Dust cover for Ophir heads

[djQUAN]

So, we were calibrating the printer I built and after a height miscalculation, the nozzle smashed into the heated bed. luckily there was no damage as far as I can tell

 

[crazyspaz]

Hate that. Happened to me a few times before...painful sound. *shudders*

 

[djQUAN]

Damn stepper motor. We were fiddling for about 2-3hours figuring out why the feeder motor worked before then suddenly was just jiggling about not turning. Checked everything if we made a mistake in the settings or whatever. I decided to switch it with one of the axes to eliminate if it's a driver channel or bad motor. Then the output worked. My friend started to blame that I broke it for turning it while it was running. :wtf: I know how steppers work and they don't get damaged that easily.

Opened up the suspect motor and this is what I got.

Turned out the internal wiring was poorly soldered. The magnet wire did get some solder but the stranded wire within never got any good coat of solder and was literally still a stranded wire not a solid piece.

The good part was that it was the feeder motor. If it was one of the axis, that would suck bigtime to take out and repair.

 

[ARG]

So, we were calibrating the printer I built and after a height miscalculation, the nozzle smashed into the heated bed. luckily there was no damage as far as I can tell

That's the worst. The nozzles are pretty robust, mine withstood quite a few smashes and scrapes before it had to be replaced

Im still not impressed with the outcome of most 3D printers to invest in one just yet. From all the videos I have seen and the piece of printed plastic on a RC part I have it just feels way to fragile to me. Ill give it a few years for more advancments to come before I take the dive. Now if I could inly get me a CO2 laser cutter I would be set until then

It's may be fragile feeling because it probably wasn't solid infill.
If you fill it in solid the parts can be pretty robust.

But yes, the technology is advancing pretty rapidly at the hobbyist level, things will only keep on improving.

 

[djQUAN]

The glass plate has already been installed on the heated bed. Breaking that would be worse.

After the stepper motor issue, we are already printing but never got beyond the first and second layer since the nylon material keeps on peeling off the heated bed. We tried bare glass, various tapes and different temps but it still keeps on peeling off. I think the filament was a Taulman 618. Maybe you guys have tips?

 

[ARG]

Nylon is very difficult to start printing with. Try something easier like ABS to get the hang of troubleshooting the prints, then move onto nylon

Have you tried hairspray on the glass or glue stick on the glass? Those are really sticky.

 

[djQUAN]

We'll give those a try

BTW, what do you guys recommend for drawing 3D stuff? Any suggestions of a good, versatile and easy to learn CAD program?

 

[ARG]

Hard to learn, AutoCAD or SolidWorks.

Easy to learn, Google sketchup.

I still use sketchup for when I need to make something simple, as it's pretty fast. AutoCAD/SolidWorks is a much better skill to have, if you have the time to put into it.

 

[crazyspaz]

Another hard to learn: Autodesk Inventor

IMO the best program out there...it takes a bit to learn, but when you do, everything makes sense and is super convenient

 

[djQUAN]

Thanks for the suggestions, guys. We actually had a course in college about autocad. Been a while that I forgot haha but it was only in 2D drawings.

I think I'm leaning more to sketchup. I only need basic stuff for drawing simple shapes and freeware is good. :beer:

 

[ARG]

Thanks for the suggestions, guys. We actually had a course in college about autocad. Been a while that I forgot haha but it was only in 2D drawings.

I think I'm leaning more to sketchup. I only need basic stuff for drawing simple shapes and freeware is good. :beer:

If you know 2d you're ahead of the game, but there is a leap to get to 3D

You will need a plugin to export STL's from sketch up. Let me know if you need any help with sketchup, it has some things that can be frustrating to get working.

 

[crazyspaz]

Inventor can export to .stl and like a billion other formats-just saying

But its not free. not saying i paid for it or anything

edit: hory shet its like 1,200$

 

[ARG]

Not bad, that's probably for a professional license though.

Software aint cheap

 

[ryanr256]

I'm bringing this back to life because it got a little off topic about 3D printers and I wanted to show what can be done with a $5.00 piece of Kydex from ebay, a box knife and a heat gun:

-Bob

 

[ARG]

Looking good Bob I imagine bending Kyded is the same as acrylic? Heat the joint + bend?


Sent from my mobile. Sorry if there are any spelling errors.

 

[ryanr256]

Looking good Bob I imagine bending Kyded is the same as acrylic? Heat the joint + bend?


Sent from my mobile. Sorry if there are any spelling errors.

I've not done acrylic and this was my first kydex. With the kydex there's that point where too much heat makes it almost gel like and very unstable. I used the low heat setting and tried not to overheat it. You can see it start to flex and that's when I removed the heat and started to bend.

I used the head as the form to get straight bends. Because of that I also did not want to use too much heat. While not perfect, it came out better than I expected. There is enough friction to hold it in place but not too much that it damages the finish.

-Bob