I'm not as expert as the other people here on movements and coupling, but I would worry that printing an object on a vertical base would allow the object to have some sag due to gravity as it cools during the printing process. Not sure how much, or how big of a deal this would be, but it is a concern, and more so as the printed object gets bigger and farther from the base plate. A "tall" enoughby aeronaut - Developers
waitaki Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Car battery any good? +1 on that. There are easy circuits to have a 12V battery trickle charged by line power while allowing line 12V to power the machine, but if power fails, the battery picks up the slack with no delay, and as long as the print doesn't use all the power in the battery, no worries. However, if you'reby aeronaut - General
crispy1 Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Your maximum particulate size is limited by the > nozzle orifice. Typically this is 0.35 or 0.50mm. > Add a factor of safety on there and now maybe > your max particulate size is 0.25mm. Any larger > than this and you run the risk of jamming the > nozzle. To touch on this point, as someone with some expeby aeronaut - General
kug Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Oh another question, when I cast in metal using > lost wax will the infill percentage translate the > same into metal? Like will the center of the cast > have air pockets or will it be completely solid? Umm, no. Not a chance. If you use the lost wax method to cast a hollow cube (one with 6 sides, completely sealedby aeronaut - General
rocket_scientist Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > ... the problems are that aluminum has a > very narrow plastic zone, and normally goes > straight from solid to runny liquid. And the heat > transferred might remelt the prior layers. > > The only solution I have come up with so far > is to expand the aluminum plastic zone by mixing > iby aeronaut - General
DA, My condolences on your wife's passing. I'm genuinely sorry to hear that, and want you to know that you are in my thoughts. Perhaps if it would help, post some images of her here, when she was healthy and vibrant. Regards, aeronautby aeronaut - General
All of what bobc says is correct, but there's one key point he has not covered in detail. Patents protect the inventor by preventing other people from profiting off of the inventor's ideas. If I want to make a 3d printer for my own pleasure, and build objects that I don't sell, I can use any proprietary design I want, copy stuff directly out of someone else's patent or product, etc. But as sooby aeronaut - Developers
Madkite Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Well I'm intending to test my idea out. If its > successful I can streamline the whole assembly in > to one neat nozzle heater powder injector. Its all > seperate bits at the moment to allow easy swaping > of parts for testing. Obtained some tungsten wire > for the heating element to try and achieve the >by aeronaut - Developers
brnrd, Thanks for making me check on this. My P-Chem teacher in grad school told us all that acetone was a low level carcinogen, but when he was a grad student, he greased huge vacuum pumps with some sort of grease, and washed his hands off with acetone afterwards, and he's still (at that time) kickin'. A quick check of Wikipedia reveals that acetone is not considered a carcinogen, but is a loby aeronaut - General
Tekwizard Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > As for a > controller, I would recommend that you buy an > Arduino 2560 for about $60, because that plugs > right into Ramps 1.4, and there is a lot of > support for that board. No argument about the quality of the Arduino Mega 2560, but you can do a lot better than $60. I bought mine for $19 from dx.com.by aeronaut - General
In terms of building a printer, I'd strongly consider the Mendel90 for large sizes. Nop Head's design is such that you can specify the x, y, and z dimensions, and the design parameters will adjust the size of things to make it work. Expanding the Y direction is particularly easy - it's just the length of the base board, 2 carriage support rods, and the belt length that have to change (as well aby aeronaut - General
+1 on konwiddak's post. Acetone is now known to be a low level carcinogen. Most current nail polish removers are labeled as 'Acetone free". Most likely that means they use a chemical similar to acetone, which is not yet known to be a carcinogen. In any event, always use acetone in a ventilated space. Wear gloves if you expect significant skin contact. Dispose of acetone soaked rags, cloth,by aeronaut - General
+1 to jzatopa. MIG and TIG welding are well developed, and work. Aluminum is notoriously difficult to weld with, because of gas issues, only TIG welding works. Some other general comments: Eutectic alloys typically have the lowest melting temperatures. Just off eutectic alloys often have two phases intermingled, and exhibit complex melting behaviors which can produce amorphous mixes that migby aeronaut - Developers
DA, I said I was done with this thread, but a few things came up that I had to address. 1) You don't need a Ph.D. to talk about 3D printers intelligently. Many of the people here, if not most, don't. But they have experience and knowledge. They got theirs building and tweaking devices. I got mine machining and building an experiment to do basic physics. Based on what you've said here, youby aeronaut - General
Umm, yes. There are tons of closed source competitors. To name a few: Makerbot Solidoodle PP3DP (Up! printers) Makibox (whether this is a solid product, an inferior product, or a techno version of a Ponzi scheme is an open question at this point. AFAIK, they haven't shipped a unit yet.) And there's plenty more. Google 3D printer and see what comes up. Commercial units costing thousands havby aeronaut - General
OK, now I'm confused again by your rantings. No one mentioned anything about class warfare until you did. "No socieconomic or class warfare bull dung should be allowed but this is the attitude the "lower" class seems to get if they dare to rock the boat." Umm, what? My comment that you should build something had nothing to do with class or money, and everything to do with experience and usefuby aeronaut - General
billyzelsnack Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Dark Alchemist Wrote: > -------------------------------------------------- > ----- > > Frankly I have yet to see anything printed that > > looks good that was in its raw state. > > Is that why you have 636 posts in 6 months, but > still have not bothered to build a printer? Ding. Game oby aeronaut - General
Dark Alchemist Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- -- If the consumer wants it now, then please explain why Amazon has such success with a business model that has customers ordering things and getting them the next day, or more often, in two days. If I want to print out a recipe, my expectation is that my printer can spew it out in well under a minute. If I want a custoby aeronaut - General
Dark Alchemist, Many of your arguments don't hold up. For example: ----- "Right now 3d printing is a fad but unless something majorly changes it will never massively succeed due to the limitation of FDM as the average consumer wants it now (as in 15 seconds now which is unachievable by any printing process) and they want it to come out as smooth and glossy like a injection/blow molded piece doeby aeronaut - General
Robert Eastwood Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > What I am curious about, is if it is using > rotating rod, is the snugness of the nut that > moves as the rod turns an issue with precision? +1 on greenman100's comment - not only is the snugness of the nut a problem, it's THE problem. I'd speculate that over 10,000 man hours of time have been spent on hoby aeronaut - General
Idolcrasher, James, NumberSix (great forum name, BTW), Thanks for the input. I've continued my research, and I agree that the Mendel90 design looks the best. I've built experiments where precise alignment is important, and the hassle of getting two triangles to be plane parallel and the axes normal to each other is best solved by good design geometry. There are enough other things to tweak anby aeronaut - General
Azaslavsky, As someone who is in a similar position to you, I'd expand my list. When reading all the rest of this, take into account that I don't yet own or have any experience building a 3d printer. That said, having a M.S. in mechanical engineering and a Ph.D. in physics give me some knowledge and insight into, well, anything mechanical. I'd steer away from the triangular designs. They seeby aeronaut - General
miso Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > No, even transistor can't break fundamental laws > of physics. That's why linear voltage regulators > heats a lot. "In fact, the power loss due to > heating in the transistor is the current times the > voltage dropped across the transistor" wikipedia Miso has it right. The difference between a resistor and a tby aeronaut - General
Greetings, I'm looking to get into 3d printing, and have started doing the basic research to become familiar enough about the hardware to talk about it intelligently. So far, I've found that the state of the art is moving quickly - it seems the hot thing now is using two sheets for the support structure of the printer, held at right angles to each other, the vertical sheet supporting the Z axisby aeronaut - General