Birch V2

[Nylocke]

Well, apparently I was right, and wrong. That 118 degree drill bit (or was it 138...) is quite terrible at making a good smooth transition. I even bumped the temp by 15 degrees above what I print at regularly. I made a thing, but it was under extruding and not extruding at all in a few places. Looks like the next one (already in progress) will need a few changes. Bridging was much better though (sharper point on the nozzle gives better bridging ability too)

Appropriate Message for a traditional manufacturing class

This file has pretty much everything a good torture test has. Everything except a nice big swooping overhang...

[rpress]

How large was your old nozzle? A slight decrease in size has a large effect on back pressure.

[Nylocke]

It was .4mm

That might be the cause, but even still, I have to make 4 of them, and the angle is less than ideal, so why not just make 5?

[theverant]

If it was ME, I'd make the big horizontal parts out of 12mm Baltic Birch and just pocket them on the back side to allow the tabs from the vertical parts to fit properly. It would look amazing after being stained & varnished.

g.

Yeah, I've seen you mention that change before - I even went as far as to try and source some of it, but the tech in charge of the laser cutter wasn't sure it could handle stuff that thick. He did tell me there was a fire extinguisher in the hall, though, so I may get a small bit and test it out.

The 1/4" stuff seemed fine for the cheapskate, but yeah, I'd feel better with the thicker stuff for the horizontal structures.

[Nylocke]

The Birch does result in a very nice looking machine. My robotics team has an official V2 and I haven't noticed a difference in sturdiness between mine and theirs. Of course mine is "handicapped" because of the water cooling. I haven't moved it since I relocated it to the other side of my desk. The team's V2 has been all sorts of places in my car and on a bus. I'll see the effects of travel when I move to ISU next year.

[theverant]

Funny you should mention the effects of movement on the structure of the printer - I've been pondering redesigning the horizontal plates so that they incorporate a second set of extrusions. I have a stack of Misumi 2020 and 2040 begging to be awesomeified (that's totally a real word). My thought is make the the horizontal plates larger, so the 2020 can be run parallel to the original SMCNC extrusion. This external extrusion will serve two purposes: 1. Turn my printer into a tank. 2. Allow for a quick release system for an enclosure that doesn't interfere with the cheapskates (and gives mounting points for handles).

Thoughts?

I'm okay with negative feedback!

Also, I don't mean to hijack your build thread.

[Nylocke]

Any sort of sketches for a visual on that? Are they positioned at the same angles (90, 210, 330) as the current extrusions, or offset by 60 degrees? Sounds kinda cool, but you'd want to be careful about them interfering with the effector movement. Would be pretty handy for an enclosure though.

[theverant]

They would be in the same positions, but offset radius so they don't interfere with the cheapskate movement. I thought about rotating them, but I figured it would cause too many poles in the way when trying to access the build plate.

[Nylocke]

Sounds interesting, I'm assuming they would be further out? Would you design new plates for it or print the outer mounts? If you do do it I'd love to see it.

[theverant]

No, I'd cut single plates that had a wider diameter to incorporated both sets of extrusion. Probably way overkill. But when has that ever stopped anyone?

[Nylocke]

It doesn't hurt to over do something like this. A sturdier machine is a sturdier machine.

I reset my controller to .91 Repetier so I can finish some jobs I have going. Thought .92 would be easier to set up/less buggy, but I guess I'll have to wait until its officially released. Not sure what the homing issue is attributed to, but like I thought it has gone away after downgrading the firmware. First layer is going down great right now..

[geneb]

My primary reason behind using 12mm is to allow pocketing the tab spaces instead of cutting slots all the way through. Combine that with counter-sunk screws and you'd end up with a very nice looking surface. You could even go so far as to glue it AND screw it and cover the screw holes with wood plugs cut for the purpose.

g.

[theverant]

My primary reason behind using 12mm is to allow pocketing the tab spaces instead of cutting slots all the way through. Combine that with counter-sunk screws and you'd end up with a very nice looking surface. You could even go so far as to glue it AND screw it and cover the screw holes with wood plugs cut for the purpose.

g.

Yeah, once I realized you said pocket I realized what you were going for - a surface without holes in it. Could be nice. Do you feel like 6mm is structurally sound? I was thinking I would glue it, and figured with all the vertical pieces there really isn't that much room for warpage. But, I haven't worked with ply all that much, especially for high precision devices like 3D printers. My Printrbot Simple prints like a champ, though!

[geneb]

6mm should be fine - that's pretty close to what the existing Melamine thickness is.

g.

[Nylocke]

Mine's 6mm, but as I said before, make sure you adjust the holes to account for that. Including the slots in the upper tower brackets. Thats where you'd get your most issues.

[Nylocke]

I got some of those nice 1/32 drivers from Panucatt. They run the motors rather quiet compared to my 1/16 that I had from my RAMPS. For some reason after installing Ive had to completely recalibrate my printer. Seems kinda weird but okay.

[bot]

Well a microstep is considered a step, so yeah. Steps per mm is actually microsteps per mm, no?

[Nylocke]

I changed the direction the motors run and switched from 80 to 160 steps per mm. I knew I would have to do that (these ones have the polarity on the motors flipped). I wasn't thinking that I'd have to recalibrate my printer to get it printing flat again, since I didn't change anything geometry wise.

[bot]

You have a lot of trust in things "just working" don't you! Do you own a MAC?

[Nylocke]

Umm..... he he...

[Nylocke]

We got a 2mm drill bit ground to 80 degrees and I think it will work well. I made a new nozzle today that came out nice. I broke the .36mm bit in one of the nozzles (these lathes don't move fast enough...) so I used the one just larger (I think it's a #78) that is just above .4mm. I think I have one that will work well, but I need the wrench flats before I try again. I also am going to reuse the original one with the more abrupt transition. I can redo the hole with my new bit and hopefully get nicer results. When all is done I hope to have 4-5 complete nozzles. If they work well and my local maker space ends up getting a lathe I may offer to make a few if some are interested.

Also, I now have a 2mm orfice nozzle I was trying to get the broken part of the #79 bit out by taking a small amount of material off the angled part (it exposed a tiny bit of the bit that I could grab onto and remove from the nozzle). I did just that, and I moved my hand to what I thought was the carriage feed wheel to back the tool from the work piece, turned the wheel, and cut off the tip of the nozzle. I accidentally grabbed the cross feed.

[Nylocke]

I got the wrench flats machined, and with the new 80 degree drill bit I think it will work nicely. Going to do another test print soon.

Nice Wrench Flats

New Nozzle

[Eaglezsoar]

Your nozzles look good, please let us know how they work with that 80 degree hole.

[Nylocke]

I don't have any pictures to show since the print failed (I hate Bridge... even though it wasn't its fault...) but it seems to be doing alright I think. There is a possibility of it being too steep? Or maybe I need to make sure there is good contact between the nozzle and the heater block (currently there is a 2mm gap), the layer bonding isn't the greatest, and I was at 270. I still need to do more testing though, so I really don't know how reliable this information is. The surface finish was pretty good, and it is handling overhangs pretty well too. I don't believe it is under extruding, though with translucents its hard to tell. More info in 12 hours or less.

[Nylocke]

The print I did last night failed (shortly after I turned off my light, I knew that thing makes prints finish properly..) I think i had it way too hot for the Nylon, when I screwed with the nozzle there was a plug made out of some leathery nylon. I was at 280, I think I was compensating a bit too much (first print I had had poor adhesion). I just finished an ABS print and it looks pretty good. Was at 250, might try lowering the temp on some other prints in the future, 250 is a tad high. Looks pretty good though.

First Print!