Look at mine! It's not finished.

[Flavored Coffee]

Hello,

I took out some extra time to paint the edges of the melamine, with high temperature paint, that's normally used on charcoal grills, or wood burning stoves. It's Rustoleum's, and it stays tacky until it's exposed to a high heat as well, or takes forever to dry. After two weeks, I stopped waiting.

I think I got a version one hot bed because, everything in the instruction manual is nothing like this hot bed. When I put the pins one the wires, I have to remember, I reversed the black and red wires.

The insulation in my lab/storage/man cave, is very thick, and just turning on my soldering iron, turns this place into a sweat box. But, I did figure out some minor modifications to compensate for the difference. You can look at the back of the hot bed and follow the traces for most of it. Everything else about the assembly has went fine, and the advice in the Assembly Guide, about using a motorized screw gun or drive, it's really bad advice. You'll crush at least one of the nut braces. Screw guns, are not so well designed to have an adjustable torque, and melamine is not something you dial in on. The screw gun will never stop when it should, and you won't want to use it. Way better off going full manual. You want to stop when you notice it start to deform. Not have the screw spinning so fast it mushed.. It's the worst advice unless, you can adjust the drag on the screw gun as well and as accurately as the drag on fishing reel. They are not designed with the kind of fine tuned control you need to just spin those screws in. It would be nice but, no such thing.

I just checked the early assembly pdf file in the downloads section, and I did get a version one hot bed. Man, you guys should include the possibility of one or the other, just to avoid overstock in the warehouse, anyone would understand. So, that would have two assembly procedures pending on which hot bed you happen to have.

This is a note for the assembly guide, "You want solder and solder wick on hand before you start. When you finish, you want to make sure there's no bumps on the side the glass will rest on. First, bend you leads to fit, then trim them shorter than the hot bed is thick. For the power and sensor wires, use a piece of kapton tape to hold the wires in position before you solder. It can be removed later. Run your wires under the snowflake, and through the center of the melamine board. Fancy twisting, bundling and things of that nature, won't fit in the dip, and the plastic is just likely to melt, weaken, or short, pinched between the hot bed, and the snowflake." I'm going to drill a hole, and relocate those one more time. Straight down, and I'll fish the wires around corners until get to the Rambo. I took another look, and that hole is a little closer to the center, and an inch wouldn't be too far because, all of the plastic is moving away from the heat to head down that hole. Plastic, get's soft, when it get's warm, and wire can migrate through it over time. It's like overheating wire with a soldering iron, in slow motion. Could be weeks, could be months, with enough distance and length too long, years but, eventual. I might even seek out some PTFE, and heat shrink it into position. By first sliding the PTFE up to the solder joint, holding it in position, sliding the heat shrink up over the PTFE and wire insulation, then shrinking it in place. So, it's a much larger diameter than has been used with the thermistors. The melamine, is a heat barrier, with allot dead air. Technically, I think the version 1 hot bed, is better because, the center is going to be hotter. If you use a thermal imaging camera, to look at that thing, the edges are just a little cooler than the center of the hot bed. Everything has been done for an even temperature, and I can see where the heating element is under the lamination. It's better to solder away from the heating element, even if only by a quarter of an inch.

Okay, I've used dental floss for small diameter cable lacing. Very nice. I still have to watch a video or tear something apart to put it together mil spec style. But, dental floss, is great for the small diameter wires, if you get the wide dental floss, and keep flat.

I haven't heard of any shorts but, if they've happened, I'm guessing that, they went directly to [email protected], and never took any time out in the forums because, the machine failed. Tendency is to head straight to the source, and skip asking questions, or anyone else that bought a kit. We all appear to be nothing more than monkey see monkey do. Kit's, hey, the best kit bought too this day, was a balsa wood, and tissue paper, airplane. Following the directions, being detailed, paying attention to details, all came together for me at a very young age. At 11, maybe 12, I finished the build. I wound up the rubber band, and never saw a plane fly so far, on so little energy. Then a little tiny toy breed dog, just stepped on it, and punched hole through the wing, then stepped it again and punched a hole through the body of the plane, and I could never wind it up again. It broke too many balsa wood supports. Eventually, I broke it again, and broke it more, and all I did was wind it up. Okay, this kit could top it but, I need a good print for a list of inventions I'm working on. I'm tired of clay, ceramics, polymer clays, and all of the sanding, filing, drilling, and S# t, of totally inaccurate parts.

