My first thought was that if the homing sequence could be ran for Z without driving the motor then the switch could be manually triggered after nozzle height was set.by Bill Clark - General
interesting. I thought it would be more or less flow assuming the error was a result of the extrusion width but actual travel adjustment would have the same effect without altering the extrusion proccess. see, I'm learning. thanksby Bill Clark - Printing
Say your part comes out a tenth or so of a mm big or small in x or y. What adjustments do you make.by Bill Clark - Printing
Dust, I think you nailed it. The gauge does turn on a light powered by 4.5v (3x1.5v batts) will the 5v signal work down to 4.5v or a little less. No need to add code as Repetier allows you to enter a Z offset. Dick, yes it is robo.the machine is consistent (now that I replaced the screws, nuts, shafts and squared it up. just looking for an accurate way of setting nozzle height to a particular vby Bill Clark - General
No. the switch appears consistent. I mean I may want .01 or .015mm clearance for example but want to achieve that without the use of a "feel" gauge. In other words, touch the nozzle to my 50.8mm tall electronic height indicator I use for setting milling cutters and then enter a offset value of 50.81by Bill Clark - General
I don't think the firmware section gets a lot of traffic so would any of you firmware savvy gents mind taking a look at this?by Bill Clark - General
how do you have your acceleration set.by Bill Clark - Printing
. I am focusing on small, highly detailed parts and am finding repeatable nozzle height to be a challenge. If I could use my 2" tall tool setter , manually trigger the limit switch then enter 50.8mm (or some other clearance value) in Repetier- "Z height offset" theoretically this issue would be eliminated but haven't a clue as to how I would mod the firmware to accomplish this. Can someone help?by Bill Clark - Firmware - mainstream and related support
Printing a test piece I noticed a ripple effect in this single pass wall. Its predominantly in the Y direction and X looks great with only a hint of this. I see this in some of my other, larger parts but it doesn't appear consistent. My first thought is its from the marks in the filament from the hobbed bolt but I'm not so sureby Bill Clark - Printing
Thanks for the feed back CNC. As you may recall the Robo was purchased so I could get my feet wet before starting from scratch. I knew it would need some work (maybe not this much) but it looks like after adding some reinforcements here and there and a complete alignment along with the correct shafts, quality, metric threaded rod, and an E3D it should print well. I still think I will be ahead, tiby Bill Clark - Mechanics
check this out the ball spline/nut I am looking at is 225$. with the 150$ discount its $75by Bill Clark - Mechanics
Thanks for the Misumi tip. I have been wanting to purchase a ball spline for my new machine design but have been choking on the price. With that discount it looks like I'm in for a cost of 75 bucks less shipping. That I can deal with. The rods are on a Robo 3D printer I purchased and your right. It looks like they are 5/16". I picked up some chromed 8mm's from a reputable seller on Ebay. That shby Bill Clark - Mechanics
not really apples to apples but my Haas uses a counterbalance on the z axis to cancel the load. probably more to keep the spindle from sinking to the bed when powered off than dealing with dynamic loadsby Bill Clark - Mechanics
there is a device called a "ball spline" that does what you are doing above. Typically a grooved round shaft with a bearing that allows rotation with linear travel. I am exploring the idea of using one to move an axis while eliminating the need to carry the mass of the stepper motor.by Bill Clark - Mechanics
those loops on the surface are strange. I'm wondering if the (scanned?) surface is just "dirty".by Bill Clark - Mechanics
sorry for the late reply and thanks for the info. I did get hooked up with the Gates people for application help. I am building a machine that will be used for milling/routing and, with a bed swap, 3D printing. My main interest in the newer belt tech was for added load capability while keeping backlash and stretch in check.by Bill Clark - Mechanics
Are the round shafts typically undersize? I need to get rid of some slop in my X axis carriage and the shaft I am using measures 7.91mm with a IM8UU bearing.by Bill Clark - Mechanics
Ahhh, biplanes. If you scroll down through my blog here you will see the 1929 4E Stearman (a few entries) I was part of the restoration on. I think if your machine is rigid enough for routing you should be good for 3D printing. Looks like you have some great projects in mind. Have funby Bill Clark - Firmware - mainstream and related support
Yes, everything was hand made or machined/molded, etc. Made paint mask and used cheap water based acrylics. I like the foam because I can design/sctratchbuild in a reasonable amount of time and the foam just flies so good because of light loading. Between the composite landing gear, pulley controls and other stuff I have around 100hrs in the 2 planes. What types of designs are you working on? scaby Bill Clark - Firmware - mainstream and related support
Thanks. I'm sure I will have a question once I implement it. I forgot you where cutting foam only. here's some of my foam. These were cut by hand thoughby Bill Clark - Firmware - mainstream and related support
great Job man. that helps me out a bunch. This was something I had on my list of things to do. What motor are you using. I have some Hacker A-30's and 40's laying around. Hackers have larger bearings than most and may be better suited for this. Also you can get ER-11 collet chucks on Ebay for 10-20 bucks. Will need to find/make and adapter to go from the 5 or 6mm motor shaft to the shortened colby Bill Clark - Firmware - mainstream and related support
anyone found a source for "buy online" , 2 or 3mm GT3 belts. these are advertised as being able to transmit 30% more power than the GT2'sby Bill Clark - Mechanics
building your own and designing your own are 2 completely different things. If you are and engineer and intend to design you will probably be fine. If not, prepare yourself for many challengesby Bill Clark - General
Robin, the servo would be the same as a stepper and coupled to the axis via belts or screws like Matt pointed out. You made a good point about resolution and that may ultimately be the Achilles heel of the whole idea. I am researching continuous motion servos with some type of position feedback. Parralax is out because of encoder resolution, OpenServo, maybe...... . There are a lot of servo contrby Bill Clark - General
Thanks Daniel. Could you give me an example of how the translator would be. Since I am ignorant with coding and how it would be structured in this application I will apply logic and assume a program would have to be created that converted , say X .5 meaning the bed would travel in a straight line in X, .5". The appropriate code (from above) to tell the servo to go to 1700ms (for example) would bby Bill Clark - General
take a read here on voltage click on STEPPER MOTOR BASICS then POWER SUPPLY BASICS. It appears motor inductance and voltage are interrelated. (corrections welcome)by Bill Clark - General
Thanks for that link Techshop. Good information there for my "other" projectby Bill Clark - General
I don't. I stumbled across it on RC groups I did try to contact the guy a few weeks ago to get one for my foam cutting CNC with Mach3 but he never replied. If I can ever get my hands on one we will find out what's insideby Bill Clark - Firmware - mainstream and related support
I'll second the voltage inquiry. With the brushless power systems I use in my RC planes, running a higher voltage setup usually is more efficient i.e. less amps for the same watts. So what are the drawbacks to higher voltage like 24 instead of 12. The only two things I can thing of is maybe higher cost for a power supply and maybe the steppers may not run as hot at higher voltage.by Bill Clark - General