3-D Printer Repair - Fractured X Axis Belt Tensioner - Fitting The Part

The 3-D printed part required no post printing finishing, such as filing or drilling, so could be fitted as soon as the 3-D Printer had cooled down.

The fitting process required disassembling  the central Print Head Bracket on which both plastic extruders and the three fans are fitted, but the replacement fitted correctly.

The fitted part.

Protobox CNC machine.

I am hopeful to expand my prototyping and modelling capabilities and would love to own a Probotix CNC machine. I think they really look good you can see them on this link: http://www.probotix.com/

If I recover from Inflamatory Arthritis (and stop being an improverished  student) I would certainly buy one of these CNC routers. 

3-D Printer Repair - Fractured X Axis Belt Tensioner

My 3-D printer is a Rep-Rap style machine and therefore it is made from several 3-D printed plastic parts. Recently one of these components broke. The part which holds the X axes stepper motor belt fractured as you can see in image.

Broken belt tensioner for the X axis.

I got in contact with the manufacturer (Omni 3D) and got a copy of the CAD file for the part. I used some Heath Robinson inspired adaptions to the printer and got it to limp along and print out successfully the replacement part reasonably successfully, to a surprisingly high quality.  I increased the thickness of the printed part, especially around the fracture sites of the original, to make the part more durable.

The 3-D Printed replacement component.

This demonstrates the benefit of the Rep-Rap 3-D printer model as it allows components which are under stress or wear to be manufactured by the 3-D printer itself, reducing the need for components manufactured elsewhere to be stocked.

The 3-D Scanner Electrical Components have arrived!

The electrical components for the 3-D scanner have now arrived:

They include two specially manufactured lasers (which are directed at the object being scanned to provide reference points to calculate the scale), an additional circuit board to work with the Raspberry Pi, a stepper motor and all the required nuts and screws to assemble. Shortly I will be able to begin the assembly of th scanner using the plastic parts I have 3-D printed.

Extruder Tolerance - Preventing Blocking the Extruder - Working withCheaper materials

I have been experimenting with the tolerance of the input filament diameter. Which becomes and issue when working with filaments which have variable diameters along their length, usually cheaper materials. My  printer uses a input filament diameter of 1.75 mm and I have found that above a tolerance of 0.01 mm causes the printer head to block up, due to too much material being forced through the printer nozzle (A printer head block up is a slow and laborious task to clean out, and if it occurs during print the model is ruined). 

I have found that cheaper materials, bought online, usually have sufficiently good material properties, but have a less accurate diameter, which often varies through the material.

To overcome this issue, I recommend taking a series of precise measurements using a micrometer along the length of filament you expect to use in a particular print. Find the average diameter and then input this value into the G code generating software so that the rate of material input can by modified. 

In Cura software change this value:
(In the basic settings)

In Sli3r software you have to go into the filament settings and change it:

This is an additional process which is required only with lower quality filaments, but means a lot of money can be saved especially when printing large volumes. Lower cost filaments bought directly from China can be up to five times cheaper then branded materials from large companies such as Makerbot and Cubify.

3D Scanner.

Through a Kickstarter campaign called Atlas 3-D scanner (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1545315380/atlas-3d-the-3d-scanner-you-print-and-build-yourse) I have started a project to build my own DIY Open source software 3-D scanner.

Called 'ATLAS 3D - The 3D Scanner You Print and Build Yourself!', the scanner uses a Raspberry Pi as the processing unit with all the plastic components 3-D printed.

The first thing I have completed is to 3-D print all the components for the scanner.
Here are some images:

3D Printed Model Jet Engine

I completed this small project ages ago but didn't get round to posting about it. Here is an image of the model of a GE aviation jet engine I made using the designs from thingiverse. I used it as an opportunity to refine the printing quality and practice the print start up procedure.

Long time no blogging.

I am sorry I have not been adding any posts to my 3-D printing blog recently, I have been busy building and launching a website and online show room for a local motorcycle repair service and sales company.

I will be getting back to my 3-D printing projects and have many aspects to write about. 

I am now going to try to release at least one post per week, every week for the next year, until I go to University next October.