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Cartesian XYZ machines with frames made of extruded aluminum, T-Slot, Makerslide, and more. See http://reprap.org/wiki/Category:Aluminum. Previously named "Extruded Aluminum"
Re: Drylin W Rails - 10 years ago
I have been able to do rapid moves at up to 300mm/s without skipping, and my belts usually rub at the ends of travel, though my pulley sides are parallel. I've noticed that with my belts tight, that they are not actually straight, and have a bend to them. It is very odd. What are you using for acceleration? If you lower it, you will get less ringing without sacrificing peak speed. I think thby manton - Extruded Aluminum Frames
Re: My first Servo motor based 3d printer - 10 years ago
ABS sticks pretty well to kapton tape, at 100C. Clean the tape with acetone before printing. Some use ABS juice to help get it to stick. You will find that without a heated enclosure that ABS is difficult to work with because of shrinkage, and it will cause the layers to delaminate in the middle of printing. PLA is much nicer to use, and sticks well to blue painter's tape at 70C. A dilute soby manton - Extruded Aluminum Frames
Re: Anyone in Edmonton? - 10 years ago
Hotends.com is a good place to get J heads from. Excellent machining. Great support too.by manton - Canada, Edmonton RepRap User Group
Re: Drylin W Rails - 10 years ago
I think you are correct that Marlin does multiple steps per interrupt, but I was still under the impression that it was limited to about 300mm/s. I've never pushed it higher than this though, so perhaps I am mistaken. You could try lowering your acceleration to see if the ringing is minimized. I would be surprised if a belt rubbing on a pulley would cause your steppers to skip. There really iby manton - Extruded Aluminum Frames
Re: Anyone in Edmonton? - 10 years ago
I've been using Cubify Design for 3D CAD, and it works pretty well. It is fully parametric like SolidWorks, but without the high price.by manton - Canada, Edmonton RepRap User Group
Re: RepRap "Wilson" (Prusa I3 variant) - 10 years ago
I've used Misumi's PSFJ8 hard chrome plated rods, and they are very good. Much better than drill rod would be. I don't think there is much point to stainless, especially since the chromed ones have a harder surface finish, and they are almost half the price. As far as I know, the chromed rods will not rust on the surface, but may rust on the ends since they were machined. I have many hundredsby manton - Extruded Aluminum Frames
Re: Drylin W Rails - 10 years ago
How tight are your belts? If they are too loose it will contribute to ringing, though ringing is also a functions of moving mass and available torque. What microstepping are you running? I thought Arduinos topped out at stepping rates around 30kHz, so I have the upper limit on mine set to 300mm/s, with 20 tooth pulleys. Your acceleration setting will also determine if you have skipping probleby manton - Extruded Aluminum Frames
Re: Drylin W Rails - 10 years ago
You could use smaller pulleys to get higher torque, and increased resolution, but they will obviously reduce your top speed. I'll be curious to see how you make out with these, as I have been considering them for my MendelMax, which currently uses 10mm rods for the Y axis.by manton - Extruded Aluminum Frames
Re: Newbie with ambitious build - 10 years ago
The problem is that if you are using a belt drive system, the belt is not really rigid and acts like a spring, so if you move fast, you have to stop, and it takes time to slow down without all kinds of ringing. If you try to move a large mass quickly (or any mass for that matter, but the larger it is the worse it is), and stop it quickly, you will end up with lots of ringing, and this will showby manton - Extruded Aluminum Frames
Re: Newbie with ambitious build - 10 years ago
You may want to rethink using a gantry style design for a 3D printer. Ideally, you want the printer to move fast, so that means keeping the moving mass as low as possible, particularly in X and Y. I would think that moving the entire X and Z axis in a gantry would really slow things down.by manton - Extruded Aluminum Frames
Re: Are direct drive extruders any good? - 10 years ago
I wonder how they make thermocouples that don't work correctly? How hard can it be to spot weld or silver solder the two leads of the correct wire together? Unless they are using the wrong thermocouple wire to start with.by manton - Reprappers
Re: Dimensional error with walls of pipes? - 10 years ago
I think that I've heard of people using PLA for support material as well, but I can't remember how they dissolved it, or if it was just removed like normal support, but didn't stick as well, so it left a better surface finish.by manton - Reprappers
Re: Y rails for H-Bot etc?? - 10 years ago
I don't see why not. My Y axis is done with 4 similar linear bearings mounted to the bed. But, I think you mean "could you just mount the rails to a plate?", which would be more like an I3.by manton - Reprappers
Re: Dimensional error with walls of pipes? - 10 years ago
Yes, I have seen some of the PVA filaments that are dissolvable, but they are much more expensive than the actual filament. There is an article on hackaday that talks about using HIPS as support material, and dissolving it in Limonene. I think it will be a bit before this becomes more mainstream, and at that point, the prices will likely start to come down. As I get older, I find I also get chby manton - Reprappers
Re: Hot motors - 10 years ago
What you say makes more sense. I thought the resistance seemed a bit high. I often run my motors at 300mm/sec for non-printing moves, so the magnitude of the impedance would be 11.5 ohms. I'm not sure though that it is all about being able to get the correct current into the motors. Doesn't it also matter how fast you can get the current to rise (at least that is what I read a long time ago fby manton - Reprappers
Re: Dimensional error with walls of pipes? - 10 years ago
I have a friend with a Stratasys printer. He just has different problems than us, but still has problems. Though I do have to admit is would sure be nice to have dissolvable support, which I'm sure will come someday. I keep trying to talk him into building a reprap, just so he can have access to less expensive supplies, as Stratasys sure charges a lot of money for their cartridges. I must admby manton - Reprappers
