you need to specify mendel design, link to where you are getting your info.by Anthong Redbeard - General
I was looking around and saw PVDF welding rod I've only seen it mentioned once here. Does anyone know its other properties when extruded?by Anthong Redbeard - General
The pro is that it's extremely simple, and possibly cheaper, depending on the belt. I think there is a good half way solution: Anchor the threaded rods from top to bottom to be stable, and not have gravity work against them etc. + drive them with a printed gear from the motors, in other words, off set the motors to printed gear drive more stable threaded rods, this removes the pulley issue, andby Anthong Redbeard - General
I'm putting together one of the mantis 9.1 mill sindles that were mentioned in the reprap milling page: Going to see what kind of a reprap specific mill head I can do besides a dremel attachment. Plan on integrating a shop vac hose clamp. I have all parts except for the bit. I can;t tell what any of the dimensions are supposed to be for it, such as the outer diameter. I want to drill/mill PCBby Anthong Redbeard - General
I have had many bouts with this issue. I cut teeth 2 ways on my motor shaft, then found that PLA couplings tightened down seemed to grip on better than ABS.by Anthong Redbeard - General
+1 for ultimachine RAMPS one of the best things about it IMO is that it's a single board and modular. it would be pretty easy to replace each individual component as opposed to something that is multilayered and surface mount soldered.by Anthong Redbeard - General
any filament block that says BFB hotend on it will work. there's on in thingiverse that works decent... the alignment holes in the prusa repo for the wades block is better, they both work. the hot end fits perfectly through the carriage.by Anthong Redbeard - General
I'm making one for my daughter... fun thing is that I'm printing some of the parts for it. I'll post the results.by Anthong Redbeard - General
as for strength... there are 2 good applications of ABS = slightly flexible and heat resistant. for things I don;t want to flex, and don;t need to withstand much heat... like the block that holds the x-pulley, I prefer PLA. For the extruder block, I prefer ABS.by Anthong Redbeard - General
I recommend building a Prusa Mendel, it's not AS long of a route as building a repstrap 1st (Which I did) but you'll run into enough issues and learning experiences still. However, if you really want to take the long road... look at building a 1x2 repstrap or the wolfstrap. electronics, you can make your own ramps or gen7. with the ramps there are different levels that you can jump in at... deciby Anthong Redbeard - General
ageing hippy, it's the prusa mendel x-idler piece. The most complex piece in the set. The derivative I printed is here:by Anthong Redbeard - General
I was using a companion cube as my test print for a while... but this is my latest, so, I'll submit it until you choose a part and setup a page Prusa Mendel w/ PLA printed bushings... arcol.hu v3 hot end. no cleanup.by Anthong Redbeard - General
just navigate to it and double click... you may need to edit permissions to allow it to be executable.by Anthong Redbeard - General
wonderful... after about a week of me saying how this design is superior to older ones I think the most likely cause of your jam is the PTFE, dissasemble the hot end (You may have to do this carefully while hot) clean out the parts reasonably where there are threads or where the 2 parts meet. examine the ptfe opening that meets the brass, if it looks like it has warped or shrunk that is your mby Anthong Redbeard - General
thanks, I'm there... just using different designs, which was my point in the beginning... same idiot, accident prone operator can still get printing with a different design... however, I DO have a lot more expereince at this point. I may be able to make the others work as well, knowing what some of the issues are. One tool that is very valuable to me no matter what extruder I run at the time isby Anthong Redbeard - General
just to clarify... I have a Prusa Mendel, I've worked with a Thingomatic from someone else. BOTH require some work, and the more work you put in the better quality you get, I just thing the ThingOMatic has less variables and room for error, documented solutions. I personally would recommend going the longer / mendel route for the flexibility of not being locked into a platform as much as Makerboby Anthong Redbeard - General
Thingomatic will cost you more than building a Mendel, and starts out with better print quality... you can reach that quality with a Mendel but it will take more time, tweaking and research for whatever individual little problems you run into.by Anthong Redbeard - General
