So I'm interested in this subject too. Mainly for depositing liquids far too thick for normal printhead in a controllable array of drops. A head like this might lead to a diy polyjet. Granted this would require a tremendous amount of work on miniaturization. Then there is the control for a multi nozzle dispenser, that's a lot of work.by TheGremlin - Powder Printing and Selective Laser Sintering
6of1 would you mind posting a link to those better tutorials for FreeCad? I'm currently using Inventor Pro through the education agreement (I work at a school ) but I would like to get a lesser $$$ tool under my belt for when I eventually move to a new job and lose my Inventor license.by TheGremlin - General
There is a old school method of squaring a gantry to the unit via high tension cables. It's light and effective and is independent of the drive mechanism.by TheGremlin - Developers
The trick to heated chambers is to control the cooling of the part. If you've ever seen the insides of a commercial printer with a heated chamber they use wipers to isolate the hot and cold side of the chamber. All electronics and cabling are on the cold side. That being said a rostock type printer would be pretty easy to modify to fit that criteria with one exception, the hotend would need someby TheGremlin - Delta Machines
Yeah that would be possible but it would mean disassembling the g540 to get at the stepper drivers. I'm current mid rebuild of a old servo CNC mill which got me thinking of adding a extruder to my router. In the end I might just end up building a rostock or a small gantry type printer and use ramps/rambo. It would be nice to be able to use standard cnc hardware since it's rated for much higher foby TheGremlin - Controllers
G540 is a 4 axis breakout board (Bo + stepper drivers. Kind of an all in one package for a CNC control box. The problem is it's a sealed box which isn't easily added to. I have a second parallel port but I'm a bit leery of directly hooking a driver to it without some sort of isolation. The g540 does have a optoisolated 0-10vdc (PWM, 50Hz) output for a VFD which would be very nice to control a PIDby TheGremlin - Controllers
Hey has anyone gotten a CNC using a G540 working with the reprap gcode? I have one but I need an additional axis since my router uses dual motors on the y axis. I'm looking for and idea on a breakout board that can interface with my second parallel port and control the extruder driver and maybe the extruder temp via. Basically I'm looking for a cheap BoB that is isolated and puts out step and dby TheGremlin - Controllers
Hi, I've been trying to build a bigger faster reprap and keep running into the torque issue and the small nema motors we are using. Has anyone used the RAMPS electronics and all the goodies it provides but used a different stepper driver? I'm thinking of 380oz nema 23's @ 48v. It sounds like a lot of torque and it is. But I'm aiming for ultimaker speeds with a gantry style bot with the extruderby TheGremlin - RAMPS Electronics
So i had a crazy idea. Has anyone played around with a concrete extruder?by TheGremlin - Paste Extrusion Working Group
I highly recommend using a silicone based dry lube if you are using bushings as linear bearings. Due to the very tight tolerances you don't want a lube that dust or other contaminants can stick to. This is why most of them are labeled oil-less bushings. On real linear bearings (they type with ball bearings inside) I recommend using a low viscosity lithium soap based lube. I've seen many a linearby TheGremlin - Reprappers
I'm not concerned about belt tension, I use a very similar idea to drive my Joe's Hybrid CNC. The only thing of concern would be the stiffness of the primary mount for the stepper and the length of the slot for adjustment, in any case it would require a redesign of the wade extruder which would likely make it larger. On the bright side I have a new idea for gears for machines that want to controlby TheGremlin - Mechanics
So as the title says, is there any benefit of going with a belt driven extruder? I was reading up about extruders and gear ratios when I read that the high res models require many small feed movements I was thinking that a belt system would take any backlash out of the gear and allow for more consistent control over the filament feed.by TheGremlin - Mechanics
Is there any reason I can use oil-less brass sleeves for the Z axis on a Ultimaker based machine? They are good enough for the x/y I assume they would hold up since there is vastly less travel on the Z.by TheGremlin - Mechanics
They have some nice pillow blocks that I won't have to fab now , but not 8mm timing pulleys. Looks like I'm running low on options, might need to bore out some smaller ones which is a bit of a bummer.by TheGremlin - General New Machines Topics
Heated chamber,maybe one day but not today. I'm having some issues tracking down a MXL 20T pully with a 8mm bore. Misumi stops at 6mm and McMaster-Carr seems to only carry imperial bore sizes. Any one know a vendor that stocks these or should I just bore them out.by TheGremlin - General New Machines Topics
Hmm, so it looks like the benefits of a larger build platform are balanced with power consumption of the heated bed as you can't have one without the other. I think I've found info for the rest of my questions about the mechanics. From what I read about the Bowden extruders there is a problem with compressing the filament. Has anyone tried mounting a encoder to measure and control filament feedby TheGremlin - General New Machines Topics
I've been following the 3D printer scene for a while waiting for a really accurate fast 3d printer. The Ultimaker seems to fit the bill however I'm not a huge fan of the plywood cabinet since I tend to move around a bit which lands me in humid locals sometimes. In short I'm looking at a t-slot bot in ultimaker fashion with a bigger build area/heated bed. I do realize that there are limits when deby TheGremlin - General New Machines Topics
Your looking for what they call a drag knife. You will also need a carrier to hold the paper and not dull the knife too much. There are a few options but what I do on my craftrobo is laminate a piece of cardstock with the cold lamination stuff you can find at any office supply store. To "stick" the paper to the carrier I spray it with quilt basting spray then cover it with a sheet of wax paperby TheGremlin - Mechanics