James

[Flavored Coffee]

I just want bragging rights, and it's not my idea, not my invention. It is so cool, seeing a kit, I had to have one. I almost went for the Velleman Kit because, I've built a few of theirs, mostly things that I could use for something else, and where I needed an odd driver. Most of it, just drives thing on bread boards, and I use it but, I don't think was meant for what I do. I watched a few assembly videos before I made my choice. I admit, the record player, really word work with x, or y, and just one or the other. The hot bed rotating? Connectivity problem. I don't care if looks or is simpler the truth is, it can't do as much in as small of a space. They'd say smaller but, the first Rostock was round, and as round as theirs.

I want resolution potential, and possibility to change to a higher potential level. The potential of smaller nozzle diameters, and stronger prints. But, I don't want the competition for best, to outplay cool, and all of the same potential. Less motors, and no fun to watch, or cool. If your hobby, is your job, and job is your hobby, your interests will be focused on bigger and better. Don't bore yourselves with going in circles, when sometimes, being more interested, brings forward more ideas. From what I understand, this is all Open Source, Open Source Software, only performs better, on open source hardware. Open Source Hardware, you shot your mouth off before, you applied for patented, or didn't care, and wanted a better product. I didn't care, and wanted a better product, so, I posted to a public Forum, and let anyone know, now everyone that reads has the same rights a first grader to learn the alphabet, or how to add an subtract.

But don't forget this, organs, are multicellular organisms even though, they are labelled an organ. Many, printed organs don't work because, they try to use a universal cell type. An organ printer should use scaffolding first, then lay in cells. But, a liver uses more than one type of cell, and so does a heart. So, you practically have to dissect a healthy organ, to be able print one. If there's 32 different cell types, then a neural mesh, you need to construct the neural mesh, and that will enable a surgeon to link it to the nervous system. The heart has the veges nerve and the liver and kidneys have pain receptors. Printing properly, rebuilds these networks because, the immune system uses them.

[McSlappy]

Are you planning on printing human organs with your Rostock? Now that would be cool.

[Flavored Coffee]

Are you planning on printing human organs with your Rostock? Now that would be cool.

No, I would give advice. Organs, are actually multicellular, and not just one cell type. You heart includes tendons, nerves, and operating correctly, is connected to vegus nerve. Pinched nerves can trigger the immune system, and it's a plus or a minus. It can trick your mind into thinking your body needs something, and produce chemicals an organ needs, nothing to fix your back. So, first, mapping it out using an automated dissection machine, that uses a 3D spectrum analyzing microscope, for the dissection process of a healthy organ. Then the build print. Build, is scaffolding, and print, is which cell type goes where. Most artificial organs have failed time, or required a fully functional organ, to continue to function. It's a multi-head type print. But, in the order of 20 or 30 heads to print that insane number of cell types, vs colors. Primary colors make any color but, living things are bit more complicated.

But, waiting for all of the cultured cells converted to adult stem cells, for each type the organ requires, would print a very nice organ. Realize, it's a high resolution printer, and might be moving in a frozen environment. We can freeze stem cells, and build would take some time. A laser just warm things a little but, a way different process. The scaffold, would be made of emptied out cells from a pig's bladder's lining. But, that is a coolant mix. Could be methane or something chemically inert but will evaporate, and leave a structure that at room temperature will hold together. Then, the organ would be placed in a plastic cast, and fed nutrients, as well as a few chemical triggers to end the stem cell state.

