolts.

Next I assembled the 180° vertical bearing. The directions say not to use nylocks anywhere they will be trapped because they may strip the holes. This does not seem to be an issue with the part quality I am working with, so I used nylocks almost everywhere.

Then I proceeded to assemble the 360° vertical bearing.

This should be assembled from one side across to the other. This simplifies the installation of the bearing in the middle.

Next the motor bracket. Before installing the motor n the bracket the gear was pressed on. This was done using a vise. A m4 nut was placed under the motor shaft to keep from damaging the motor.

The only change to this assembly was the bolts that hold the bearings on. Just like on the idler bracket they are supposed to be m4x16, however I used m4x20 hex head bolts.

I did not assemble the separate pieces onto the rods at this time. I will do that just before I am ready to install it in the frame.

Next time I will assemble the Y and Z-axis parts.

The design changes (or gears, feet, belt tensioners, and better hardware counts...)

2010-05-19T21:46:00.000-07:00

One of the first changes we made, and one of the only changes made to O'Blue, was the gears. The RepRap directions indicate that you file two sides of the motor shafts to fit the drive gears on them.

our new gear (left), stock gear (right)

This was determined to not be the best solution when we could just make new gears. There are several modified gears on Thingiverse, but I developed a OpenSCAD script that allows you to import a STL file and specify the new hole size (and shape) and it plugs the old hole and cuts a new one. This also allowed us to make a new gear for Wade's Extruder (as his had too large a hole for our motors).

The other changed gears where the Z-lead screw gears. It was determined that the ones with combined rims were going to be better.

The next change that was made was to use Vik's Footed Vertex for the bottom four vertexes. This eliminates a problem of the vertical drive shafts being the lowest point on the Mendel. Since we discovered this problem after assembling most of the frame on O'Blue we ended up making add on feet for that Mendel.

Then another area of concern that I mentioned last time was the Z belt tensioner. Four options were evaluated as follows:

Option 1. Use all stock parts and modify the tensioner
Option 2. Same as one but combine the tensioner with one lead-screw base and the motor mount with the other. This eliminates two threaded rods.
Option 3. Eliminate the tensioner altogether and make the motor slide to adjust the tension. This also eliminates two rods.
Option 4. Basically the same as Option 2 but allows the motor to adjust as well.

After evaluating these options it was decided that we would use option 3. The new part looks like this (the other lead-screw base is basically stock):

This is based on the OpenSCAD version of the lead-screw base by Vik. The one issue we have discovered is the hole for the opto-stop trapped nut is larger than the nuts we have so they spin freely. Not a huge problem as we were able to jam the tip of a pair of needle-nose pliers in to hold the nut. But it is something I will likely adjust before uploading my derivative work to Thingiverse.

This saved 2 rods and one RP part. It also meant we would need a slightly shorter belt. So we were going to order 35" belts, however they only had one so we ordered one 35" and one 36". I will let you know later (when we have installed them) what length is best.

We then evaluated the hardware that was consumed in assembling O'Blue and modified the hardware list to minimize some waste. Once again I plan to provide a optimized sourcing list in a later post once we have verified the changes we made work correctly.

Next time we start building....

Now to leave you with some pictures of the new parts...

As I noted before mostly printed on the uPrint (in natural ABS) with a few parts from the 768BST (in blue ABS).

O'Blue (Open3DP's Mendel)

2010-05-15T20:13:00.000-07:00

This all started at the end of winter quarter 2010 in an advanced RP class where a group put together a MakerBot. This started several conversations about building RepRaps and some different options for using the lab printers to make the RP parts. These even included using the powder printers to make plaster parts. There were two students who were very interested in exploring this during spring quarter (myself and Marcus Lew).

It was decided that the best approach was to build the lab a Mendel first and then procede to make two more using the lessons learned from the first one. To that end, Professor Mark Ganter began printing parts for the labs Mendel using the labs Stratasys Dimension 768BST. It was also decided that we should complete the first machine in time for the UW Engineering Discovery Days.

One of the first assemblies was the X carriage.

This has some odd features, due to printing constrants, such as the fact that the bolts sit at an angle and there is no recess to allow the head to sit flat.

The main frame was also started.

As the assembly progressed several other oddities were noted including spacers that are too short, but also not needed.

And the Z-axis tensioner sits higher than the rest of the belt path causing the belt to bind. This was solved with additional washers.

z-axis tensioner is on the left

The biggest challenge was getting the electronics working properly. We performed initial bench testing of the electronics before assembling them on the machine and everything seemed to be working. When the major assembly was complete we took the Mendel to Metrix Create: Space to get help with the final details. Once these were complete we began testing the electronics and ran into intermittent issues with the stepper motors and could not get the extruder motor to turn. At this point it was getting very late so we called it a night.

In the following days we were still unable to determine the problem ourselves so we asked our friends at Metrix for more help. They spent some more time on it and determined that we had some bad solder joints and a bad extruder board, however they were able to get the machine working by the second day of the Discovery Days. We had it printing parts and it got a lot of attention.

We then proceeded by figuring out exactly what changes we wanted to implement on our Mendels and what we needed to buy to get them going. We were also able to get time on another commercial FDM printer to get some of our plastic parts printed.

The first parts for the new Mendels

Next time I am planning to discuss the design changes we made.

What is a RepRap?

2010-05-12T22:36:00.000-07:00

This was all started at Bath University in the UK by Adrian Bowyer. The idea is to have a 3D printer that is capable of replicating most of its own parts. This allows the machine to "reproduce." Because of this concept the first machine design was named "Darwin" and the second was named "Mendel." There is a wealth of information on the web about RepRaps and RepStraps (a printer made by conventional means that can produce RepRaps). The best starting spot is the main RepRap web site. Or if you are more interested in RepStraps, Makerbot sells kits that are a reasonable way to get started if you are less into tinkering.

This blog will focus on the construction of three Mendels. The first was made as a lab Mendel in the Solheim Rapid Prototyping Laboratory @ the University of Washington. The second and third are being made as personal printers for myself and Marcus, a fellow ME student. The primary focus will be on my printer with some discussions about the others.

The first Mendel, O’Blue, had its plastic parts built on the labs Stratasys Dimension 768BST.

O'Blue

Stratasys Dimension 768BST

So it is a first generation RepRap (not offspring of a RepRap). The other two are also first generation RepRaps, but are half siblings with O'Blue as most of their parts were printed on a newer Dimension uPrint.

Dimension uPrint

The new Mendels being printed on the uPrint

My next post will briefly discuss the build of O'Blue and some of the lessons we learned that we are applying to the new Mendels. There are some pictures of O'Blue printing @ UW Engineering Discovery Days located on my other blog.