Re: Y rails for H-Bot etc?? - 10 years ago
Good idea, I never thought of that. My thinking went more along the line of if there is rust in them, then I'm not sure that I actually want to use them, unless their operation is smooth, and often even after cleaning it wasn't, as the balls were rough from the rust. I took one apart, and it certainly is not what you would call a bearing in the state that it was in.by manton - Reprappers
Re: Dimensional error with walls of pipes? - 10 years ago
Uncle_bob, I think you hit the nail on the head. This is one of the reasons that these types of printers are not really useful for mass consumer consumption... yet. People that are quite technically inclined usually can get them working to their satisfaction, but not everyone will have an easy time of it, and may not have the required troubleshooting skills. I guess the good thing about the Rby manton - Reprappers
Re: Are direct drive extruders any good? - 10 years ago
Quotenophead NEMA stepper motors have 5mm ball bearings at each end so adding an external one is not going to make a massive difference. I have never noticed any play develop even on motors that have been used continuously for years. 1.75mm filament is about 3 times easier to push and the Wades gearing is about 3: 1 so you definitely don't want gears with 1.75mm. What I am concerned about is moby manton - Reprappers
Re: Are direct drive extruders any good? - 10 years ago
Hi Roger, I never thought about the lateral load in this application, but you are right. I subject my axis motors to very high belt tension, and I can see the shaft flexing. I bought some bearings with a 5mm ID that I've been meaning to use to help support the motor shaft, and I suppose that the same thing could be done for an extruder drive.by manton - Reprappers
Re: Y rails for H-Bot etc?? - 10 years ago
I wish I had supported rails on the Y axis of the MendelMax 1.5 that I built. Even though I used 10mm rods, it still flexes quite a bit, though in my case these rods are 520mm long. The original design called for 8mm, and since I was building a bigger one, I figured 10mm would be fine. I probably should have used supported rods, or 12 or 16mm ones instead. Mounting one of these supported rodsby manton - Reprappers
Re: Are direct drive extruders any good? - 10 years ago
I've wondered this as well, though they seem to be becoming more popular. My worry has always been whether or not there would be sufficient torque, as one loses all the mechanical advantage of the gearing. Perhaps with 1.75mm filament it is less of an issue. I would like to try a belt drive extruder at some point, as I think they would be more precise than one with printed gears. There has beby manton - Reprappers
Re: Dimensional error with walls of pipes? - 10 years ago
What I generally did was make sure that a single wall box is printed with the correct width. Then you know that the extrusion width is what was commanded, so the amount of filament extruded is then correct. You can do this by adjusting the extrusion multiplier, or e-steps. I probably made sure that my e-steps were correct, as I don't usually use the flow or extrusion multiplier parameters. Inby manton - Reprappers
Re: Dimensional error with walls of pipes? - 10 years ago
Slic3r does calculate the amount of filament needed based on nozzle size, filament diameter, and layer height, but if your E steps are wrong, it won't be correct. I read somewhere that it was easier to simply adjust the flow parameter on the printer rather than worrying about e-steps, filament width, and extrusion multiplier, but ultimately all of them control the same thing. If you put in theby manton - Reprappers
Re: Hot motors - 10 years ago
Quoteuncle_bob You are trying to drive a sinusoidal constant current through the motor. The frequency of that sinusoid (AC current) is determined by the speed (revs/second) of the motor times the number of full steps per revolution. If your motor runs at 6.5 revs/sec and you have a 200 step motor then the frequency would be 6.5 x 200 = 1300 Hz. You can look at the magnitude of the impedance preseby manton - Reprappers
Re: Hot motors - 10 years ago
The drivers used for reprap printers are constant current drivers, so you just need to tune the output current of the driver to match your motor specification (as long as it is not higher than the max rating of the driver). The motor voltage does not really matter, as long as it is lower than your power supply voltage (though lower voltage, and lower inductance motor will give the fastest steppiby manton - Reprappers
Re: Dimensional error with walls of pipes? - 10 years ago
Yes, I think that is what you would expect, because you are telling it to print wider each time. If all you are doing is giving it a larger extrusion width, then it will feed more filament to get you to that width. Instead, what you need to do is back off on the amount of filament extruded, so the extrusion width is narrowed, by either changing your steps/mm, or by changing the extrusion multipby manton - Reprappers
Re: Dimensional error with walls of pipes? - 10 years ago
rogerclark Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Hi Mike. > > What thickness should I use ? Do you mean > something like this > > > Does the thickness of the wall need to be some > multiple of my nozzle size (which is supposed to > be 0.4mm) > > > I'm also not sure what you mean by "Compare this > to what the slicer thinksby manton - Reprappers
Re: not printing - 10 years ago
What firmware are you running? By stating that it does not print, what does it actually do? There is a setting in the marlin firmware to prevent extrusion if the hot end temperature is too low. What is yours set to, and what temperature is your hot end at?by manton - Cleveland Ohio - RepRap Usergroup
Re: Dimensional error with walls of pipes? - 10 years ago
Have you tried printing a thin wall box, and measuring the resulting wall thickness with a caliper? Compare this to what the slicer thinks the extrusion width should be, and see if you are still out by 12%.by manton - Reprappers