Alignment microscope for drilling 3D printer nozzles.

I have a whole bunch of nozzles to drill but my usual method of setting it up on a holder and carefully adjusting its position with a magnifying glass is tedious and error prone. 3d printers let you build special jigs for making more printers and/or parts very quickly. I came up with this alignment microscope using a Maplins (VEHO) USB microscope and a couple of mirrors arranged so that an enlarged view of the drilling could be seen from two mutually perpendicular viewpoints..
Picture of the jig and view through the microscope below and a video [www.youtube.com] showing the drill bit being waggled about first in X and then in Y (ignore the central image)


I have published the STL files for this in [www.thingiverse.com] for anybody who finds it useful.

Mike

Well done!

That's neat! Out of interest, why do you prefer to drill on a mill/press instead of bore on a lathe where the alignment should be a given?

Primarily because many of the nozzles have smaller holes and feeling a drill in on a clunky 10 inch lathe is not easy. A second reason is that the maximum speed of 2500RPM does not give too clean a hole - 20,000RPM is better.

Mike

edit p.s. Had I though a bit more laterally I might have come up with a 3D printed lever feed which could be plugged into the Morse taper of the tailstock - I may have just lived with the speed thing.

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 08/13/2015 03:19PM by leadinglights.

All makes sense though - we all use the tools we feel most comfortable with for each job, and those .3 and .2 mm drills have to be pretty challenging. 20k is fast! Do you have a dremel hooked up to your press/mill or is that a speed that it can do natively?

That mirror arrangement is sheer genius. I keep wondering if I could use that in some sort of generic mount.

[edit I thought I'd look up .2mm for a number drill equivalent. 8 thou - it's off the end of my chart!!]

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 08/13/2015 06:39PM by JamesK.

The milling machine is a Proxxon MF70 which has a top speed of 20,000RPM. It is sort of half way between a modelers milling machine and a toy - but very accurate for all that..

I had planned on having one of the nozzles at 0.15mm or 6 thou but I broke the drill. I have sent for a pack of 10 0.1mm drills to try doing a sort of a spinnerette nozzle with 13 holes.

Mike

I like that set-up! The mirror idea is very good! If you used front surface mirrors you wouldn't get the ghosting from the secondary reflections, but then the mirrors probably wouldn't last long when you're drilling metal at 20k rpm and particles are flying everywhere. Excellent work!

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Ultra MegaMax Dominator 3D printer: [drmrehorst.blogspot.com]

I had intended to use front surface mirrors and ordered a box of 12 Aver no. 4 dental mirrors from ebay (£12) but had already built the device and drilled all of the nozzles before they arrived. - now I have to think up some other use for them.



20 nozzles from 0.2mm to 0.7mm

Mike

Looking good! You're dedicated - I struggle to make more than 3 of anything before I get frustrated.

Very nice! Did you make those nozzles yourself or buy blanks?

[www.youtube.com]

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Waitaki 3D Printer

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DonaldJ
Very nice! Did you make those nozzles yourself or buy blanks?

They were turned from 7mm hexagonal brass bar. The sizes were engraved on three sides of the bar before they were turned - engraving was done on the same Proxxon MF70 that was used for the drilling.