Quick post. So Sunday night I had time to take out the supply of PLA (Polylactic acid, a clear biodegradable plastic that won’t warp like ABS) and give it a shot. I didn’t have any of the temperatures down right (temperature was 235C, extruder speed was 210), so it didn’t come out great, but here was my first attempt:
Might get to work on it again later tonight after everyone falls asleep – we’ll see.
Ok, a bunch of things to cover, with a bunch of pics. I’m looking forward to some serious progress after the holiday season is over.
First, there’s definitely a problem with at least batch VII [correction: batch VIII] of MakerBot which prevents you from using 6.9mm of the 100mmx100mm bed. If you look at the failure on the right in this pic:
…you can see at the bottom several loops of the raft where the raft went past the edge of the bed (over by 6.9mm). The top of the raft was 6.9mm in from the edge of the bed.
Ok. So next, here was my impatient attempt to create a heated bed. Rather than ordering a 100mmx100mm 5mm-thick sheet on the Internet like I should have, I went to Home Depot and bought a 12″x12″ sheet that was about 10 times too thin, then cut it into 9 4″x4″ sheets and bolted them all together:
Unfortunately I drilled the center 3 holes a bit off, and I had no magnet to hold it to the MakerBot y axis. Before I wired some nichrome wire up and kapton-taped it down, I put the whole thing on hold because I got access to a supply of PLA that Chris bought. (Still haven’t tried the PLA yet though).
Ok, so next, right before Xmas (when I was hoping to show my brother Jon and my Dad the MakerBot RepStrap), this acrylic retainer ring on the MakerBot broke, threatening to ruin my plans to show it off:
So luckily, when I was at Home Depot recently I bought a 5/8″ Forstner bit which I’d planned to use to make a centering jig for PTFE insulators so I could easily mark the center of the 5/8″ PTFE rods. I cut out a chunk of the MDF that I’m going to use for my Mendel bed, cut out the center hole, drilled the small screw holes and tapped them to M3 size with my newly acquired metric tap & die kit.
Success! Xmas was saved! Of course, it’d have been far better if that part was printed and I already had a printed spare lying around. This was a great illustrating example of why I’m building a Mendel and not just being satisfied with a MakerBot (no offense intended to MakerBot owners!). Printable parts = awesome.
Ok, so next, here were 5 presents I wrapped for Laurie, Emily, Alicia, Cara, and David:
They were the Letter Blocks posted on thingiverse. Here was the one I gave David:
I haven’t allowed myself to print many non-Mendel-piece things, because of my rush to get to a Mendel, but with xmas approaching and the realization that I wouldn’t come anywhere close to having a Mendel ready for another month or so, I decided to print a few things. Here’s my favorite so far:
(the bend in the tree is part of the actual model). I also allowed myself another attempt at printing the whistle, which looked awesome when printed but had enough air holes that it barely functioned at all:
Christmas morning, Laurie surprised me with the final gift of this insanely cool tool chest (that 10 months ago I wouldn’t have cared about, but now I absolutely love/need):
Here’s what a sample of my workbench looks like now, pre-toolchest:
Ok, yet another topic change (got whiplash yet?). While at my parents’ house showing off the MakerBot, we decided to ambitiously try printing Walt Disney’s head (despite the lack of a heated bed). There was insane curling, and a hell of a lot of noise (tip: don’t set up your MakerBot on a dinner table near the TV), but before I aborted the build, it printed this much:
There ya go! More progress next week, I hope. Once again, happy holidays everyone!
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.]