Thursday 30 June 2011

Start Up Procedure

I was having a little trouble when I hooked my extruder up. Although everything seemed to be wired correctly I found that I was getting a zero temperature reading. I checked the resistance across the thermister and it seemed to be right. Looking on the internet I found out the 0 reading is given when the extruder board is not connected. I recollected having this problem when I first tested the electronics, see post here, but couldn’t remember how I solved it. All I wrote was that it was something to do with the order I started everything up. A little searching on the internet and I found this post that was very helpful. Following the comments shown there I worked out a starting procedure that works every time.

Start with everything off and disconnected.

1. Start PC up wait for everything to boot up (or if it is already on, leave it on).

2. Power up 12V on Mendel (I really need to connect a switch up to make this easier).

3. Connect USB to Mendel (Could I connect a switch up for this as well, maybe on the +5V line?)

4. Press Reset on motherboard. Wait for motherboard to resume blink.

5. Start RepRap host, some errors are reported (0 temp measurement).

6. Close RepRap host.

7. Open RepRap host again, no errors reported this time, now everything works!

All electronics and hardware up and working. Success sounds like a high pitched whine (where did I put that Pololu board?!)

Friday 24 June 2011

X Axis Belt Tension

I noticed I little lashing on my x-axis, it looked like it was being caused by the slack in the belt. The tension is set when first using the clamps, keeping the belt tight whilst tightening the clamps is a little fiddly. So I decided to try and improvise a tensioner. I looked around the house for torsion springs that might be suitable, I found a promising one in a cheap clamp (Tesco DIY little hand clamps). The un-tensioned legs of the spring were set to about 110° apart, and had long legs that I could bend around to hook onto the belt. The spring works really well in keeping tension in the belt, I might need to do some more reshaping or use tape to ensure that it stays in position in the long term. Here are some pics:

From Mendel


From Mendel


From Mendel


From Mendel

Tuesday 21 June 2011

Wade’s Extruder Build

I have decided to abandon my previous Adrian’s extruder built from cast plastic parts, the oval gears were a nightmare to shape down to circles and the never seemed to mesh quite right. The printed plastic parts bought from nophead came with the parts for a Wade’s extruder (much better quality), so I thought I may as well build one.

For the Wade’s extruder build I needed to make a hobbed M8 bolt. Originally I was going to use the M3 tap set up I had seen before, but I came across this method that uses a Dremmel to cut slots in a threaded bolt to create spikes that will grip the filament. I thought this looked a little easier to do so I thought I would try this method first (plus less likely to break my one and only M3 tap). I found it really easy to cut the slots, though it did eat through a couple of cutting disks to do it. My cuts aren’t as tidy as the ones in the wiki but hopefully should do the job, I’ll let you know what the results are when I get my new stepper motor and I can test it out. I think it would have been better to have used masking tape so I could have marked evenly spaced cuts.

The Wade’s extruder build instructions recommend the use of springs to keep tension on the idler to help grip the filament. I’m not sure if there are some standard springs that will fit, or if people are making their own. I didn’t fancy much making the springs myself so I looked on ebay for something suitable. I found these springs that were cheap (25 for 99p), they measure 9mm in dia by 9mm long with a wire dia of 1mm. They fit fine around the M4 bolts and held in place by M5 large washers and M4 wing nuts. They seem to give plenty of force when tightened up, if one spring on each bolt is not sufficient I do have room to double up to increase the load. The M5 washers do clash a little but by rotating them I can get them to move past each other.

Getting the idler bearing on the short piece of M8 bar was not fun, if doing this yourself I recommend using a short bit of M8 threaded rod, the bearing will fit much easier.

See my previous post here on how I made the hot end.

Here are some pictures of the build.


From Mendel


From Mendel


From Mendel





Saturday 18 June 2011

Prusa Video

I've uploaded a video of my newly constructed Prusa to youtube. You should be able to see it below. I still have some calibration to do and finish off the Wade's extruder before I can start printing for real.



Friday 17 June 2011

Prusa and Wade Firmware Changes for Gen 3

I’ve now got the three axes of my Prusa up and working with some temporary wiring, woo! Time for some calibration, now when I first set up my electronics I was doing it with a standard Sells Mendel in mind. To get the Prusa to work correctly I’ve got to make some changes to the configuration file of the firmware.

The first one is the z axis steps per mm, now I think that as the z axis is now directly driven rather than via a pulley and belt, this needs to be altered. The pitch of M8 rod is 1.25mm, so for every full turn of the stepper motor it should produce 1.25mm of travel. My steppers have a step angle of 1.8° (for a full step), now I think Gen 3 works in “half” steps, so for one full turn of the stepper I have (360/1.8)x2 = 400 half steps. Therefore the z-axis value should be 400/1.25 = 320 steps/mm.

The second one is the x and y axis, as I am using newer design pulleys (9 teeth rather than 10) I need to change the steps/mm. The belt pitch is 5mm, so 9x5 = 45 mm circumference. Therefore the steps/mm should be 400/45 = 8.889. (Interestingly the value given in the firmware is 8.9307 I wonder if it allows a little extra).

Thirdly is the extruder steps per mm. I am now going to be using a Wade’s extruder rather than Adrian’s. This has a gear ratio of 39/11 rather than Adrian’s which has a ratio of 59/11. I’ve had a go at calculating the steps/mm using the equation given on the wiki. For my set up, assuming a pinch wheel diameter of approx 5mm, nozzle of 0.5mm, and 3mm filament size, I make it: ((400x(39/11))/(pi x 5))x((0.5/3)² = 2.508 steps/mm.

Monday 13 June 2011

Prusa progress

I have found the build much easier with nophead's proper printed parts. It only took me a couple of hours to get this far. I think I should have a carteasian bot up and running in the next week or two.


Friday 10 June 2011

Switch to Prusa

I've decided to switch my build to a Prusa mendel after a long time getting frustrated drilling the cast parts. The cost of printed parts is now much less for a Prusa kit. Last week I purchased a printed set from nophead, can't be more pleased the quality is fantastic and the geometry is spot on. It has taken just a couple of hours to assemble most of the frame. Progressing well now, I'll upload some pictures soon.