3D printing set-ups and stories

[HeK]

I tried cleaning up the flux with some acetone and qtips, but ended up with a mess of cotton stuck on all the sharp ends of the trimmed leads.

I etched, drilled, sliced and soldered five of the six endstops. I cut and drilled all six, but paused to cook dinner. Somewhere in there, I misplaced one of the boards.
Good thing I etched twenty-one of them. Too bad it's cold in my garage.

[at0m]

Why so many? Thought you only needed three (or six, max).

[Greatbacon]

Why so many? Thought you only needed three (or six, max).

I would bet he's planning on making a little production factory.

[HeK]

Why so many? Thought you only needed three (or six, max).

Three axis, min and mix range.

I etched 21 because it uses less acid then etching only six.

[at0m]

Ah, makes sense, then.

Also gives you enough for 3 + 'homing' endstops on another. The makerbot only has stops on one side of each axis, for homing right when it starts fabbing.

[HeK]

Finished the hotend. This part worried me as I had no idea what I was doing....

5-watt wire-wrapped resistor as a heater. Kapton wrapped thermistor.
Used thermal epoxy to secure both, with added Kapton tape.

The block is made out of a rejected part for a Boeing 787 prototype. I think it's aluminum... it cuts like ass.

I wish I drilled the heater closer to the mount.... that'll be for version two.
This part of the project already ate six drill bits and took me five hours.




Ready to install:

[Kirby]

What sort of cutting did you need to do on the block?

Aluminium cuts like ass unless you've got a few HP CNC machine to do it with, it's to goddamned soft, and if it was destined to go into a Boeing, it's probably 7075 which is about double the hardness of regular cast stuff.



Oh yeah, in the absence of having some Ionox to clean that board with (and you've not powered the board yet) - submersion is Isopropyl Alcohol for half an hour (or more) might lend a helping hand to that cause.

When I make some very specific parts for the Air Force that have leaded solder on the boards, I can't utilize the regular cleaning methods we have because it would contaminate the stuff with lead, totally shooting our RoHS compliancy in the face. I use a Pyrex bowl sitting on a hot plate with Isopropyl Alcohol in it. It might highly depend on the chemical composition of the flux, but it would be worth a try anyway. A major part of my job is clean, meticulous work so I suppose that's just me being really anal about flux.


Also, cotton swabs? Get a cheapo potato brush or something else with stuff plastic bristles, a toothbrush does not suffice for this application.


You could almost think I do this stuff for 40 hours a week.

[HeK]

I had to trim down the block into the desired size (completed using a hacksaw) and then drill four holes of various sizes through the block.
I was aiming for as little material as possible, as it is less mass to heat. I kinda fucked up with the space between the mounting hole and the heater hole, the space could be 1/8th smaller.
Doing any accurate drilling is difficult as I was using a hand-held drill and a vise. All my bits were regular HSS and are likely dull as fuck now. Well, except for the cobalt bit I used to drill out the set screw, that cut like butter.

Now I could go and spend my time cleaning the boards... or I could, you know... not.

[Kirby]

I don't care if they're clean or covered in dogshit. Just trying to offer some helpful advice if you wanted them clean because this happens to be a subject I know a large amount about.

[at0m]

I was so zonked out after working 12 hours Wednesday I never went to go fab more parts

[Surf314]

This totally looks like a snail that has had science done to it. A snailborg or snaildroid or something.

Sorry for not contributing anything useful.

[at0m]

Got more parts fabbed today. Accomplished several things in the process: got ReplicatorG set up on my C2D laptop so it'll generate GCode faster than the Celeron POS they were running the Thing-o-Matic with, and got it tuned in so the parts quality is actually reasonable.

[HeK]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GX89sm84-...ata_player

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk

[backfire]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GX89sm84-...ata_player

This video is private.

[at0m]

[quote author=HeK link=topic=5815.msg233783#msg233783 date=1324356884]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GX89sm84-...ata_player

This video is private.
[/quote]^

[HeK]

Scum-bag Google App, uploads videos as private.


Should work now.

[Surf314]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GX89sm84-...ata_player

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk

God bless you.

[HeK]

Just gotta figure out a temp sensor issue and a PSU low-load issue.

Then I'll be ready!

[at0m]

I'd take pictures of my progress making plastic parts, but its pretty pitiful.

[HeK]

Now to work out some feeding problems... I'm blaming it on math and a poorly built hobbed bolt.

It sorta works!