New 3D Printer

Hello Everyone. I have been hard at work designing/building another RepStrap. ( This is addictive!)
Please check it out on my blog. It is a work in progress. Any comments, suggestions, criticisms etc. welcome.
Thanks.

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[dankimble7.blogspot.com]

Looks good, my only concern is the lack of diagonal braces.

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I made the frame first to see how sturdy it would be. I can stand on it. The aluminum extrusions are 1"x1" and the individual parts are machined square on both ends, and bolts draw everything tight. I plan to install lexan windows in the channels. Maybe a heated chamber of sorts.

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[dankimble7.blogspot.com]

Really nice job Dan, I'm looking forward to seeing it progress.You should get top speed with that design as long as your hot-end can keep up with it!

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[richrap.blogspot.com]

Very cool! I like it

Keep up posted!

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-Nudel
Blog with RepRap Comic

Where will you take the hotend from?

its great idea of 3D printer

The hot end/s will be sandwiched between two aluminum plates mounted on the top and bottom of the carriage. Up to 4 hot ends could be used, one in each quadrant. Although I only plan on using 2 for now.

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[dankimble7.blogspot.com]

I made some more progress. It's Alive! Check out my blog for updated pics and a video. I need to come up with a name for this thing. If anyone has any ideas, suggestions, comments or criticisms, I would love to hear them.

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[dankimble7.blogspot.com]

How are you fabricating those non-extruded aluminum metal parts? The gantry, print-bed bracket, etc? Or are they available off-the-shelf somewhere? They look really sweet.

Cool. I wonder what the cost/performance trade off against the wooden Ultimaker is.

Not sure how I feel about your choice to use a belt on the Z.

Lends itself to a quick drop and a sudden stop.

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www.Fablicator.com

Mazaw, I machined the non extruded aluminum parts on a CNC machine at work. I designed them to possibly be printed on a Reprap. Although I have yet to try the Z Carriage, I have printed the vertices in ABS. They work good, I just chose to make the current ones from aluminum, because when I made them, I was at work, and my Repstrap is at home.

Andrew, Ya I have concerns about that as well. The belts that I am using are reinforced though. I may put a cushoned hard stop at the bottom too. I chose to use a belt so I could have insane fast Z moves. I just got it hooked up yesterday. It is almost as fast as the X or Y axis. I'm working now on getting a heated bed put together. I will put some more pictures up on my blog later today or tomorrow.

I am still taking suggestions for what to call this thing. Anyone have any ideas?

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/30/2011 11:26AM by DanKimble7.

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[dankimble7.blogspot.com]

How about a worm drive on your Z motor to protect the carriage from motor failure?

First time I saw this post and it is exactly(like 95% exactly, the pulleys, position of the motors even the shape of the bearing holders!) what I was designing in Autodesk Inventor for the past month. Seeing a built up proto is nice, atleast I know what I was thinking should work. :-)

Very nice work, since your are way ahead on this I will just follow your lead.

Hit me up if you want to test new electronics on your new printer.

Royco

Pointedstick, I will keep that in mind if my belt drive Z axis doesn't work out. Currently, when I kill power to the Z axis, it just softly glides down to the hard stop. No slamming of anything that might suggest that it could damage anything. I will likely put a rubber bumper at the bottom of the stroke just to make sure.

Royco, I guess great minds think alike. I would be interested to see just how close our two designs are. I was thinking about putting my cad files on Thingiverse.com if there is any interest. As far as new electronics, I am currently using a RAMPS 1.4/Arduino Mega setup @ 24VDC and running the newest marlin firmware. I would like to add an LCD display and an SD card reader. Anything more exotic than that and I quickly get in over my head. What kind of new electronics are you working on? Having a machining background, I think it would be cool if these printers had a digital readout of the current X,Y, and Z positions. Or at least the most recient commanded position. Kind of like a CNC machine.

Regards, Dan

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[dankimble7.blogspot.com]

Dan,

I have a pic attached of what I have. I am working on the center mount that would hold the two linear-rotary bearings and the hotend ( 2 hotends actually) but havent gone far on that.

Let me know if you need help with anything on the design.

I am working on a single board RAMPS and a remix of the Sanguinololu(too much free time I guess). If you have the RAMPS 1.4 already then its not much different except for the dedicated connector for the LCD the I was working on. If its displaying stuff then its not that difficult( I think). Im trying to add display for temps, voltage, current and possibly % of the build.

Azteeg 1280 3DP