Other than that, I can't see why you want a multi-head printer. What you really want, is a hot end, that takes three colors of filament. Red, Green, and Blue. Yes, it can make yellow. Okay, resolution, or mixing, will make the colors true to sight. If you could imagine, three spiralling tubes, and they break away slowly to threads, for a screw that too small and nut too big, there could be a low profile small plastic turbulence, to make the colors look more true.

If you want absolutely true colors, then you need a four color printing head. People that design TVs, have tried figure it out, and a few companies tried yellow, as a true color. But, the human eye, doesn't just perceive three colors but, four. Here's the surprize, UV night vision, Red, Green, and Blue. If you have four colors that are centered on the human eye's most sensitive wavelengths, and they absorb all other colors, and reflect only the one peak wavelength, mixing them all together equally, will have you seeing black. Or you could use a camera that doesn't exist, which is one with four colors based upon the human eye cones and rod sensitivity, and print something like you've never seen. But, we don't only need four color cameras, we need four color video screens.

[img]http://www.phys.ufl.edu/~avery/course/3 ... tivity.gif[/img]

Before the scary movies get scarier, in 3D, they need four color film, and four color cameras, and four color projectors, and nobody listens to a madman like myself. Okay, here's a link for ya'.

http://wormweb.org/colorspec

James.

[Flavored Coffee]

I'm waiting for lacing and connectors, as well as crimp on pins, male and female. I got way too many lines, of too many wires, and these guys are only using 12 volts. The ATX form includes 2.5 volts, 5 volts, and a split supply for 12 volts. I know, that if they just wrote to the power supply manufacturer about the Rostock design and kit, they could drop so many parts, that they'd save money, and only use the 12 volt side, and maintain the entire ATX transient etc.. IBM wrote the specs, for surge protection etc.. and get a way cheaper power supply. The engineers would know which parts to drop from the board, and even thought the printed circuit board is the same, we only the 12 volt rail. That is allot of wire, and I'm trying to control all of it. Lacing, is a good way to control it but, I'm turning to shortening the cables for the motors, and getting stuff out of the way for the Ardiuno/Rambo board. I've started with the first thermistor because, it doesn't need leads longer than the hot bed. I can't find heat shrink end caps for these small diameters of wire, and am about to open up and desolder all of the unused ATX rails. I don't need too many wires, and the kit would cost less, if they just talked to the manufacturer about the ATX form, Rostock want's too keep and not buy bunch of unused parts, and wires.

450 Watts of 12 power, is easy to work with, as far as prototyping is concerned. I've got modifications, I can't make fast enough. I am half way through the build of the kit, and I have already bought E 3D's hot end. I want nice clean and sturdy print. I've got to build the trapped air space box, with a door, that goes around the printer, so that I can run a peltier cooling module as a dehumidifier so that I can prevent delamination. Okay, I've read through Forum, and sought out problems, and am debugging them, faster that I can build but, I know I will have a sturdy print, and a durable result.

You see, the trapped air, has to be from the print bed, up. I need, cool atmospheric air to cool off the processor, and bought heat sinks for the stepping motor drivers. I did that because, if you live in Alaska, you won't need those heat sinks, nor the dehumidifier. But, if you live anywhere else in the US, you should have both. The dehumidifier, won't work without an enclosure but, it will effect how well any of the plastics bond to themselves. I would love to see a torcher video of left to the weather vs dehumidified print. So, I'm working on the thought of my enclosure. I've been reading about all of the troubles, and all of the bugs, and problems anyone who's built this kit, has seen, and I keep writing to support. Be thankful because, if you're anything like me, you'll buy another kit to have a true color 3D Printer.

James.

[Eric]

The 3D printer industry isn't big enough to have supplies designed solely for them, at least not anywhere near the cost of using existing supplies made for PC's. There ARE general purpose 12V supplies that would be great, but those will cost more than the PC supply, as a rule. And it's all about price.

There is another route for the capable DIYer. I wrote about it some time back here: http://forum.seemecnc.com/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=889
Even today I can find listings for two of those 500W 12V supplies for $20 shipped (two of them barely fit in a flat-rate USPS box). Of course then you start with NO harness and have to make your own, but it's a hell of a power supply for the price.