this is tough... I think some of the best differences can be seen in extruders variants, ALL of the cartesian bots already are good or can be tuned to be really good... extruders have the biggest variances... and the extruders are generally not particular to one machine. a good percent of the objects on thingiverse are to support using an extruder on a different system... or for example, runningby Anthong Redbeard - General
speed and material are also important factors as well.by Anthong Redbeard - General
are you talking about rotating around the x and y axis directions? I can see this being doable with an extruder that can pivot in one direction and the y table has something that will spin the platform, between the 2 you could mechanically reach every angle as long as it isn't much larger than parallel to the platform... of course the extra 2 dimensions would require new electronics... 2 driveby Anthong Redbeard - General
with PTFE I had every failure imaginaeable, pushing apart the 2 hot end sections, shrinkage or warping not allowing filament to pass, the whole thing getting pushed out, leaks from various places etc. PEEK there seemed to be friction issues, it seemed to transfer more heat than PTFE, and allow the filament to be hotter than PTFE, I've had this entier hot end pushed out of the b lock, I added onby Anthong Redbeard - General
ok, I concede PEEK should not have been in the same statement. I do still feel that an external support, like the PEEK block on the adrian setpper extruder hot end is better than not having it... even if the threads don;t fail I have pushed the entire barrel out of the filament drive block more than once.by Anthong Redbeard - General
I was cringing when I wrote it, thinking specifically of you Rick. I haven't had much luck with the thread of PTFE or PEEK under heat and pressure... both materials are fine, I just don;t want to rely on the THREADS for strength, I think support structures such as the peek block in the stepper extruder hot end for support are much better. I have experience with a lot of extruder variants by nowby Anthong Redbeard - General
I would recommend either getting the model that Mendel-Parts sells from somewhere, or the arcol.hu hot end. There is a guy in the US who makes them for a reasonable price and is very helpful and easy to deal with, I'm running his extruder now reliably. I've been through at least 5 hot end variations... these 2 designs are the only ones that stood up reliably. Out of the 2 I'd have to say I prefeby Anthong Redbeard - General
sorry, bad choice of words... everything that is well documented is a benefit to the community overall. I was just hopefull when glancing at the subject that it would advance our ability to produce more at home... especially on the extruder. The electronics is coming along nicely in the DIY area, but DIY extruders are more difficult by comparison because current solutions require more specializedby Anthong Redbeard - General
I have the basic components for 3d scanning... the recommended webcam from logitech, and a fine line laser. I've been looking into the software toolchains for it, there are alot. I'm hoping that the Makerscanner ones are the best available without paying $$ I've seen 2 different methods for moving the line across the object,1= having the laser at an angle and moving an object closer, the otherby Anthong Redbeard - General
Thermistor can be held in place on heating block with kapton tapeby Anthong Redbeard - General
WEAK. More accurate name would be "Build a Cartesian bot to attach Makerbot electronics and extruder" There are several home brew extruders, and at least the RAMPS and Gen7 electronics can be made.... ohwell.by Anthong Redbeard - General
1. Fire Cement: talk to Laszlo you can find his info on Arcol.hu great guy in Budapest. He definitely knows what's up with fire cement there. 2. You can buy the correct resistor from Mendel-Parts.com , UltiMachine.com and others. They are very cheap, even through these vendors. I recommend talking to Laszlo on all the extruder stuff since he's local, hope he doesn't mind the reference. 3. Whatby Anthong Redbeard - General
Makerbot going to the Gen4 electronics and only selling the ThingOMatic has made the choice easier IMO. They now cost about 2x the cost of a Prusa Mendel. You could easily fit a heated bed solution in your Mendel build and not come close to the thingomatic cost. A lot of people run the RAMPS electronics lately (Including myself) you can completely build it, get it built from ultimachine.com or anby Anthong Redbeard - General