Merry Xmas

Merry Christmas

i got some more things i needed printed today like some gears for the extruder. i went with herringbone gears on this one, the piece that the extruder is mounted to seems to be one of my cursed pieces, it took like 4 times for it not to bodge up on printing, and the big gear was not much better today. i also got some of the bars shortened up too so now it dose not look so odd.

soon i will order my motors that i need and the other stuff, i think i will keep with the ramps setup so far it is stable and for what it is fairly compact.

i will say this much about the x axis with the one i went with it sure will make my printable area allot smaller than i thought. so i might be looking at changing it up again i may end up going with another Bowden type, i am iffy on that, but i think it would give me the biggest printable area, and it has not been that much of a issue with my Huxley Michi,  with less mass on it too would have other benefits too.

the first one i started to print was the big guy on the right before i realized it was not the one i wanted, but i thought it was kinda a good way to show the size.

but i am still making progress, i hope to start to sell kits soon, i dont know how much i will get for them just yet, but hey i can start at least getting a little of the money back.

x axis

i am getting more and more of it together, i gotta cut the smooth rod still but hey its nice to see still.

i will order some steppers and the other stuff i need in Jan, i think i will go with another ramps setup.i am going to have to get creative for for my printing bed again i think

hot ends and parts

these are the hot ends i got from mix shop. the second one i got was a little better than the first one.

i found that high temp silicone gasket maker, the papers for it here www.permatex.com says that it has a working temp up too 318C and a top end of 345C

i am getting the new extruder together i need to reprint a few parts again. 

but thats life, i will also need to order my steppers here soon. along with a new ramps board.

the new x axis i want to try on this Mendel. www.thingiverse.com/

to me it seems like a good idea, this way it is less trouble to change things out.

i am getting more things together but i still have a few more things to print still and i need to work on the bed still, i am not sure how to do that one just yet.

cooool

i just wanted to share this http://hackaday.com/2011/12/12/sphere-morphing-hexabot-is-a-mechanical-jellyfish/  that is a cool robot, i wonder how printable a guy could make somethings like that.

getting there with Sfact

i sarted to use Sfact the other day and so far i like it, but just to make things a little harder on my self i also started to use the sprinter firmware too, so far there a good match just some minor issues i am trying to figure out.

 my X and Y and good but i have issues with my Z first one was that it was stepping way too fast so it missed allot of steps. but after i got that figured out i noticed that my prints were still not the right height. so i took off the /1.25 that was in the firmware for some reason. and i am just doing my test prints for that now. 

this is my first watertight print, after i saw 

how well it printed i figured i would try it.

new chopstick holder

old (left) vs new (right) you can see the difference from repsnapper to Sfact.

one of my first prints, just a few issues eh.

getting the bugs worked out, the last one is where i started

to fix the stepping too fast problem and started to get the extruder settings fine tuned

with any luck i will start to print out more pieces for the people that i know who want a mendel of there own.  but i am happy to see with this newer software and firmware they will be allot better pieces.

oh and is anyone else getting a compiler issue with the new arduino SDK and the sprinter firmware.?

sfact started and other bits

i got some other things built and done today, i finished off my opto endstops, for my mendel. i  also started to work on my settings for sfact, it is already printing nicer, well right up too when the wire broke off the heater. I should be able to fix it tonight I hope.

well today i started to use sfact. i was doing my trial run then my heater broke...lol yay for nichrome.

i still have some settings left to fine tune, but this is a good start i think. all the settings were stock in this print and it worked fairly well i think.

i am trying to figure out how to set some of my settings in sprinter, the only thing i am not sure about is this really

float axis_steps_per_unit[] = {58.18, 104.3, 8150/1.25,17.6}; 

i am not sure what the 8150/1.25 is exactly and i have since learned that last one is my stepper that i have since fixed. what is this in there for though /1.25 that is what i am unsure of

i have learned that i do have a backlash issue on my X axis it only ever seems to creep up on me when i have lots of small moves on that axis.

i have been trying to mod some parts to be better and more printable on my Huxley due to its smaller size, i hope to post them soon, i am having issues with the models not being very solid and holes in them but i will have a post on that soon i hope.