Nice kit. Not much trouble getting things up and running except X, Y, and Z will only run in the positive direction. E works in both directions though. I left the MS1 pulldown resistors off in the build because I intend on running 4988's, but at the moment I have 4983's in there with MS1 jumped. Maybe this is my issue? Though I'm thinking that it is unlikely because E does work in both directioby billyzelsnack - Sanguino(lolu)
Hmm. It might have potential.. The Monokote instructions tell you to apply it at 135C, but I could not find any melting point temperatures. It does appear to handle ABS at 225C without a problem. btw. If you're looking to try this out you don't have to buy a whole roll. You can get a trim sheet that is 5"x35" or so for cheap. Mine was $2.29 at the local hobby shop.by billyzelsnack - General
My local hobby store decided to raise the price on their tiny bits after someone (me) kept buying them. It was fresh on my mind when I went to Harbor Freight so I went on a hunt while there. I found these: . I've drilled one nozzle with the .5 from the set and it works fine. Very rubbery bits, but that's probably a good thing. As a bonus the packs have 3mm bits in the set for your PTFE!by billyzelsnack - General
I gave this a go with my cupcake and it may have reduced the banding, but I also could just be imagining things. Here is the procedure. Printed a few layers. Loosened the pulley grub screw on a rod and spun the rod about 10 degrees. Print a few more layers to see if the banding got better or worse. If better then 10 more degrees. If worse 5 less degrees. I started with the front left rod and gotby billyzelsnack - General
How fast are these commercial 3D printers? Are they relatively slow, say 20mm/sec?by billyzelsnack - General
btw. When ordering just the pololu drivers I like to go with robotsimple.com do to their free shipping. Polulu shipping is pretty pricey.by billyzelsnack - General
The first rats nest is my usual cupcake extruder stepper driver. I tried to take a picture showing all the connectors, but it only kinda worked out. IDC can plug into either the extruder controller (which I still need to print a IDC housing for) or into the motherboard. This is the pololu driver with the voltage regulator. That tiny connector is a for a fan for the driver that I never needed to uby billyzelsnack - General
I only have experience with the stepper extruder I linked. I've replacement my gears once after about 5 pounds of plastic. However when I printed the first set my brushed extruder was dying again and the print was pretty poor. I just slapped my pololu driver on proto board. The adapter cable I made uses the same IDC connector and pinout that the default stepper drivers use. That allows me to pluby billyzelsnack - General
Even if you buy the MK6 upgrade kit you will still need to wire it up to your gen3 and get new firmware. If you poke around, the makerbot wiki has instructions. For months I have been running.. + + sparkfun stepper motor + polulu stepper driver on my cupcake. I only specifically mention the sparkfun stepper to give you a specific stepper that does work. While you're waiting for parts you couby billyzelsnack - General
Yes. Your brushed motor is probably going to die and soon. My first one died around a pound of plastic. They are junk. Buy a stepper extruder or make one. All the other upgrades are useless until you get reliable flow control. This gives you the extremely important ability to run your first layer slowly (in the raft settings).by billyzelsnack - General
You are actually doing great for only 5 days of experience. The tricky part is getting the first layer down near perfect. The rest is a matter of fiddling with skeinforge. Have you tried setting extra shells to zero? They make things more difficult in my experience. Most importantly.. If you're using the regular MK5 brushed motor then print out a stepper extruder mount and get a stepper and a stby billyzelsnack - General
I did a little experiment hobbing the shaft of a stepper motor for driving filament. The stepper is the not so great NEMA17 motor that Sparkfun sells and the shaft is hobbed with a M4 tap from its 5m size down to 2.75mm. The basic idea is to give the filament the least amount of lever arm as possible against the shaft. It seems to work at least in concept. I will stick it in my cupcake and seeby billyzelsnack - Plastic Extruder Working Group
I like the edge connector idea. Maybe an alternative would be to modify USB connectors. They pretty much are just a fancy edge connector. I also know how much temperature the jacks can take/sink because those suckers are crazy difficult to salvage. If you embed the jack into the filament feed itself you could literally plug the hotend into it. Another random idea.. Bullet connectors embedded intby billyzelsnack - Plastic Extruder Working Group
Here's a video.. Some things I forgot to mentioned in the video.. The brake line nut thread side was cut down. Both sides of the PTFE tube are tapered. The riser pipe is cold to the touch at least half way up. Though I don't know what'll happen after a long heating session. Extrusion pressure is similar to the MK5. Plan for the thermal barrier is to put a sheet of steel between brake line nutby billyzelsnack - Plastic Extruder Working Group
Yeah. 0.9 is way too big. It just caught my eye at the hardware store and I wanted to try it out. I've been wondering why the need for a separate nozzle? Why not just drill the hole directly into the block. Drill from two sides. One side with a larger bit for a PTFE tube and the other with a tiny bit. The larger bit will even give you a slight taper if you don't make it go all the way through. Iby billyzelsnack - Plastic Extruder Working Group
I did a hotend experiment this evening.. It's a #1 cake decorator tip (nockel-plated brass) tied with copper wire and high temp soldered to a 10ohm 10watt resistor. Inside the tip is a tapered PTFE tube with a nut threaded on to hold it centered. The extruded ABS thread ended up being 0.9mm. I don't know if the decorator tip is a good direction. I don't even know if you can get anything smalleby billyzelsnack - Plastic Extruder Working Group