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. 

Slic3r

Now that I am having consistent high quality prints I've decided to start working with different more complex Slic3r software to further improve the quality and reduce print time. I am also using additional features such as printing multiple components continuously in one G-code program, especially useful for producing large numbers of small components. 

Multiple copies of a component for the Open source 3D Scanner project I am currently working on. This feature speeds up the manufacturing process as less human inout is required.

Temperature

I stared printing with some different PLA filament today, and the print quality was terrible. The materials was not flowing well, jamming in the head causing thinning and breaking of the walls. At first I through that there was moisture in the filament as it was making a crackling sound when printing. However, increasing the temperature in attempt to drive out any water made the situation worst. After experimenting with a range of temperatures, reducing the temperature to 200° solved the problem. 

Although you would think increasing the temperature would make the plastic less viscous and therefore flow better, in some cases increasing the temperature can cause the plastic to start to depolymerise, causing it to thicken and jam the Print Head.