Monday 31 March 2014

Next project...3D printer (Pt1)

OK...so I was going to blog as I went with this build, but then every man and his dog is doing the same, so it's a bit pointless regurgitating the same old stuff.  It gets a bit like dejavu...again.

So the upshot is, I had the parts for a Mendel90 (nophead's design) gathered up and looking all lonely whilst I did the Printer/CNC machine conversion.  To be honest, the CNC build seemed a lot less intimidating than a Mendel90 build, hence it jumped the build queue.

On that, the CNC machine didn't produce as good a quality product as I had hoped, and I've had a rethink about some of the design "features"...for want of a better word.  So on the hit list is:

  • Move the back Y carrier shaft rearward, which opens up the gap down the Z axis slot for the entire dremel.  The flexishaft has far too much drift in the collet, and the runout was pretty ugly too.  There's none in the collet for the direct attachment on the dremel.
  • Stablise the X axis platform with a couple of skate bearings pressed against the inside face of the rails.  The threaded rod has a very slight bend which has the effect of 'walking' the platform when moving at speed.  Movement is not a problem except when directly under the Z axis, so I figure that's the only place where I need to stabilise the sideways movement.
  • Cut a new mount for the Z axis carrier and make it 1.5 times wider to accommodate the dremel, then make mounts for the dremel and bolt to the Z axis.
In order to help me do this, and satisfy my new found curiosity with hexapods, I built the printer.  This was another several days work since I was building from self-sourced parts, rather than a kit supplied by nophead and crew.

There were a couple of interesting moments, and it came under threat of being thrown out onto the street several times, but with some serious encouragement and advice from Clayton (UK ebay-er that supplied me the printed parts for the beast) I finally have my very own 3D printer! [insert evil grin and rubbing hands with glee]