QuoteMechaBits No I know what you guys did I saw the pics, I suppose thats what I was missing weight of material, not volume/density/mass ...complicated...i'm just using PLA, if I bumped speed up so it did it in 1hr id have a 3x as heavy part in the same amount of time...confuzzled. i'm sure it will become clear at some point. Yes, I can't quite figure that one out. It seems like a reasonable soby JamesK - General
Yes, I should think so. Keep the layer height to less than half the extrusion width and I think this will print fine. You might get into some strength issues with the connecting lugs though.by JamesK - General
QuoteDjDemonD After James' thread with the interlocking cube challenge it might be interesting to see if the cal-block can be done with 1 perimeter? It can, and no infill. Although my perims are 1.2mm wideby JamesK - General
I can't see how the folgertech is arranged, but you wouldn't normally use a single belt for Y because of the asymmetry. A belt at each end, either with a motor each or preferably a single motor connected via a long drive shaft would be more conventional. Not sure who used that first. Compared to coreXY there is more moving mass because of the X motor on the gantry (but shorter belts and a simplerby JamesK - General
QuoteKolbi And i have photos of an ufo and the log files from the flight record that I can add.... Dont take it personal please, just fun. But if you want to be serious, you need a video proove. Film a few layers and a person takling, click test, and it should be enough to calculate if its possible. Like I said, not interested.by JamesK - General
QuoteKolbi Sounds interesting, can you proove it and show us please? I'm not interested in posting videos and all that silliness, if that's what you mean. I have photos of the parts and the host log for the record that I can add this evening. Other than that you can either take my word or not, as you wish.by JamesK - General
That looks great! You're all making it look easy now I did a half sized version using nebbian's suggestion of a single perimeter and got a successful print with pla, but I was still having problems with the tips curling that reduced the print quality. I'm pretty sure I need to improve my part cooling setup.by JamesK - General
I think there are useful conversations to be had around printing speed and time. Print times are frequently long, and if you have a large printer, print times can become a limiting factor to its usefulness. Multi-day prints are difficult if you consider it unwise to leave your printer unattended. On the movement side, I'd be interested to see a discussion of which design is best suited to high sby JamesK - General
It's also worth pointing out that RADDS + Due is not a common platform - there won't be many people to answer questions if the OP goes that route.by JamesK - General
Mine are all 1/4" shafts too. Fortunately there are plenty of GT2 pulleys with 1/4" ID on aliexpress. I got the ones for 9mm belt, but messed up the order and got 6mm belt to go with them. *sigh* I could do with some Zzzz bed right now...by JamesK - General
Oh, good find. I hadn't even considered that possibility.by JamesK - Reprappers
Buck converters don't regulate well enough for supplying 5V to the cpu. Treat the buck as a bulk voltage supply and use a linear regulator with appropriate capacitors to produce a good 5V line. The flickering you see on the led is spikes on the 12V supply to the buck converter coming straight through and impacting the "5V" output.by JamesK - Reprappers
I wonder how much the full steps wisdom applies if you use a single stepper and don't let it turn off during the print.by JamesK - General
Ye gods, that's quite a big motor: Good for about 300 Oz-in if I read the spec right. I found one on ebay for about $400 CAD with shipping. Lucky you.by JamesK - General
If it really has 1 Ohm coils you'll be able to drive it easily as that is only 3V at 3A. Well, easily from a volts perspective, getting 3A out of pololu's is a bit more of a problem, but hopefully you won't need to drive it that hard. Mine are a mix, but one is about 8 Ohm which presents me with more of a challengeby JamesK - General
I have some vexta steppers too, they came off a silicon wafer handling machine, so I assume they are top quality. I think they predated the nema standard, so just make mounts to match. Two of the wires are center taps, just use a meter to figure out which wires go with which coils and ignore the centers.by JamesK - General
QuoteLykle I love the way that plate looks. Both the top and the bottom. It is amazing how much force a little suction can generate. Looking forward to what happens next. I really like the idea of a simple method of switching print bases. Agreed - it's a very compelling demo.by JamesK - General
QuoteDjDemonD Maybe we should look into higher powered heater blocks. Yes, I hit the same issue with big nozzles. I've been toying with an idea for putting a heater cartridge on either side of the nozzle for double the melt rate.by JamesK - General
Any discussion of how fast a printer is needs to include the extrusion rate in mm3/s, otherwise the discussion is just about travel speeds.by JamesK - General
Quoteprot0typ1cal Springs are cool and will probably work just peachy, yet having been a machinist, and indicating in all kinds of countless stuff, last thing I'd want is a teeter totter for a bed. Though I'd gladly take the rest It's probably not too difficult to find a spring for the Y adjustment point that produces an order of magnitude more force than produced by the out of balance weight oby JamesK - CoreXY Machines
Quoteleadinglights I have put a YouTube video showing the first successful print on the Vacuum Hold_Down stage I have edited the video as I had not set up Repetier to keep on the bed and hot-end heat but the time taken for a change over should be about right Mike With the vacuum bed and your highly engineered hot-end your printer looks like something out of CERNby JamesK - General
I'm currently testing some polyester sheet from McMaster-Carr. It works well for pla and petg, but I wasn't getting enough adhesion with abs to resist warp. I worked my way up bed and nozzle temperatures until at 120/260 I got a print that stuck very well indeed. I'm hoping that I can find a point between the previous settings 115/250 and the last ones where the print releases a little more easilby JamesK - General
As a one-off proof of concept, you could use glue stick on the OHP to get the ABS first layer adhesion you need to test the vacuum. Obviously not what you'd want long term, but it would be interestingby JamesK - General
Awesome! Glad you're getting interest in the parts. Please let us see how it comes out, and get someone to take photos or video during the casting process!by JamesK - Look what I made!
Quoteleadinglights Holes in an aluminium plate may work quite well and a small drill may be usable if fitted instead of the hot end in a 3D printer. You would still need to find a way to get the vacuum to all of the holes - which is why I used the pattern on the front face of the build plate. I have attached a picture of the bottom of the build plate showing the manifold which connects to the sucby JamesK - General
Hmm, there's an experimental filament with a mixture of two plastics one of which is soluble. After printing you dissolve away the soluble one to leave a highly porous substrate. I wonder if it would be strong enough for this. This is the stuff I was thinking of, PORO-LAY LAY-FOMM Edit: on reflection, that looks too soft to be useful, you'd end up with a rather vague Z datum depending on howby JamesK - General
Quoteleadinglights Since it can be nearly £1 per sheet, what has worked best for you? edit: The one that didn't work was Dataline transparency film for inkjet Mike I tried with Apollo Laser Jet Printer and Copier Transparency Film ( ). My thinking was that the toner fusing stage of laser printers uses quite high temperatures (approx 200C) so the plastic used would have to have reasonable thermaby JamesK - General
I guess the thread is only tangentially related, but it does give some of Jeff's background in motor control. I think the PIC-servo boards were the direct predecessor to the servolulu idea he was proposing.by JamesK - General
State of the art is duet wifi; if you don't mind the price you won't go wrong with that. The general consensus is that 32 bit (usually arm) processors are the way to go, but I'm still making do with the previous generation using Chinese manufactured mega2560+ramps boards. It requires some care and attention to get the most out of them, but the value proposition is unbeatable (i.e. it's dirt cheapby JamesK - General
Jeff's (LoboCNC) pic-steps! How cool is that Where did you get them? Remember this thread: ? Edit: apparently still for sale at $160 per boardby JamesK - General