Reverse engineering Axiom's bowden setup?

Hi guys, I have recently became fond of the Axiom from Airwold3D, except for its price . One thing I especially like and that is the very sharp angle they managed to confer the bowden setup so that the printer could have a very decent aspect while being completely enclosed. How do they manage this? Is the hotend an extremely short one? Are they forcing the angle and pushing hard with the extruder motor?

---

RepRap Lander concept on Concept Forge
RepRap Lander concept on RepRap Forums
My Things, mostly experimental stuff

Do you have any pictures of what you mean? the first one I found was this

Which put me right off, how can you sell a printer that has horrible looking printed parts?
Doesn't inspire much confidence...Reverse Engineering...isnt that a euphemism for stealing
Looks pretty normal to me.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/27/2016 06:03AM by MechaBits.

Quote
MechaBits
Do you have any pictures of what you mean? the first one I found was this

3d-printer-hotend-300x200.jpg

The bowden comes to the head parallel to the XY plane (because it's a core XY with very little clearance above the head, and then appears to make a tight 90 degree turn to feed into the hotend. I couldn't find a clear photo showing the path at the transition into the head. I'm guessing it comes in at something less than 90 to the vertical and then curves with the max radius possible between the top of the head and the entrance of the hotend, but even so it looks like a much tighter radius than is normal. Logic and physics suggest this is a compromise that will cause problems.

I thought about trying to get filament in from this angle as it would make things a little neater, but I would alter the rest of the hotend, but it's on the backburner for a while.

I've previously watched this video. The founder explains (with a bit of marketing flair) about several aspects of the Axiom. I have talked since I am on reprap forums about many of the things this printer offers, like direct nozzle to metal contact for bed leveling.

In the video he says that they engineered the hotend to accept the tightest possible angle and the way they have enclosed the printer with a bowden setup is something that I haven't seen yet around. I like the looks.

What I don't understand is why would they use aluminum extrusions and then some corners made from plastic, be it PC or whatever. Those extrusions aren't directly connected as far as i can tell. That's a minus

About the ugly parts, yeah, I agree those are some pretty ugly parts. On a printer that costs around 2000E.

@MechaBits: reverse engineering is to understand their thinking when doing such a design, like what compromises they made, was there anything changed in the hotend's design, etc. Not used for stealing. Just to understand how they could have done this. I am thinking about building a similar setup for a while but I would use a curved hotend, not something that is easily achievable.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/27/2016 12:48PM by realthor.

---

RepRap Lander concept on Concept Forge
RepRap Lander concept on RepRap Forums
My Things, mostly experimental stuff

ahh “To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism; to steal from many is research.”

Then I'm in the clear too...after reverse engineering the Micron extruder, merely for assessing fit, and a little adaptation, I then find they possibly reverse engineered theirs from someone else's plastic version. Gotta try to hide the influences. None deviate too much from same basic principle, so I hope i'm happy for a while with the low cost one.

Though the problem with the reverse engineering definition you propose is, that someone who may not have ever made the leaps of judgement on their own steam, gets to circumnavigate all the hard work, & revisions you may have put into something, just by seeing a few pictures. They can understand things they could never have imagined, without first seeing it done. So do they take the idea, or just inspiration, Even when they try to modify and call it their own, not realizing you already had plans to make other similar versions.
The minefield of protecting ideas, shapes, forms, while trying to share them, the curse and the joy of the web

Ideas want evolution too, like meme's they want to spread and mutate and change the world.

Your right on those plastic brackets, they may be redundant, if it's already bolted through, or added to save a little cost, or just to tidy it up.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/27/2016 02:16PM by MechaBits.

No invention is done without a huge database of other ideas and images, concepts and mistakes. Every invention is an eureka moment when you see another product, you see a flaw, you see a problem that needs to be solved and you do your research of the existing literature, etc. That's why patents are BS. There is no someone's invention. It's just the way the society works, awarding one guy something that many many others have participated with their ideas, their products, their genetic material, etc etc etc.

So no, I don't feel bad about reverse engineering things. All do the same but some patent their work. That's unethical and plain hypocritical.

Let's move past the philosophical dilemma of reverse engineering please. If I would have asked: "How do they do it?" i guess it would have been less provocative

I can only imagine such a close angle for the bowden in two situations:
1) there is a very short hotend design and
2) they have a 90 degree curve in their bowden tube when it goes into the hotend.

I would love to see some pictures is anybody knows anybody that has an axiom. They might vae pushed it to the limit which can bite back and cause problems, as @JamesK puts it.

---

RepRap Lander concept on Concept Forge
RepRap Lander concept on RepRap Forums
My Things, mostly experimental stuff

Quote
realthor
Let's move past the philosophical dilemma of reverse engineering please. If I would have asked: "How do they do it?" i guess it would have been less provocative

I was only having a bit of fun, as always, trying to lighten the load, dissect away!

I understand and we can have a philosophical discussion whenever I just don't want to transform this engineering question into a philosophical one. I can talk much more about the latter one than the first one , so I'd rather let the engineers in you guys do the talking.

If we were to design a hotend setup that would deliver such a result, how would you do it?

I think I would re-design the melt zone so that it will deliver the melted plastic at an angle. The plastic being molten, it doesn't care where the hole is that lets it exits the nozzle.

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 02/27/2016 05:29PM by realthor.

---

RepRap Lander concept on Concept Forge
RepRap Lander concept on RepRap Forums
My Things, mostly experimental stuff