Just Another RepRap

First off, Happy Holidays everyone! And although I hope to post before then, Happy New Year!

No pics today, as my iPhone is actually full (3000+ pics – it won’t let me take any more), and my linux box is giving me problems (which is where I need to dump those photos before I can take more).  Doh.

So I ran out of white ABS, and started printing with the supply of black ABS I’d purchased. I’d agree with similar posts I’ve seen online that it seems to have different properties.

I need a lazy susan for the ABS supply. When ABS comes off of the top of a coil, it twists too much and causes problems.

I have, in my possession, a supply of PLA that I want to use to print out some of the more difficult warping pieces. Now my problem is that I can’t get x-carriage-upper_1off (rotated) to fit on the bed. Before using the PLA, I wanted to try black ABS one more time, and for some reason the raft prints 7mm too close to me on the Y axis; there’s 7mm of space at the top of the bed, and the raft goes over the edge of the bed on the bottom by 7mm, even if I try starting the bed off-center before the print. That part has me confused. I tried adjusting the raft size down in skeinforge a bit (% of length and some other attribute), but that didn’t help. I’d actually let a black ABS run go when it did this, and it almost worked, but the part that ran over the edge had nothing to hold it down so it curled up and ruined the print.

I’d started building a heated bed but once the PLA came in I put that on hold, but I don’t want to try the PLA (at least for that piece) until I can get the piece to fit on the bed! Maybe I’ll try the extruder piece again, in PLA.

More later. Happy Holidays again everyone!

[UPDATE: After careful examination I’ve just verified that my MakerBot’s Y axis physically can’t go back far enough for the extruder to reach the last 6.9mm, and it can come forward enough that the extruder is 6.9mm past the front. I rechecked the build instructions (which are all based on a different batch of lasercut parts than mine, with different screw holes visible in the pics, etc), and it’s assembled correctly. I think there’s a design flaw in the lasercut parts for whatever batch my Makerbot is from. Sent mail to Zach. Meanwhile I’ll try rotating the part around the z axis.]

My latest trend is to identify the easy-to-print pieces and get them out of the way, so I can worry about complex parts later (and address those either via slower printing and a hotter raft, or an eventual heated bed, or by printing those with PLA). So Friday night I churned out 11 parts:

Friday

Lots of parts.

y-bar-clamp_10off

also y-bar-clamp_10off

x-axis-side-plate-nut-jig_2off

I tried at least one other piece but without immediate success, since it’s one of the (many?) pieces whose default rotation is crazy.

This unusable piece basically printed upside down:

Went to bed, got like an hour of sleep, and took Cara to baby gym class. That means it had become Saturday.

Saturday

Printed out a bunch more parts today. I’m running out of “easy” parts. I think I’ve now completed 53 pieces.

y-belt-clamp_2off

again, y-belt-clamp_2off

z-driven-pulley_2off, top view

z-driven-pulley_2off, side view

z-drive-pulley-rim_4off still on the raft

Pieces of the sandwich of two rims and a pulley

The sandwich of two rims and a pulley. That looks so damned cool.

Nice clean x-motor-bracket-spacer_2off piece

x-motor-bracket-spacer_2off . RepRap building sure does seem to inspire a lot of pictures of looking through things. 🙂

bed-spring_4off

bed-spring_4off again. Far stronger than my earlier opto spring attempt!

x-carriage-belt-clamp_2off

circuit-board-bracket-m3_4off (4th one was still printing)

Here’s a picture of just the parts from Saturday:

..and here’s all of the parts I’ve printed so far:

All of the parts I've printed for my Mendel RepRap as of 12/19/2009

I got the RepStrap back again today, and tonight I was able to print 9 new pieces (6 unique types). Here are 8 (5 types) of them:

Left: y-idler-bracket_1off, Top: xlr-bracket_1off, Bottom: circuit-board-spacer-m4_2off, TopRight: y-bar-clamp_10off, Right: drive-pulley_3off

(the one at the bottom is a little grey because we’d been printing with black ABS before this and it took a while to clear out).

I decided it was time to bolt the acryllic down to the wood base (previously it was just double-side taped).

The 9th piece is printing now while I should be sleeping. I can see it on my iPhone because I set up my Rovio on the desk to point at the print bed up close. The screenshot is rotated, but here’s a screenshot of the piece that’s currently printing:

You can see the right corner curling up now. Man I really need to make a heated bed. Why is it always that same corner I wonder?

Jeff sleep now.

[Update: Unattended Print Fail (again): (IPhone screenshot of Rovio – low res)

I guess the other corner finally came up too! A heated bed can’t come soon enough.. I need some aluminum…