Just Another RepRap

Huzzah! There is good in the world. Progress continues.

In my previous post, I described how my place of work had asked for the MakerBot (which I was using as a RepStrap) back; it was originally made available to Chris and I as part of a “technology library”. I’d still had six pieces left to go (as it turns out, actually seven).

Good people came to the rescue. mccoyn built and sent me two z-leadscrew-base pieces and a z-motor-bracket:

Seeing those parts actually completed out of PLA, I’m greatly encouraged. My most recent attempts had all jammed up at some point during the long builds. I’ve told the next person that received the MakerBot that they need to rebuild the heater barrel assembly (this time actually using a new heater barrel and nozzle, because that seems to be completely gunked up), so maybe the original RepStrap will be able to print those parts out too someday – I hope never to find out, as I want to print those parts on my Mendel. 🙂

In parallel with mccoyn‘s offer, I’d had a discussion with key people at work (I’ll omit names as I’m guessing they’d prefer that). Luckily I was able to thank the person responsible for ordering the MakerBot in the first place and setting up that technology library; hopefully I conveyed just how thankful I was for this. I also managed to get permission to have a few parts printed at work with a commercial Stratasys 3D printer. When it turned out that I actually had overlap between some of those parts and mccoyn‘s pieces, I decided I’d use mccoyn‘s and put the ones from work in the shoe box of spare parts (if not directly onto Chris’s Mendel, which will be the first set I start printing once I have my Mendel working, soon to be followed by a set for my brother Jon – who already has one piece. 🙂 ).

Here’s an example of what the z-leadscrew-base printed on the Stratasys printer looked like (this was printed with ABS, and there was some support material used and washed away in a bath after):

I received offers from at least two other people privately to potentially supply me with pieces if I needed them (when they got their printer working). Thanks to all!

Ok, so on to building. First, I spent an evening midweek figuring out exactly which items I had to order for wiring. Adrian’s excellent video illustration helped clear up any confusion I’d had about what went where. My spool of ribbon cable and lots of connectors will arrive probably around Monday, just in time to completely miss the weekend. That’s ok though, because I have a lot to do before I get to wiring.

First was cutting the metal rods and studding. I’ve put that off for a while, and just started on it last night. When I purchased the non-studded (smooth) rod for the X, Y, and Z axes, I went with A2 steel (even though I’d heard people say it was a pain to cut). It turns out it was relatively easy. A while back, in anticipation of this, I’d purchased a diamond cutting wheel for my Mendel for around $15 (maybe that’s overkill – I have no idea):

Here’s a quick video showing the sparks it created:

Before filing it down, here’s what it looked like after the cut:

I was supposed to cut it to 406mm (with a tolerance of +/- 1mm). I think I did pretty well:

The battery on my Dremmel needed recharging, so I was able to stop long enough to post this entry. Rather than building up a long post, I think I’ll just post this one now and follow up with more later. Another thing I’m doing this weekend is making an attempt at cutting out the MDF bed pieces with a jigsaw. There is a nice laser cutter at work that I might be able to talk someone into letting me use to cut pieces out of MDF, but it’d be nice if it was doable at home. Either way I bought a 2nd piece of MDF at Home Depot today after Emily and Alicia’s first-Saturday-of-the-month building time (this month they made a rain guage). But I digress. 🙂

More later. Once again, thanks mccoyn and unnamed person from work, both of which spent lots of time printing me pieces! I swear I’ll pay it forward!

This entry was posted on Saturday, March 6th, 2010 at 4:04 pm and is filed under MyRepRap. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.